Rogue Angel 53: Bathed in Blood (14 page)

23

“What’s going on here?” Stone demanded, her hands on her hips and a hard look in her eye.

With the biggest threat to their operation—Novack—now taken care of, Radecki no longer felt as vulnerable and decided it was time to show more steel around his associate.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” he replied. “Just teaching our guest to show some respect.”

A month ago he never would have responded in such a fashion, but Stone didn’t show a hint of surprise. Her face remained impassive, but Radecki thought he saw her nostrils flare.

Get used to it, he thought. He was done lying down and letting her walk all over him. She didn’t scare him anymore.

“I’ll be the judge of what should or shouldn’t concern me,” Stone told him, but she left it at that and turned her attention to their prisoner.

“We meet again, Ms. Creed. How unfortunate for you.”

That, at least, was a sentiment he could agree with. Creed had been nothing but a pain in the neck since she’d stuck her nose into this whole mess, and he was more than pleased to finally be able to remedy the issue.

Creed didn’t say anything, but her eyes watched them like a hawk. Radecki would bet that even now she was trying to plan her escape. She was in for a rude surprise either way; like those women five hundred years before, no one with any hint of beauty ever left this place alive. Not while the “Blood Countess” was in charge.

“What’s the matter?” Stone asked the prisoner as she took a closer look at her. The guards Radecki had brought with him stepped back, away from Stone, as if afraid of the woman. Truth be told, Radecki really didn’t blame them.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Creed stared at Stone with a disdainful look on her face. Radecki had to give her credit; she had some stones, that was for sure.

“Where am I and what am I doing here?” Creed asked.

The woman’s words were forceful, but she was still twisting about in the air, her feet a few inches above the floor.

Stone must have found it amusing as well, for she laughed in response. “Really, Annja—may I call you Annja?—you aren’t in any position to be demanding anything.”

Radecki watched as Stone stepped forward and grabbed Annja’s chin in her bare hand. The prisoner tried to twist free, but Radecki knew from personal experience that Stone was much stronger than she looked, thanks to the treatment.

If he had his way, he’d just take her out back and put a bullet through her brain, but apparently Stone had seen something that had captured her interest. As Radecki looked on, Stone turned Creed’s face back and forth, examining her closely. Radecki had seen Stone behave this way before and wasn’t surprised when she asked, “Has she been tested for the marker?”

He shook his head, then answered aloud when he realized Stone hadn’t even bothered to glance in his direction. “Not yet. I was busy dealing with our other recent acquisition.”

Stone turned. “Any trouble?”

“No.”

The drugs Petrova had cooked up to simulate a heart attack had worked beautifully. Once the “body” had been moved down to the morgue, it had been a simple matter for Petrova to fake an autopsy, fill out the required paperwork and order the remains to be taken to the crematorium for disposal, as there was no known next of kin. No one but Radecki, who had been driving the disposal unit, would ever know that the individual would never reach the crematorium, never mind that the deceased was actually very far from being dead.

Why waste raw materials like that when you didn’t need to?
he thought to himself.

Stone must have been thinking along similar lines, for she asked, “When will the harvesting procedure begin?”

“Probably already has,” Radecki replied. “I turned her over to the techs about fifteen minutes before coming down here. It doesn’t take very long to do the prep work, so they should have her hooked up to the extractor by now.”

“Good. We need to ramp up our output. Demand for the product is increasing exponentially.”

Radecki shook his head. “I keep telling you, we can’t sustain such an increase. The raw materials simply aren’t there. We need to raise the price. Fewer customers at a higher rate of return will make this far more sustainable.”

Stone glared at him. “Let me worry about the raw materials. You just do your part and keep the police off our backs. I want her tested and the results on my desk by morning, is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Radecki answered sourly as he watched Stone walk away without a backward glance.

One of these days...

