The Hades Factor

  As Randi stood guard, Jon found the right key and unlocked the door. They stepped warily inside a small foyer where sunlight beamed down from clerestory windows and more shone ahead at the far end of a hall. Closed doors lined the hallway, and there was the faint odor of good cigars as they padded toward the second source of light.

  “What’s that?” Randi stopped, her athletic shoes motionless on the parquet floor.

  Smith shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  She was frozen there, her even features pursed in concentration. “It’s gone. Whatever the sound was, I can’t hear it now.”

  “We’d better try all the doors.”

  She took one side, and he the other. They turned every knob.

  “Locked.” Jon shook his head. “They look as if they might be guest rooms or offices.”

  “We’d better leave them until later,” Randi decided.

  They passed a staircase that rose to a landing and turned. They could see nothing above the landing. They continued on, listening. The odor of cigars increased. Edgy, Jon’s gaze swept everywhere. At last they stood at the timbered entry to a cavernous living room decorated with rustic wood-and-leather furniture, brass-and-wood lamps, and low wood tables. It had to be the big room Marty had described. Across it extended a wall of windows through which sunlight flooded. There was also an enormous stone fireplace in which coals glowed, warming the room against the October chill. The expanse of windows looked out to the lake through the dense trees, and in the middle of the wall were double front doors that opened out to a covered porch.

  Without speaking, the silent pair slipped together across the room, stood beside the doors, and surveyed the porch. Beyond the porch, on the lawn off to the left, were the two remaining guards relaxing in Adirondack chairs, smoking and chatting, their rifles across their knees. They were gazing out at the valley where the colors of autumn had turned the sweep of hardwood trees to rich golds and reds among the green pines.

  She was watching the sentries. “They’re perfect targets,” she murmured.

  “Lazy idiots. They think because Tremont is gone they can do what they want.”

  “If it comes to shooting,” Randi whispered, “I’ll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. With luck, they’ll surrender.”

  “That’s what we want.” Smith nodded in agreement. He was getting used to working with her. In fact, he was enjoying it. Now, if they could just do it well enough to survive … “Let’s go.”

  They eased the doors open and padded out onto the porch as the two men talked and smoked in their chairs. The sun was hard and flinty as Jon’s gaze locked onto the guards sitting directly below, unknowing.

  The taller guard flicked his cigarette onto the grassy lawn and stood. “Time to do another turn around the property.” Before Jon or Randi could move, he saw them. “Bob!” he called in alarm.

  “Lay down your weapons,” Jon commanded.

  Randi’s voice was tense. “Do it slowly. So no one makes any mistakes.”

  Both men froze. One was completely on his feet but only half-turned to face them, while the other was merely halfway out of his chair. Neither’s weapon was pointed at Jon and Randi, while Jon and Randi had the guards completely covered. It was a surprise ambush that had worked, and there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that unless the sentries wanted to commit suicide, they would do exactly as told.

  “Shit,” one muttered.

  The timbered grounds were quiet as Smith locked the three tied-up sentries in an outbuilding behind the garage. Marty stood in the shadows next to it, while Randi was out of sight, monitoring the lodge for any activity. Marty’s round face was worried, and his green eyes had a dark look, as if he were in a world he had never wanted to know anything about. His plump body seemed desolate in his baggy pants and jacket.

  He looked up at Jon. “You want me to stay here?” he asked, as if he knew the answer.

  “It’s safer, Mart, and we need someone to be sentry. I don’t know what we’re going to find in the lab. If something happens to us, you’ve got a chance to make it by escaping into the woods.”

  Marty nodded soberly. His fingers twitched on the bullpup as if he longed for a keyboard instead. “It’s okay, Jon. I know you’ll be back for me. Good luck. And if I see anything”—he gave a brave smile—“I’ll be sure to fire once.”

  Smith clamped a hand on his shoulder in encouragement.

  Marty patted Jon’s hand. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me. You’d better go.”

