The Unwanted (45 page)

He positioned his leg in the gap so that his knee pushed against one side of the door, and his foot against the other. He then worked his backpack off and removed the rope from inside. As he was trying to zip the bag back up, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground, hitting the handle of the screwdriver. The tool rolled away from the bag, under Quinn's foot, and into the gap.

He whipped his head back inside, but could see nothing. Then, a few seconds later, there was the crash of the screwdriver hitting bottom.

Quinn froze.

Had anyone on the lower level heard? He waited, expecting to see a flood of light as someone below opened the elevator doors to investigate. But the shaft remained dark.

He was just beginning to relax when he heard the footsteps.

They were coming down the hallway toward the elevator.

Quinn grabbed his bag off the floor and moved it into the shaft, hanging it off the bolt he was going to tie the rope to.

He only had seconds now. He squeezed through the opening and grabbed the rail that ran across the top of the door. The sliding sections closed again the moment he was out of the way.

He could hear the steps come into the elevator alcove, then stop. There was a moment of nothing, then the sound of an electric motor starting somewhere below Quinn.

Quinn looked behind him to see if he could tell which car was on its way up. But it was too dark.

The sound got louder and louder. Quinn kept his eyes on the darkness below him, looking for any change, prepared to jump if the car appeared directly beneath him.

The whir grew louder and louder. Then he saw the outline of a car moving up. Not below him, but next to him.

The car stopped seven feet to his left. There was a slight delay, then he heard the door open and the waiting passenger get on. As soon as the doors closed again, the motor restarted, and the elevator plunged back down into the darkness.

Quinn donned his backpack, then inched over to the pipes he'd spotted earlier, and attached the end of his rope to one of them. Once it was tied off, he cinched the loose end around his waist and began a controlled descent into the inky well below.

"Quinn?"

Marion looked up. Nate seemed to be talking to himself. When he noticed her, he said, "Radio." He turned his collar out so she could see the black dot attached on the inside. "Quinn?"

"Maybe he's hiding and can't talk," she offered.

Nate frowned. "Maybe. But he should have done a radio check by now."

Before he could call out his friend's name again, there was a buzzing sound. He shot a hand into one of his pants pockets. When he pulled it back out, he was holding a vibrating cell phone.

"Maybe his radio's not working and he's using his phone," she said.

"It's not him," Nate said, looking at the display. He flipped it open. "Hi." He listened for a moment. "I'm in the emergency exit tunnel. . . . No. He went back in. . . . about fifteen minutes ago. . . . I can't get through. I think he can't get a signal on the second level. . . . There's a reason, a good one. . . . Wait, wait. Orlando, let me talk for a moment. . . . I didn't go with him because I'm not alone. We found Marion Dupuis. She's with me. . . . No, no kid. That's who he went back for . . . are you there? . . . Yes. Said if he didn't get back in a few hours, I was to try and get Marion out. . . . Where
are
you? . . . Jesus, you're as crazy as he is. . . . You need to watch out for the motion sensors. They go all along the road, then fan out in a wide arc as you near the gate. Maybe you should wait at the . . . Okay, okay. But you're not going to be able to get through the gate without them knowing. . . . What's that mean? . . . Orlando? . . . Orlando?" He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Shit."

Orlando had been the name the other man, Quinn, had mentioned before he left. Marion assumed it was another member of their team.

"What did your friend say?" Marion asked.

Nate continued to stare at the ground for a few seconds longer before looking at her. "She's on her way to help us."

"That's good, right?"

He forced a smile, then turned and walked back down the tunnel toward the facility corridor. "Maybe I can get a signal if I go back into the hallway."

"Don't. Please," she said. "I mean Quinn wanted us to wait here."

Nate nodded. "All right. I'll give him another fifteen. If we don't hear from him by then, I'll go back in. That fair?"

"Sure . . . yes. Very fair."

It wasn't the fear of being discovered that had made Marion stop Nate. It was the fear that he might actually get ahold of Quinn. And when he did, Quinn would tell them that Iris was dead.

At least this way, she could hold on to hope a little longer.

CHAPTER
34

FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF TUCKER HAD PLAYED THE
good boy, standing beside Mr. Rose as they both watched the others get the cargo ready. The technicians had started the job by prepping the solution that would put each package—as Mr. Rose had dubbed them early in the project—under for as long as would be needed, then administering it one by one. Tucker's men then moved the gurneys each package was on into one of the two storage rooms nearest the elevator.

Tucker purposely didn't look at any of their faces. It wasn't because he was afraid of feeling a sudden rush of sympathy. In fact, quite the opposite would have been true. Their faces, their bodies, turned his stomach. They were just . . .
wrong.
He'd felt that way since he'd picked up the first one in Bangladesh two months earlier. Still, they were the key, the method in.

But not the delivery device itself. That was also a stroke of genius. No one would suspect a thing. And when it was over, not only would the targets be eliminated, but the unwanted brats, too. The fact that Mr. Rose was using them in this way made perfect sense to Tucker. It was economical. No waste at all.

After the cargo was in the storeroom, they packed up the remaining materials and wheeled everything on carts to the small trash incinerator at the far end of the second level. There could be no evidence left.

