Breeders (21 page)

“Why did you dump the container with the bodies into the ocean?” Neil asked.

Wattana resumed his pacing. “They were a genetically inferior batch. Girls who were too old. Boys, we have no use for boys. When they’re young we’ll use them to sweep and clean, but then they become another mouth to feed and we exterminate them. We have to renew the genetic material every six months, so we exterminate thirty or so then grow new breeders in their place.”
 

He threw the empty polystyrene cup into the bin. “Simple. But I digress. They were to be dumped much farther into the Atlantic, but then something went wrong and the pilot dropped them too close to shore.” He chuckled. “Trust me, that pilot has flown his last flight.”

He turned to them and looked at them expectantly. “Any more questions?”

“What are you going to do with us?” Alexa asked.

Wattana shrugged. “Your genetic material is too inferior to be of any use to us—a Jew and a Gypsy. No, you’ll be scheduled for the next batch to be exterminated.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Neil spat.

“Oh, you’ll be close to death when we load you into the dispenser. I’m going to have my fun with you two first,” Wattana said and winked at Alexa.

Neil bolted up and shoulder charged Wattana off his feet. The guards jumped forward, but Neil lashed out and kicked one of them in the groin and head butted the other, sending the man slumping to the ground. The other guards ran into the room and a scuffle ensued.

“Stop or I’ll kill her!” Wattana shouted, a pistol pointed at Alexa’s head.

Neil stood still and the guards overpowered him, pushing him to the ground.

Wattana swore then rubbed the side of his head, waving the gun from Alexa to Neil. “I notice you two are more than close colleagues.”

“Interpol will come looking for us,” Alexa said, straining against her cuffs.

“And they won’t find anything. I have the local law enforcement in my pocket.”

“Moolman?”

Wattana chuckled. “Yes, and that good general of yours.”

“Laiveaux?” Alexa asked incredulously.

“None other, my dear Captain.”

Neil smiled. Sure. “What about Eben de Vos?”

Wattana’s face became hard. “That bastard’s more stubborn than a mule. How Mitsu took an interest in that man, I don’t know.”

“Does Eben know that Alida was not his daughter?”

Wattana turned to Neil. “You have a lot of questions, Sergeant.” He paced the room, looking bored. “My sister is a good actor. She faked the pregnancy. Eben knows nothing about this little operation we have going here,” he said, waving the gun nonchalantly. ”Mitsu doesn’t want him to get involved. I think she actually loved that buffoon.”

Wattana called a guard then fiddled with his cuff link. “Enough talking. Take them to the cells. Put her in with Eight One Three.”

The guards dragged them away.

“You’re going down for this, Wattana!” Neil shouted as they dragged him outside.

Wattana didn’t answer, he simply cackled a spine-chilling laugh.

Jake parked his mom’s BMW in front of the lab then walked into the reception area. Andre’ was manning the desk. “Hey, Andre’, is my dad around?”

The guy looked up from his girlie mag. “Jake, how are you doing, young man?” He put out a puffy hand. “Good to see you.” Andre’ had always been friendly toward him, but Jake knew it had more to do with his father’s position of authority at the plant than a genuine fondness toward him.

Jake shook his hand and waited for him to answer.

The guy smiled. “Oh, your dad. Yes, he’s in the lab.” He heaved his heavy frame from a protesting chair then trudged to the door. He reminded Jake of an oversized penguin. “C’mon, I’ll let you in.”

He swiped a card over the scanner on the wall, and the doors opened silently. “Cheers, Jake, and I’m sorry about your girlfriend, man.”

Jake nodded then went inside.

Hannes Petzer was bent over a petri dish. He wore an apparatus that looked like an extra pair of glasses strapped to his head.
 

“Hey, Dad.”

Petzer looked up with a scowl. His eyes seemed abnormally large, like he was looking at Jake through a peephole. “Jake, what are you doing here?”

