Vapor (25 page)

The elevator car jolted to a halt. The doors opened wide and I saw a massive room before me. Two enormous glass reservoirs, filled with some kind of thick, swirling substance, occupied the middle of the space. They looked a little like support columns, only they didn’t quite reach the ceiling. Instead, numerous metal pipes completed the journey.

Gawking, I stepped out of the elevator car. The air smelled of disinfectant and plastic. Shifting my gaze, I saw more pipes extending from the reservoirs. They shot backward, clear to the other side of the room, where they vanished into the far wall. It took me a few seconds to realize the far wall was actually a partition, designed to seal off a portion of the room.

“Where is everyone?” Carrie whispered.

Beverly frowned. “Evidently, not here.”

“Do you think they went upstairs for the security briefing?”

“Let’s hope so.”

Using his knife, Graham attacked the access panel. Quickly, he sheared through a bunch of cables, disabling the elevator car.

Pistol at the ready, I paced forward. The twin reservoirs were positioned directly beneath the hangar. As I passed between them, I studied their contents. They contained a grayish substance that swirled around as if it had a life of its own.

CN-46?

I placed a hand on the left tank and felt a sudden chill. Was I staring at the pre-aerosol version of CN-46? The stuff that had killed Lila Grinberg? The stuff that had almost killed us?

I crept to the partition. Numerous oval-shaped windows, covered with thick glass plating, dotted its surface. Looking through one of them, I saw a well-organized cleanroom, bathed in a dull orange-yellow light. Numerous machines filled the interior.

“This must be where they produce CN-46,” Beverly whispered.

“Makes sense.” I looked around. “Damn it. No reliquary.”

She turned her head. “And no prisoners either.”

I stared at the production area for a moment. “Where’s the lab?”

“Lab?”

“If you operated a place like this, wouldn’t you maintain some kind of laboratory? What if you wanted to make adjustments to CN-46?”

Her gaze flitted across the space. “Maybe it’s upstairs.”

I recalled the maps of the facility. “I don’t think so.”

She frowned.

I focused my thoughts on the basement floor map. It had contained few details. Two large cylinders had represented the reservoirs. The boxed-off area lined up with the production facility. And the box with wavy lines was clearly the elevator.

What am I missing?

A thought snapped into my brain. “The door.”

Beverly looked at me like I was crazy. “What?”

“The basement floor plan showed a door.” I looked at the northeast wall. “Over there.”

“I don’t see anything.”

Mentally, I pictured the door in my head. Then I ran to the wall. After a brief search, I located a thin crack in the concrete. It ran continuously in the shape of a giant oval.

Beverly inspected the concrete. Then she placed her hands on the right end of the oval and gave it a push. The oval’s right side swung inward and its left side swung toward her.

It’s a revolving door.

She shoved harder. The oval revolved another foot and I caught sight of a tube-shaped tunnel, roughly eight feet in diameter. Like the other tube we’d seen, the concrete looked old. But rather than being left in a crumbling state, workers had patched and repaired it in numerous places.

Looking backward, I saw the others had joined us. I lifted a finger to my lips. Then I strode into the dark space. Taking a few steps, I realized the floor ran at a slight incline. I took a few more steps. Then I paused as soft noises filled my ears. They sounded like voices.

Guess we’re not alone after all.

“Hold it.” Beverly lifted a palm and fell to a knee. Shifting her head, she peered around a slight twist in the tube. “Okay, I see them.”

Overhanging LED lamps, connected by wires, cast dim light across the tube. Unfortunately, there was no way to extinguish them without bringing attention to us. “How many?” I whispered.

She held up four fingers. “Four armed guards,” she mouthed.

“What are they doing?”

“Moving stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Boxes and crates. Looks like they’re clearing out a storage room.”

I unsheathed my machete. “Let’s do this.”

Silently, we crept forward. As we passed through the twisting section, I saw another revolving slab of concrete.

A guard walked through the opening. He carried a wooden crate. He walked across the tube and placed the crate on a small stack of other crates. Then he brushed off his hands.

And turned toward us.

His head cocked to one side. He reached for his pistol.

Damn it.

Blade extended, I rushed the man.

His jaw dipped open.

Then he screamed.

My blade rammed through the man’s chest. His scream died in his throat. He gurgled softly as blood poured from his mouth. Then he slid to the ground in a heap.

The other three guards rushed into the tube. Their guns swung toward my head. The air erupted with bullets.

