The Dark Hour (31 page)

Sydney clamped her mouth shut. Her pulse raced. The suspect closed the door, walked over, nudged Griffin with his foot.
Please let Griffin be faking it. Reach out, grab the guy, pull him down.

But Griffin never moved.

A million thoughts raced through her head, but the one she kept coming back to was that he’d been shot. With her limited view, she couldn’t see any blood, but what other explanation was there?

Any doubts that he might recover faded when she saw the suspect holster his gun, step over Griffin’s body, pick up the bottle of brandy from the bar, pull off the top, then take a swig. He moved to the edge of the bed, sat, drank some more, looking around the room. And then he took out his phone, pressed a button, and held it to his ear.

Syd tried to listen, heard nothing but the pounding of her pulse. When she looked again, he’d set his phone on the bedside stand, put the brandy bottle next to it, then walked over to Griffin, dragging his body between the two beds so that he was no longer in sight. When he’d finished, he sat back on the bed, picked up the TV remote and the brandy bottle, then settled against the headboard, flicking through the TV channels as though he had all the time in the world.

She needed that gun from the car. Stepping away from the window to the side of the balcony, she pressed herself against a potted topiary, which stood between her and the balcony next door. In order to get to the other side, she was going to have to scale the building from the outside of the balcony, hanging over the street. She gripped the wrought iron with her gloved hands, tested it against her weight, swung one leg over, then the other. Foot by foot, hand by hand, she started moving to her left, hoping that the iron was firmly attached. She glanced down. Three stories seemed a hell of a lot higher from this side of the balustrade, she thought, and she sent up a prayer that she’d find a balcony window unlocked.

Chapter 48

December 11

Washington, D.C.

C
arillo and Tex, having finished the bottle of Scotch, had fallen asleep on their respective beds. And so it was that when Carillo heard a faint beep, he didn’t immediately stir. But there it was again. “You hear that?”

“What?” Tex asked.

It suddenly occurred to Carillo where the noise came from. He pulled out Miles Cavanaugh’s cell phone from his pocket, looked at the screen. “Looks like someone didn’t realize Cavanaugh’s dead.” And Carillo smiled in the dark. “He’s got mail.”

Chapter 49

Predawn

December 12

Paris, France

S
ydney used the knife to jimmy open the third balcony window, and found the room empty. Putting her ear to the hallway door, she listened, heard nothing, then stepped out. She was going to have to walk by her own room to get to the stairs, because there was no way she was chancing the elevator, and as she passed by her door, she slowed, heard the drone of the TV but nothing else. By the time she made it to the stairwell, her hands were shaking, her knees weak.

She gripped the railing, descended as quickly and quietly as she could. At the bottom of the stairs she hesitated, saw the clerk buried in a novel, prayed he wouldn’t notice her and ask for her key. She didn’t want any attention brought to herself, and as she exited to the lobby, she looked straight ahead.

The clerk turned a page in his book, and Syd hurried out the door into the night. Instead of crossing the street in front of the hotel and chancing that the suspect might be watching from the window, she kept close to the building, until she was certain she wouldn’t be noticed. The car was where they’d left it, and she looked around, tried to see if there might be someone else keeping it under surveillance. If there was, they weren’t close enough for her to spot them, and she unlocked it, got in, locked the door, then sat there, momentary relief flooding through her as she realized just how narrow her escape had been.

Shaking herself, she reached over, unlocked the glove box, pulled out the gun and placed it in her lap. If she’d had the weapon with her, she would have shot the bastard from where she stood on the balcony. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, and she looked over toward the hotel, wishing she’d thought to somehow prop open the door to the room she’d climbed into to escape.

Her cell phone vibrated against her pocket, and she nearly jumped, not expecting to feel it. She wanted to cry when she heard Carillo’s voice. “Griffin,” she said. “I think he’s dead.”

“He’s fine.”

