Medusa

  “He’s no doctor,” she said, “he’s a monster!”

  “Maybe it’s time you showed Joe the video,” Phelps suggested.

  Mitchell was stone-faced as she took a key on a chain hung from around her neck and unlocked a drawer in her desk She reached in and pulled out a box holding a number of CD-ROM discs. She picked out one labeled COMPUTER PROGRAM BACKUP. Her fingers trembled as she slipped the disc into her computer and turned the monitor around so that it was facing the two men. The disc’s narrator spoke Chinese.

  “No subtitles?” Zavala asked.

  “You won’t need them once this thing gets going,” Phelps said. “I’ve seen it before.”

  “Wu is Chang’s creature,” Mitchell said. “His job is to check on our progress. When he’s here, he kicks me out of my office. Luckily, he doesn’t like being on the lab.

  “I found this disc in the computer after his last visit. He must have been reviewing its contents. I made a copy, then left the disc in the computer. He eventually realized he had left the disc behind and sent one of his thugs to retrieve it.”

  A picture had come up on the screen. The camera showed Wu talking to a man in a suit, then switched to a view of some people lying in beds encased in transparent cylinders. Figures in protective suits moved among the cylinders. The camera zoomed in to show close-ups of the people in them. Some appeared to be asleep or possibly dead. Others had faces mottled with mahogany splotches and contorted in agony.

  “Is this a hospital?” Zavala asked.

  “Far from it,” Mitchell said in a tense voice. “That’s Dr. Wu narrating. From what I can determine, the video was shot at a lab in China where they were experimenting with vaccines the Triad created. I don’t know the man in the suit. They used human subjects, and of course they had to infect their subjects with the virus. You can see the results on the screen. He’s worse than that Nazi Mengele, the concentration-camp doctor.”

  “Dr. Mitchell showed me this stuff a while ago,” Phelps said. “Now you see why I’ve come over to your side.”

  A rage began to build in Zavala’s chest, and when the video had ended he said, “Someone is going to pay for this.”

  “Funny to hear you say that,” a familiar voice said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Three heads turned simultaneously. And three pairs of eyes widened at the sight of Austin, who stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. He held his Bowen loosely in his left hand.

  Zavala stared at his friend. He wasn’t totally surprised to see him: Austin had a way of popping up when you least expected him. But Austin’s wet suit was covered with blood and jellyfish slime.

  “You look like you’ve been wrestling in raspberry Jell-O,” Zavala said. “Are you okay?”

  “My right arm is feeling a little useless right now, but the blood isn’t mine. On the way here, I stopped in a room with a big round tank. A guy jumped me, and we were waltzing around when some of the smaller tanks in the room broke and spilled their insides all over the floor.”

  “The small tanks contained organisms in various stages of mutation,” Mitchell said. “You’re lucky the big tank didn’t break. Those creatures were the final mutant phase, the one used to make the vaccine. Each tentacle contains thousands of nematocysts, tiny harpoons that inject the toxin into prey.”

  “My apologies for the damage, but it couldn’t be helped,” Austin said. He introduced himself to Lois Mitchell. “When I saw you from outside the dome, I thought that only Joe Zavala could find a lovely woman at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “That was you I saw?”

  Austin nodded.

  “I was watching you and Joe and got careless.”

  He turned to Phelps.

  “From the conversation I overheard a few minutes ago, it sounds like you’ve come over from the Dark Side.”

  “That video nailed it for me,” Phelps said. “Joe seems to be okay with the deal.”

  Austin didn’t have time to subject Phelps to a lie-detector test. He glanced at Zavala, who gave him a nod, then came back to Phelps.

  “Welcome aboard, soldier,” Austin said. “What’s our status?”

  “Chang is on his way to the lab to pick up the vaccine,” Phelps said.

  “He’ll be here any minute,” Mitchell added.

  “That’s good,” Austin said unexpectedly. “Chang and the people responsible for the scenes on that video are walking dead.”

  Unexpectedly, Lois began to sob.

