The Extinction Code (32 page)

Mitchell had originally planned to drop directly down into the compound at night and stealthily kill any guards one by one, but now there was no time to waste. He could not know how long MJ–12 would remain in the facility, and the only way to ensure that he could kill them all was to ensure that they could not leave.

Mitchell’s boots landed against the wall of the entrance and he clambered quietly up onto the roof. He turned, unclipped the wire from the arrow’s tail with a slice of his knife and watched the high–tensile line recoil away from him with a soft whiplash noise, carried far over the fences once again. Then, he reached down and twisted the rearmost half of the arrow’s shaft. Deep inside the concrete, the barbed arrowhead was unscrewed and Mitchell pulled the shaft out, leaving only a small hole in the concrete to betray that he had ever been there.

He rolled over once more, out of sight on the surface of the roof, and pulled an AR–15 Armalite rifle from over his shoulder, the weapon fitted with a SWR Octane suppressor. Although the suppressor was not the kind of device capable of silencing a weapon as people saw in the movies, Mitchell knew that the concrete walls of the entrance would likely be able to prevent anybody deep inside from hearing the shots.

He quietly positioned himself near the front of the entrance, and waited.

The four guards reappeared in less than fifteen seconds. Mitchell rested the rifle’s tripod on the surface of the roof and slowed his breathing as he watched the four guards fan out before him, two to the left heading for the gates, two to the right heading for the guardhouse.

Two breaths, slow, measured.

Mitchell selected the two guards heading for the guardhouse, settled the AR–15’s iron sights on one of the soldier’s backs, and fired once. The bullet impacted with an audible thud into the man’s back and his body arched backward as his hands flew into the air in shock and he began to fall. Mitchell fired the second round even before the first man’s knees had hit the ground, striking his companion in the upper chest as he whirled to bring his weapon to bear as he heard the gunshot that had killed his colleague. Mitchell saw the round exit the second guard’s chest at a different angle to that which it had entered, the bullet striking the dusty soil ten yards to the soldier’s right.

Mitchell switched aim as the other two guards whirled, saw them swinging their rifles to bear but initially unable to spot him concealed on the building’s sloping roof, only his head and the barrel of the rifle visible, both well camouflaged against the backdrop of forest on the rising slope behind him.

Mitchell fired a third round and saw the guard hit in the shoulder, his rifle firing high and left as he staggered backwards. Mitchell could see that he was hit but not down as he flicked the AR–15 to the right as he saw the muzzle flash from the final guard’s weapon as he spotted Mitchell’s position and fired.

Mitchell squeezed the trigger even as a clatter of bullets smashed into the concrete roof and sent clouds of stone chips spraying across his face amid a cloud of cement dust. Mitchell squinted behind the clear eye protectors he wore, fired again and saw the gunman collapse as a round passed through his chest and pierced his heart, killing him instantly.

Another salvo of shots hammered the roof as the remaining standing guard fired at Mitchell as he tried to run back toward the entrance. Mitchell dropped the AR–15’s barrel to the guard’s running boots and released his grip on the weapon as he switched to automatic fire and squeezed the trigger. The AR–15 shook as it fired three rounds in quick succession, the first missing the guard’s running boots, the second striking him low in the belly, just above the groin, and the third plowing through his left shoulder and down through his chest as he stumbled.

The guard tumbled onto the ground and sprawled there, his eyes staring lifelessly up into the hard blue sky as Mitchell aimed back at the other guards, two of whom were groaning and one of whom was crawling toward the guard house, dragging himself with his one good arm.

Three more rounds cracked the jungle’s silence and the men stopped moving permanently. Mitchell scrambled to his feet and threw the AR–15 over his shoulder as he grabbed the edge of the roof and swung himself over and down before dropping ten feet to the ground. He landed hard and rolled to take some of the impact, but the toll on his ageing body was more noticeable now than ever and he winced as pain bolted through his ankles and knees.

Mitchell crouched for a second, regaining his breath and checking for any sign of life before he hurried across to the dead guards and dragged their bodies out of sight alongside the entrance building’s walls. He pulled a pair of 9mm pistols from the belts of two of them, checked the magazines and then stuffed them beneath his shirt before he turned his attention to the entrance building’s doors.