  Weapons in hand, Jon and Randi met at the side door of the lodge they had used before. They exchanged a long look, and some kind of recognition passed between them. Jon moved his eyes away, and Randi found herself wondering nervously what was happening to her.

  Inside the lodge, they paused at the foot of the staircase in the long hall. There had been no gunshots fired outdoors, and they hoped that whoever was at work upstairs had no idea the sentries had been taken and the lodge invaded. The whole point of this stealthy attack was to accomplish what they needed as quickly and efficiently as possible—and to emerge alive and intact.

  Warily, they padded up the stairs, rounded the landing, and continued on up. As they neared the top, there was still silence.

  And then they saw why. A thick glass door with heavy glass panels on either side was set back from a small foyer area. Beyond the glass was a vast, gleaming laboratory with offices and rooms around its perimeter. Off to the side was what looked like a “clean room” devoted to experiments that had to be conducted in an atmosphere free of contaminants. Another room held an electron microscope. All labs had the same sense about them—orderliness touched with an aura of controlled chaos that came from papers, test tubes, Bunsen burners, glass beakers, flasks, microscopes, file cabinets, computers, refrigerators, and all the other paraphernalia that was so vital to scientists in their pursuit of codifying the unknown. This one also had what looked like a nextcentury spectrometer.

  But what riveted Jon’s gaze, what gave him both a sinking sensation and a jolt of triumph, was a heavy door in the center of one wall marked by the glaring red trefoil symbol of a biohazard. It was the door to a Level Four Hot Zone laboratory installation. A secret Level Four.

  “I see four people,” Randi whispered.

  Jon kept his voice even. “Time to introduce ourselves.”

  They pushed in through the door, their weapons in front of them.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Two of the technicians looked up. As soon as they saw the guns, fear shot into their faces. One of them moaned. At the sound, the other two looked up. They blanched. Without saying a word, Jon and Randi had all four’s attention.

  “Don’t shoot!” begged the oldest of the two men.

  “Please. I have children!” said the younger of the two women.

  “No one’s going to be hurt if you just answer a few questions,” Smith assured them.

  “He’s right.” Randi pointed her Uzi at what looked like a small conference room off the lab. “Let’s go in there and have a warm and friendly chat.”

  In their white uniforms, the four technicians filed into the room and, when told, took chairs at the Formica-topped conference table. They ranged in age from mid-forties to mid-twenties, and they had the look of people who put in regular days. These were no wild-eyed, pasty-faced scientists who lived in their labs weeks at a time when wrapping up a project. They were ordinary people with wedding rings and photos of extended families on their workbenches. Technicians, not scientists.

  Except the older of the two women. She had short gray hair and wore a long white lab coat over street clothes. She had been silent and watchful since they had entered. Some kind of scientist or supervisor.

  Sweat bathed the high forehead of the older, balding man. His gaze had been on the guns, but now he looked up at Randi. “What do you want?” His voice was shaky.

  “Glad you asked,” she told him. “Tell us about the monkey virus
.”

  “And the serum that happens to cure a human virus, too,” Jon said.

  “We know it was brought from Peru twelve years ago by Victor Tremont.”

  “We also know about the experiments on the twelve soldiers in Desert Storm.”

  Randi asked, “How long have you had the serum?”

  “And how did the epidemic start?”

  Hearing the rapid-fire questions, the older woman’s gray features pinched. Her faded eyes grew defiant. “We don’t know what you mean. We have nothing to do with any monkey virus or serum.”

  “Then what do you work on here?” Randi demanded.

  “Antibiotics and vitamins mostly,” the supervisor told her.

  Smith said, “So why the secrecy? The remoteness? This lab doesn’t show up in any of Blanchard’s documents.”

  “We don’t belong to Blanchard.”

  “Then whose antibiotics and vitamins are you working on?”

  The supervisor flushed, and the others looked terrified again. She had said more than she had wanted to. “I can’t tell you that,” she snapped.

