Jack thumped the buzzer with his fist. Hitting it repeatedly and yelling at the door.
Finally, the door opened.
Jack recognized the man. He was one of the Midland police, tall and lanky, probably still in his twenties even though his neck and cheeks were covered with the acne of a teenager. He closed the door behind him and did his best to look impatient.
“What d’ya guys want?”
Jack backed away from the bars. “We’re getting hungry.”
“You just ate. What d’ya think this is? A hotel?” He walked closer, snorting from his own joke.
Lonetree waited until the young cop reached the far corner of the cell, then he yelled, “NOW!”
Jack turned his back and covered his ears. Lonetree punched the detonator. There was a flash of light, then a series of explosions. Jack’s ears stung from the concussion wave, even though his hands were clutched to the side of his head. Blue-grey smoke hung suspended in the cell and the air burned from the chemicals in the explosives.
Lonetree rushed past him, waving his hands to clear out the smoke. Most of the bars they had fixed with C-4 had shorn off cleanly and now lay on the floor. Two bars still hung in place, but a well placed kick from Lonetree sent them crashing to the ground.
Jack surged forward and followed Lonetree through the smoke. The young cop was on the ground, holding his ears and moaning. Blood covered his face.
Lonetree dragged the cop to his feet, deftly grabbing the gun from his holster. “Tsk, tsk. You should know better than to bring a weapon into a jail cell.” He turned to Jack “Thank God for small town cops.”
“Is he all right?” Jack asked waving his hand in front of the dazed man’s face.
“Only scrapes. No real injuries that I can tell.” He put the gun to the young man’s head just as the door leading to the police headquarters opened. “STOP RIGHT THERE. WE HAVE A HOSTAGE.”
Jack followed Lonetree out of the cell block into the exterior room. There were six police that they could see. The office space was set up without walls so there was no place for anyone to hide and the window shutters were pulled shut. Finally, luck seemed to be on their side.
In less than five minutes, they disarmed the officers and herded them into the still intact jail cells. Lonetree dragged the young cop around with him and barked at the others to follow in order to save their friend’s life. Jack checked the officers for weapons and removed their radios to make sure they couldn’t call for help.
With all the police in one cell, and the door closed behind them, Jack and Lonetree took a minute to catch their breaths.
Lonetree slapped Jack on the back. “You did good. Kind of a wild, huh?”
“Actually, yeah. It was a rush.”
“The looks on their faces…” Lonetree laughed.
“I wish we had on that on video.”
“If you ask nice maybe they’ll give you a copy.” Lonetree nodded up to the corner of the room. Jack looked up to see a camera mounted on the wall, the red light on.
“Great. How about we get the hell out of here?”
“Right.” Lonetree started searching through the desk nearest him. “Look for car keys.”
Jack turned and patted the papers on the desk. “I’ve been thinking about access to the cave. There has to be an easier way. There’s no way Huckley and the others are going in the way we did.”
“There’s another entrance. I’ve seen it from inside the cave. There’s an elevator going up a crude mineshaft. Using GPS, I figure the entrance is somewhere on Huckley’s property. That’s how we’ll go in. Even if they hear us coming they won’t be able to escape without running right into us. Find any keys?”
Jack raised his hand in the air and shook a plastic container full of keys. “I think this is what we’re looking for.”
Lonetree walked over and took the container. “Perfect. I’ll drive.”
SEVENTY-THREE
Sheriff Janney opened the basement door for Lauren. When she hesitated, he smiled and offered to go first. Lauren shook her head and stepped into the basement. The corridor looked the same as when she left. Both the morgue and elevator doors were jammed open. But now there was a gurney in the elevator. Lauren assumed it was the same one Dr. Mansfield and Scott Moran had been pushing. Faint noises came from the morgue at the end of the hallway.
“I’m going to see who that is,” Lauren whispered, pointing to the elevator. She hoped she could take a quick look, see that the body was actually one of the terminal patients from the third floor, and sneak back upstairs without Dr. Mansfield ever finding out about her suspicions. Janney nodded and followed closely behind her. Lauren stepped over the chair that held the doors open.
Lauren inched her way toward the cadaver’s head. The body bag zipped vertically so Lauren only had to unzip a few feet to expose the face.
She pulled slowly, noticing that her hands trembled as she did so. The stench from the rotting body wafted into her nostrils as soon as the bag’s seal was broken.
Under her breath she whispered, “What are you, back in med school? Afraid of a cadaver? Get a grip, Lauren.” With a final tug she pulled down the zipper to the body’s chest, pushed away the edges of the bag and stood back.
The body was in horrible condition. Dark sores had eaten deep into the flesh, especially across the girl’s chest. Clusters of raised bumps covered the neck and jowls, like massive spider bites that had been scratched until they bled. The cadaver’s face was swollen and blotched with crimson rashes that looked like burn wounds, making the girl’s features almost unrecognizable. Lauren stood with her back against the elevator wall. The type of pustules were the same. The rash. The discoloration. All the same.
But it wasn’t Felicia.
It could only mean one thing. This girl was another case of the same disease that killed Felicia. The disease was contagious and Dr. Mansfield was trying to keep it a secret. But why? What the hell did the old man think he was doing?
“What is it?” Janney asked from outside the elevator. “Is it your patient?”
Lauren was going to re-zip up the body bag, but it really didn’t matter now. The hospital would have to be quarantined until the pathogen was identified. If it was an airborne contagion they were already exposed anyway. She left the bag open, the girl’s face staring blankly at the elevator wall. “No, it’s someone else.”
“So there’s no problem.”
“No, there’s quite a large problem,” Lauren said, not ready to scare Janney with the details quite yet. She felt her confidence return to her. This was the type of situation she had been trained to deal with. Something that required an ordered medical response. First, she had to find out if there were other cases. The answer to that was down the hall in the morgue with Dr. Mansfield. “Come with me, Sheriff.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Janney said, falling into step behind her.
Lauren hoped the noises coming out of the morgue were enough to cover the sound of their footsteps as they marched down the corridor. With a deep breath, Lauren turned the corner and walked into the morgue.
There was a gurney in the center of the room. Judging from the outline visible under the white sheet, it held another cadaver, this one smaller than the one in the elevator. That’s Felecia, Lauren thought. It has to be. She tore he eyes away from the body and looked up at the man who had violated her trust. Dr. Mansfield was bent over one of the body drawers, helping Moran pull himself out. They both froze in place when she appeared.
“What you are you doing here?” Dr. Mansfield demanded.
“What am I doing here? Jesus! What are you doing?” She noticed his eyes dart behind her as Janney walked in. She was glad she had thought to get the sheriff before she came down. “What is he doing in there?” she said pointing to Scott Moran.