“I brought you some lunch. Mom made it especially for you,” he said and showed Hannes the plastic bag with a lunchbox inside. “It’s lamb curry, your favorite.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of her,” he said, pulling blue plastic gloves from his hands. “Very kind of both of you. How did you get here?” he asked, sliding the wearable magnifiers to the top of his head.

“I borrowed mom’s car.”

Hannes Petzer tossed the gloves in a trash can marked “Hazardous.” It had the same logo you saw on nuclear bombs. “Jake, how many times have I told you that you’re not allowed to drive without a license? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“It’s a holiday, Dad.”

Hannes Petzer jerked his head sideways toward the table where his phone started ringing. He seemed preoccupied. “What the hell now? Why must I always be interrupted?” he muttered. He picked it up. “Hello? Yes.” He listened attentively. “OK, Doctor, I’ll be right over.” He looked up at Jake. “I need to go. We have a crisis that I need to deal with. You go straight back home now.”

Jake nodded. “OK, Dad.”

Hannes Petzer flew around and pulled a phone from his lab jacket’s pocket then started dialing a number. He barged through a door marked “Testing Facility” at the back of the lab without looking back.

Jake stood still for a while, listening intently. He went to his father’s desk and shuffled through the drawers. It contained nothing important, except for a one hundred rand note. Jake pocketed it. He pursed his lips then made up his mind. He jumped up and strode to the door then opened it a crack and peered out. The coast was clear.

He tried to move as quietly as he could, carefully closing the door behind him. He was in a long, brightly-lit hallway with various exits to the left. They were numbered “1-50,” “51-100,” and so on, all the way to 500. Next to each exit was a sink and some disinfectant soap, and a white towel hung on a peg against the wall.

He tiptoed toward one of the doors and cracked it open. This place was darker. He opened the door wide and entered the area. The horrible stench wafted into his nostrils, and he had to pinch them to stop himself from retching. Faint lights covered by wire mesh shone dimly from the ceiling, flickering on and off. He tried to ignore the smell and went over to the door marked “1” with some reflective chevron tape. He bent down and peered through the hole at the top then jumped back in horror.

Sitting on the floor, her arms around her knees, hugging them tightly, was a dirty girl with matted black hair. It was Alida.

“Alida, wait, I’m going to get you out of here,” he called, looking around frantically for something to open the door with.

The girl stood up and cautiously moved closer to the door. She said something that sounded like, “So was thee?”

She started babbling, but he couldn’t understand a word that she was saying. He backed up to the wall but was grabbed on the shoulder by someone. He spun around, feeling dizzy. There she was again, staring wild-eyed out of the window of cell number two. He ran down the hall, breathing hard, peering into every cell. Alida was everywhere. “Oh my God, am I going crazy?” he thought. He ran at full speed down the passage and pulled open a door at the other end. It slammed closed behind him.

He bent over, sucking in deep breaths, thankful that he couldn’t smell the horrid stench anymore.

He looked up. A long tunnel stretched out in front of him. To the side were two electric golf carts parked back to back.
 

“Get a hold of yourself, Jake.” He sucked in deep lungfuls of air, waiting for the beating of his heart to slow down.
 

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, then he climbed into a cart and sped off.

Bruce held on to the handle on the dash as the Humvee rattled and bounced over the uneven landscape. Latorre was driving, pushing the vehicle to its limits. He checked the map. “It’s about a kilometer ahead,” he told Latorre.

In the distance he saw an aberration in the flat landscape. It wasn’t an anthill; it was square and seemed out of place. The square became larger, and Bruce figured that it had to be a small building of some kind.

They skidded to a halt next to the building, dust and pebbles spraying. The men jumped out then gathered around the concrete structure. It was surrounded by a fence that had recently been repaired. “Winch it,” he ordered Latorre.

