The Atlantis Prophecy

47

SERENA HEARD THE DOOR to the cell open and looked up from her gurney as two Marines, their faces all business, walked in. One of them went to the table with the syringes. The other marched straight for Conrad in the restraining chair and started thumping Conrad's left forearm with his finger, looking for a vein.

She tried to shout, but her cries were muffled by the duct tape across her mouth.

"You strapped him so tight, you cut off his circulation," the Marine complained to his comrade. "I can't find a vein."

The other Marine, who was preparing an IV apparatus, said, "Keep poking him with a needle until you find a gusher."

Serena watched as the Marine attending to Conrad loosened the strap on his left hand to allow for more blood flow. Still without luck, he then tried the right arm and struck blood with a needle. He slipped a catheter into Conrad's vein. The catheter tube was connected to two bags of a clear solution.

Conrad glanced at her and then spoke to the Marines. "Max Seavers was responsible for the deaths of Brooke Scarborough and a Capitol Police officer," Conrad said. "And he's going to be responsible for a billion more if you don't help me."

Either the mention of Brooke or the CP seemed to get their attention. But it didn't slow their work. The Marine with the syringes placed them in order. "He gets sodium pentothal sedative first, then the potassium chloride to paralyze him, and then the lethal injection."

Serena suspected the Marines wouldn't even need the lethal injection, because the only thing potassium chloride paralyzed was the heart: it stopped it cold. She started squirming in her straps, moaning as loud as she could. But the Marines ignored her.

Conrad said, "Seavers is working with terrorists against the U.S., and now you're working for them, too."

The Marine securing his catheter said, "Then why are you the one on death row in a black ops prison?"

"Because I know what Seavers is going to do," Conrad said. "He's going to release a weaponized flu virus on the Mall today during the fireworks."

The Marine looked at him in disbelief. "On Americans?"

"On a Chinese delegation watching the fireworks from the Washington Monument. They won't become infectious until the Olympics when it spreads worldwide."

Something in the Marine's eyes told Serena that he knew at least enough about Seavers to consider Conrad's story in the realm of the possible. "And what are we supposed to do? Let you go?"

"No, call the Pentagon. Tell them you have a message from me for Secretary of Defense Packard. My name is Conrad Yeats. And that's Serena Serghetti."

Serena nodded up and down as the Marine walked over to her. He turned her gurney around so that her feet touched the wall and he looked down on her face with amazement. "Holy hell, I think it's Mother Earth!"

The other Marine scowled. "You can't possibly believe him, Hicks."

"No, I really think it's her," Hicks said, and suddenly turned red-faced as he stared at her. "Remember those…pictures…I downloaded from the Internet."

"That was her face on some stick model's body," the other Marine said. "This one's got curves."

Serena felt the bewildered gaze of Hicks. "Look," Hicks said. "It can't hurt to at least call in a potential security threat."

With great relief Serena watched Hicks turn for the door when suddenly the other Marine shot him in the back of the head. Hicks's arms went up in shock, and then he went down with a crash.

Serena stared at the dead Marine sprawled on the floor face down. The other Marine, obviously Alignment, holstered his sidearm and picked up a syringe with a nasty yellow-greenish color to it. Serena started to panic as the Marine took the syringe over to Conrad, who looked at her with determined eyes.

"Good thing the Pentagon ordered up that stockpile of bird flu vaccines," the Marine said and pushed the syringe into the catheter.

Serena watched the yellow-green line of fluid wind its way down the long tube toward Conrad's arm. The Marine watched it, too.

"Say night-night, Yeats," the Marine said when Serena used her feet to push off the wall and launch the gurney into the Marine's back.

The Marine shouted in surprise and turned to strike her.

As he did, Conrad snapped his left hand free from the loosened strap, yanked the catheter out of his right arm and plunged it into the Marine's groin.

"You son of a bitch!" the Marine grunted, eyes wide in shock as he pulled the catheter out. But it was too late. Whatever he had intended for Conrad was in his system now. His eyes glazed over and he collapsed next to his fallen fellow Marine.

"And then some," Conrad said, and began to unfasten the rest of his straps.

Serena's heart leapt as Conrad stood up and wobbled, weak at the knees from the hours in the restraining chair. He staggered to the Marines and lifted their swipe cards and guns. Then he walked over to her and with a quick yank pulled off the duct tape.

"Let's go," he said.

Her lips stung, but finally she could move them as Conrad freed her.

"I can't go, Conrad. If I've got the bird flu, I'm going to infect everybody. I may have already infected you."

"Impossible," he said, and she watched him take a Masonic dagger from the table and put the blade to his forearm. "I'm immune."

"What are you doing?" she cried as he slit his arm. A scarlet line of blood oozed out.

"Brooke said Seavers used my blood for his vaccine."

She stared at him. "And you believe her?"

"You said my double-helix spirals to the left instead of the right." He took an empty syringe and unwrapped a sterile needle and drew his blood out. "Should I believe you?"

He offered her the syringe filled with his blood.

"But it's just your blood, Conrad. It's not the vaccine. We don't know if it will work."

"It can't work if we don't try."

She took the syringe from him and ran the needle along her arm until she found the right spot. She hated getting shots, but her travels throughout the Third World long ago made them a regular part of her life. She had rolling veins but not deep, which meant she wouldn't have to penetrate far beneath the skin.

"Do you want me to do it?" Conrad asked impatiently.

"No, I've got it," she said and stuck herself with the needle.

Slowly she pushed Conrad's blood out of the syringe and into her vein. It felt warm and strange. Then she pulled the needle out, put her thumb on the puncture and held her arm up.

"So how in bloody hell do we get out of here?" she said, standing up. "Those swipe cards can't open every door in this facility."

"No, but I bet this will," Conrad said and held up a finger-Max Seavers's missing finger.