A new beep joined the cacophony of security room alarms. Gunther knew that sound—the radar system.
“And we’ve got another problem. One aircraft inbound. ETA… five minutes.”
“GO AWAY,” JIAN said in a childlike voice.
Erika didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she was out of time.
Jian backed up until she hit the wall. Nowhere to go. Erika held out her left hand, beckoning for the cartridge. Jian threw herself facedown on the tile floor, her body covering the cartridge as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Erika ran to her, grabbed the bigger woman’s shoulder and yanked hard, trying to roll her over.
“Jian, give it to me!” She kept pulling without effect—the woman wouldn’t budge. The axe point would punch through the back of her skull like an eggshell, but Erika sure as hell wasn’t going to kill the woman.
She straddled Jian’s legs, then reached out with her right hand, grabbed a handful of thick black hair and yanked. Jian’s head snapped back and she howled in pain. Erika slid the axe head past Jian’s throat, then grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled cold wood against warm flesh.
Jian started to choke. She’d have to let go of the backup drive to grab at the axe, then Erika could smash the drive and end all this bullshit. Erika pulled harder, steadily increasing pressure on Jian’s fat neck, but the woman just wouldn’t let go. “Geef me die cartridge, gestoord wijf!”
Jian started thrashing from side to side, sputtering out hoarse choking noises, but held the drive tight.
COLDING SPRINTED INTO the bioinformatics lab to see a bizarre sight: a snarling, skinny, forty-five-year-old woman using a fire axe to choke a 250-pound Chinese lady wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Two middle-aged scientists going at it like a couple of prison inmates during a race riot.
He moved in fast, not slowing down, lowering the gun even as he closed the distance, a flash-thought of wondering where to put it because he didn’t have a holster and he wasn’t going to fire on an old woman and if he did the bullet might hit Jian. Erika looked up just as Colding grabbed her left shoulder and yanked. The move caught Erika off guard. Her left hand slid off the handle and she fell back, her right still clutching the axe halfway up the shaft. Jian let out a hissing, painful cough.
Colding held the Beretta awkwardly at his right side, more of a hindrance than a weapon. Erika rolled to her ass and saw the gun. Her eyes widened in instant recognition, instant panic, and she even shook her head a little as if to say no, no that’s not supposed to happen.
“Doctor Hoel! Drop that—”
But that was all he got out before she panicked and swung the axe one-handed with her right arm. The swing was slow, a little clumsy, but he hadn’t expected such a snap reaction. The blade’s top edge sliced through his down parka. Small white feathers flew into the air. A stinging pain streaked from his left shoulder to his sternum.
The axe’s weight and momentum actually turned Erika, still sitting on her ass, pulling her right arm around and stretching her forward like she was reaching out to pick something off the ground. The axe blade dug into the linoleum floor with a chonk.
Colding didn’t think, he just moved, taking one step forward and snap-kicking Erika Hoel in the ribs. He felt and heard something crack. She screamed a strange, sharp scream that cut off almost instantly. The kick’s momentum flipped her on her back. The axe remained embedded in the tile floor, handle sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle like some cheap prop from a horror flick.
Pain still stinging his chest, Colding stepped forward and swung the Beretta, aiming for the bridge of Erika’s nose. Sanity kicked in at the last second. He pulled back, fighting his own momentum until the top of the Beretta barrel touched Erika’s pain-scrunched face with all the force of a mother’s goodnight kiss.
Erika Hoel wasn’t going anywhere. She tried to move, but the obvious agony of broken ribs kept her fixed to the floor. Colding shook his head, shook away the rage. He already felt horrible about hurting her that bad, but the woman had hit him with an axe, for fuck’s sake. Damn, did this hurt. How bad was he cut?
A hoarse, guttural cough pulled his attention away from Erika.
“Jian, are you okay?”
She paused for a moment, then looked up, her eyes barely visible through the mop of black hair. She scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, almost knocking him over. She clutched him tight. Silent sobs suddenly racked her body.
“I’m… okay, Mister… Colding. She… she choked me so hard.”
Colding kept his left hand down and away from her. The pain seemed to radiate, oddly making his left elbow and right shoulder ache although neither had been touched. He felt his shirt clinging wetly to his skin. He patted Jian gently with his right hand, which was still holding the gun. “Just calm down. You need to let go now, I have to take care of this.”
Jian gave him one more squeeze, making his cut scream louder. She let him go and snatched up the thing she’d clutched tight even while Erika had choked her.
“What is that?”
“Petabyte drive,” Jian said, her voice a bit more calm. “We have succeeded.”
Colding didn’t have time to ask what she meant before his earpiece crackled with Gunther’s excited voice.
“Boss, great work, but that bogey is almost here.”
Who was it? Mercenaries hired by a competitor? No, his gut told him it had to be Longworth’s people. “How long till it lands?”
“Less than three minutes.”
“Okay, listen closely. That will probably be U.S. Special Forces, maybe Canadian, but either way armed to the teeth. Gather up Rhumkorrf and Tim and get them to the front airlock, leave them with Andy. Then you run the perimeter and see if you can find Brady. I want all of our people calm and visible, with weapons holstered, you got that?”
“Weapons holstered, understood.”
“Good. If this is an assault team, we cannot win, and I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
“Yes sir, I’m on it.”
Andy Crosthwaite entered the bioinformatics lab. The thick stench of burning fuel oozed off him, as did a smell Colding had prayed he’d never encounter again—the smell of burning human flesh.
Greasy streaks covered Andy’s face, hands and jacket sleeves. He took one look at the scene, then strode forward and leveled his sidearm at the prone Erika Hoel. “You’re dead, cunt.”
“Goddamit, Andy,” Colding said. “You left your post again?”
“Drop the left your post bullshit, Colding. This isn’t a fucking John Wayne movie. You going to finish this bitch or what?”
“We’re not going to finish anyone! It’s Erika, for God’s sake.”
“I know who she is. She’s a backstabbing twat that worked side by side with us for two fucking years, then just went ape-shit and killed Brady.”
Colding’s heart dropped. “Brady’s dead?”
Andy nodded. His upper lip snarled when he spoke. “I pulled his body out of the hangar. He burned alive.” Andy glared down at Erika. “So who’s paying you, whore? Monsanto? Genetron? How much did you get for killing a man that guarded your ass every day for two years?”
Erika’s eyes squinted shut, and not just from the pain. Colding could see the guilt wash over her. She’d never intended to kill anyone.
Andy cocked his Beretta, knelt down and put the end of it against Erika’s forehead. Her eyes squeezed tighter.