  “I’m one of those people,” she said. “I collaborated on the vaccine work.”

  “You can’t beat yourself up, Dr. Mitchell,” Austin said, trying to cushion the force of his words. “You were forced to work on the vaccine. You and the other scientists would have been killed if you hadn’t.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But I went overboard to make sure the project was a success. It was as if I were trying to show them we could meet the challenge.”

  “Rock and a hard place,” Phelps said. “Now that the vaccine’s a fact, they won’t need the staff or the lab. Joe and I have come up with a plan to get everyone off the Locker.”

  Austin didn’t answer right away. He squinted through the dome where he had seen a flicker of light. Recalling the high visibility of the globe’s interior to outside eyes, Austin hit the light switch, throwing the office into darkness.

  “Your plan had better be a good one,” Austin said. “Look.”

  All eyes turned to see the shuttle carrying Chang and Dr. Wu as it descended toward the lab like a star falling in slow motion.

  Unknown

  NUMA 8 - Medusa

  CHAPTER 44

  MINUTES LATER, THE SHUTTLE SETTLED ON THE LANDING pad and the open roof over it closed again like two halves of a clamshell. Powerful pumps kicked into action and rapidly cleared the airlock of water, but Chang nonetheless was seething with impatience. He finally burst from the shuttle like a moray eel springing from its den and slogged toward the exit door as the last few inches of water gurgled down the drains. The weasel-faced Dr. Wu followed a couple of paces behind.

  When the door to the airlock hissed open, Phelps was standing in the adjacent chamber next to the control console. He stepped up to Chang and greeted him with a lopsided grin.

  “You got here fast, boss. Musta put the pedal to the metal.”

  Chang stared at Phelps with barely concealed contempt. American jargon was lost on him, and it annoyed him when Phelps used it. He had never fully trusted Phelps and suspected his loyalty extended only to the next paycheck.

  “Enough talk!” Chang snarled. “Where is the vaccine?”

  “Dr. Mitchell has it,” Phelps said. “She’s been waiting in the mess hall for you to arrive. The NUMA guy is with her.”

  “And the laboratory staff? Where are they?”

  “They’re all tucked away in their quarters.”

  “Make sure they stay there. You have disabled the minisubs, as I ordered?”

  Phelps dug out four flat, rectangular boxes tucked in his belt.

  “These circuits control the subs’ power supplies,” he said.

  Chang snatched the circuit boards from Phelps, dropped them on the metal floor, and ground them to pieces with his heel. He barked an order to his men, who had emerged from the shuttle carrying wooden boxes in their arms. They stacked the boxes near the console and then returned to the cargo hold for more.

  Printed on the boxes in big bold red letters was

  HANDLE WITH CARE EXPLOSIVES

  Phelps rapped the top of a box with his knuckles.

  “What’s going on with the firecrackers, Chang?” he asked.

  “It’s fairly obvious,” Chang said. “You’re going to use your expertise with explosives to blow up the lab. It has fulfilled its function.”

  Phelps poked at the smashed electrical circuits with the toe of his boot.

  “One problem,” he said. “How are the scientists going to get off the l
ab with the minisubs disabled?”

  “The scientists have fulfilled their function. They’ll stay with the lab.”

  Phelps stepped in front of Chang and faced off.

  “You hired me to hijack the lab,” Phelps said. “Killing a bunch of innocent people wasn’t in my job description.”

  “Then you won’t prepare the explosives?” Chang asked.

  Phelps wagged his head.

  “That’s right,” he said. “You can count me out of this deal.”

  Chang stretched his liverish lips in a death’s-head grin.

  “Very well then, Mr. Phelps. You’re fired.”

  Chang’s hand reached down to his holster and, in a lightning move, drew his pistol and shot Phelps point-blank in the chest. The impact at such close range threw Phelps backward, and he crashed to the floor. Chang gazed at Phelps’s twitching body with the expression of a craftsman who considered his job well done. He ordered one of his men to prepare the explosives, and then he charged off. Dr. Wu followed a few paces behind.