Both were heavily armored, far too tough to blow through and he wouldn’t have wanted to alert anybody inside the building with explosives anyway. Plus, he needed to be fast: it was only a matter of time before somebody inside the building noticed the absence of the guards at their posts and raised the alarm.

Mitchell searched the guards’ bodies and found what looked like some kind of pass–key, a piece of plastic the same shape and size as a credit card. He pulled it from the soldier’s neck and then jogged across to the guard house. Inside, a series of simple controls governed the gate motors and two other doors, which Mitchell figured were the two smaller access doors into the facility.

Mitchell swiped the card over the sensors, and a screen offered him several touch–options, one of which was to unlock an access door for thirty seconds. Mitchell selected the option, then jogged back across the compound and reached for the door handle.

The door opened, and Mitchell slipped inside into the darkness.

***

XXXVIII

The vent was small, barely large enough to fit a small mammal through let alone a human being. Ethan stood alongside Lopez and stared at the vent, which was surrounded by vines and creepers but showing signs of being recently altered, reduced in size.

‘Well, it was a thought,’ Lopez said.

Ethan sighed and turned back for the facility, creeping through the jungle to try to ensure he didn’t alert the guards to their presence. He was half way there when he heard three distinct “popping” sounds from ahead and flinched instinctively, dropped onto his haunches as he stared ahead.

‘That was gunfire,’ Lopez whispered urgently.

Ethan moved cautiously but quickly ahead, until he reached the edge of the treeline and saw the compound before him. Everything was silent, and nothing appeared to have changed, but then he saw the bodies of the four guards lying alongside the entrance building’s walls.

Lopez crouched alongside him and peered at the compound. ‘Who the hell…?’

As Ethan watched, a large, dark figure emerged from the guardhouse and jogged across the compound toward one of the smaller access doors. He reached out and opened the door, and then slipped inside.

‘Mitchell,’ he realized. ‘Come on, quickly!’

Ethan burst from the undergrowth and dashed across to the fence, Lopez right behind him as he scrambled in his satchel for a pair of bolt croppers and quickly cut into the chain link fence.

‘They’ll see us!’ Lopez snapped.

Ethan didn’t reply as he cut a ragged hole in the fence and then shouldered his way into it. The fence folded down as he drove his boot onto it and he broke through and sprinted for the access door into which Mitchell had vanished. He reached out and grabbed the handle and twisted it, and was relieved to feel it click as he eased it open a fraction.

Lopez hurried up to his side, her pistol in her hand as she shot him an enquiring look.

‘Time delay lock,’ Ethan whispered, ‘had to move fast.’

Lopez nodded and aimed at the opening as Ethan pulled the door fully open and she marched inside. Ethan followed and pulled the door shut behind him, closing it carefully and letting his eyes adjust to the darkness within.

A corridor adjoined the main entrance, which was large enough for vehicles to drive through and led onto a small parking lot with four spaces. The fact that the jeeps in which MJ–12 had travelled had remained outside suggested to Ethan that they were not intending to remain inside the facility for long, which was what Ethan was relying on. With only one way in and one way out, he could seal the facility from the outside and keep MJ–12 in place until General Nellis could gain the political leverage to arrest them all.

Only Mitchell’s mission of vengeance now stood in their way.

There was no sign of Mitchell, who had moved on past the main entrance and disappeared further into the facility, no doubt moving fast in the hopes of trapping MJ–12 inside the facility. Ethan had half–expected to find the assassin planting explosives all around the exit, intending to bury them in the rubble, but then he realized that nothing less than seeing them die with his own eyes would be enough for Mitchell.

‘If he gets to them first he’ll take them all out, no matter what odds he encounters,’ Lopez whispered as she advanced with her pistol pointed out in front of her.

‘So we let him,’ Ethan said, following her closely behind.

‘I thought you’d agreed that we’d arrest them if possible?’

‘I did,’ Ethan replied, ‘but if Mitchell’s going to get to them first then we let him. He’ll provide the distraction we need.’

‘I admire your confidence.’

‘He won’t kill them outright,’ Ethan said. ‘He’ll want them looking into his eyes, to know the face of their killer before he pulls the trigger. He’s come too far to just blow them to hell.’

