A body lay in the corner. Its arms were stretched outward. Its legs were spread wide. The concrete floor underneath it was stained a crimson red.
Gun drawn, I crept to the corpse. It belonged to a man. His face, torn apart by a gunshot, was unrecognizable. His hair, thick and black, was matted with blood and sweat. A pair of spectacles lay at his side, along with a smashed phone.
“Do you recognize him?” Beverly asked Carrie.
Carrie, holding her mouth with one hand, shook her head.
I detected movement. Rotating my hips, I saw Benigno slowly approach the far northeastern tube. “Get back here,” I whispered. “We’ve got to stick together.”
But he ignored me. Seconds later, he strode into the darkness.
Gritting my teeth, I strode after him. Right away, I saw numerous glass structures sitting against the right wall. They looked like large, waterless fish tanks.
Several chairs were situated in front of the glass tanks. Small desks were set up throughout the area, their surfaces covered with computer monitors, papers, and notebooks.
My nostrils burned as I detected a strong odor of disinfectant. I smelled something else, too. But I couldn’t quite place it.
Benigno fell to his knees. A loud wail filled the air.
I swung toward him. He knelt in front of a glass tank. Looking inside it, I saw what had caused his reaction. A woman sat sprawled within it, her back against the far wall. Her eyes were closed. Her head lay on her shoulder.
My nose wrinkled as I finally identified the scent.
It was the scent of death.
Chapter 76
“I can’t believe she’s dead.” Beverly exhaled a long breath as we exited the tube. “I really thought we’d save her.”
I knew how she felt. Adding to the pain, Rizzalyn wasn’t the only Pagan Nation member who’d perished at the hands of Eco-Trek.
They were all dead.
A few looked like they’d passed away in their sleep. But the rest had been executed with gunshots to their heads.
“Me too,” I said.
“They never stood a chance.” Graham’s lip curled in anger. “Simona must’ve ordered their deaths when she found out we’d gotten past her security guards.”
I scanned the cavern as we crossed it. I didn’t see the guards from earlier. But I kept my gun ready just in case.
We’d searched the rest of the tube after checking the other bodies. A collapse of rubble sealed off its far end. Then we’d left the tube, giving Benigno a few moments to grieve while Carrie comforted him. We couldn’t give them a lot of time.
Unfortunately, it would have to be enough.
While we waited, I strode to the cleanroom’s outer partition and peered through one of the many oval-shaped windows.
Orange and yellow lights illuminated the room. To my right, I saw long tables, covered with computer monitors and various machines. They ran lengthwise across the lab. Wires poked out of the machines, connecting them to other machines as well as to the computers. Opened notebooks lay on some of the tables while clipboards were tucked into the small areas separating the machines. Squinting, I was able to make out two words on many of the papers.
Project Miasma? What’s that?
I shifted my gaze toward some metal shelves. They held various instruments and were pushed up against the right side wall. I didn’t recognize the instruments, but they looked far more sophisticated than the microscopes, beakers, and test tubes I’d played with back in high school.
“It’s a lab,” Graham said slowly. “A big one.”
“This is what you were looking for,” Beverly said to me. “They must do their research here.”
My neck twisted to the left. My heart thumped against my chest. Slowly, I lifted my hand to the window. It was made of some kind of safety glass and felt cold against my fingertips.
An oversized transportable hydraulic lift occupied the left side of the lab. Two objects rested on it. One object was a large statue, carved out of black and shiny rock. The other object was a stone box, seven feet long by four feet wide. Its lid, covered with familiar relief carvings, lay next to it.
“We found it.” Electricity tingled through my joints. “We found the reliquary.”
Chapter 77
President Walters tilted his chair backward and glanced at one of the five ornate clocks mounted on the wall. It was 11:37 a.m. His eyes moved to his wristwatch. 11:37 a.m., as well.
He glanced at the stack of file folders on his desk. They were crooked. Leaning forward, he rearranged them. Then he straightened his in-out box. And then he repositioned his water glass so it sat in the exact middle of the underlying coaster. Satisfied, he leaned back and rechecked the time.
11:37 a.m.
He grumbled to himself. He wasn’t used to waiting on others. What had happened to Hooper anyway? One minute they were talking on the phone. The next minute, all communications had ceased.
Glancing at his desk, he saw the notations he’d made about Pagan. The island was fourteen hours ahead of Washington, D.C. That meant it was 1:37 a.m. on the island. In other words, the HyperMax was, almost certainly, on the ground.
So, what the hell had happened to Hooper?
He smoothed the wrinkles out of his shirt and patted down his pants. He knew he was fidgeting, but he couldn’t help himself. He was President Wade Walters, damn it. He kept people waiting, not the other way around.
But as the minutes ticked by, the president began to realize he wasn’t going to be hearing from Hooper anytime soon. And the thought unnerved him. Deep down, he hoped nothing was wrong. It wasn’t just that he liked Hooper, although that was certainly the case.
No, the real problem was Senator’s Gar impromptu press conference.
A few hours earlier, Senator Gar had announced a press conference for 1:00 p.m. Speculation among Washington’s elite was that the man was preparing to announce his presidential candidacy. And perhaps that was the case. But the president knew that wouldn’t be the only announcement. He was nearly positive the senator would blow the lid off the gigantic theft.
The president still hadn’t made up his mind. Should he come clean and lose everything? Or should he swallow his pride, support the senator, and salvage what little remained of his reputation?
The first option sorely tempted him. He could even call an emergency press conference and beat the senator to the punch. He could reveal the truth about Eco-Trek, about how the Separative had redirected money in order to shield the world from climate change. The public outcry would be immense. People would condemn him. But at least he could justify the Separative’s actions.
But what if Samuels’ suspicions were right? What if Simona’s model was a fake? What if she’d kept the money for herself? Even worse, what if Eco-Trek really was causing all the destructive weather phenomena? If that were the case, the smart move would be to accept the senator’s demands. To quietly clean up the mess and pray no one else ever found out about it.
Before he made his decision, he needed answers. And only one man could give them to him.
“Come on, Ed.” President Walters whispered softly to himself. “You can do this. You have to do this.”
Chapter 78
As I stared at the reliquary, my initial excitement began to wane. Its lid, covered with relief carvings of a dragon, blazing fireballs, smoke-filled skies, and countless dead things, had been removed. So, I could see the stone box was empty.
I shifted my gaze to the dragon statue. It wasn’t a masterful work, the kind that would be desired by museums around the world. Instead, it was roughly carved out of poor quality material. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was a dragon.