He turned his attention back to their prisoner, spinning her around so he could see her face. “Be a good girl and don’t give the nurse any trouble, huh, Creed? I’d hate to have to come back here and teach you a lesson about discipline.” He paused, pretending to think it over.

“Actually, go ahead and misbehave,” he said, patting her condescendingly on the cheek. “Teaching you a lesson is exactly the kind of thing I’d be happy to do right now.”

To his chagrin, Creed chose not to fight.

“Maybe some other time, then,” he said cheerfully. He was about to order his men to take her down, but then thought better of it. The nurse would probably have an easier time of it if Creed was exhausted from hanging there a while. He’d send his men back for her later.

“Let’s go,” he told the other two. “We’ve got work to do.”

They left the cell, making certain to lock it securely behind them, and then headed for the elevator, taking it one floor above. Radecki’s two companions turned left while he went right, heading for the large conference room that served as the nurses’ duty room.

Most of the crew was still on shift down in the medical facility, but he found two of the senior staff sitting around enjoying their cups of coffee. He grabbed the closest, a plain-faced woman in her midfifties. He vaguely remembered vetting her for the project nearly two years before and he knew she could be relied on to do the job properly. A glance at her name tag reminded him of her identity—Phillips.

“Got a job for you,” he told her as she turned to greet him. “There’s a new test subject down in the containment area. Stone wants a full panel done right away. Bring the samples to my office once you’re done so I can get the results to her as quickly as possible, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

He waited for her to gather a specimen kit, and then headed for his office on the next floor above while she went to deal with the prisoner.

* * *

O
NCE
THEY
LEFT
her alone in the cell, Annja got right to work. She didn’t know how much time she had before the nurse would show up to take the sample. She had to be free before her company arrived or she’d miss her best opportunity to get out of here.

She’d been hanging from her arms for more than five minutes and had lost a good deal of sensation. Her escape plan depended on her hands and arms, however, so she hoped she had enough left in the tank to manage.

The hook at the end of the cable supporting her had been slipped through the bonds that tied her wrists together, now leaving her hands free. Reaching up, she grabbed the point where the steel cable met the top of the hook. Her hands felt like slabs of meat from the reduced circulation, but she forced them to do her bidding, knowing that all she had to do was hold on for a minute or two and then it would be all over.

Once she was satisfied that she had a decent grip on the top of the hook, she used what strength she had left in her arms to pull downward while at the same time swinging her legs in a jackknife position up over her hands. She wrapped one foot over the other, pinning the cable between ankle and shin and taking her weight momentarily off her hands.

Her stomach and back muscles shook with the effort to hold herself there, but she knew they would hold for a moment, and a moment was all she needed.

The second the downward drag on her wrists eased, she jerked them upward, lifting the ropes that bound her free of the hook.

Hands now free, her body knifed back downward, and she let herself go with the momentum, somersaulting as she fell so she hit the floor feetfirst.

She’d imagined executing a perfect two-point landing, like a gymnast coming off the jump at the end of the uneven bars. In reality, her feet hit the damp floor and shot out from beneath her, sending her sprawling on her side against the cold tile with a dull smack.

Luckily she didn’t hit her head.

She lay there for a few seconds, willing the pain away and waiting for some feeling to return to her hands. When it did, she pulled her sword from the otherwhere and used it to cut herself free.

Annja climbed shakily to her feet and hurried over to the door. A glance out the window showed her she was just in time; a woman in a white lab coat carrying a specimen collection tray was coming down the hall. She was only a few yards away and would have seen Annja peering through the glass if she’d been looking up and paying attention rather than scanning the paperwork on the clipboard in her other hand.

One should always watch where they were going, Annja thought with a grim smile as she flattened herself against the wall next to the door, sword at the ready.

The nurse wasn’t expecting to find anything but a helpless prisoner, and so she took several steps into the cell before she seemed to realize that the room appeared to be empty.

It was almost too easy. Annja pushed the door closed as she came out from behind it, the sword in her hands already swinging toward the woman’s skull.