“What do you mean he’s fine?” she said, too worried to keep her voice down. “I saw him fall. He didn’t move, not even when—”

“What do you mean you saw? Where are you?”

“In the car outside the hotel. I got out through the balcony.”

“Okay. Look. The guy who’s got Griffin is called Bose. He just left a voice mail on Cavanaugh’s phone, letting him know he’s got Griffin drugged and handcuffed—”

“Oh my God—”

“—and
he’s waiting for you to come back to the hotel room. He’s thinking he’s going to make it look like a murder-suicide as soon as his associate gets there.”

Sydney’s gaze shot to the hotel, the window on the third floor.
Griffin was alive
.

And she’d left him there alone.

“I’ve got to go get him.”

“Slow down there, Pollyanna. There’s a team en route.”

“An ATLAS team? And if they arrest Griffin on that trumped-up warrant?”

“Better than Griffin dying. You know if there was any other way, Tex would have found it.”

A small price to pay if they got him out alive, and she looked up at the curtained window, tried to imagine what might happen if she waited for a team to arrive. Miles Cavanaugh, who it seemed had been involved in this mess from the beginning, was dead because someone else wanted him out of the way. And now she was supposed to sit back while some unknown entity brought Griffin in and booked him on charges that probably originated with whatever backroom deal Cavanaugh had been running with the Network? Not a chance. And what if this associate of Bose’s got there first? “An hour is a long time,” she told Carillo. “What if it’s too late?”

“Pearson will have my ass, and I
swear
I’ll kick yours if you go in there and try to play hero.”

“I promise I won’t go in and play hero,” she said, staring up at the hotel room. In fact, the idea forming in her head was anything but heroic.

Chapter 50

December 12

Brazil

T
he jungle never slept. The sound of toads and birds continued on into the night, and Marc was grateful, since it helped mask some of their movement. Marc and Lisette waited for the sentry to pass, then crawled through the low-lying shrubs to the fence. Lifting the bottom, Marc allowed Lisette to slither through, before he followed. On the other side, they hid for a few minutes in the shadows, their black clothing helping to conceal them. As Marc had suspected, there were no outdoor lights on the compound grounds, lights which could be seen by anyone flying overhead should they be looking. And in South America, someone was always looking for jungle compounds in the hunt for drug smugglers.

Marc watched the area for a few minutes, checking his watch. By his estimation, the next sentry was due in about ten minutes. Most of the activity, from what he’d seen earlier, and even now at night, seemed to be occurring at the other end of the building. People came and went through what Marc presumed were the main doors. A guard stood just outside, which meant they’d need to find another way in. There were other doors closer to them, with the nearby windows dark, leading Marc to believe that the rooms were unoccupied. “I might have a lock pick in my wallet,” he told Lisette. “Or we could see about climbing up onto the balcony and finding something up there.”

“Maybe we should first check the door to see if it’s unlocked.”

“Why would they keep it unlocked?”

“Because the place is surrounded by miles of swamp, anacondas as large as a house, and guards with big guns. If they aren’t worried about tree roots displacing fences so that someone could crawl beneath, they must feel secure that any threat will come from a different direction.”

She had a point, and, when he was certain that the guard near the front wasn’t looking their way, he sidled against the building, tried the knob. It turned and he opened the door so that it was slightly ajar. All inside was dark and he heard nothing to indicate anyone was within. He waved her over. Together, they stood pressed against the building, Marc watching the guard up front, before opening the door. They slipped inside, and she whispered, “What was it you wanted to mention?”

“I hate it when you’re right.”

“You must hate it an awful lot. Now let’s find a phone to call home.”

He flicked on the lighter he’d taken from the boat driver, discovering that the door was merely a hallway that led to another door, this one locked. “Ha!” he said. “You’re only half right.”

“Are we keeping score now?” she said, her gun out, trained on the door they’d just entered.