Latorre nodded then pulled the winch cord out and tied it to a support pole on the corner of the fence. They stood back as he climbed into the vehicle, rammed it into gear, and sped backward. The pole and its concrete base ripped clean out of the ground. He backed up some more, the Hummer straining and shuddering as he dragged the entire fence back and over the small building. He drove another twenty meters to make sure that the barbs were well out of the way, then he unhooked the winch from the fence.

The building had a solid blue door. “Blow it,” Bruce told Rizak.

The man pulled a wad of plastic explosives from his backpack. He formed it into a ball then stuck it below the door handle. Finally, he attached two small terminals to the lump of putty and clipped them onto a wire, which he wound off a reel. “Get behind the Hummer,” he ordered the other men.

They all moved behind the vehicle, and he knelt next to them. “Ready?” he asked.

“Blow it,” Bruce ordered again.

Rizak nodded then pushed a button on a detonation switch. Nothing happened. Rizak looked at the button in confusion then pushed it a couple of times. Nothing happened. “Hang on a sec,” he said and started pulling the wires from the detonation device. He swapped the wires around, pushed them back in the device, his tongue moving along his lower lip in concentration as he worked. “There we go. Ready?” he asked Bruce.

“Just blow it, man!” Bruce shouted.

Rizak pressed the button and a massive explosion shook the Hummer. They ducked their heads as pieces of concrete rained from the sky and landed on the roof of the vehicle. “What the hell?” Bruce shouted, trying to wave away the dust. He ducked as the metal door slammed onto the hood of the Hummer. It took another thirty seconds before the dust settled and they were able to appreciate the destruction the explosion had caused.
 

Bruce tapped the side of his ear with a finger, the zinging noise fading away. At least he hadn’t gone deaf. He moved to the damaged side of the Hummer. The doors had been torn off by the impact of the blast, and all the windows were gone. He glanced sideways at Rizak. “Well, that sure as hell did the trick.”

The man shrugged. “I guess I’m a bit rusty.”

Bruce shook his head incredulously. “You guess?” He turned around and walked to where the building used to be. All that was left of the wall was a knee-high piece of concrete and a tangle of wire at the rear of the building. “It looks like there used to be a stairwell before you blew it to smithereens. Clear it.”

The men started hauling away the larger pieces of rubble then kicked away the smaller chunks. After ten minutes they had it cleared. “Right, let’s go,” Bruce ordered.

They followed Bruce down the stairwell then halted at the entrance to the tunnel. “Which way?” Latorre asked.

“Let’s split up. Latorre, you go left. Take Bellard and Roux with you. Rizak, follow me.”

The group split up and jogged away, their footsteps echoing down the tunnel.
 

Twenty minutes later Bruce stood in front of a large wire-mesh door locked from the inside electromagnetically. He turned to Rizak. “Blow it.”
 

Rizak went through the same ritual of placing putty on the door’s hinges then attaching the wires to it. He looked up at Bruce and nodded. “OK, I used less explosives this time. Stand back.”

Bruce stopped him. “How much wire do you have on that spool?”

“A hundred meters.”

“OK, wind it down fifty, I’m not taking any chances.”

The guy shrugged and reeled the wire off fifty paces backward. He looked at Bruce, who nodded.

An enormous explosion reverberated through the tunnel, and chunks of concrete and steel landed at their feet. They heard a rumble, and a section of the roof of the tunnel caved in. Water exploded from a burst water main. All that remained of the door was the frame.

Rizak removed a ball of explosives from his pocket, kneading it in his palm. “This stuff is pretty potent. It must get stronger with age.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go.”

Bruce heard men shouting, and then gunfire reverberated through the tunnel, a bullet ricocheting off the wall next to them. Contact. He slipped the .308 sniper rifle off his shoulder and took aim. It was an old weapon, but it was the one he trusted. He peered through the scope.
 

Half a dozen men wearing black fatigues were cautiously approaching the blown-up door, probably a hundred meters away. Easy. He breathed in and squeezed the trigger three times. Three soldiers slumped to the ground with holes in their chests. The other men fell down flat on the ground, seeking cover behind chunks of concrete.