The Bone Labyrinth (45 page)

Behind her, Dr. Han barked out an order, making the nurse jump. The woman gave a hurried bow toward Maria—then dashed to obey her superior. Maria turned and saw that Baako was now fully draped. The surgical team stood off to the side, scrubbing up for the procedure.

A cold dread settled over her.

So it begins.

11:35
A
.
M
.

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” Monk said from the backseat.

As Kimberly rounded the jeep past a long curve, a wooden barricade cut across the wide tunnel ahead. It was topped by rolls of razor wire and had a sentry shack guarding the gateway through it. Beyond the barrier, a small parking lot held a handful of jeeps and motorcycles.

“What do you think?” Kimberly asked as she slowed their approach.

“That barricade pretty much matches the southern border of the zoo overhead,” he said. “So I’m guessing that’s where we need to go.”

During the drive here, Monk had been monitoring their progress via an accelerometer built into his satellite phone, but after the first quarter mile, their path had shot beyond the boundaries of Kat’s map, passing into no-man’s-land. Along the way, countless smaller passageways branched off, including a tunnel or two even larger than this one. It was a veritable maze. With no road signs to guide them, they had simply continued along a path that best aimed for the park.

At least it seemed to have worked
.

But now a new challenge presented itself.

Up ahead, the road through the barrier was blocked by a row of waist-high steel pylons. A sentry stepped out of the guard shack to meet them.

Showing no hesitation, Kimberly glided their vehicle toward the gateway. As she braked to stop before the line of pylons, the sentry came forward to meet her, looking bored and unconcerned. He likely recognized the vehicle, so didn’t bother to unhook the assault rifle from his shoulder.

Clearly this buried station did not get much action
.

The sentry reached the vehicle and leaned over to the driver-side window.

Monk kept his head low, pretending to be half asleep, just another soldier reporting for duty. Kimberly spoke firmly to the sentry, twisting away from him as she reached for her knapsack, feigning an attempt to find papers or orders.

While she did so, the man poked his head through the window and took stock of the others in the jeep. Monk felt one of the Shaw brothers shift a hand to his sidearm.

Hold steady
, he silently urged the ranger.

Before anyone else could make a move, Kimberly lashed out and hooked her arm around the sentry’s neck. Catching him off guard, she easily jabbed his throat with a syringe, and an explosive puff of CO₂ pneumatically injected a powerful sedative into his bloodstream. She held him for the several breaths it took to knock him out.

Sergeant Chin used that time to hop out of the front passenger seat and rush to the guard shack. He searched the panel inside, then hit a button with his fist. The pylons blocking the way lowered into the road. He hurried back, then took the limp form of the sentry and hid it inside the shack.

“He’ll be out for at least an hour,” Kimberly said as she eased the jeep through the barrier. “But we’ll need to move fast. It won’t be long before someone finds this gate unguarded.”

Outside their vehicle, Chin continued on foot, flanking their route toward the parking lot, watching for any other soldiers. Beyond the parking lot, the tunnel ended at a towering set of roll-up doors, tall enough to accommodate a double-decker bus. A dump truck stood backed up to that door, suggesting it was a loading dock for this facility. Chin popped up to check the truck’s cab, then dropped and signaled the all clear.

Kimberly parked their jeep, and they all off-loaded. She pointed to a smaller door to the left of the larger one. A blue key reader glowed next to the knob.

She pulled out Gao’s keycard again. “Let’s hope this works here, too.”

“And pray there’s no additional biometric sensors,” Monk whispered. “Palm readers, retinal scans.”

Kimberly shrugged. “If necessary, we can always drag that sentry over here. Use his hand or eye.”

True . . .

Monk appreciated the woman’s ability to think on the fly. Kat chose well in picking her. Kimberly crossed to the key reader and waved Gao Sun’s stolen card over the glowing surface.

The lock disengaged with a sharp click.

“Simple enough,” he muttered.

