"That's for protection," Zeller protested. "This whole thing is bullshit. It will never stand up."
"Is that right?" Renner asked good-naturedly.
He pulled Zeller back off the table and then roughly sat him back down in the seat.
"Stay there."
He stepped over to Pierce and nodded toward his chest.
"Open up."
Pierce started to unbutton his shirt, revealing the battery pack and transmitter taped across his left ribs.
"How did it come through?" he asked.
"Perfect. Got every word."
"You motherfucker," Zeller said with a steel-hard hiss in his voice.
Pierce looked at him.
"Oh, so I'm the motherfucker for wearing a wire. You set me up for a murder and you get upset that I'm wired. Cody, you can go -"
"All right, all right, break it up," Renner said. "Both of you shut it down."
As if to accentuate the point, he tore the tape securing the audio surveillance equipment off Pierce's body with one hard tug. Pierce almost let out a scream but was able to reduce it to a "goddamn, that hurt!"
"Good. Sit down over there, Mr. Righteous. It will start to feel better in a minute."
He turned back to Zeller.
"Before I take you out of here, I'm going to read you your rights. So shut up and listen."
He reached into one of the inside pockets of his bomber jacket and pulled out a stack of cards. He shuffled through them, finding the scramble card Pierce had given him earlier.
He reached over and handed it to Pierce.
"You lead the way. Open the door."
Pierce took the card but didn't get up. His side was still burning. Renner found the rights card he was looking for and started reading it to Zeller.
"You have the right to -"
There was a loud metallic clack as the mantrap door's lock was sprung. The door swung open and Pierce saw the security guard from the front dais standing there. His eyes looked dulled and his hair was uncombed. He had one hand behind his back as though hiding something.
In his peripheral vision Pierce saw Renner tense. He dropped the card he was reading from and his hand started inside his jacket for his holster.
"It's my security guy," Pierce blurted out.
In the same moment he said it he saw the security man suddenly propelled into the lab by an unseen force from behind. The guard, a man named Rudolpho Gonsalves, crashed into the computer station and toppled over it, landing on the floor, with the monitor then falling onto his chest. Then the familiar image of Six-Eight followed through the door, the big man ducking as he crossed the threshold.
Billy Wentz stepped in behind him. He held a large black gun in his right hand and his eyes sharpened when he saw the three men on the other side of the lab.
"What's taking so -"
"Cops!" Zeller yelled. "He's a cop!"
Renner was already pulling his gun from his holster but Wentz had the advantage. With the utmost economy of movement, the little gangster pointed his weapon across the lab and started firing. He stepped forward as he fired, moving the barrel of the gun in a twoinch-wide back and forth arc. The sound was deafening.
Pierce didn't see it but he knew Renner had started returning fire. He heard the sound of gunfire to his right and instinctively dove to his left. He rolled and turned to see the detective going down, a spray of fat drops of blood hitting the wall behind him. He turned the other way to see Wentz still advancing. He was trapped. Wentz was squarely between him and the mantrap door.
"Lights!"
The lab dropped into darkness. Two flashes of light accompanied the last two shots from Wentz and then complete blackness set in. Pierce immediately rolled to his right again so he would not be in the same position Wentz had last remembered him to be. On his hands and knees he held perfectly still, trying to control his breathing. He listened for any sound that was not his own.
There was a low guttural sound to his right and behind him. It was either Renner or Zeller. Hurt. Pierce knew he could not call out to Renner, because it could help Wentz focus his next shot.
"Lights!"
It was Wentz but the voice reader was set to receive and identify only the top tier of the lab team. Wentz's voice would not do it.
"Lights!"
Still nothing.
"Six-Eight? There's gotta be a switch. Find the light switch."
There was no reply or sound of movement.
"Six-Eight?"
Nothing.
"Six-Eight, goddamnit!"
Again, no reply. Then Pierce heard a banging sound ahead of him and to the right. Wentz had walked into something. He judged by the sound that it was at least twenty feet away.
Wentz was probably near the mantrap, searching for his backup man or the light switch.
He knew it did not give him a lot of time. The light switch was not next to the mantrap door but it was only five or six feet away, by the electric control panel.
Pierce turned and crawled silently but quickly back toward the probe station. He remembered the gun Renner had found on Zeller.
When he got to the table he reached up and ran his hand along the top surface. His fingers dragged through something thick and wet and then they touched what he clearly identified as someone's nose and lips. At first he was repelled, then he reached back and let his fingers follow the face up, over the crown of the head until they found the knot of hair at the back. It was Zeller. And it appeared that he was dead.
After a moment's pause he continued the search, his hand finally clasping around the small pistol. He turned back in the direction of the mantrap entrance. As he made the maneuver his ankle clipped a steel trash can that was under the table and it went over in a loud clatter.
Pierce ducked and rolled as two more shots echoed through the lab and he saw two microsecond flashes of Wentz's face in the darkness. Pierce did not return fire, he was too busy moving out of Wentz's aim. He heard the distinct thwap thwap sound of the bullets meant for him hitting the copper sheeting on the outside wall of the laser lab at the end of the room.
Pierce tucked the gun into the pocket of his jeans so he could crawl more quickly and efficiently. He once more concentrated on calming himself and his breathing and then started crawling forward and to his left.
He reached out one hand until he touched the wall and gathered his bearings. He then crawled silently forward, using the wall as a guide. He passed the threshold to the wire room -he could tell by the concentrated smell of burned carbon -and moved to the next room down, the imaging lab.
He slowly stood up, his ears primed for the sound of any close movement. There was only silence and then a metallic snapping sound from the other side of the room. Pierce identified it as the sound of a bullet clip being ejected from a gun. He did not have a lot of experience with guns but the sound seemed to fit with what he was imagining in his head: Wentz reloading or checking the number of bullets he had left in his clip.
"Hey, Bright Boy," Wentz called out then, his voice splitting the darkness like lightning.
"It's just you and me now. Better get ready because I'm coming for you. And I'm gonna do more than make you put the lights back on."
Wentz cackled loudly in the darkness.
Pierce slowly turned the handle on the imaging lab door and opened it without a sound.
He stepped in and closed the door. He worked from memory. He took two steps toward the back of the room and then three to his right. He put his hand out and in another step touched the wall. With fingers spread wide on each hand he swept the wall -his hands making figure eight motions -until his left hand hit the hook on which hung the heat resonance goggles he had used during the presentation to Goddard that morning.
Pierce turned on the goggles, pulled the top piece over his head and adjusted the eyepieces. The room came up blue-black except for the yellow and red glow of the electron microscope's computer terminal and monitor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun. He looked down at it. It too showed blue in the vision field. He put a red finger through the guard and pulled it in close to the trigger.