‘You know how I feel about underground spaces,’ muttered the red-haired immortal.
‘We were underground at Benisek’s mansion,’ Bruno pointed out.
‘Yeah, but at least I could see starlight and smell fresh air,’ Anatole replied glumly. ‘This is gonna be like that time in Rome. Remember? When we were in the catacombs? God, I hated that trip. The rats were the size of my arm.’
Bruno rolled his eyes.
The tunnel was clear for the first ten feet. Beyond that, an impenetrable wall of compacted earth, wood, and rock barred the way.
It took an hour for the digger to move the core of the debris. After the last support beam was fixed into place, we geared up and checked our weapons.
Gabriel was staying topside to cover us. He put a hand on my shoulder as I turned to follow the others into the passage.
‘Be careful,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll be waiting for your return.’
I nodded and climbed through the ragged opening after Ashely and the Schwatzs.
It was like stepping inside a tomb. The air was dry and choked with the dust stirred up by the excavation. The light from our torch beams washed over rusting roof bolts and girders supporting a low ceiling. Timber frames propped up sections of the walls. Some had given way, causing tiny landslides that revealed the bare rock underneath.
‘You okay?’ said Ashely.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
To be truthful, I was not particularly comfortable with confined underground spaces either. Months spent in the battle trenches during the First World War had seen to that. I also had a highly unpleasant memory from my time in Vienna in 1683, when I became trapped for several days in one of the city’s tunnels after it caved in behind me. Had it not been for a fortuitous explosion from a nearby Ottoman mine, I would have been buried alive for the rest of the siege, along with the rats.
I took a deep breath and headed into the mine. Up ahead, Anatole muttered a short prayer.
A hundred feet in, we came to an open elevator shaft descending into pitch blackness. Friedrich shone his torch over the control box at the side and pulled a lever. Nothing happened. He opened the panel, changed the fuse and the battery, and tried again. A high-pitched roar erupted from the old electric motor. The gears engaged and the elevator whined into life.
A wire cage rose shakily past the corroded rungs of an emergency ladder. We stepped inside it and started a slow, rickety descent into the gloom. Two hundred feet down, abandoned galleries appeared off the central shaft.
‘How far are we going?’ Anatole eyed the tunnels being reclaimed by the shadows above us with unease.
‘All the way to the bottom,’ said Friedrich.
The lift stuttered to a stop some thousand feet below ground. Despite the glare of our torch beams, the darkness at the bottom of the pit had a suffocating, cloying quality that threatened to overwhelm the senses. I could hear Anatole’s heavy breaths somewhere to my left.
‘There had better not be rats,’ the immortal murmured to no one in particular.
We exited the cage and made our way toward the tunnel straight ahead. More galleries branched off the passage and we passed several caved-in channels. Half a mile later, a faint whine rose in the distance.
‘What’s that?’ said Ashely.
‘The fans in the south-west ventilation shaft,’ said Friedrich. ‘We’re close to the facility.’
I removed the Glock from the holster on my thigh and nudged off the safety catch. Soft clicks sounded around me as the others did the same.
Tension spread through the group. A muted light appeared in front of us. The soles of our boots struck concrete. The darkness receded. Seconds later, we stopped on the edge of a brightly lit, circular vertical duct.
The shaft was thirty feet wide, with smooth walls. Some fifty feet below, the blades of a horizontal fan rotated lazily, drawing air down from the surface. Other fans were visible beneath it. I looked up.
The roof of the borehole was lost in shadows. Narrow handrails rose on the east side of the shaft and disappeared into the gloom.
‘Oh boy,’ said Anatole.
Friedrich holstered his gun and removed a pistol bow from his backpack. He dropped to one knee, squinted through the crosshairs of the telescopic sight at the passage on the opposite side of the duct, and pulled the trigger. There was a soft thump as the arrow carrying a zip line thudded into the concrete ceiling. Another Hunter drilled a hole in the roof above our heads and screwed in a steel eyebolt before fastening the end of the cable to it.
The Schwatz team leader unhooked a carabiner from his harness, locked onto the zip line, and winched himself over the gaping space. We followed him across one at a time.
The tunnel on the other side extended another eighty feet before ending at a rust-covered, airtight door. It took three of us to twist open the stiff, circular wheel that sealed it shut. The panel finally creaked and moved on its hinges.
We peered over the threshold into the bowels of a modern elevator shaft.
Friedrich indicated the metal rungs that ran along the wall next to the doorframe. ‘Now we go down.’
Six hundred feet below, we reached a stationary lift cabin. We continued past it and dropped to the bottom of the shaft moments later.
A single access door stood in the north wall of the structure. No sound escaped from the other side. I slipped the katana out of its scabbard and gripped the handle of the Glock tightly.
‘Ready?’ said Friedrich.
Anatole shrugged. ‘As ready as we’ll ever be, I guess.’
The Schwatz Hunter grabbed the handle and pulled the door toward him.
Chapter Twenty-One
A boiler room lay beyond the base of the ventilation shaft. Pipes rumbled and hissed on the walls and ceiling as we crossed it, eyes scanning the shadows above our guns.
