The Aegis Solution (50 page)

"So even if there is a problem with the vaccine, the bug is contained, right?"

"Yes, sir. We haven't broken the seal yet."

"Then don't."

"But we need to examine her. We need to identify why she was vulnerable."

"Not yet, you don't. First I want you to retest the vaccine in the exposure chamber. You still have
some subjects, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"If there is a problem with it, I don't want that lab opened. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Handle it."

Faulk ended the connection as the second team arrived. He noticed that Boehn had been listening
and wore a concerned expression. Looking at the men around him, Faulk declared, "We need to end
this – now."



"What form do you think their attack will take?" asked Wilson, who was standing right behind Leah
and Elias near the doorway.

"They've got us trapped," Leah answered. "We're boxed in with no way out. We're outnumbered.
They can't just come around their corners in a frontal assault without taking some losses, and we can't
move on them without being cut to pieces. I guess it depends on how badly Faulk still wants me alive.
But I would guess they are going to go the tear-gas route."

"They tried that before," Tillie chimed in. "Between our painter's masks and lobbing the canisters
back out the door, it wasn't all that effective."

Leah shrugged. "Wish I knew what they had at their disposal."

A sudden blast of automatic fire came from the end of the hall, peppering the door jamb with
bullets. Elias dropped to the floor, in a prone position directly inside the frame. He did not dare extend
himself farther out for fear of making his head a target. The string of shots had come from the corner
along the same wall as their doorway, which was now a blind spot for Elias.

"All of you fall back. Take cover behind the first row!"

Leah and Wilson roughly helped Kreitzmann up and moved him to the back of the room, then
joined Tillie in the first aisle. She had already taken her old position behind the makeshift gun slot.

Seeing they were all behind cover, Elias, after firing off a short burst, more for effect than anything
else, moved back and joined them. Within moments, the left side of the door frame was marked with
a red dot, a sighting laser, yet no fusillade came. Seconds passed before he saw a flash of light just
outside and slightly past the doorway, followed an instant later by an explosion. The jamb was shredded
by shrapnel.

"They have an OICW!" Leah shouted. "EVERYONE DOWN!"

As they all dropped to the floor, Tillie yelled, "What's that?"

"Basically, a mini grenade-launcher," Elias answered, "with a range finder. It shoots a 20mm or
25mm projectile that travels to a preset distance, then explodes."

"So they can kill people around corners?"

Before Elias could respond, there was a second flash and the room was filled with the sound of a
thousand pieces of shrapnel striking the walls, floor, ceiling, and the pile of steel parts on the shelving
in front of them, ricocheting wildly.

"I guess they fine-tuned the range," he said matter-of-factly.

A third round arrived with the same result. Tillie yelped in pain as one of the tiny metal shards tore
into her upper arm.

"Next will come the tear gas," Leah yelled loudly enough to be heard through the muffling earplugs,
as she turned to check Tillie's wound. "The OICW will keep us back. We won't be able to toss them
out."

Before she could even finish her warning, the first canister flew into the utility room, careening off
the side wall and popping. The confined space quickly began to fill with the white gas. A second arrived
moments later. In less than a minute, they could no longer see the doorway through the gas.

Elias' eyes were already watering heavily, as the welder's goggles were not designed for this type of
eye protection. His nose and throat started burning. He could hear hacking coughs coming from the
others. He knew that it would be only a matter of a minute or so before rational thought became
difficult, if not impossible. Twisting around in the dense white cloud, by memory and feel, he crawled
to the end of the aisle and around it, moving toward the doorway.

As he crawled, he reached up and lifted the painter's respirator and called out, "FAULK, I'M
COMING OUT!" Lifting the mask to be heard caused a strong dose of the gas to flood his throat and
lungs. He pushed his rifle through the doorway, sending it skittering out to the center of the corridor.

Behind him, Leah yelled, "Elias, I'll go. It's me he wants!"

"It doesn't matter," was all Elias was able to get out before his throat closed in spasms.

Using his elbows, hands, knees, and feet, he scrambled forward, hoping that he was not greeted
with a bullet to the head the moment he emerged from the doorway. As soon as he cleared the
threshold, the intensity of the gas diminished and he could see five agents, wearing full-face gas masks,
and body suits to protect their skin from irritation. They were all pointing their assault rifles directly at
him.

Several yards back stood Faulk, looking foolish in his face mask and business suit. Pulling the mask
away from his face, he ordered brusquely, "Get up, Elias. You two, keep him covered. The rest of you,
cover the doorway. We should have the other members of this gang in about a minute."

Behind him, Elias could hear harsh, racking coughs coming out of the utility room. Wilson and
Tillie emerged, their arms raised. The last to come out was Leah, supporting the semi-limp form of Rudy
Kreitzmann, who leaned against her heavily.

As Faulk was about to speak, Leah let Kreitzmann drop, revealing that she was holding the AK-47
behind his back. Firing before she had it fully elevated, she directed the first spray of slugs toward the
two closest men, wounding one in the leg and hitting the other in the elbow as her rifle swung around.
The backup agents were afraid to begin shooting, as their boss was standing in the line of fire.

Leah's magazine was empty, and as she hurried to slam a full one in, Elias dove for the closest
agent, the one she had hit in the leg, and wrestled his weapon from him. Turning and hoping to take
out Faulk, he saw that his target had hastily run behind the other men, freeing them to open fire, which
they did, their first shots going wild. Tillie and Wilson, seeing the pandemonium, hurried back to the
utility room, as Leah and Elias, lying flat on the floor to minimize their profile to the agents, opened fire,
catching the three men who had accompanied Faulk forward and were now attempting a retreat.

