“Let’s try right.”
Cahil led the way to the door, eased it open, waited for the escaping air to dissipate, then slipped through. Here the walls were not made of Lexan but of concrete. Judging from its decayed state, Tanner assumed it was the original structure. Darkened lightbulbs hung from the ceiling.
They clicked on their flashlights. The passage before them was fifty feet long. Spaced along the left side were two doors.
Inside the first room they found half a dozen bunk beds and a washroom. Cahil opened a locker to reveal neatly folded clothes. Tanner picked up a Sidney Sheldon paperback from one of the bunks. It was written in Kanji.
“Looks like they left in a hurry.”
The second room was a small kitchen, its steel counters spotted with rust. Several cabinets contained canned food, loaves of bread, and bags of rice. Tanner poked the bread; it felt fresh. He opened the refrigerator and found it well-stocked.
“Briggs.”
Cahil was standing in front of a pantry door. He pointed at the floor. It took a moment for Tanner’s brain to register the brownish red rivulets for what they were. Heart pounding, he stepped back, raised the .45, and nodded. Cahil opened the door.
“Sweet Jesus,” he murmured.
The pile of bodies almost touched the ceiling. Arms and legs and heads lay jumbled together. The stench of blood and feces filled Briggs’s nostrils.
“There must be a dozen of them,” Cahil whispered.
From the pile there came a moan.
“Somebody’s alive!” Bear said.
Together they began pulling at bodies, checking for signs of life. While most of the corpses were riddled with bullet wounds, three of them, dressed in gray coveralls, had been shot once, execution-style, in the back of the head. At the eighth body, Tanner found a pulse. The man, a Japanese, was ghostly white, his chest barely rising. His shirt and pants were blood-soaked. They carried him out and laid him on the floor. Cahil ripped off his shirt.
There was a single bullet hole under his left nipple; they rolled him over and found the exit wound was just below his shoulder blade. Tanner found a dishcloth in a drawer and pressed it against the wound as Cahil pulled a roll of duct tape from his pack and bound the dressing.
“I don’t see anything else,” Cahil said. “Lucky boy.”
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but his heart’s strong. Breathing’s regular.”
The man’s eyes fluttered; he gripped Tanner’s hand. The man opened his mouth, but only a croak came out. Tanner said, “You’re safe. What happened here?”
“Dead… They’re all dead.”
What happened?”
“Have they… have they gone?”
“Who?” Tanner asked.
“Noboru. He was here. He… he…”
Tanner leaned closer. “Where is he?”
“In the work section.”
“Why did they do this?” Cahil asked.
In answer, the man feebly raised his arm and pointed to the ceiling. Strapped to one of the support beams was a black box. Cahil jumped onto a counter for a closer look. “Bomb,” he said. “Signal detonated. I don’t dare touch it. Briggs, if they’ve rigged more of these, this whole place will come down on itself.”
Tanner paused, thinking. “Okay, get him out of here.”
“But—”
“Take him and go. He’s our only witness.”
“You’ll get buried,” Bear said.
“I’ll run fast. Can you handle him?”
“Stubborn son of a… Yeah, I’ve got him.”
With Tanner on his heels, Cahil swung the man onto his shoulder, headed for the pressure door, and pushed through. “Target!” Cahil called.
He ducked, and Tanner raised the .45 just in time to see a man down the hall raising his own Ingram machine pistol. Tanner fired twice, and the man went down.
“Go, Bear!”
“See you up top.”
They separated at the T-turn, Cahil going left, Tanner ahead to the next door. Passing the dead man, Tanner noticed his gray coveralls. The three in the pantry had been Noboru’s.
Tanner burst through the door.
This corridor, like the others, was lined with Lexan. To his right was a sliding glass door. He clicked on his flashlight and slipped through.
To his left stood a Plexiglas-enclosed room. Opposite that, to his front, was a second. Clean rooms, he thought immediately. Between them ran an alleyway, ten feet wide and bordered by handrails. Set into the floor at its head was a hatch. Through it Tanner could hear the hum of machinery.
He shined his flashlight into the first clean room and saw a long, stainless steel worktable and a bank of cabinets. He was about to turn back when something caught his eye. Lying on the floor in the corner were three more bodies.
He checked the second room. This one contained several pieces of machinery, one of which looked like a precision lathe. Wired to its leg was what looked like a soda can. Tanner looked closer and realized what he was seeing: a MK 8 white phosphorous grenade. He scanned the rest of the room. He counted eight more grenades; with each burning at 5,000 degrees, they could turn this room — this whole level, for that matter — to molten rock in less than a minute.
Where’s Noboru?
From the open hatch came a metallic clang. Tanner froze. He checked the .45’s magazine: Five rounds left.
Walking on cat feet, he kneeled beside the hatch and peeked inside. A short ladder led downward. The humming sound was louder. He slipped feet first into the hatch and crept down.
The room was narrow, no wider than the alleyway above, and generators and transformers lined the walls. Near the back wall Tanner saw the glow of a lightbulb. Hunched beneath it was a figure. The squarish head was unmistakable: Noboru.
Tanner ducked behind the nearest transformer, crawled around a generator, and stopped. Noboru was twenty feet away, still hunched over, intent on his work. Tanner had a fair guess what that was.
Now what? Between them lay nothing but open floor. Could he get close enough before Noboru spotted him? He crawled around the generator, paused, then wriggled forward.
Fifteen feet to go.
Tanner would never know why, but at that moment Tange Noboru looked up. Their eyes met. Even as Tanner raised his .45, Noboru snatched his gun from the floor and ducked left. They fired simultaneously. Tanner’s shot struck the wall beside Noboru’s head. Something buzzed by Briggs’s ear and thunked into the generator.
Silence.
Tanner went still. Noboru would be doing the same, he knew, each waiting for the other to make a mistake. Patience, Briggs. Make him move. That Noboru hadn’t yet used the detonator suggested one of three things: either the devices were not ready; Noboru had no wish to die; or he wanted to first kill Tanner, up close and personal. Whichever it was, Briggs didn’t care. He still had time.
One minute turned into two. The generator hummed.
Tanner saw a shadow of movement against the far wall. He laid his face on the ground and saw a booted foot resting beside the generator’s leg. The foot shifted, paused, then slipped forward.
Tanner didn’t hesitate. He took aim and fired.
The .45 slug struck Noboru just below the ankle, blowing off his heel. As he screamed and toppled over, Tanner was up and running.
He found Noboru lying on the floor, groaning and clutching his ankle. Blood gushed from the stump. Tanner kicked his pistol away. Grimacing, Noboru pushed himself upright and kneeled on his good leg, swaying slightly.
“You are too late,” he said.
It was then Tanner noticed a loaf-sized package tucked against the generator. The charge was at least four pounds of plastic explosive. Whatever secret this place held, Takagi was making sure it died here. Lying beside the bomb was what looked like a transistor radio. On its face, in red letters, were two numerals: 26. As Tanner watched, the display clicked to 25.