Grabbing Beverly, I sprinted back to the twisting section of tube. Plastering myself against the concrete, I drew my gun. Then I fired a few quick shots.

The guards ducked behind the concrete slab. Sticking their guns out, they returned fire.

“So, that was your plan?” Graham arched an eyebrow. “Make a ton of noise and retreat?”

“That was just the first round,” I said.

“What’s round two? Wearing bullseyes?”

“Nope.” I checked my ammunition. “We play possum.”

I stayed still. Bullets sprayed the area, chewing the concrete and spitting dust into the air.

Footsteps sounded out.

Reinforcements.

I steeled myself for more gunfire. But instead, it grew sporadic.

I chanced a peek. The oval-shaped concrete slab remained open. The boxes and crates were still in the hallway. But the guards were nowhere in sight.

The dust began to settle. I perked my ears. But I heard nothing.

Guess they’re playing dead, too.

The air was sweltering. Sweat beaded up on my shoulders.

“Cover me,” I whispered.

Beverly shot me a nod and moved to the far left side of the tube. Crouching down, I hurried along the right side.

I stopped near the oval-shaped slab. Taking a deep breath, I aimed my gun into the semi-dark interior. Then I lowered it.

Where the hell did they go?

“They just ran?” Graham said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Benigno frowned. “Maybe they went to get help.”

“If there were other guards down here, we’d be fighting them by now.” I shook my head. “No, they’re regrouping somewhere.”

“What were they doing anyway?” Carrie asked.

“Good question.” I took another glance past the revolving oval slab.

Good lord.

We stood at the edge of what appeared to be a house of horrors. Full skeletons, mounted in display cases, hung from the walls. Paintings were situated between them. A quick scan showed a variety of images. A crowd carrying a casket. Dragons dueling across a countryside. A giant fireball, watched by gawkers, streaking across a night sky.

More bones, carefully placed in separate display cases, took up part of the small floor space. I also noticed old tools, ancient tomes in boxes, and—strangest of all—ice cores displayed prominently in high-tech sub-zero container systems.

Graham frowned. “What is this place?”

“It looks like a museum.” Carrie walked to a display case. It contained an aged vase, discolored with time. Intricate drawings of dead people standing on top of clearly trembling ground covered its surface. “This stuff is real old.”

Did that explain why Simona had taken the reliquary? Was she some kind of collector? Of what? The objects were bizarre with no obvious connection between them.

After a moment, I discarded the collector theory. Lila hadn’t been worried about Simona possessing the reliquary. She’d been worried the woman might use it to hurt people.

“How old?” Graham asked.

Leaning close, Carrie read a card mounted on the case. “It dates to 1347,” she replied. “And was found outside of Athens.”

Graham wandered to one of the sub-zero container systems. “These ice cores date to the mid-1300s,” he said slowly.

Beverly studied a painting of strange objects, frogs by the looks of it, raining from the sky. “And this was made in 1349.”

I scanned the area, searching for the reliquary. I didn’t see it, but I did notice the other objects also came from the mid-fourteenth century.

How old was the reliquary?

I didn’t know it’s exact age. But a fourteenth century origin date wasn’t out of the question.

I tried to think, to recall what I knew about that time period. But I was nervous, edgy. I kept looking to the revolving slab, expecting more guards to appear.

Finally, I waved at the others. We exited the small area. As we resumed our trek through the tube, a small part of my brain couldn’t stop thinking about the bizarre museum. Why had Simona obtained those particular objects? Why had she taken the reliquary?

And most importantly, what did she intend to do with it?

The tube widened by a considerable margin. Apprehensively, I strode into a large cavern, roughly thirty to forty feet wide and twice as long.

I saw separate tubes, all lined with concrete, on the far side of the cavern. One tube ran northeast. The other two tubes took a slightly more northern course.

I walked forward and turned around. I saw two tubes to the west. They ran southwest, parallel to the one we’d traversed.

Instantly, I realized the room in which we stood was made up of three separate tubes. The walls between them had been knocked down. Pillars had been erected in their place.

To the east, I noticed a cleanroom, virtually identical to the one used as a production facility. Large generators buzzed and crackled. Wires connected them to the cleanroom, the overhead light fixtures, and other machines. Still other wires veered into the connecting tubes, presumably providing electricity to the old tunnel system.

“Body,” Beverly said tightly. “Over there.”

I shifted my gaze. My eyes crinkled at the corners.

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.

“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.”