Faulk and the remaining agents had all taken cover behind the corners again. Elias knew it was only
a matter of moments before the OICW was brought to bear, or even basic grenades. He knew that
Leah's decision to attack was a decision based on the knowledge that they were all minutes from their
deaths, anyway.

The agents, flanking both sides of the "T" intersection, took turns executing their new plan. One
extended his weapon around the corner and fired blindly, followed a moment later by a second man
who stuck out his head and weapon, aiming his shots. The slugs ricocheted off the concrete near Elias,
and he heard the sudden whimper when Leah was hit. In the chaos of the moment, he dared not look
to see how badly, as he was intent on taking out the second shooter.

A part of Elias' mind, still coldly calculating their chances, determined that they had less than a
minute to live. They were out in the open with no cover; they were outmanned and outgunned; and the
opponents could continue their current technique until a lucky shot took both of them out. It made no
sense to retreat to the utility room, as Faulk would only repeat the OICW and tear-gas attacks. Elias
decided that if he jumped up and did a running, screaming charge, he would last four paces before he
was cut down.

The second man popped out to fire again. Elias was able to brush him back before the man got off
a shot, but still did not connect with his target. Suddenly, above the thunderous noise from the gunfire,
he heard a loud rumbling coming from the utility room and managed to sneak a peek. What he saw
lifted his heart. Tillie was running full-tilt through the doorway, pushing the rolling, steel gang box ahead
of her. As soon as she cleared the doorway, which was only inches wider than the box, she moved up
to run along the side of it, still propelling it forward, until it came to a stop in front of Leah and only
a couple of feet from Elias.

He rolled to his right to move behind the cover, as Tillie punched the button lock on the lid and
lifted it, pulling out the shotgun. The gang box immediately rang with multiple shots from the agents.
But with the steel walls of the box and the solid pile of heavy tools inside, the bullets did not penetrate
to the other side.

He took a moment to see how badly Leah was injured and was alarmed at the amount of blood
coming from her shoulder. Tillie, seeing this also, reached back inside the box and pulled out a plastic
bag filled with clean rags, wrapping the wound quickly and slowing the blood flow, as Elias kept up a
steady succession of short bursts from his rifle to keep Faulk's men back.

Finished with her hasty bandaging job, Tillie lay flat on her stomach and extended the shotgun
under the gang box in the narrow space.

Elias' momentary hopefulness crashed at what he saw next. Leah, who had moved to the opposite
side of Tillie and was watching from the right side of the box, saw it too, and gasped, "Oh, shit," pulling
and holding the trigger on her rifle.

Elias did the same as they watched the hand, extended out from behind the corner, draw back to
throw a grenade, both hoping a freak shot could hit the moving forearm and wrist before the hand
released it.

Elias could not believe his eyes when he saw the grenade abruptly drop straight down. He knew
that neither his nor Leah's panicked firing had hit the target. Something else had happened because, just
after the agent dropped the grenade, his body flew violently into their view. As he fell, his torso jerked
repeatedly as he was struck with rounds from an automatic weapon positioned behind him. Seconds
later, the grenade detonated, shredding the already dead agent and blowing the corners off the two walls.

From their vantage point, Elias, Tillie, and Leah saw more of Faulk's men, who were wounded and
stunned from the grenade, run, stagger, or fall into their view. They took advantage of the
shooting-gallery situation to finish them off as they appeared. It was clear that there was gunfire coming
from the right of the hallway where Faulk, Boehn, and his agents were sequestered, as they attempted
to react to the new direction of the fight.

The rapid and deafening battle was short-lived, as Elias heard the unmistakable voice of Faulk
shouting from around the corner. "DON'T SHOOT! DON'T SHOOT!"

Elias stood quickly, followed by Tillie and Leah, and they trotted to the end of the hallway, an
intersection which had become a killing ground, with Faulk's team as the victims. Elias peered carefully
around the corner, not completely sure that their savior or saviors would not be equally disposed to
shoot him. All of the black-garbed agents were dead or dying, including the wounded men from the
earlier firefight and Killeen who had all been handcuffed in the open. Boehn lay against a wall, bloody
and looking as if he had been tossed there by an angry giant. Faulk stood in the center of the corridor,
raising his hands, and staring past Elias.

Elias switched his gaze to the right. It took him a minute to identify the two men walking toward
him with huge grins plastered across their faces.

"Sweezea…Crabill!"

"Hello, Doc," said Sweezea casually, his assault rifle perched jauntily on his shoulder. "How's that
AK-47 workin' for ya?"

Tillie, hearing the names, ran around Elias. "Tim…Jay!" She ran straight up to Sweezea and threw
her arms around his neck, almost knocking him down.

Leah had moved into the intersection, pointed her rifle at Faulk, and barked harshly, "Get down,
you bastard! Facedown!"

Faulk did not hesitate, dropping to the floor in a prone position, his hands immediately laced
behind his neck.

She turned and looked at her husband, jerking her head in the direction of the two men who had
saved their lives, as they reached the group. "More friends of yours?"

Elias laughed, realizing that only a few moments ago, he had never dreamed he would have that
pleasure again. "Yes, they are. And apparently Tillie's, too."

Crabill was standing back and grinning at Tillie, when he noticed the blood from the shrapnel
injury. "Mathilda, you're hurt!"

She glanced down at the blood. "No shit, Sherlock!"

He pulled his pack off his back and quickly removed the first-aid gear. "Come here. Let me take
care of that."

"It's not bad. Take care of her first."

He looked at Leah and saw the hastily applied bandage on her shoulder and the still-flowing blood
coming from beneath it, and trotted to her.

Elias stepped nearer and took over the job of watching Faulk. Looking down at him, he snarled,
"Got a good reason I shouldn't just pop your skull with my boot right now?"