The chauffeur kept flipping the pages of his newspaper.
Finally Bane’s left foot joined his right on the floor and he was already sliding toward the driver’s side of the car and peering around the flank to find the chauffeur going to work on the second section.
Bane shuffled slowly toward the driver’s door, his shoes grazing the cement but never quite leaving it, seeming almost to float. Using the.45 the King had provided without a silencer was unthinkable, leaving him only his hands which was just fine. He would have to be fast, though. He couldn’t risk the attention a lengthy scuffle might bring.
Bane coiled his fingers, saw the chauffeur’s window was open. He was almost to the door. The man looked up at the instant Bane’s fingers jumped at him, too late to maneuver from his confined position. Bane’s hands locked on either side of his head, pulled and twisted. He felt the chauffeur’s neck snap, his head go limp and slump from Bane’s grasp. Bane opened the door and leaned further in to drag the chauffeur’s corpse out.
Then he saw the briefcase, it rested on the leather upholstery of the back seat bearing Colonel Chilgers’ initials. A plan came to Bane’s mind. His main problem all along had been how to infiltrate COBRA without drawing attention and without utilizing assault-type maneuvers. Chilgers had to be outwitted, not outgunned. But how? The briefcase gave him the answer.
He and the chauffeur were about the same size, and from a distance or at a passing glance he might be taken for the man, especially if Bane tipped the chauffer’s black cap low over his forehead. He would carry the briefcase noticeably before him, his intention obviously being to return it to the colonel who had left it behind in the car.
Wasting no further time, Bane pulled the dead chauffeur’s clothes from his body and stripped off his own. In three minutes he was dressed just as the dead man had been right up to the knot in his tie. The clothes made a surprisingly good fit, except for the pants which dragged a bit over his heels. After stowing the chauffeur’s body in the trunk, Bane tightened the black cap on his head and tilted it low; then he retrieved the briefcase from the back seat. He tucked his.45 beyond his left hip and jammed a pair of extra clips into one of the jacket’s pockets. Then he steadied himself with as deep a breath as he could manage and pressed the button on the side wall he guessed would provide him access into the complex.
The sliding part of the wall came up without so much as a creak, revealing a pair of long, wide corridors jutting out at right angles from each other. Sudden exposure to the fluorescent lighting stung Bane’s eyes but he ignored that and, holding the briefcase tightly, stepped out of the private garage bay to press the button just beyond the break in the wall. The door began its descent. His eyes adjusted to the brightness.
Bane had made it into COBRA.
He noticed the thick red lines painted across the walls like boundary markers and realized immediately he was in the high security section. All the better. Whatever he sought was contained somewhere down here. Still holding the briefcase clearly in front of him, Bane started to walk, toward the left because it felt correct. He saw a trio of white-coated scientific personnel moving toward him. Too late to do anything but keep going, not letting himself flinch or hesitate. He kept his feet steady, eyes straight; filling his mind with one thought:
I belong here… .
Tentativeness and hesitation were dead giveaways, the absolute worst enemies of an infiltrator. Bane recalled stories of a man who made a hobby out of mixing with celebrities at media events even though he had no right or reason to be there. The man just pretended that he belonged, believed it so strongly that no one ever challenged him.
The white-coated figures were almost upon him, two men with a woman between them. Bane maintained his pace, swung the briefcase forward and back just a bit faster to draw their eyes to it. He passed them with no problem at all, fighting down a deadly urge to turn around and look behind to see if they were still watching him.
Bane continued on down the corridor as it swung to the right. Immediately he found himself amidst more congestion, and he noticed for the first time, that all personnel wore red badges pinned to their lapels. He had the briefcase with Chilgers’ initials showcased, which was just as good; but for how much longer? Sooner or later someone would challenge him. The resulting confrontation might forfeit everything. Still, he had to press on.
Then Bane saw a man dressed in a green surgical outfit coming toward him, the man vaguely familiar. Bane felt a slight swell of panic as their eyes met and the man veered away into a room. Bane realized this was one of the men who had arrived in limousines that afternoon, and he ducked into the room which bordered the one the man had entered.
The room smelled heavily of alcohol, which made Bane realize at once that the corridors on this level bore no smell whatsoever other than the perfume or cologne of the workers he had passed. He glanced around him and realized he was in some sort of surgical scrub room; complete with lime green uniforms, piles of surgical masks, and at least five different kinds of soap. Trays of sterile instruments lined the counter that made up the left wall. Bane could see steam rising from a few of them which meant they had been prepared recently for an operation still to take place. Bane moved to the right wall which bordered the room the man from the limousine had entered. He quickly caught muffled voices and pressed his ear closer, focusing in.
“Then we’re all agreed on the procedure?” asked the first clear voice.
“So long as we can keep on schedule every step of the way,” answered another. “Frankly, I’m skeptical. My experience in brain surgery bears out that very seldom do operations finish without unexpected hitches popping up along the way.”
“We can deal with them,” the first voice came back.
“How old did you say the boy was?” A third voice.
“Fifteen,” answered the first.
“Well, his inner cranial development and temporal lobes shouldn’t prove much of a problem. And his x-rays show an extremely fit organ. Much of the time in brain surgery you have to deal with lots of swelling and that’s what slows you down.”
“Actually, I’m not expecting any hitches at all,” commented a fourth voice. “Gentlemen, all of us are experts at repairing damaged brains. Extracting a healthy one should prove child’s play.”
“Not when we have to keep it alive,” countered the second voice, “and that means not denying it oxygen for more than fifteen seconds.”
“Indeed,” added the first voice, “we can afford no cellular damage at all.”
“Where’s the anesthesiologist?”
“Prepping the boy now,” replied the first voice. “Hopefully shaving that bushy hair of his to get it out of our way.” Muffled laughter followed.
Bane felt himself go cold. He was suddenly aware that his hands were digging into the cabinet’s handles. The men in the next room, surgeons obviously, were discussing Davey Phelps. They were going to remove his brain for some hideous experiment! Bane’s rationality deserted him briefly. His hands came away from the cabinet clenched into fists. It was all he could do to restrain himself from charging into the adjoining room and killing the members of the surgical team. And he could do it, rather easily in fact. But he held back, letting the Winter Man guide him again. Killing the surgical team would accomplish nothing except to alert COBRA security to the presence of an intruder. Chilgers would know the complex had been infiltrated and Bane could never stop Vortex if the colonel was waiting for him. He had to keep surprise on his side.