For her part, the woman must have sensed something at the last moment, for she turned in Annja’s direction, her mouth hanging open in a look of surprise that might have struck Annja as amusing in some other less-threatening situation.

As it was, all she felt was a flash of satisfaction as the flat of her blade struck the woman along the side of her head, sending her toppling to the floor of the cell. The small basket of supplies went skittering in all directions as she lost her grip.

Annja brought the blade back up, ready to deliver another blow should it prove necessary, but she needn’t have worried. The woman was unmoving against the floor, down for the count from Annja’s first strike.

Ignoring the unconscious woman for a moment, Annja stepped over to the door and glanced out through the window, wanting to be sure that the sound hadn’t carried and reinforcements weren’t on the way.

The hallway outside her cell was still empty.

Satisfied that she had a few moments in which to make her escape, Annja sent her sword away, then returned to the woman’s side and quickly searched her. The pockets of the woman’s lab coat were empty, but Annja found an electronic key card hanging on a lanyard around her neck. She took that and the lab coat itself, knowing she was going to need both to get out of here. Then she dragged the body against the wall so it couldn’t be seen easily from the door.

Satisfied with her preparations, she used the key card to unlock the door, slipped out into the hall and pulled the door shut behind her.

She found herself in a narrow hallway with doors on either side identical to the one she’d just passed through, right down to the window and key card–operated locking mechanism. Unlike her room, all of the others were dark. She continued past them without looking inside, quelling her curiosity in favor of finding her way out.

At the end of the hall was an elevator. She pressed the call button several times, but it didn’t illuminate. Closer examination showed her a slot below it that was just large enough to accept the key card in her hand.

Annja gave it a try.

The card was sucked out of her hand by some internal mechanism, and for a moment she thought she’d lost it, but then the unit buzzed and spit the card back out. Moments later she heard a hum from behind the wall, indicating the approach of the elevator.

Please be empty.

It was.

There was only one button on the control panel—Up, presumably—and so Annja pressed it.

After a moment, the doors closed and the elevator began to rise.

24

If Annja had to guess, she would have said that the elevator went up only a floor, maybe two, but she really had no way of knowing how fast or how far it traveled.

When the doors slid open, she found herself looking out onto another hallway, one that reminded her of a medical facility or hospital corridor more than anything else. With nowhere else to go, she headed down it at a brisk walk.

Doors were spaced evenly along the corridor, and when she peered in through the windows she found either offices or lab units. Lights were on in a few of them, but she didn’t see anyone moving about inside, and the few doors she tried were all locked. She thought she might be able to gain access with the key card but didn’t see a benefit to delaying her escape just to have a look around. She’d come back with some help once she gained her freedom.

The hallway ended in a T intersection, and when she reached it Annja paused, glancing up and down the hall. Both directions looked the same as the corridor she’d just come from, and for a moment she was uncertain which way to go. Then she was reminded of the old adage about always turning left in order to get out of maze, and she figured that was as good a move as any other.

Annja had moved down two more hallways in the same manner without encountering anyone when she was startled by voices coming from somewhere ahead of her.

She stopped and listened.

After a few seconds it was clear that they were getting closer.

A glance down at her disheveled appearance didn’t make her confident that she could pass scrutiny, especially not if the staff were small enough to know one another. She needed to get out of sight, and she needed to do it quickly.

Annja moved to the nearest door and tried the handle.

Locked.

This door, like all the others before it, had a key card access slot. Without hesitation she swiped her card. After a moment, during which Annja thought she might need to resort to more active measures to get the door open, the control beeped softly and the lock clicked open.

Annja opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind her as swiftly as she dared. She called her sword to hand and stood off to one side, her gaze locked on the door handle. If it started to turn, she’d have to act quickly to keep from being discovered.

