The Devil_s Workshop

Chapter 46

Dexter had finished arming the Pale Horse Prion. It took him less than thirty minutes. He had checked his protein mixtures with the pH meter, and everything looked good. Now he glanced at Fannon Kincaid, who was leaning against the counter in the lab, his gray eyes studying Dexter.

"I've finished," he finally said, trying to get that all-seeing, terrifying laser gaze off of him. Fear had dried his mouth to a sticky paste.

Fannon moved over and looked at the three new metal bio-Containers that Dexter had prepared. They were labeled with his scribbled handwriting.

"This one targets African-Americans," Dexter explained, showing the container he had marked "Afr." with tape on top. "This one is Jews. I've targeted both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. I divided them into two vials." He looked hopefully at Fannon, wanting to please him, but got no reaction.

"There ain't no such thing as African-Americans," Fannon said ruefully, still looking at the first vial. "There's Niggers and there's Americans."

"You're right," Dexter said softly, eyeing the metal catheter sticking out of Fannon's pocket.

Then, like a hanging judge in a forties western, Fannon glowered at him and pronounced sentence. "You wanna take yer pants off now, Mr. DeMille?"

Dexter's face felt flushed. Simultaneously he felt cold sweat on his skin. He shook his head, but he couldn't make his mouth work.

"Randall, help Mr. DeMille drop his trousers," the new Moses said softly.

Cris and Stacy were outside Building 1666. Cris had stopped about a hundred yards from the first-floor entrance and carefully studied the terrain. He tried to figure out how he would get into this building if he were Kincaid, with a complement of men. From everything he'd heard, the silver-haired minister would do it with military precision. If Fannon went by the book, it meant there was a rear guard set up outside to protect the exit line. The trick was to locate the rear guards, define their positions, then shut them down.

"Let's go. What're we waiting for?" Stacy said, in a too-loud voice.

Cris put a finger to his lips and waited until she nodded. They stood stone-still for almost two minutes until the night insects started up again.

"Listen," he whispered, his mouth right in her ear, so close no sound could escape. "No crickets up ahead. Something that doesn't live here quieted them." Then he made a palm-down motion, indicating that she should lie flat.

She did as she was instructed.

He held up three fingers, indicating three minutes, she assumed, then he was gone, disappearing like an actor into the wings of a darkened theater.

All of a sudden, Stacy was cold and felt very alone. She tried to imagine Max in this building, which loomed tall, dark, and forbidding in front of her. She knew that inside, in the lower basement, Dexter and his team had designed terrible threats to mankind. Moreover, something Cris said was echoing in her conscience, but she would not allow herself to even suppose Max's role in any part of it. That he had any complicity in what went on inside the Devil's Workshop was too insane to even contemplate. Then the moon suddenly slipped behind a heavy bank of dark clouds and Stacy found herself surrounded in blackness.

Cris moved slowly around the perimeter of Building 1666, staying as far away as he could. He breathed a sigh of relief as the moon disappeared, giving him greater protection in the inky darkness. He was using his ears now as much as his eyes. Then he heard a clink. It was metal on stone, maybe a clip on an automatic rifle hitting concrete, or perhaps it was a pistol belt. He located a spot in the bushes, picking the enemy position by instinct and knowledge of how sound travels. He started toward the spot he had chosen. It was in the heavy bushes south of the front door. He was on his stomach now, more in the open than he liked, using the darkness of the moonless night, snaking across the wet grass instead of going through the bushes because he didn't want to make any sound. But moving over the grass was a calculated risk. The moon could reappear suddenly from behind the clouds and he would be caught out in the open, an easy target. As Cris wormed his way nearer, he also edged closer to the hedge that grew along the base of Building 1666. Then he lay still, his eyes and ears straining in the dark silence. Then, just as he was about to edge forward, he heard a man cough. It was a soft cough, but it startled him because the man was so close, only a few feet away.