"What time is it?" Mr. Rose asked as the last cart was wheeled down the hall.

Tucker looked at his watch. "Eleven fifty-three."

"They're running slow. This should have been done twenty-three minutes ago."

"We're still ahead of schedule."

Mr. Rose turned his laser eyes on Tucker. "That is
not
the point. Done by eleven-thirty was what we agreed to."

Knowing it was useless to argue, Tucker said, "You're right. My apologies."

"I don't want your apologies, Mr. Tucker. I want your efficiency. Tomorrow is a
very
important day. Everything must run smoothly."

"It will. We've gone over it dozens of times. My men know what to do."

"They'd better, because if something goes wrong and you somehow get away, I will find you. And I promise, I will not kill you."

Despite himself, Tucker felt a shiver go down his back. He knew Mr. Rose had vast resources. Hell, he'd been able to assemble and pay for this operation in a matter of months. And it hadn't been cheap, not even close. Forget what he was paying everyone. The travel, the special equipment, Yellowhammer, it had all cost big-time.

"I understand," Tucker said. "Everything will be fine."

Mr. Rose stared at him for another several seconds, then said, "I want the helicopters in the air by one-thirty."

"I thought the plan was to go at two."

"One-thirty," Mr. Rose said.

There was no need for Tucker to respond. Mr. Rose had already turned and walked away.

Quinn had waited in the elevator shaft for forty-five minutes before he felt it was safe to sneak into the lower level. Even then, he'd been forced to duck into an unused office before he'd been able to get very far.

Several people had gone by. There had also been the unmistakable sound of wheels rolling over the metal floor. Less than a minute later a second set of wheels passed his door. This went on for a quarter hour, with another cart each minute.

The only time he heard any conversation was when the last cart passed by.

". . . of there. I don't want to leave anything for . . ."

The voice trailed off, and was replaced by just under sixty seconds of silence before Quinn could hear the footsteps returning. It was the same pattern that had occurred every time. The cart would go by, and, soon after, footsteps would return on their own.

But this time after the steps receded, no new cart wheeled past. Quinn waited several more moments, then opened the door just enough so that he could listen unimpeded.

There were voices off to the left. Distant and indecipherable. He also thought he heard another cart. He waited to see if it might be headed in his direction, but it never grew closer. He opened the door wide enough to slip through, then stepped out into the corridor and looked to the left toward the noise. The majority of the facility was in that direction. Whatever Tucker's people were up to was going on in that area. Quinn was sure of it.

It took him less than a second to make his decision. Right first. See what they were doing with the carts. Maybe it would help explain what was going on. If not, he would have only lost a few minutes tops.

He headed down the corridor. There were three doors between where he'd been hiding and the elevators. The first was another empty room like the one he'd been in. The second was the same again.

But the third was different. Even though it was dark, Quinn could tell it was larger than the other two. He sensed depth. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He then pulled out his flashlight and turned it on.

He started to move the light across the room, but he didn't get far before he froze.

In the beam were two of the carts and part of a third. Not carts. Gurneys, like in a hospital, complete with an attached IV stand, plastic bag full of liquid, and a tube leading down to the distinctive form of a human being under a sheet.

Holy shit,
he thought.

He started to move the light again, scanning the room. More gurneys, each with its own lump on top. He could see now there were straps holding each of the bodies in place. He counted seventeen total.

He took a deep breath, then approached the nearest one.

A head stuck out from under the sheet, lying on a pillow. A mop of brown hair hung down over the face. By its length Quinn guessed the person was female. He glanced at the sheet and watched it move up and down several times.

Alive.

But there was something about the person that seemed off. He moved the light from one to another of the nearby gurneys. They all looked similar. The bodies under the sheets were small, taking up little more than half a bed's length.

Children.

He played the light through the rest of the room.

The same.

The same.

The same.

On each gurney, the sleeping form of a child.

"Oh, God," he said under his breath.

He knew it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. He was looking for the girl who had been with Marion Dupuis, after all. But this was not what he'd expected. Not a room full of kids strapped to hospital beds.

He closed his eyes for a moment and brought up the picture of Iris he'd seen on the passports Marion had left in Montreal. Then he began moving from bed to bed looking for the girl. But he didn't get too far before he noticed an even more disturbing pattern.

None were the regular kids he'd see playing in the park, or clinging to their mothers at the sight of a stranger. These children were different. "Special," Quinn's mother would have called them. "Gifts from God."

Three of the first five children he looked at had the unmistakable facial features of Down syndrome. He knew the look, had seen it himself as a kid in the face of his cousin. She was the "gift from God" his aunt had been given. Sarah. So sweet, so trusting. A bad heart had taken her life when she was just eleven. Quinn hadn't thought about her in years, and was surprised by the level of sadness he felt at the memory.

Though the other two children did not look like they had Down's, it was obvious they had some other genetic affliction. Quinn continued through the room, going bed to bed. More disabled children. They all must be, he realized.

What the hell was going on?

A mix of anger and horror and compassion welled in his chest. It was all he could do to keep his feelings from taking over. He needed to remain objective and alert. He needed to figure—

A noise to his right stopped him.