When they reached the correct hallway, they proceeded until they were four doors down from Room 3C.
Sims signaled one of his men to approach the door of 3C to determine if the intruder was still inside. The man moved down the corridor in a crouch and knelt by the door. After a moment, he held up his thumb and nodded.
Matt heard a noise just outside the office. It was faint, nothing more than a brush of cloth, but he knew what it meant.
It was okay. He was ready.
Sims and the third man with him joined the scout at the door. Sims motioned for the others to get ready, then he grabbed the knob and threw the door open.
“Down on the floor! Down on the floor!” he yelled as he and his men rushed in.
The intruder was there, but not on the floor. He was sitting on the desk, a gas mask covering his face.
In a distorted voice, he said, “Sorry to disappoint, but you’re a little late.”
Sims took another step forward. “On the fl—”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Matt said, “but you’re a little late.”
The one in charge took an angry step toward the desk. “On the fl—”
Matt pushed remote button number one.
The floor rocked as the explosives ripped apart the elevator shaft. The armed men staggered and looked back at the doorway as if they could see what had happened.
As they were turning back, Matt tossed the final plastic device on the floor at their feet, and pushed remote button number two.
There was no blast this time, no rocking floor, only the hiss of sarin gas releasing from the device. Throughout the facility, the other plastic boxes would be doing the same thing.
“On the floor, now!” the leader commanded.
Matt didn’t move.
“I said…on…the floor.”
All three men began to blink as the odorless gas reached them. One started coughing, and then another, and then the last. Guns were quickly forgotten as the men dropped to their knees.
Matt rose and stepped over to the leader.
“How does it feel? Dying?”
“Go to…” The man coughed. “Hell.”
“Maybe. You never know. You all, on the other hand, I think your tickets are punched.”
He waited until the leader fell all the way to the floor before searching the guy’s pockets and finding his ID badge.
“Let’s see, Mr.…” He looked at the badge. “Sims, Special Operations. Very nice. I’ll bet that gives you all kinds of interesting clearance.”
Matt picked up the man’s rifle and rose to his feet.
“Thank you, Mr. Sims. You’ve been a big help.”
He headed for the door.
Ash tilted the sat phone so he could look at the displayed map without snow falling on the screen.
“Should be right in front of us about a quarter mile,” he said.
If Project Eden’s base was anything like the one he and Chloe had broken into in Oregon, there would be a large, warehouse-type building at ground level. But the only thing in front of them at the moment was flat farmland covered in a light layer of snow.
“She didn’t guarantee it was accurate,” Chloe reminded him.
He huffed out a cloud of vapor and frowned. “We’ll drive on another mile or two. Maybe we can spot it.”
As he turned toward the car, Chloe said, “Uh, Ash. You think that might be it?”
He looked back around. About a quarter mile past the coordinates’ location, the red glow of flames illuminated the clouds.
“That wasn’t there a moment ago,” he said.
“It just shot up,” she said.
“Matt.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Let’s go,” Ash said, already heading toward the car.
Wicks had just passed level two when the metal staircase began to shake so violently, he had to hang on with both arms to keep from falling off.
His friend had apparently decided there was no longer any time to wait.
As soon as the shaking decreased to a gentle tremor, Wicks started up again, worried that if there were a second blast, the stairs wouldn’t hold. When he opened the door on the warehouse level, he was greeted by a wall of hot air radiating from a growing fire toward the center.
Toward the elevators.
Thank God he hadn’t been able to take them. He likely would have been dead by now.
The warehouse supplies were feeding the blaze, creating a fire too big for the overhead sprinklers to tame.
The main exit was on the other side of the flames, so his only choice was to use the auxiliary exit again. He’d have to use his own card to open it this time, which meant that if the computer databases survived, there would be a record of him leaving the building long before anyone else had a chance to escape. His only alternative would be to stay. Not an attractive option.
He swiped his card in front of the reader and rushed into the tunnel.
31
The explosion knocked Principal Director Perez to the floor. Claudia was only able to maintain her feet because she fell into his desk and held on tight.
As soon as he could, Perez shoved himself up.
“Are you okay?” Claudia asked.
“I’m fine,” he growled.
“Your head,” she said, touching a spot on her own forehead. “It’s bleeding.”
He touched his head and felt the cut that was spilling out blood. “It’s nothing. Get security. I want to know how the hell that happened! I thought someone was taking care of it.”
Claudia picked up the phone, but instead of punching in a number, she looked at Perez. “It’s dead.”
“Dammit. Can we get them on video?”
“Let me try.” She circled the desk to his computer. It still seemed to be working, but after several seconds, she shook her head. “They’re not answering.”
“Can we at least find out if there are any cameras out there still working so we can see how extensive the damage is?”
“Should be able to.”
It took nearly a minute before the center screen came on. The feed was from a camera in one of the hallways. No obvious damage, but several people were lying on the ground.
“Is this close to the explosion?” Perez asked.
“I don’t know. The system’s only giving me camera numbers, not locations.”
“Are there any others?”
“Hold on.”
The next feed came up thirty seconds later, an empty conference room.
“That doesn’t tell us anything.”
“I’m sorry. I told you all the labels are missing. I think the blast did something to the system.”
“Keep going.”
A new camera showed a wider hallway, lit only by two emergency lights spread far apart. More bodies on the ground.
“I recognize this,” Claudia said. “It’s one of the hallways leading to the elevator.”
The blast concussion must have been intense enough to knock everyone out.
“Is that someone?” he asked. Something was moving in the shadows at the far end.
“I can’t tell. Could be a camera glitch.”
She switched to the next feed.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
The image was of a common area. Like the corridor they’d seen first, there was no damage but there were bodies. Lots of bodies.
“This is near the barracks,” he said.
That was nowhere near the elevators, and he was sure the blast could not have done that to everyone. Were they being attacked by a whole squad?
“Is there an escape exit in here?” he asked.
While most of the Project Eden bases were the same, a few details changed from location to location — an escape exit in the director’s suite being one of them. Perez had been so busy since he’d taken over as principal director, he hadn’t had time to worry about such things.