The Solomon Effect

74

Tobie thrust open the gray door and fell into a hot musty room with exposed I-beams and pipes and a massive rectangular steel box that filled the dusty space with a loud roar. The HVAC unit stood on a concrete pad that raised it some ten to twelve inches off the floor. Crouched beside it, a lean man with short curly hair and wire-framed glasses was working a pry bar beneath one edge of the heavy sheet metal that formed the unit’s locked hatch. In honor of Halloween, he was dressed in a black wetsuit. A small fluorescent-yellow SCUBA tank known as a pony bottle rested on the edge of the concrete pad beside him.

When the heavy door slammed shut behind her, the man-Walker?-swung around, the pry bar still gripped in his fist. “Who the hell are-”

She kicked the pry bar out of his hand, the iron rod spinning across the room to hit an exposed pipe with a clatter.

Walker might be small and wiry, but a lifetime of racquetball and sailing had made him lithe and strong. Surging up, he snatched the metal pony bottle from the concrete plinth and swung it at her head.

She ducked, but the momentum of his swing carried Walker on around. Before he could catch his balance, he smacked the pony bottle into one of the exposed I-beams. The impact sheared off the bottle’s valve and knocked the container from his hands. It hit the concrete pad under the HVAC unit with a sudden release of deadly contaminated air that sounded like an explosion.

With a whoosh, the bottle took off like a rocket, a missile driven by six cubic feet of weaponized DP3 under 3,000 pounds of pressure. It clattered against a pipe, ricocheted off another I-beam. Walker hit the floor, his arms coming up to protect his head. Tobie dove behind the HVAC and dug frantically in her shoulder bag for the Beretta.

The empty pony bottle whacked against the far wall with a hollow clang and tumbled to the floor beside the pry bar. Walker scrambled toward it, fingers groping toward the iron rod. Tobie’s fist closed around the pistol’s barrel. Yanking the gun from her bag, she slammed the handle into Walker’s temple.

He went down and stayed down.

She was breathing hard, hideously conscious that with every breath she drew a noxious cloud of death into her lungs. A thump jerked her gaze to the door. The handle was turning.

“Shit.” Stumbling over Walker’s prostrate body, she leaped for the door and threw her weight against it.

From the far side of the panel came Jax’s shout, “October?”

“Don’t come in here!” she screamed, sliding down to her haunches with her back pressed against the door. Half sobbing, she dug her cell phone out of her pocket and punched in 911 with shaking fingers.

“Hello? This is Ensign October Guinness. I have an emergency situation involving a biological hazard at the Miami Intercontinental.”