She tugged the door open—only to find herself facing a startled man in a blue workman’s uniform. His cap bore the same insignia as on the dump truck’s door. The worker fell back in surprise, mumbling apologetically. His gaze swept across the assembled group of uniformed figures and moved out of their way.

Kimberly gave a small bow of her head in thanks and stepped through. Monk hung back, adjusting his sunglasses higher on his nose, praying his use of shades in this underground world didn’t set off any alarm bells in the man—but it wasn’t
that
man Monk should have worried about.

Chin followed Kimberly. As the sergeant crossed the threshold, Monk noted the change in the key reader next to the door. Its glow flared from blue to an angry crimson.

His heart sunk.

Oh, crap.

A loud klaxon erupted from sirens above the doorway and spread off into the distance.

Kimberly swung around, her face registering shock, but also understanding. The doorway must have sensors built into it, requiring anyone passing through to have a keycard on their person.

The truck driver tried to flee, but Chin pistol-whipped the man from behind, dropping him with a single blow.

Kimberly waved to Monk, staring upward. “Get inside! Now!”

A heavy security gate had begun dropping across the doorway. The Shaw brothers dashed across the threshold. Monk followed, rolling on a shoulder to get under the lowering barrier. The last of them, Kong, lunged with surprising speed, diving on his belly and sliding under the edge. Then his belt snagged on the door’s metal sill, stopping him midway.

Panic etched the man’s face.

No, you don’t
.

Monk snatched the gate’s bottom edge with his prosthetic hand and braced himself against the grind of gears, knowing he could hold out for no more than a breath. Chin grabbed Kong’s arms and yanked the man through the narrowing gap, falling backward and using his body weight to haul his smaller teammate to safety. The metal barrier dropped with a resounding clang at Kong’s heels, sealing them in.

As the alarm bells continued to ring, Monk tossed aside his sunglasses and faced Kimberly with a heavy sigh.

So much for simple.

11:42
A
.
M
.

Maria stared at the tableau before her.

With the first wail of the sirens, the surgical team had frozen in place around the operating table. Dr. Han stood poised with a blade in hand. He had just made his first incision across Baako’s shaved scalp.

Maria could not take her eyes off the trickle of blood that trailed from the three-inch-long cut. She felt numb all over, barely registering the alarm. Still, her mind whirled, wondering what had happened.

Faces turned to the tall doors at the other end of the vivisection lab. Concerned murmurs rose from among the team, plainly unsure if they should proceed with the surgery or not.

Before anything could be settled, Maria made the decision for them. Reacting more than thinking, she rushed the table, determined to protect Baako, even if it only meant delaying the inevitable. She kneed Dr. Han behind the legs, dropping him to the floor, while snatching the scalpel from his fingers. She grabbed the back collar of his scrubs and pulled him close.

She poised the tip of the blade at his carotid.

“Wake Baako up!” she yelled at the remaining staff.

Dr. Han struggled as his initial stun wore off. She stabbed the point of the blade through his skin, drawing blood. He stiffened again.

“Now!” she hollered.

Finally one of the team moved. It was the nurse who had shown her kindness earlier. The young woman shifted around and clamped shut the sedative drip.

“Pull his catheter, too,” she directed the nurse. She then glared at the others. “Free him!”

No one moved, so she twisted her fist in Dr. Han’s scrubs and pushed the blade tip deeper. He gasped in pain, then shouted at his staff, clearly ordering them to obey. Like Maria, he probably realized there was nowhere she could go with the patient. So why not cooperate?

As she continued to threaten with the blade, the surgical drapes were yanked off Baako’s form, and the leather straps unbuckled from his limbs.

“Bandage up his incision,” she ordered the assistant surgeon, her voice growing meeker, more uncertain as her initial adrenaline surge began to wane.

Still, the doctor obeyed and closed the wound with butterfly bandages, then taped gauze sponges over the site. By the time he was finished, the sirens had gone silent.

In the quiet, the others looked at her, waiting for her next instruction.

Maria faced them, overwhelmed by one question.

What do I do from here
?