He moved down the short hall, holding up the lighter looking for any sign of an alarm system. Seeing none, he used his knife, sliding the blade into the jamb, circumventing the basic lock. He pocketed the lighter, kept his knife in his right hand, his gun in his left. The knife would be their first choice, the gun their last resort. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Another hall, this one appearing to lead to the main area of the complex. This end was dark, apparently not occupied at night. There were several doors on either side, each one unlocked. They were empty, which confirmed that this wing wasn’t being used. And then they came to a door that not only was locked, but also was emblazoned with a biohazard sign on it.

“We have to go in,” Lisette whispered.

“Our priority is the phone.”

“We have a boat filled with dead people and a mysterious virus that they alluded to being kept here when we were kidnapped. I need to see in there.”

“Your hazmat suit is buried in the swamp.”

“We open the door and I make an assessment.”

“An assessment of what? That they’re practicing safe virus containment? When do you determine that? When you figure out what the incubation period is, as you start bleeding from every orifice?”

Lisette took a deep breath, her tone filled with exasperation. “Why must you be so dramatic? Just open the damned door and let me take a look. I don’t need to go in. If there are viruses floating around, we are dead anyway. There is no seal on the bottom of this door.”

“Fine.” He holstered his gun, then used his knife to bypass the lock. Unfortunately the lock was of a better quality, no doubt because of the biohazard danger, and he was forced to dig out his pick from his wallet. It took longer than he liked, Lisette holding the lighter for him as he slid the instrument into the locking mechanism, teasing each of the pins into place. He opened it, and Lisette, with the lighter, stood on the threshold looking in, while he kept watch. As he was thinking that she was taking her damned time, he heard the shuffling of feet, a loud laugh, then the sound of keys unlocking the very door they’d used to enter the hallway. Someone was coming. Two someones, by the sound of the voices. The sentries were about to walk in on them.

Marc pushed Lisette into the biohazard room, stepped in after her, and shut the door as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Shh,” he said into her ear. She let the lighter extinguish, and the two of them stood there in the dark, while the sound of booted feet traipsed up the hallway past them. He relaxed slightly as the two men continued their conversation in a language he couldn’t understand, Portuguese, he thought, their laughter telling him that they were relaxed and going about their routine, never realizing there were any intruders. Still, he and Lisette didn’t move for a minute, maybe more, on the off chance that any other guards might pass by in the opposite direction.

When they heard no more sounds, she flicked on the lighter again, saying, “We are well and truly in the frying pan, we might as well make use of our time here.”

He looked around, seeing an office that was plainly furnished. The drop ceiling was paneled with large acoustic tiles, and a few overhead fluorescent lamps, which they didn’t dare turn on. Against one wall he saw two desks, industrial gray, that looked as though they’d been bought in a surplus warehouse, their surfaces covered with papers. To the right he saw a large window set next to another door, and on the other side, a working lab filled with beakers and vials and petri dishes, as well as some stainless steel equipment including what he thought might be a cryogenic freezer.

He knew next to nothing about chemistry or anything related. That was Lisette’s expertise, and he trusted that she knew what or where she could search. That at least gave him some relief that they weren’t going to die from walking in. Lisette saw a box of latex gloves on one of the desks, pulled two out, hitting a container of empty vials next to it. She moved the vials away from the edge of the desk, put on the gloves, then started going through the papers, handing the lighter to Marc, while she searched.

“What would you like me to do?” he asked.

“Stand guard. This search could take a while.”

He liked that idea. Less chance to pick up any stray diseases that might crawl beneath that lab door, which, he noted, also wasn’t sealed. Lisette shuffled through files in the desk drawer, while he stood sentry. When he looked over at her, she was reading something.

“This is Dr. Fedorov’s paperwork,” Lisette said, flipping through the documents. “This is why they stole the AUV. Why the kids were murdered on that boat. They weren’t pirates searching for gold. They weren’t even
looking
in the same area. They just didn’t want any witnesses to the
actual
location, which was much farther out, much deeper.”