Dead Ice

THIRTY ONE

“Bones? We’re shipping out,” Maddock called as he barreled down the stone stairs. The corpse of the sabertoothed tiger lay where it had fallen, the color from its pelt dulled in the dim emergency lighting. A thick pool of blood had spread out from its wounds as the beast’s heart had pumped out the last of its life, reaching either side of the narrow passage. It didn’t look as if the crazy Russian was playing ball. Bones had him up against the wall and was going through various makeshift torture-threats to try and loosen his lips, but the man continued to babble in unintelligible Russian. Bones had dragged him from room to room, looking frantically for the antidote in whatever shape or form it might take, but with no idea of what he was really looking for it was an impossible task the Russian was only too happy to make harder.

“We’re screwed,” Bones said. There was resignation in his voice, already at peace with his fate.

“Maybe not.” Maddock said. “How long do you reckon it’s been since our friend here shattered that egg?”

“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, tops. Why?”

“We should be dead by now if we’d breathed any of it in.”

“How do you know?”

“Long story,” Maddock said. “Let’s just say we’ve got our hands on some insider knowledge. Time to move out. We’re going home.”

Sensing that their attention was elsewhere, the Russian made his move. He reached inside his coat.

Maddock acted on instinct.

Within the impossibly long second between heartbeats his hand reached for his weapon, his reactions so much better than the old man, even so it felt as if he were moving in slow motion. The Russian pulled his hand back out as Maddock released a single shot. A red dot bloomed in the middle of the man’s forehead, snapping his head back. It never returned to its natural position. A silent cry died stillborn on his lips. With his eyes still open he slid to the ground.

He regretted it instantly. Dead men didn’t talk. He’d never know what he’d been doing down here, how he’d brought an extinct species back, or even how many people had died at his hand here, guinea pigs for his mad experiments. The regret didn’t last. Some sick souls deserved to die. It was as black and white as that.

He closed the distance to the dead man, bending over the corpse and pulling back his jacket.

He had expected to find the dead man’s hand wrapped around a gun.

It wasn’t.

His fist was clenched around a glass vial.

He pried it out of the dead man’s grasp and held it up to the feeble light. Was this it? Was this the virus suspended in liquid form ready to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world?

Was that it, a suicidal Hail Mary distinctly lacking in grace?

There was no knowing what was going on inside the head of a fanatic, no matter what the cause.