11:44
A
.
M
.

Major General Lau stood in the eye of the storm.

Upon first hearing the alarms, she had followed protocol in the event of a security breach and proceeded directly to the communication room of the complex. Six men manned the curve of tables under a wall of video monitors. The largest screen glowed with a three-dimensional map of the facility’s four levels, encompassing miles of tunnels and hundreds of acres of research labs, office and storage spaces, living quarters, and countless other rooms and miscellaneous halls.

The site of the breach was at the complex’s southern gate, where the facility merged with the old warren of bomb shelters and tunnels of the Underground City.

“How many intruders are there?” Jiaying demanded of Chang Sun.

“Unknown for the moment.” The lieutenant colonel cupped an earpiece as he monitored reports from the security teams closing in on that location. With his other hand, he pointed to a grid of monitors. “We’re pulling feed from the nearby cameras now.”

On the indicated screens, images rolled in reverse. Finally, one of the technicians raised a hand.

“Over here,” Chang said.

She joined the lieutenant colonel at that station. The technician ran the footage from the moment of the breach. The feed came from a camera facing the loading dock. She watched a group barge inside and assault a worker at the threshold.

Chang reached past the tech’s shoulder, froze the image, then tapped each of the faces on the screen. Blue boxes outlined them and zoomed into fuzzy close-ups.

“Six of them,” he said, finally answering her earlier question. “One woman, five men. All wearing army uniforms.”

Jiaying leaned closer. “Are they our people?”

She did not dismiss the possibility that the Ministry of State Security had ordered a covert challenge to the base’s security. Still, she sensed this was no drill.

Chang offered corroboration by pointing to one of the outlined faces. The man had removed a pair of sunglasses, revealing his foreign features. “They’re Americans,” he said, glancing over to her. “I’m sure of it.”

Anger burned through her at such a trespass. “Where are they?”

He sighed in exasperation. “After the breach, they moved beyond the surveillance net around the loading bay door. But they can’t stay out of sight for long. If another camera fails to pick them up, one of my teams will flush them out.”

“How many security personnel do you have on the premises?”

“Over a hundred.” Chang straightened. “And with all gates locked down and extra guards posted, they’re trapped inside. It’s only a matter of time before we find them.”

She nodded, forcing her breath to slow. While she was perturbed at this assault, a part of her was relieved. She had suspected the Americans had sent operatives here, but until this moment that threat had been hypothetical, an unknown variable beyond her control. Now it had become quantifiable, a hazard she could eliminate, possibly even turn to her advantage.

“
Zhōngxiào
Sun!” a technician called out sharply to Chang.

Jiaying crossed with the lieutenant colonel to the new station, hoping the intruders had been spotted. But the screen revealed a view into the vivisection lab. She frowned at the sight of Maria Crandall holding a hostage at knifepoint, clearly interrupting the surgery.

Jiaying shook her head sadly at the woman’s misguided efforts, clearly ignited by her compassion for her test subject.

I expected better from a fellow scientist
.

Then again, too often Americans had proven themselves to be soft when they should be hard. They were too coddled, too certain of their superiority, too blind to the new millennium’s shift of global powers.

Unlike in China, where hard lessons were taught at a young age.

It seems your education is sorely lacking, Dr. Crandall.

“Connect me to that lab,” she ordered.

Chang instructed the tech, who tapped a few keys, then handed back a wireless microphone. “You’ll be able to hear any responses over the monitor’s speakers.”

“Very good.” She lifted the microphone to her lips. “Dr. Crandall, if I could have your attention.”

On the screen, Maria backed a step, dragging the surgeon with her. She glanced toward the ceiling speakers.

“I see you appear panicked, but let me assure you that the sirens are merely a drill,” she said, using the lie to smother any hope of rescue. “Still, I should inform you, as a matter of protocol, all rooms are locked down.”

This last was
not
a lie.

There was nowhere Maria could go.

“You and your test subject will be fine, Dr. Crandall. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for your companion.”