A second door appeared on the other side. It led to a narrow, white concrete corridor with a metal staircase at the far end.
‘The labs should be a couple of levels beneath us,’ said Friedrich. He was staring at the security camera in a corner of the ceiling above the doorway. ‘Are we good to go?’ he murmured into the mouthpiece of his microphone.
‘You’re clear,’ a voice replied in our earpieces.
The Schwatz techs had used the access codes provided by Gazmuuk to infiltrate the Crovirs’ satellites and security networks and temporarily override the CCTV system inside the research facility with pre-recorded clips.
We moved to the stairs and headed into the bowels of the structure. Seconds before we reached the first landing, a door clanged somewhere above us. We flattened ourselves against the wall and froze.
Footsteps echoed on the metal steps. Another door opened and closed. We waited a moment before resuming our descent.
Two stories below the boiler room corridor, we came to a high-containment, stainless steel entrance. A glazed circular window sat in the top half of the metal panel. Beyond it was an empty corridor. I studied the airtight seals around the frame and the security panel next to the handle with a sinking feeling.
‘That’s not good,’ said Ashely.
‘Can the Schwatz techs get the access code from the Crovirs’ security frames?’ I asked Friedrich.
‘No,’ said the Schwatz Hunter. He slipped a small rectangular device from his bag. ‘The facility’s security chief chooses the door codes individually.’
I stared at the electronic door opener in his hands. He moved to connect it to the security panel on the door. I placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
‘That’ll take too long.’
Friedrich looked from the device to me. ‘Do you have a better idea?’
‘Yes. Does anyone have a wireless cell phone?’
The Hunters exchanged puzzled glances. Ashely smiled.
Bruno hesitated before handing me his phone.
I flipped open the security panel, pulled out a pair of wires,
and connected them to the application processor at the back of the mobile device.
‘I thought you couldn’t get a signal this far below ground,’ said Anatole as they watched me work.
My fingers danced over the touch screen. ‘Most modern mines have advanced digital communication systems. Even though this facility is old, it would surprise me if the Crovirs hadn’t installed the latest technology for their labs.’
A low beep issued from the containment door. It hissed open. I disconnected the cell and returned it to Bruno.
Friedrich’s eyebrows rose. ‘I’m impressed.’
We moved soundlessly into the corridor beyond and reached a junction thirty feet in. Friedrich peered around the corner of the wall and drew his head back sharply. A low rumble of conversation rose close by before dying in the distance.
Friedrich indicated his men. ‘We’ll take the north lab. You guys take the south one.’ He offered me his hand. ‘Good luck.’
I hesitated; it was the closest I had ever gotten to a friendly gesture from a Schwatz Hunter. I shook his hand. We parted ways, Ashely, Anatole, and Bruno following behind me.
Minutes later, my earpiece crackled into life. Friedrich’s voice came through.
‘Does something strike you as odd?’
‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘This place is dead.’
The underground facility was deserted. We had already crossed numerous corridors and rooms devoid of signs of life. The only sounds disturbing the tomb-like silence were the buzz from the overhead fluorescent strips and the hum of the vending machines.
‘This place should be crawling with Crovirs,’ said Friedrich. ‘Something’s off.’
We stopped at a crossroad and observed another pair of empty hallways.
‘I think he might be right,’ said Ashely.
‘Wait.’ Friedrich’s voice became tense. ‘I see something.’ There was a pause. ‘We’ve reached the lab.’
I heard a muffled hiss, followed by a protracted silence.
‘It’s empty,’ said Friedrich.
A chill ran down my spine at his words. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s no one here,’ he replied grimly. ‘It looks like they left in a hurry. The place is a mess.’ Rustling noises came across the earpiece. ‘I can see a decontamination room. It must lead to another lab. I’m gonna check it out.’
I tried to quell the ominous foreboding growing inside me. ‘Be careful.’
‘Hey!’ someone called out. I looked around.
Bruno had wandered to the end of the east hallway; he was staring at something in the adjacent corridor, his gun pointed downward. ‘I found a dead guy.’
We joined him and looked at the body on the floor.
The man was dressed in a white, gas-tight decontamination suit complete with clamped boots, gloves, and a hood with a shattered laminated visor. The mode of death was unmistakably evident; there was a single bullet wound in the middle of his forehead. Rigor mortis had started to set in and he lay stiffly against a pair of high containment glass doors. A sign above the lintel read “UL 2”.
Beyond the transparent walls, discarded instruments sat atop the work surfaces of a lab. Another set of glass doors stood in the wall on the other side of the room. A second body was visible through them.
I lifted the passkey from the dead man’s waist and moved it across the access panel to the right. The doors beeped and slid open. We stepped inside the lab.
‘What the hell is going on?’ muttered Bruno.
I studied the array of complex equipment crowding the countertops. There was no sign of anything remotely resembling a hazardous, biological product-containment device, or a vaccine. My knuckles whitened on the weapons in my grasp.
‘It’s a trap.’ I stopped in front of the doors leading to the inner room. ‘Santana must have known we were coming.’
‘How? We only left Prague a few hours ago!’ exclaimed Anatole.