The voices grew closer...closer...closer still, until it was clear they were on the other side of the door. She thought she recognized Radecki’s voice, though she couldn’t be sure. It took all her will not to open the door and confront him then and there, but she knew that if she did she would drastically cut her chances of escape.

Concentrate on getting out of here, she told herself. Deal with him later.

It was good advice and she might have even taken it, if she hadn’t turned at that moment and looked through the large plate-glass observation window that formed the rear wall of the conference room in which she stood.

What lay beyond drew her attention like a moth to a flame.

The observation window overlooked a large room that was lit by massive overhead banks of electrical lights that left nothing in shadow. Portable beds, the kind one might see in an emergency medical ward, were arranged in four different pods throughout the room, five beds to a pod. Monitors and other medical equipment were arrayed in clusters at the head of each bed. Annja recognized the standard telemetry units for measuring heart rate, blood pressure and respiration, but there were quite a few others with which she wasn’t familiar.

Fourteen of the twenty beds were occupied. It looked as if all of the patients were women, though it was tough to tell from here. Technicians in white lab coats moved back and forth between the pods, tending to the patients.

Though the lights were off, Annja was worried that one of the technicians might look up and see her, so she made sure to stay several feet back from the observation window. This, of course, limited her view of what was going on, something she found increasingly frustrating the more she watched.

The voices in the hallway finally moved on, but Annja was too wrapped up in what was going on below her to leave yet. She stood there watching for several minutes, trying to get a sense of what the technicians were doing to the patients under their care. Something about the scene didn’t seem right. It wasn’t any specific action she could point to, just a vague sense of unease that seemed to linger over it all. It was as if the patients were all screaming in her head, though she could see that they weren’t making a sound.

It was creepy, to say the least.

Annja stepped a little closer to the glass and that was when she realized she wasn’t alone in watching the happenings below. A light was on in another office, overlooking the medical facility from the opposite side, and a woman stood by the window, gazing downward.

Annja recognized her immediately—Diane Stone.

Seeing her, Annja was reminded of Stone’s earlier comments about the extraction process and being behind in the production schedule.

The question was what, exactly, were they extracting from these women?

Annja was determined to find out.

Stone suddenly raised her head and looked in Annja’s direction.

Her instincts told her to duck away, but Annja did just the opposite, holding herself rock steady, knowing that moving now would invite discovery. She reminded herself that she was surrounded by the darkness of the room and was standing back far enough from the window that the lights below shouldn’t give her away. A sudden flash of movement would ruin that illusion.

She can’t see me. She’s just feeling the weight of my stare. Stay calm and she’ll look away.

After a moment, that was exactly what Stone did. She turned away from the window and walked to the desk behind her. Annja watched her for a few minutes more, but she didn’t want to press her luck. If the woman began to feel uncomfortable, she’d likely send someone to investigate, and that was the last thing Annja needed.

The clock was ticking; eventually her disappearance would be noticed and the halls around her would be full of guards trying to track her down. If she was going to get out of here, now was the time, but she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the women below, not without knowing what was going on.

She needed to get into the medical ward without being seen.

As she stood there, pondering how she was going to manage that, the technicians began to gather at one end of the unit, near a large nursing station that appeared to serve as the command center. The handheld tablets they’d been using to make notes and examine patient charts were pushed into docking stations set into the desktop, most likely to recharge them for the next shift. The staff stood around chatting for a few more minutes, then began making their way to a set of stairs at the far end of the ward.

Moments later that same group passed by the conference room in the hall outside.

Annja smiled. If they could get to the hallway so quickly, she could make her way to the ward even faster.

She glanced at Stone’s office. It, too, was dark. At some point in the past few minutes, Stone had apparently slipped out.

It was time for Annja to make her move.

She stepped over to the conference room door and listened for a moment. When she didn’t hear anything, she cautiously opened it and stuck her head out into the hall.

The coast was clear.

Making her way to the end of the hall, Annja quickly located the stairs the staff had used and descended to the medical ward.