Shadow of Eden (53 page)

Valenti swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting the bus and saw another oncoming Metrobus directly ahead. “Shit!” Valenti slammed on the brakes and skidded on the wet pavement. Steve watched helplessly.
There was no room!

The second bus driver, eyes wide, swerved abruptly to his right, shoving cars off the road. A tiny space opened up between the buses and slowly widened. Valenti, trying to control the fishtailing taxi, aimed for it.

The space slowly open up, but it wasn’t wide enough! With a horrendous screeching of metal, the taxi scraped between the two busses, crumpling both sides of the car and showering them with broken glass from the shattered side windows. Then they were through and accelerating.

“Ha!” Valenti hooted in triumph.

Mallis’s SUV easily slipped between the two buses, gaining on the taxi. Gunshots punctured the Plexiglas divider behind Valenti. He turned and aimed his pistol wildly out the back.

“Gimme that gun,” Steve yelled. “You drive.” He grabbed the pistol and aimed at the SUV through the shattered back window and fired. The recoiling gun ripped a piece of skin off his thumb. He howled and shook his hand, sucking the wound. The Explorer raced in so close, he could see the three men inside. He fired again shattering the windshield and the SUV quickly backed off. Mallis leaned out the side window aiming his pistol. Steve ducked as several slugs slapped the car with tortured screeches of metal. Steve rose up to shoot again, but in horror saw a trail of burning gasoline spewing from their gas tank. The Explorer fell back into traffic.

“Valenti!”

Valenti looked over his shoulder and saw the fire. “Time to bail.” They hurtled across Constitution Avenue and into the parking lot beside the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. He skidded into a handicapped sign as the rear of the taxi burst into flames.

Steve tumbled through his door rolling onto the pavement. Jumping up, he chased Valenti to an aluminum-framed glass door on the side of the building.

“Gimme the gun.” Valenti shot the door lock twice and pulled it open, setting off deafening alarms. Steve and Valenti flew through the door and ran down the dark hallway. Valenti huffed as he sprinted. “Security will pour in here in about two minutes and get Mallis and his buds out of our hair.”

Steve, with his longer legs, reached the door at the end of the hall first and threw it open, revealing a long workroom with only a couple of the low hanging fluorescent fixtures left on to illuminate the vast area. Rows of sturdy wooden specimen tables covered with bones and tools filled the space, with the walls lined with metal shelves holding chemical bottles and books.

“That door,” Valenti pointed. “Let’s go.” They ran for the opposite side towards the only other door to the workroom when the door behind them burst open. Hearing that, Valenti yanked Steve down behind a wooden specimen table, only twenty feet from their destination. Peering over the table, they saw the group of three pursuers split up and head towards them.

Several security guards burst through the door behind Mallis and his men yelling, “Freeze! Security! Drop your weapons!”

Mallis and his men immediately held up badges, shouting, “FBI! FBI! Clear out. We’re in control here. Clear out.” They turned back, ignoring the security officers.

The guards, with puzzled looks, huddled.

Mallis yelled over his shoulder, “Clear out.” The three guards looked at each other and hesitantly withdrew.

Valenti, who had been watching over the table, sat down. “So much for the cavalry.” He checked his gun clip and snapped it back in. “Empty. Figures. We need a diversion.” Valenti felt around on the worktable next to him and clutched a long petrified bone and hurled it at a shadowy moving figure. The noise prompted a burst of gunfire and then the room fell silent again.

Steve examined the chemical bottles arrayed on the shelf next to him. They contained a number of familiar chemicals, including glacial acetic acid, acetone, and concentrated potassium chloride in a red plastic squeeze bottle. He spied a liter-sized clear glass bottle labeled ‘Ethanol, reagent grade U.S.P’ and seized it.
Pure alcohol.
Steve unscrewed the cap and the sharp odor of the ethanol hit his nose. Pulling some paper towels out of a trashcan, he twisted one into the mouth of the bottle. Perfect, he thought, a Molotov cocktail.

Steve leaned over and whispered, “Match?” Valenti shook his head.

Shit! No way to light the damn thing!
Steve heard approaching footsteps. The gunmen were right on top of them!

Chapter 116

S
uddenly, all the overhead lights came on. Steve hurled the alcohol bottle at the light fixture over the closest man’s head, shattering the fluorescent bulb and the alcohol bottle. The sparking element ignited the alcohol with a brilliant flash and rained burning liquid down on the gunman.

Mallis screamed as his clothes caught fire and he rolled on the floor. Doug rushed over to help him, slapping at the flames.

“Come on,” Valenti whispered, grabbing a pointed rock hammer and dashing for the nearby doorway. Steve, without thinking, snatched the red squeeze bottle and ran hunched over, following Valenti, sliding the thin flask-shaped container into the breast pocket of his suit coat.

Steve and Valenti ran down a short, narrow hallway and through another, smaller door. They sprinted up a narrow flight of stairs and out through a low wooden door, entering the museum itself. A T-Rex skeleton suddenly loomed large in front of them. They were in the dinosaur room.

“Jesus,” Steve said, startled.

Valenti shut the door behind them and pointed up the ramp to the second floor balcony. “No time for sight-seeing. Let’s bug.”

Steve hustled to keep up with Valenti. “Where are we going?”

“Just follow me.”

The door behind them opened with a bang followed by running footsteps. Steve’s neck tingled with fear, but he didn’t dare turn to look. Several bullets slammed into his back before he heard the gun burst. Knocked off his feet, he sprawled headlong onto the balcony landing, writhing in agony from the impacts on his Kevlar vest. He looked up to see the muzzle of a heavy pistol aimed at his face held by the blue-shirted man from the alley.