  Chang burst into the mess hall, and his jade-green gaze fell on Joe Zavala and Lois Mitchell, who were tied to their chairs and sat back-to-back under the watchful eye of the same hard-faced guards who had come down with Phelps. Chang leaned close to Zavala.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “You’ve got a short memory,” Zavala said. “We met on the Beebe. You left with your tail between your legs while Kurt Austin and I entertained your friends.”

  “Of course,” Chang said. “You’re the NUMA engineer. My men deserved their fate. We won’t be so careless next time. How did you find us?”

  “One of our planes flew over the atoll and saw something suspicious.”

  “You’re lying!” Chang grabbed the front of Zavala’s shirt. “I don’t like being taken for a fool. If that were the case, planes and ships would be swarming around the atoll. My observers report that all is peaceful.”

  “Maybe it’s what you don’t see that you should worry about,” Zavala said.

  “Tell me how you found us.”

  “Okay, I confess. A little bird told me.”

  Chang backhanded Zavala across the jaw.

  “What else did your little bird tell you?” Chang asked.

  “He told me that you are going to die,” Zavala burbled through bloody lips.

  “No, my friend, it is you who are going to die.”

  Chang let go of Zavala’s shirt and turned to Lois Mitchell, who was staring in horror at Joe’s bloodied face.

  “Where is my vaccine?” Chang demanded.

  She glared at Chang, and said, “In a safe place. Untie me and I’ll get it for you.”

  At a nod from Chang, his men untied her. She stood and rubbed her wrists, then went over and opened the door to the walk-in refrigerator used to store food for the mess. Stepping inside, she came out carrying a large plastic cooler, which she placed on the floor. Dr. Wu unlatched the lid of the cooler.

  “The cooler holds the microbial cultures that will allow you to synthesize the vaccine in quantity,” she said.

  Packed in foam were a number of the shallow, wide petri dishes. Wu smiled.

  “This is a miracle,” he said.

  “Actually,” she said, “it’s nothing more than very innovative genetic engineering.”

  She bent down and removed the top rack of petri dishes. Underneath were three stainless-steel containers, also packed in foam.

  “These are the three vials of the vaccine that you requested,” she said. “You will be able to make more with the cultures.” She replaced the rack, closed the lid, and stood up. “Our job here is done. Mr. Phelps said that we would be free to go once we completed the project.”

  “Phelps is no longer in our employ,” Chang said.

  Her face went ashen at the ominous tone of the announcement.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He ignored the question, and ordered his men to tie her up again.

  “Your friend Austin escaped me again,” Chang said to Zavala,

  “but it will only be a matter of time before we meet. And when we do, I will take great pleasure in describing your last moments to him.”

  Chang took the cooler from Wu’s hand and ordered the doctor and his guards to return with him to the shuttle. Austin stepped out of the walk-in refrigerator seconds later after they left, holding the Bowen in his left hand.

  “Good thing old bullethead left when he did,” Austin said. “I was starting to feel like a side of beef in there.”

  He tucked the revolver under his right arm. Using a kitchen knife, he sliced the bindings holding Zavala, who reached for a napkin to staunch his bleeding lips. Despite the cuts and bruises, he was in good humor.

  “Chang isn’t going to be happy when he finds out that the vaccine cultures you gave him are bogus,” he said to Lois Mitchell.

  She gave Zavala a knowing smile, and went back into the freezer. She came out with another cooler, almost identical to the first.

  “Wait until he learns that we’ve got the real thing,” she said.

  CHANG WAS ALREADY far from happy. He uttered an angry curse as he entered the airlock chamber and saw that Phelps’s body was gone. A trail of blood led off toward a corridor. Phelps must have survived the gunshot and dragged himself down one of the passageways.

  No matter. Phelps would die when the lab blew into a million pieces. Chang inspected his sapper’s handiwork and ordered him to set the timer. Then he herded his men into the shuttle, and the pilot used a remote control to activate the pumps. The airlock quickly filled with water. As the shuttle rose through the opening halves of the clamshell roof, Austin stood in the airlock control room watching the ascent on the instrument console’s television monitor. He spun around at the sound of a footfall, only to lower the Bowen a second later.