  Randi said, “Okay. Then we’ll look at your files.”

  “They’re computerized. We don’t have access. Only the director and Dr. Tremont do. When they get back, they’ll put an end to you and all this—”

  Jon’s anger was rising. Whether they knew it or not, they had helped murder Sophia. “No one’s going to come back anytime soon. They’re too busy getting medals, and your three guards are dead outside,” he lied. “You want to join the guards?”

  The supervisor glared at him, stubbornly silent.

  Randi tried to control her rage. “Maybe you think because we’ve been polite so far that we won’t kill you. You’re right, we probably won’t. We’re the good guys. But,” she added cheerfully, “I have no problem with causing considerable pain. Mistakes do get made. You hear me clearly?”

  That got their attention. At least the attention of the other three. They hurriedly nodded.

  “Good. Now, which of you is going to tell us the name of the company you work for and the computer passwords?”

  “And,” Smith added, staring at the supervisor, “why you need a Level Four lab for vitamins and antibiotics?”

  The supervisor’s face paled, and her hands trembled, but she intensified her glare of intimidation at the other three.

  But the smallest and oldest man ignored her. “Don’t try that, Emma.” His voice was weak but determined. “You’re not in charge here anymore. They are.” He looked at Jon. “How do we know you won’t kill us anyway?”

  “You don’t. But you can be sure the odds are far better that if anyone’s going to be hurt, it’s going to be now. Later, we’re going to be too busy bringing down Victor Tremont.”

  The older man stared. Then he nodded soberly. “I’ll tell you.”

  Jon looked at Randi. “Now that things are handled here, I’ll get Marty.”

  She gave a brisk nod. As she held her Uzi on the four lab workers, her mind was on Sophia. She was closing in on Sophia’s killer. She was going to make them pay, no matter what she had to do.

  “Talk,” she told the older lab technician. “Talk fast.”

  Marty was sitting against a tree near the shed, the Enfield bullpup lying across his lap. He was humming to himself. He seemed to be studying sunbeams that danced in a shaft of yellow light through the trees. To look at him where he leaned back, his short legs stretched out on the pine needles, his ankles crossed, he could be an imp from some long-ago fairy tale without a problem in the world. Unless you noticed his eyes. That was where Smith’s attention was fixed as he approached silently, cautiously. The green eyes were almost emerald in color and troubled.

  “Any problems?”

  Marty jumped. “Darn it, Jon. Next time make some noise.” He rubbed his eyes as if they hurt. “I’m happy to report I’ve seen or heard no one. The shed’s been quiet, too. But then there’s not a lot any of those three can do, considering how well we tied them. Still, I don’t think I’m cut out for guard work. Too boring and too much responsibility of the wrong kind.”

  “I see the problem. Feel like some computer sleuthing instead?”

  Marty immediately looked more cheerful. “At last. Of course!”

  “Let’s go into the lodge. I need you to search some of Tremont’s files.”

  “Ah, Victor Tremont. The one behind it all.” Marty rubbed his hands.

  Once inside, they were moving past the row of closed and locked doors when Smith heard a sound. They were almost in the same place in the hall where Randi had thought she had heard something.

  He stopped and grabbed Marty’s arm. “Don’t move. Listen. Are you picking up anything?”

  They stayed that way, slowly rotating their heads as if by movement alone they could enhance their hearing.

  Jon spun around. “What was that?”

  Marty frowned. “I think someone’s shouting.”

  The sound came again. It was a voice, but muffled and far away. A man’s voice.

  “It’s this one.” Jon pressed his ear to one of the doors. It appeared to be thicker, sturdier than the others, and the lock was a heavy deadbolt. Someone was shouting but barely audible somewhere on the far side.

  “Open it!” Marty said.

  “Give me the bullpup.” With the big assault rifle, he shot out the lock.