“Freeze, FBI. Get up slowly. Keep your hands up.”

Despite the burning hot impact sites on his back, Steve held his hands carefully away from his body as he sat up.
Where was Valenti?
Steve stared at the thick, heavy pistol as he awkwardly got to his feet.

The man moved carefully around so that he stood facing the second floor, his back to the balcony railing. He wore a sheer nylon stocking over his face, which blurred his features, but Steve saw that the man’s eyes swept the room behind Steve, obviously looking for Valenti. Steve didn’t dare look back over his shoulder to see where Valenti might have gone. He just couldn’t believe he would vanish like this, but really, what could he do anyway? He had run out of bullets. Why wouldn’t he run?

“I’ve got James. His bodyguard got away,” the man said out loud.

Who was he talking to? Steve then saw a coiled plastic tube under the stocking curling up to the man’s ear. It was a radio. He must be talking to the men in the specimen room.

“Roger.” The man said apparently in response to something he heard.

Steve fought down a wave of helplessness as he stared at the gun. Valenti was gone. He was on his own. What could he do? The man was stout, obviously strong and conditioned. Steve could see no way out. His back screamed like a hundred hornet stings. The sudden reversal of events from Valenti’s confident proclamation that they were on the offensive had come to this.

Steve forced himself to think. Surveillance cameras! There must be surveillance cameras. He began to shout. “He’s not FBI, he’s trying to kill—”

The man’s machine pistol slammed Steve’s left temple, splitting open his scalp. Steve doubled over clutching his head in pain as blood oozed down his face and hands. He couldn’t breathe. Something cold touched his nose and only gradually did he perceive the steel of the pistol barrel pushing his head up. The pressure increased and Steve, still holding his head, raised back up to stare into the man’s grinning face.

“There’s no sound on the monitors, you dumb neurosurgeon.” His voice was patronizing, sarcastic.

Steve, in a flash of anger, spoke very clearly. “It’s neurologist, stupid.”

“Have it your way, then.” The man pressed the gun against Steve’s forehead, his eyes intent and focused. “Goodbye, neurologist asshole.”

The man’s eyes suddenly darted towards something behind Steve. The gun swung away just before a hurtling rock hammer flew past Steve’s head and buried its pointed end deep into the skull above the man’s left eye. Screaming, the man grabbed at the hammer and staggered backwards. Steve leapt at him, slamming the man against and over the balcony rail.

Steve looked over the rail and watched the man fall hard into the tail of the large T-Rex skeleton. The man frantically grabbed for a handhold, but slipped off and fell to the display base. He landed hard on his face, the hammer still imbedded in his brain, collapsing the wood display platform around him.

The force of the impact unbalanced the tall skeleton and it tilted sideways in slow motion before coming to a precarious halt. The man, cradled in the broken plywood, lay motionless.

Valenti joined him on the balcony and looked down at the tilted skeleton. “It looks like it’s grinning,” he said. “I bet ol’ T-Rex was pretty hungry for a kill after all these years.” Valenti picked up the dropped machine pistol and checked it.

Steve leaned on the railing awash with relief. “I thought you’d left me.”

Valenti looked at Steve, surprised. “Let’s go.” Valenti trotted off. “Come on, we can see the Hope diamond on our way.”

Steve followed, grimacing with discomfort. “Where are we going?”

“This place will be swarming with police in about three minutes. Time to bug out.”

“How?”

A few minutes later, Steve followed Valenti up a concrete ramp adjacent to the National Aquarium and onto the grassy mall near the Ellipse. The cool moist air smelled sweet after the dank, stagnant smell of the underground maintenance tunnel.

Through the trees and the rising mists, Steve could see the brightly lit White House, beautiful in its alabaster luminescence. It seemed so close to him now, closer than it had ever felt, even when, as a schoolboy, he had once stood at the bars and looked at it from across the north lawn. But as close as it seemed to him now, it was still beyond his reach.

The sounds of sirens drawing near quickened Steve’s feet. He caught up with Valenti who was moving at a brisk pace across the mall. There they would find a taxi and become invisible again.

Chapter 117

S
teve sat across from Valenti in a booth at an all night pancake house. He held a wad of damp paper towels to his lacerated left temple. It matched the bullet wound on his right temple. Much to his chagrin, he had begun to shiver uncontrollably.

The white-aproned waitress glided by setting two steaming brown coffee mugs on the table without slowing down.

Valenti slid one across to Steve. “Here. A cup of joe will help.”

“What the hell am I doing, anyway? I’m a fucking neurologist. The most boring, nerdiest, fucking doctor there is. What the fuck am I doing, going up against these guys?”

Steve stared out the window. His whole body ached and throbbed. “I want my life back. Great life. Great family. Anne watches out for me. She’d be horrified. ‘Steve, what do you think you’re doing? Are you out of your mind?’” He slid his free hand under his thigh to stop its shaking. Valenti looked amused, irritating Steve.

“What would your son say?” Valenti asked.

Steve thought about that a moment, enjoying the thought of his family. “Way to go, Dad.” Steve’s mouth turned up in a flicker of a smile. “Kick some butt. He actually said that.”

“Good son. I like him already.” Valenti sipped at his coffee, making a face. He tore away the paper covering from a little plastic creamer tub. Pouring it into his coffee he stirred it with a cheap metal spoon.