  Phelps stood at the entrance to the passageway with his lips contorted into a strained grin. He was stripped to the waist, and a makeshift bandage soaked with blood covered the upper left part of his chest. His face was pale, but his dark eyes were defiant.

  “You look like crap,” Austin said.

  “Feel like it too,” Phelps said.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I figured Chang was going to be on hair trigger, thanks to you NUMA boys, so on my trip back to Kane’s office I grabbed a soft body-armor vest. It only covered my vitals, and I didn’t account for Chang’s bad aim. Bastard nicked me in the shoulder.”

  “Why did he shoot you?”

  “He got testy when I told him I wouldn’t rig the C-4 he and his boys brought down in the shuttle.”

  “He planned to destroy the lab with people in it?”

  “Oh, hell, they put down enough explosives to wreck the Great Wall of China. Sloppy work, though. Lucky they didn’t blow themselves up.”

  Phelps tossed a bundle of colored wires on the floor in an expert’s gesture of disdain for amateurish work.

  “What’s Chang going to do when he discovers that his explosives didn’t go off?” Austin asked.

  “My guess is, he’ll send somebody down to check it out.” Phelps cocked his head. “On second thought, he’ll probably come back to shoot your friends so he can tell you about it.” He gingerly touched the bandage. “Chang’s kinda bad-tempered that way.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Austin said. “We’ve got to get everyone off the lab in the minisubs.”

  Phelps pointed at the black discs that had been pulverized under Chang’s heel.

  “These are circuits for the subs’ controls,” he said. “Chang stomped them.”

  “Damn!” Austin said. “The subs were our only hope.”

  “Still are,” Phelps said. “I gave Chang some other discs for his temper tantrum. The originals are still in the subs.”

  Austin gazed at Phelps, thinking that he still had a lot to learn about human nature.

  “What say you get the subs ready while I round up the scientists,” Austin said.

/>   Phelps gave a quick salute and headed for the transit hub while Austin hurried back to the mess hall. Zavala had already rounded up the entire staff. The expressions on their faces ran the gamut from joy that they’d been freed to fear about what would happen next.

  Austin introduced himself, asked everyone to be quiet for a minute, then announced: “We’re abandoning the Locker.” He shushed the group again and warned them to move as quickly as possible. Questions would be allowed later.

  The weary and frightened scientists climbed down to the minisub hatches. A few hesitated, and there were angry shouts when they saw Phelps, but Austin told them to pipe down and get into the subs. With some grumbling, they did as they were told.

  “Are the subs likely to encounter Chang on their way out of the crater?” he asked Phelps.

  “Not if they move fast. Chang would have gone back to his freighter to wait for the big boom. If the subs stay submerged as long as they can, they’ll be well past Chang’s ship, and can put out a Mayday.”

  Austin passed Phelps’s advice along to the pilot of each sub. He delegated the shuttle pilot to take the lead vehicle. Mitchell got in one of them and held the cooler with the real vaccine cultures in it tightly on her lap. Then, one by one, the subs detached from the underside of the hemispheric hub and followed the leader across the bottom of the crater and through the tunnel.

  With the staff on its way, Austin turned to the next order of business: the Typhoon. As they got back in their wet suits, Zavala filled Austin in on the situation aboard the Russian submarine. Austin’s view of the situation was less optimistic than Zavala’s. Feeling was returning to Austin’s right arm, but he still wouldn’t be able to raise and fire the heavy Bowen revolver with any degree of accuracy. Phelps would be of limited help.

  When Phelps tried to get into his wet suit, the snug neoprene top pressed painfully against his wound. Zavala used Austin’s knife to cut the arm of the suit off and part of the chest area to relieve the pressure.

  Phelps noticed that two sets of scuba gear were missing and surmised that the pair of guards who had escorted Zavala from the sub had gone back to join their comrades. More bad news: the guards were now back to their full complement.