  Screams of terror sounded above their heads from the laboratory, but the door swung open. They entered cautiously. There was a second door almost at once. Smith shot this one open, too, and they found themselves in a large, well-furnished living room. There was a kitchen through an archway, a formal dining room, a wet bar, and a corridor that probably led to bedrooms. The noise, clearly shouting now, was coming from the corridor.

  “You stay back and cover me, Mart.”

  Marty did not bother to protest. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

  As Jon warily entered the corridor, whoever was calling must have heard enough to convince him someone was on the way. Banging started behind the third door.

  Jon tried it. Locked. “Who’s in there?” he called out.

  “Mercer Haldane!” the furious voice bellowed. “Are you the police? Have you captured Victor?”

  “Stand back,” Jon called again. He used his Beretta on the simple room lock.

  The door blasted open, and a short bantam-rooster of an older man with a mane of unruly white hair, thick white eyebrows, and a cleanshaven but choleric face sat in an armchair in what looked like a master bedroom. He was handcuffed and chained to the wall at the ankle but not gagged.

  “Who the devil are you?” the old man demanded.

  “Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, M.D. Someone your people have been trying to murder.”

  “Murder? Why, for the love of—” The old man stopped. “Ah, yes, Victor. I knew he was worried about … M.D. you say. Don’t tell me: CDC? FDA?”

  “USAMRIID.”

  “Fort Detrick, of course. So have you caught the bastard?”

  “We’re trying.”

  “You’d better try faster. He’s getting that damned medal at five o‘clock. Probably the money a minute or so later, and no telling where he’ll be by six o’clock. A long way from here, if I know him.”

  “Then you’d better help us.”

  “Just ask.”

  “You think he created the virus epidemic?”

  “Of course he did. Are you a numbskull? That’s why he locked me in here. What I don’t know is how he did it.”

  Jon nodded. “Figures. Watch yourself. I’m going to shoot this leg chain off.”

  Mercer Haldane crunched with fright. Then he shrugged. “I hope your aim’s good. I intend to live long enough to bring Victor down to his knees.”

  Smith shot out the chain lock and helped the old man up. “My other associate’s in the lab. We’re trying to locate Tremont’s research records.”

  “He must have his illicit records hidden. I tried to find them, too.?
??

  Jon patted Marty on the back. “You didn’t have my secret weapon.”

  When Jon and Marty strode into the laboratory with the short old man red-faced and angry under a shock of white hair, Randi was waiting for them. She had locked the four lab technicians in the conference room.

  “What was all the shooting? You nearly gave me a coronary.”

  Jon introduced Mercer Haldane and asked, “What did the technician tell you?”

  “They work for Tremont and Associates. The password into their computer is Hades.”

  Marty made a beeline to the nearest terminal, Haldane on his heels. Marty’s face was almost relaxed, so happy was he to be returning to a world he understood. Without looking at Haldane, Marty handed him his bullpup, sat, flexed his fingers, and went to work. Haldane rolled a stool over so he could sit next to him. Jon followed and took the bullpup Enfield away from the former CEO. He was not about to trust him.

  Smith quietly explained to Randi, “Mercer Haldane is the former chairman and CEO of Blanchard. Last week Tremont forced him out and took over.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “Old-fashioned blackmail, he says. But I think he was bought off, too. A cut of the Hades Project. That’s what Tremont named the virus and serum project. He kept it hidden from Haldane and Blanchard for more than a decade.”

  “A perfect name for the horror they’re causing. What else did he tell you?”

  “Just about what we’d figured. Tremont found the virus in Peruvian Amazonia and brought it back to Blanchard along with a crude native cure: the blood of monkeys that had survived the disease and were full of neutralizing antibodies. Some Indians down there drink the blood, and it saves a lot of them every year. Tremont set up his secret team with company money and personnel, and they did most of the work here to isolate the virus and develop their antiserum by cloning the genes that made the antibodies. Then the bastard used DNA repair enzymes to introduce a few subtle mutations into the viruses to make it become virulent progressively earlier.”