The tunnel that emerged before them descended into the depths of the island, a row of lights leading the way into the darkness beyond. The tunnel itself was only about eight feet wide, but otherwise bore a remarkable similarity to the one they had encountered in Norway, that had led to vaults where the world’s seeds were stored for after doomsday.

‘How many of these places are there?’ Lopez wondered out loud, her whisper still echoing back and forth around them.

‘Hellerman said there were many vaults, all of them protecting species from extinction,’ Ethan said. ‘Maybe this was one of them that Garrett bought and uses for his own projects?’

Lopez shivered visibly as she walked, the air much cooler inside the tunnel. Ethan recalled that subterranean structures such as this one maintained much more regular temperatures regardless of the environment outside, one of the reasons why they were so popular as doomsday vaults and nuclear bunkers.

As they walked, a series of revetments in the walls of the tunnel appeared, and Ethan looked into them and slowed, horror creeping up his spine with a cold chill. Lopez moved alongside him, both of them equally silent as they looked inside the coffin–shaped revetments and their gruesome contents.

The figures were humanoid, perhaps four feet tall, with large oval heads and thin limbs. Tiny mouths, no nostrils and large, oval eyes filled with an empty blackness stared back at them, the figures evidently long dead.

‘These are what the girls in Varginha saw,’ Lopez whispered, morbidly fascinated by the remains. There were almost a dozen, each in its own case like some kind of macabre showroom. ‘You think that he’s been cloning them?’

‘I wouldn’t put anything past this guy,’ Ethan replied.

He retrieved the satellite phone from his satchel and checked the signal. As expected, down here there was no way to contact the outside world, no means to call in support or inform the DIA of whatever they might find.

‘Let me guess,’ Lopez whispered as she glanced at the phone, ‘we’re on our own?’

Ethan nodded and dropped the phone back into his satchel.

‘Afraid so.’

*

ARIES Watch Room,

DIA Headquarters,

‘Where the hell is Jarvis?’ General Nellis thundered as he stormed into the Watch Room.

Hellerman flinched as he emerged from his office. ‘I’ve been trying to reach him for hours but he’s not answering. He dropped the GPS tail right after he left the city. We found it attached to a Greyhound bus headed for Canada.’

Nellis followed Hellerman into his office and shut the door behind them. ‘Did you tip him off?’

‘I haven’t said anything,’ Hellerman insisted. ‘If he’s taken off, it’s not because of anything we’ve done down here.’

Nellis sighed, controlled himself. Jarvis was a professional, a man more than used to the machinations of the intelligence community and the procedures used to track felons. He would have likely searched his car for GPS tags, or perhaps switched to another vehicle the moment he got clear of the DIA. Nellis was angry instead at himself, for not taking greater precautions in tracking the rogue agent, and he wondered at himself and whether somehow, secretly, he’d wanted Jarvis to get the hell out and finish what he’d started on his own terms.

Nellis reigned his anger in and focused on the task at hand.

‘What about Warner and Lopez? Have you located them?’

‘I’ve got their last known location based on the satellite phone ping,’ Hellerman replied as he swivelled around in his chair to give the general a better look at one of his three computer monitors. ‘It puts them a quarter mile south of Ilhabela Island, off the coast of Brazil.’

Nellis peered at the island for a moment.

‘Connection to their case? Jarvis didn't inform me about any island?’

‘It’s owned by the Brazilian government, but has been leased for the last eight years to a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. Garrett is the owner of the leasehold.’

‘Some kind of hideaway, maybe?’ the director ventured.

‘Garrett owns a couple of islands in the Bahamas,’ Hellerman said, ‘both of which are tropical paradises filled with luxury villas and private docks. Ilhabela, in contrast, is a nature reserve and filled mostly by impenetrable jungle and mosquito swarms. I can’t imagine what the hell he would be leasing it for.’

Nellis thought for a moment.

‘It’s not likely to be anything good,’ he said. ‘Why not do a check of local shipping companies based in Brazil, or even here in the United States, that might have done supply runs of any kind down there. If Garrett’s got something on that island, it would have required building materials, manpower, everything. That stuff doesn’t get spirited into existence out of thin air.’