Now he lay very still, breathing only through his mouth. After a moment, he edged a few inches closer until he finally could make out the vague outline of the man. He was lying in the bushes, his automatic weapon in his hands. The man was proned out, on his stomach, sighting down the barrel of his weapon. If these men were well trained and deployed properly, they would be in a V formation from the exit point if there were two men, or in a W if there were four. Assuming a V, that would put the second guard at a forty-five-degree angle to the exit, perpendicular to the first guard's line of fire. This positioning would catch a closing force between them without causing the rear guards to fire on each other.

Cris tried to picture the shape of the man; to imagine him from what little he could see, and how much space he took up in the darkness. Once Cris thought he could see the shape of him, he tried to ascertain if the man was alone, or if there was another shape lying unobserved in the dirt beyond. It was possible that they had deployed incorrectly. He didn't take anything for granted. After searching the black shadows for several minutes, he detected no others.

Stacy was moving, trying to stay low and out of sight. She had decided on impulse to find the lab. She needed to see it with her own eyes. If Max had worked there she would know it. She would see something, some evidence. She needed to know. As Stacy moved closer she visualized the layout of the lobby of Building 1666. She had something close to a photographic memory, which had served her well all through college and grad school. She closed her eyes and tried to reconstruct the index board she had looked at in the lobby days before. She could easily see the listing for the primate lab she had eventually chosen. It was SB-16, in the sub-basement, and above it was…? She saw a faint shadow in her memory. There were several labs down there, Biochemistry and something else. But, what? And then she knew. It was the neurotransmitter lab. She could see it now in her memory, plain as if she were looking right at it. Max's early specialty had been neurotransmission. He had written some groundbreaking papers on Alzheimer's and the use of neurotransmitters to stimulate failing memory. He had helped with the experiments that proved if you implant certain reconstructed DNA material in the brain, it stimulates the manufacture of acetylcholine, which in many cases retards memory loss.

She also knew that in order to test neurotransmission therapy on rats or chimps, it was necessary to have a full lab setup. The neurotransmitter lab would be a Class A facility, with a complete chemical closet. It was a good bet that was where Dexter's lab would be.

She closed her eyes again and tried to read the lab number off the memory board in her mind. She couldn't see it, but she had the strong impression that it was in the basement. So, she decided she would gamble and try going downstairs. She slowly crept along in the dark, trying not to step on leaves or rustle dry branches, and then she was at the edge of the building.

There was a door. It was slightly ajar, and the light was off inside the stairwell. She moved it slowly open and stepped onto the darkened landing. She looked up and saw that a light bulb had been removed above the inside of the doorway. She began to move down the concrete steps, her heart beating wildly as she descended. What the hell am I doing? she thought, as she crept toward the light at the foot of the stairs. When she got to the basement, she stopped. She thought she could hear voices, and ducked back into the stairwell. She listened for several seconds in silence. Then she heard men speaking again. She was sure she had found where Fannon and Dexter had gone, but she was trapped. If she waited where she was, they would find her when they left. The building went down one more floor to the sub-basement, where the primate lab was located. They would be going up when they exited, so she crept down the last flight of stairs to the small landing at the foot of the staircase. She pressed her back against the cold concrete and waited.

Cris had decided to disable the lookout. He got a good lungful of air, and with his right knee and left foot under him, he dug up a handful of dirt. Then, without giving himself any time for complicated moral debate, he sprang forward and landed on the man's back, simultaneously locking his right forearm across the guard's throat and slamming a handful of dirt into his open mouth just before he could cry out. Cris could feel the guard's teeth for an instant against his palm. Then Cris locked his left hand on his right forearm and squeezed hard with all his strength. He could feel the guard trembling and convulsing under him as the blood and oxygen were cut from his brain. The man struggled fiercely, and Cris bore down harder. No sound came out of the man's mud-packed mouth. His hands dropped the weapon and were now feebly clawing at his throat, trying to pry Cris's stranglehold loose. In less than twenty seconds, the guard was unconscious. Cris lay on top of him for thirty seconds to make sure there was no movement, wondering if the man was dead. Then he carefully untangled the sling from the weapon that was still wrapped around the guard's left forearm. He pulled the gun free. He instantly could recognize it by feel… a fully automatic Uzi assault rifle.

"Dale, you okay?" he heard another man whisper in the darkness.

"Yeah," Cris whispered, to disguise his voice. He placed two fingers on the carotid artery of the man beneath him. He could feel nothing.

