"No thanks."
Tate shoved the pistol into his waistband at the small of his back and began replacing the gardening tools he'd taken from the locker He opened the one next to it and removed a safari hat, black police-issue gloves, and a web utility belt, already rigged with a holstered pistol, a knife, a flashlight, a coil of rope, and a machete. He tugged a knapsack out of the locker, checked its contents, then slung it over his shoulder. He shoved a fat cigar in his mouth, already lighting it with a match cupped in his other hand. He snorted out blue smoke, tossed the spent match over his shoulder, and spoke around the cigar: "Ready?"
Julia and Stephen looked at each other.
Tate leaped to the ground. He approached what appeared to be a solid wall of vines, branches, and leaves at the front of the truck. In one fluid motion he drew the machete and cleaved a long vertical line in the wall. He pushed himself into this opening, as though through a curtain, and disappeared.
eighty-eight
Descending the stairs to the underground complex, Karl Litt called to Gregor on his handheld. When he reached the anteroom at the bottom, his security chief finally answered.
"Where are you?" Litt demanded. He put his face in front of the thermal reader, and the heavy door serving the primary corridor unlocked.
"Inspecting the perimeter. What's up?"
"I had an interesting conversation with Atropos . . . one of them." Litt paused, leaning against a curving wall of rusted, corrugated metal. Ahead, the corridor came to a T: left to the laboratories and infirmary, right to the living quarters.
Gregor said nothing.
Litt said, "Parker's brother and Matheson, Gregor? Did you forget to tell me?"
After a moment, Gregor said, "Atropos was on it."
"That's not the point. How did they track Parker here? Who else knows?" He closed his eyes.
Gregor's incompetence had reached the pinnacle. Sixty years ago, when Gregor had failed to show an aptitude for science, Litt had convinced Kendrick to find another use for him. Gregor went away, then returned with military and security training. After Litt left Elk Mountain, he sent for Gregor, who'd come without hesitation. Even then, Litt had known Gregor's lack of intellectual acuity was not limited to science but was systemic to the man himself. Still, he was diligent and loyal; more important, he was a friend. Over the years he'd demonstrated a talent for keeping the compound secure and secret— not an easy task considering its constant need for supplies and human subjects, coupled with Kendrick's determination to find Litt.
Now, however, Gregor's efficiency had evaporated: the polygraph had failed to detect Despesorio Vero's intentions; Gregor's insistence on hiring Atropos had not resulted in Despesorio's quick capture or recovery of the evidence he had smuggled out of the compound; and now he'd allowed outsiders to find them. More than once lately, Litt had wondered if these slips were not so accidental. Perhaps, like Despesorio, Gregor had become disenchanted with life on the compound. Could Gregor be concerned that his role there would diminish with Ebola Kugel's successful launch? He should know Litt would always need security, as long as it was good security.
"Karl, I've got the situation under control."
"You do?" He shouldered himself off the wall and continued walking. "Do you know how they found us? Do you know who helped them? Who they've talk to about it? I don't think you have the situation under control! Find them. Find out what they know. I shouldn't have to tell you that." He waited for a response.
Gregor said nothing.
Litt dropped his handheld into a hip pocket and walked away, his anger growing with each strike of his heel on the dirty concrete of the corridors. By the time he opened Allen Parker's cell, he was ready to pummel the prisoner's face into a bloody mess. He stopped short.
Parker lay face up on his cot, his mouth agape, thick saliva oozing out. His head rolled back and forth. His hands crawled like nervous spiders over his torso, clenching at his chest, then his stomach, side, returning to his chest. A cardiac monitor had been wheeled in. It plotted the beats of Parker's lethargic heart.
"Bradycardia," a voice said.
Litt jumped. In his fury, he had not noticed the mousy Dr. Rankin standing on the other side of the room.
"His heart's beating too slowly," Rankin said. He was wearing a green surgical gown, tied at the waist, and a matching cap, which had hiked up high on his head and roosted there like a mascot. As he spoke, he poked a syringe through a medicine ampoule's rubber stopper and withdrew a careful measure of clear liquid. He turned to a wheeled cart of instruments, set down the bottle, and held up the syringe to expunge it of air. "He's developed dyspnea. BP's down to 70/50. This atropine should take care of—"
Litt rammed a bony shoulder into Rankin's back. The doctor tumbled into the cart, spilling its contents to the floor. He hit his head on the wall and sat down hard.
"Are you mad?" Rankin said, more shocked than angry.
"In fact, Doctor," Litt said, leaning over Allen, one knee on the cot, "I am extremely mad." He leaned over Allen. "How did they know? Who told you to come? Where is the—"
"Do you have film on him?" Speaking to Dr. Rankin now. "Where is his film?"
Rising, rubbing his head, the physician pointed at a large envelope clipped to the cart.
Litt removed a thin sheaf of X-rays and held the first one up to the light. He dropped it and examined the next, then the next.
"There," he said, pointing. It was a small, crisp oval of bright white among cloudy gray shapes. "In his upper intestines." He dropped the X-rays. "Ten-to-one it's a tracking device." He bent and picked up a scalpel off the floor.
He grabbed a handful of Allen's jumpsuit at the navel and slashed at it. He pushed his fingers into the tear and ripped open the material, exposing Allen's stomach. He positioned the scalpel just below the belly button.
Hands gripped his shoulders and yanked him back. He spun to face Rankin.
"The man is almost dead. Be . . . civil, please!"
Litt's wrath surged over the physician like ink. "Do not interrupt me! Ever!" He lashed out.
Rankin stood before him, vibrating like a struck piano chord, eyes wide behind prescription glasses that reflected back the alien orbs of Litt's own black lenses. His mouth froze in the form of a perfect O.
Warmth over his skin caused Litt to peer down. The hand holding the scalpel was half hidden by a fold in the doctor's surgical gown. Blood formed a scarlet glove up to his wrist and poured from the bottom of his hand to the tiled floor, the first great globule landing as he watched. He had plunged the scalpel under the man's sternum, upward to his heart.
A squeal, nearly inaudible at first, issued from the little circle of mouth, rising in volume and pitch as Litt studied a magnified tear quivering on one of the doctor's bottom lids. He pushed the scalpel deeper. The tear fell. The squeal stopped. Litt released his grip, and the body crumpled to the floor. He stepped back, holding his dripping hand away from his side. His eyes rose to the body on the cot. Taking Rankin's life had drained much of the emotional frenzy out of him. What did it matter if the tracking device remained where it was? Parker's brother and the woman had already followed it here. The damage was done.
He stepped into the hall. No one was in sight. He reentered the room and straddled the corpse, placing his feet wide to avoid the blood. He bent at the hips and knees; an observer would have thought Litt intended to kiss the dead man. Instead, he paused inches from the face. He cocked his sunglasses up to examine the now waxen visage.
The right side of Rankin's glasses had skewed upward in the fall, leaving his right eye naked. It was dark brown and nearly lashless, and Litt marveled at its glazed quality, as if dulled by the dirty thumbprint of Death. Then he realized that the glazed eyes of the dead—endowed by poets with wisdom and otherworldly sorrow—were caused by dryness, nothing more. The sparkle they lacked was moisture, not the essence of life.