‘I can only think of two reasons.’ I waved the passkey across the second security display and crossed the threshold into the next chamber. ‘Either she’s a tactical genius or someone betrayed us.’ I stared at the second body and struggled to control the anger in my voice. ‘If I was a betting man, I’d go with the latter option.’ I squatted by the still figure.
The woman was dressed in a decontamination suit and had suffered a bullet wound to the chest. Her body had twisted sideways in her final death throes and her outstretched hand reached toward a stainless steel door to the left of the room.
‘I take it these people weren’t immortals,’ Ashely said behind me.
I straightened. ‘No. They were probably hired from the nearest town.’ I crossed the floor to the steel door and gazed through the oval glass port in the top half of the panel.
‘What’s through there?’ said Ashely. He joined me.
‘It’s an airlock chamber.’ I scrutinized the gray space beyond. ‘It must lead to a decontamination room and another lab.’
I used the passkey to open the door. There were sterile suits on the wall inside.
Ashely started to climb into one of them. I turned and stared at him.
‘What’re you doing?’
Ashely met my gaze with a frown. ‘We’re not having this discussion again. Just shut up and get in a suit.’
I exhaled loudly and looked to the doorway, where Bruno and Anatole stood watching us. ‘See if you can find anything on the computers,’ I told them. ‘They may not have erased the hard drives.’
I closed the steel door and engaged the airlock. An ominous hiss sounded behind me as a second door opened. I left the daisho in the chamber and followed Ashely into the decontamination shower.
Moments later, there was a sensation of pressure and air whistled from the room. The light on the next containment door changed to green and a panel slid aside. We entered a brightly lit sterile lab.
The facility was still functional. Lights glowed on the instruments thrumming on the counters lining the wall to our right, the steady buzz from the machines penetrating through the soles of our boots. A fridge with a glass door stood next to them. My heart sank when I noted the empty shelves inside.
A row of containment cages stood on a table. The bloated and bruised bodies of several dead rats lay inside.
‘It’s a good thing Anatole didn’t come with us,’ I murmured.
‘Adam.’
I turned and looked to where Ashely stared.
A glass wall rose behind and to our left, separating the inner lab from yet another chamber. Inside it were three gurneys. Medical equipment crowded the space around the beds and overshadowed the bodies lying upon them.
The figures were still attached to life monitors and IV drips. The machines had been turned off.
I took a step toward the door in the middle of the wall.
Ashely frowned. ‘What are you doing?’
‘They may still be alive.’ I reached for the passkey at my waist.
‘They look dead enough from here,’ Ashely muttered as he followed me into the second room.
The body on the first bed was that of a young woman. Several IVs were hooked to her arms and a central line dangled from her neck. There was a disconnected ET tube taped to her mouth.
‘What the hell?’ Ashely moved to the second bed, his eyes widening in consternation. The body of a man lay in it. Tubes and wires dotted his arms and legs, and he was attached to an array of silent machines.
This time, the coldness that gripped me felt arctic.
Large, purple necrotic lesions covered the visible areas of skin on the two corpses. Dry blood coated their eyes and orifices. A macabre patchwork of rust colored stains darkened the sheets where they had bled from their IVs and lower gut.
‘They were infected with the virus.’ I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded.
Ashely stared at the bodies. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘To see whether it wo
rked.’ I took a deep breath and suppressed the rage and dread that threatened to overwhelm me.
I moved to the third bed.
The last figure was also that of a man. His skin was covered in the same lesions as the first two. One of his IVs was attached to a working drip stand. A trail of blood had oozed out of his left nostril. As I watched, it trickled down his cheek. My eyes widened.
‘He’s still alive!’ I moved to the side of the gurney and reached for the man’s wrist. There was a faint pulse. I looked up and saw his eyelids flicker open.
The man blinked at me. ‘Yanof? Is that you?’ he murmured through dry, cracked lips.
It was obvious he could not see clearly through the visor of my suit helmet. Either that or he was delirious from his sickness. I hesitated before holding his hand gently.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ I lied in a steady voice.
The man swallowed convulsively, a rasp escaping his parched throat. He lifted his head off the pillow and grabbed the front of my suit in a surprisingly strong grip.
‘Burnstein tricked us, Yanof!’ he hissed. ‘He said he was going to give us the vaccine, but he injected us with the virus. You have to get out of here! Get out before it’s too late!’ He collapsed onto the bed, his chest shuddering.
Alarm tore through me. I leaned across the gurney. ‘Listen! Is there anywhere else in the lab where they might have stored the virus or the vaccine? Please, tell me!’
The man’s eyes closed. For a moment, I feared he had passed away. A second later, his eyelids fluttered open once more.
‘They took it all away,’ he whispered. ‘I saw them. There’s nothing left!’ He gasped. ‘I heard Burnstein say...they were taking it to America.’
He took a final rattling breath and sagged against the pillow, his features slackening. I stared at the dead man for a moment before lowering his limp hand to the sheet and closing his staring eyes.
A blast boomed in the distance. The walls and floor of the lab shook violently. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling.
Ashely and I stared at each other.
‘What was that?’ I barked in the mouthpiece.