Cris shook his head, then put the murderous act behind him. It was the way he'd been taught to do it in Special Forces Recon.

He moved away from the body with the newly acquired Uzi in his hand. The grip plate on the barrel was still warm with the heat from the dead man's hand. Cris estimated a spot forty-five degrees from the center point of the original line of fire. If guards were in either a V or W formation, that should be where the man who had just whispered would be hiding. Cris moved closer

"That you, Dale?" the man called out from almost the exact place in the bushes Cris had targeted.

"Please… oh God, oh God, don't stick that in me," Dexter pleaded. He was down to his underwear and shirt, seated in a chair in the lab, as Fannon plugged his homemade lie detector into a wall socket. Kincaid then adjusted the rheostat.

"Zero," he said, matter-of-factly. "Gotta start at zero, or it won't go in." Then he moved to Dexter DeMille. "Get 'em off, bub." Fannon pointed to DeMille's boxer shorts.

"Please, please, I'll do anything," Dexter whined.

Then there was a short burst of machine-gun fire outside, followed by another burst, which had a distinctly different pitch.

"Two weapons," Fannon said, reading the gun reports accurately. "Get everything loaded. We're pulling out," he ordered.

Randall Rader gathered up the three Prion vials, stuffed them into the foam-rubber carrying case, then jammed it into his backpack and headed to the door of the lab. "Get yer pants on," Fannon yelled.

Dexter jumped up and tried to get into his trousers. He was hopping around on one foot. He'd been saved the horrible experience of the prostate-cooking polygraph, but now with machine-gun fire outside he didn't know which to fear more.

"Let's go!" Fannon shouted.

Dexter got his pants on and was carrying his shoes as they pulled him out of the lab, running into the hall.

Outside the corridor, the three guards, including R. V. and the Texas Madman, were locked and loaded. They led the way. Fannon and Dexter followed, with Randall Rader bringing up the rear. They opened the door into the staircase and thundered up the metal stairs. None of them saw Stacy hiding down below.

Fannon held Dexter by the back of his shirt on the landing just inside the building. With his automatic pistol pressed against the scientist's shoulder blades, he whispered coarsely, "You go where I push, or I'm gonna drop yer sorry ass and move right over ya."

"Okay," Dexter squeaked.

Fannon pushed him out into the night, running behind him, using Dexter for a shield.

They ran across the grass to the right side of the building. Suddenly, a jeep came roaring up the street and turned into the yard. Inside the vehicle were two Torn Victor commandos.

Randall Rader and the Texas Madman opened up as soon as the jeep turned. Their deadly barrage of nine-millimeter automatic-weapon fire tore the commandos right out of their seats. The men flew backward, dead as they hit the ground. The last rounds sparked loudly against the jeep's metal, ricocheting with a rich whining tone as bullets tore off pieces of the still-moving vehicle.

The empty jeep, its headlights boring holes into the darkness, rattled on for almost twenty yards before it crashed into the monument sign announcing Science Building 1666, USAMRIID.

"Take the jeep!" Fannon screamed.

They all ran toward the vehicle. Then another machine gun ripped the darkness. Flame was shooting out of its barrel from about forty yards away.

It was Cris Cunningham, lying prone behind a low wall. He hit one member of the Christian Choir, who went down where he stood. The Texas Madman took the second burst. He stumbled as ten rounds blew his stomach wide open. He took two more uncertain steps, then fell into the back seat of the jeep. Robert Vail jumped in, and after one look, threw the Madman out onto the ground. Fannon got behind the wheel, dragging Dexter along with him and pushing him into the back seat with R. V. Randall Rader turned to where Cris was lying behind the wall and laid down a barrage of withering fireBullets chipped off the low concrete-and-brick; masonry dust made a fan of unseen debris in the darkness.

Then the jeep was going, moving fast, the wheels throwing huge chunks of wet grass out behind it. Cris stood up and fired as it roared away. Fannon turned off the headlights, and then Cris was shooting only at the retreating sound. He didn't hear any of his rounds hit metal.

