She fired the submachine gun. Pieces of metal and wood spun through the air as bullets cut a jagged hole through the left edge of the door. As Mother Blessing snapped the spare clip into her weapon, Hollis shoved his hand through the hole and pulled hard. Metal scraped against metal and the door lurched open.
He rushed into the room and found himself staring at a glass tower at least three stories high. Layers of piled-up computer hardware were inside the tower, and their blinking lights were reflected on the glass like miniature fireworks. The whole structure looked both beautiful and mysterious-as if an alien spaceship had suddenly materialized inside the building.
A large monitor hung on the wall about twenty feet away from the tower. It showed an image of Berlin from some location outside the building, a duplicate world where computer-generated figures strolled through a city square. Two frightened computer technicians stood at a control panel directly below the monitor. They were motionless for a few seconds, and then the younger man hit a button on the panel and darted across the room.
Mother Blessing drew her handgun, paused for a second, and shot the fugitive in the leg. As the technician sprawled across the floor, an emergency light started flashing and the computer-generated voice came from a wall speaker.
“Verlassen Sie das Gebäuder. Veslassen Sie-”
Looking annoyed, Mother Blessing put a bullet in the speaker. “We don’t want to leave the building,” she said. “We’re having such a lovely time.”
The wounded man lay on his side, clutching his leg and screaming. Mother Blessing approached her target and stood over his body. “Stay quiet and be glad you’re alive. I don’t like people who set off alarms.”
The wounded man ignored her. He shouted for a doctor and began to roll back and forth.
“I asked you to stay quiet,” Mother Blessing said. “That’s a simple request.”
She waited a few seconds to see if the wounded man was going to obey her. When he kept shouting, she shot him in the head and walked over to the control panel. The surviving technician was a slender man in his thirties with short black hair and a bony face. He was breathing so quickly that Hollis thought he might faint.
“And what’s your name?” Mother Blessing asked.
“Gunther Lindemann.”
“Good evening, Mr. Lindemann. What we want is access to a USB outlet for a flash drive.”
“Not…not here,” Lindemann said. “But there are three outlets inside the tower.”
“Okay. Let’s take a tour.”
Lindemann led them over to a sliding door on one side of the tower. Hollis could see that the walls of the tower were six inches thick. Each glass panel was held in place by an outer steel frame. Another palm vein scanner was mounted on the wall. Lindemann slid his hand into the box and the door clicked open.
Cold air surrounded them as they entered the sterile environment. Quickly, Hollis walked over to a workstation with a computer, keyboard, and monitor. He removed the gold chain holding the flash drive, then snapped the drive into an access port.
A message scrolled across the monitor screen in four languages: UNKNOWN VIRUS DETECTED. RISK-HIGH. The screen went blank for a moment and then a red square appeared containing ninety little squares. Only one of the boxes was a solid red color, and it flashed on and off as if a single cancer cell had appeared in a healthy body.
Mother Blessing turned to Lindemann. “How many guards are in the building?”
“Please don’t-”
She interrupted him. “Just answer my question.”
“One guard is at the desk outside and two are upstairs. The off-duty guards live in an apartment across the street. They’ll be here any moment.”
“Then I should probably be ready to greet them.” She turned to Hollis. “Let me know when we’re done.”
Mother Blessing led Lindemann out the door while Hollis remained at the workstation. A second red square started flashing, and Hollis wondered what kind of battle was going on inside the computer. As he waited, he thought about Vicki. What would she say if she were standing beside him right now? The death of the guard and the computer technician would have bothered her deeply. Seed to sapling. She had always used that phrase. Anything done with hatred had the potential to grow and block the Light.
He glanced back at the monitor. The two red squares glowed brightly and now the virus began to double itself every ten seconds. All the other lights on the terminal started to flash, and a warning siren went off somewhere in the tower. In less than a minute the virus had conquered the machine. The workstation monitor was a solid red color, and then the screen went completely black.
Hollis ran out of the tower and found Lindemann lying facedown on the floor. Mother Blessing stood ten feet away from the technician, pointing the submachine gun at the entrance.
“That’s it. Let’s go.”
She turned toward Lindemann with the same cold look in her eyes.
“Don’t waste your time killing him,” Hollis said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“As you wish,” Mother Blessing said as if she had just spared an insect. “This one can tell the Tabula that I’m no longer hiding on an island.”
They returned to the basement. As they retraced their steps around the equipment stacks, the room lit up with a sudden explosion of gunfire. Hollis and Mother Blessing threw themselves on the floor behind an emergency power generator. Bullets from different angles cut into the heating ducts overhead.
The firing stopped. Hollis heard the click and snap of ammunition clips being loaded into assault rifles. Someone shouted in German, and all the ceiling lights in the basement were turned off.
Hollis and Mother Blessing lay next to each other on the concrete. A small amount of light came from the glowing red switches on the power generator. Hollis could see the dark shape of Mother Blessing’s body as she sat up and grabbed the equipment bag.
“The stairs are a hundred feet away,” Hollis whispered. “Let’s run for it.”
“They turned off the lights,” Mother Blessing said. “That means they probably have infrared devices. We’re blind, and they can see.”
“So what do you want to do?” Hollis asked. “Stand here and fight?”
“Make me cold,” the Harlequin said, and she gave Hollis the flashlight and a small metal canister. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was the liquid nitrogen they had brought along to disable motion detectors.
“You want me to spray this on you?”
“Not on the skin. Spray my clothes and hair. I’ll be too cold to be seen.”
Hollis switched on the flashlight and held it in his hand so that light leaked through the gaps between his fingers. Mother Blessing lay on her stomach, and Hollis sprayed the liquid nitrogen on her pants, boots, and jacket. When she turned over on her back, he tried not to spray her hands and eyes. The canister made a faint sputtering sound when it was empty.
The Harlequin sat up and her lips trembled. He touched her upper arm and felt a burning coldness. “Do you want the submachine gun?” he asked.
“No. The muzzle flash would show my location. I’ll carry the sword.”
“But how are you going to find them?”
“Use your senses, Mr. Wilson. They’re frightened, so they’ll be breathing hard and firing at shadows. Most of the time, your enemy defeats himself.”
“What can I do?”
“Give me five seconds, then start firing on the right.”
She moved to the left and disappeared into the shadows. Hollis stood up and fired the submachine gun until the clip was empty. The mercenaries returned fire-from three points on the left side of the room. A second later, he heard a man screaming, and then more gunfire.