Stacy heard the gunfire and prayed that Cris was all right. She was moving up the one flight of stairs from the lower basement into the basement hallway. She found the lab where they had been working. The light was still on, the door open. She moved into the lab just as the sound of gunfire outside stopped. She glanced quickly around and saw the workbench. She moved over to it and looked down at the papers that Dexter had left behind. They were DNA charts, but she didn't have time to read them. Then she saw something that froze her heart. It was right in front of her on the glass beakers that contained the acids and bases used to alter pH factors. She reached out and picked up one of the beakers. The label was in Max's neat handwriting. It read: "A. C. I2-i6:C." She looked at the other beakers and saw that his handwriting was on all of them.

Max had worked in this lab. Worked on DNA samples, using acidosis to do what? Was Max helping Dexter target these Prions? she wondered. It was impossible for her to believe he had been working here in the basement of the Devil's Workshop.

Then she heard shouting out front, and more machine-gun fire. She ran up the stairs and out of the building.

She was standing outside in the moonless night wondering which way to run. She heard a jeep pull down the road and make a sharp turn, its tortured tires squealing on the pavement.

Cris had turned and gone back to where he had left Stacy. When he arrived, she wasn't there. "Stacy!" he called out.

"Here," she yelled from across the quad.

"Let's go!" he shouted.

Then the two of them started running out the way they'd come in, heading back toward the field and the narrow trail in the woods.

"What happened?" She was panting as she ran.

"Don't talk." And he moved even faster.

She could barely keep up with him. They were heading across the open field toward the hills when the moon suddenly reappeared, lighting their escape.

A siren went off behind them at the Fort. Then a bank of lights lit up the common area near Building 1666, but they were almost into the hills unseen and running for all they were worth.

They finally got to the temporary safety of the woods. Cris turned and looked back. Now they could see the headlights of twenty or so vehicles roaring on the campus streets a half mile away, converging on Building 1666.

"What happened? I was afraid you'd been shot," she said.

"I told you to stay put," he said, out of breath and angry.

"I heard shooting," she repeated.

He shook his head in dismay, then turned his attention to their escape route. "We can't stay here," he said. "In a few minutes they're going to find the guys I killed."

"You killed people?"

"Yeah, I think so," he croaked bitterly. "We've gotta get moving. This isn't safe. If those Fort commandos went to the same ground-ops school I did, they'll pick up our footprints in the wet grass. They'll make us in no time."

"There's a road I was on when I was here before. It runs along the fence on the east side of the property. I saw it when they brought me out to SATCOM Battalion HQ," she said.

"Let's go, show me," he said.

She took the lead and headed off around the side of the wooded hillside. They stayed in the trees, moving low and fast.

When Cris looked at the tracks where the ghostly four-car apparition had been an hour before, he was surprised to see that the White Train was gone.

They ran out from the trees, across the open field, in the direction of the fence on the eastern perimeter of the Fort that Stacy had mentioned. From behind them they heard the distant sound of a helicopter.

"Back into the trees," he yelled as he spun, pulling Stacy with him.

From the west, two Bell Jet Ranger gunships appeared, flying low over the moonlit meadow, their downdrafts swirling the long grass under them as they streaked toward the intruders. Simultaneously, both belly lights snapped on, and Cris and Stacy were quickly caught in a searing white light. The safety of the tree line was still fifty yards away.

"You're under arrest," a bullhorn in the lead chopper announced. "Stop running or you will be shot." And then, to make the point, one of the gunships let loose a stream of tracer rounds that tore up the grass ten feet from them, starting a small fire that quickly went out. "On your stomachs!" the bullhorn demanded.

Cris and Stacy stood motionless, their faces turned up to the blinding light.

One of the gunships was landing, and Cris knew escape was now hopeless. He nodded at Stacy, and they did as instructed.

Torn Victor commandos jumped out of the side door of the landing gunship and raced across the grass to Stacy and Cris, who were facedown in the dirt. The other hovering chopper was now directly over them. Their clothes rippled violently in the strong downdraft of the giant rotor. Then they could feel hands roughly grabbing and cuffing them. They were yanked to their feet, dragged to the idling gunship, and shoved through the door. The engine roared as the chopper lifted and they were whisked away into the night.