Cuba (31 page)

periscope again. Yes. Another camera, just over the

door to the main floor.

He waited ten more seconds for the capacitor

to fully charge, then stuck it around the corner and

flashed the light.

“Let’s

go!”

With Chance behind him, Tommy Carmellini

went down the stairs to the main floor and used his

periscope to examine the landing on the stairs leading

down. Nothing.

On down to the landing, peeking around the corner.

“Motion detectorea”…he whispered to Chance.

Chance was breathing heavily inside the mask. It

wasn’t the exertion, he decided, but the tension. He

must be audible at fifty paces. He tried

to ignore the sound of his own rasping and listen.

were the guards coming? Two cameras were down had they

noticed? Would they come to inspect the things?

Or were the guards congregating right now, calling in

troops?

“Microwave or infrared”…”…Chance asked, referring

to the motion detector.

“One of each.”

“Beautiful.”

“Probably two independent systems.”

“Oh, Christ!”

“That’s a poor way to install them, actually. This

is old

technology,

Mission Impossible

stuff. We’ll just walk by the infrared

detectorsall this clothing will help shield

our body heat. If we move right along we should be

okay.”

“And the microwave system?”

Carmellini had already removed a device the size

of a portable CD player from his backpack.

“Jammerea”…he said, and examined the controls.

He turned it on and, holding it in front of him,

walked down to the motion detectors. The one on the

left was the microwave one, with a coaxial cable

leading away from it. Carmellini pulled the cable an

inch or so away from the wall and wedged the jammer into that

space.

“Come onea”…he whispered, and opened the door into the

basement.

The two men found themselves in a hallway.

Directly over-their head was a camera that pointed the

length of the hall, covering the door halfway down that

must lead into the lab.

Carmellini took a small battery-powered

camcorder from Chance’s backpack. He held it

under the security camera for about a minute, filming the

view down the hallway, then pushed the play

button. The device now replayed the same scene

on a continuous loop, and would do so until the

batteries were exhausted. He slid a

collar around the coaxial cable leading from the camera,

tightened it, then used a pair of wire cutters

to slice the coax away from the security camera.

The door into the lab had an alarm on it, one mounted

high.

“The alarm rings if the circuit is

brokenea”…Carmellini whispered. “It’s designed

to prevent unauthorized exit from the lab, not entry.

Won’t take a minute.”

He worked swiftly with a penknife and length of

wire. By wiring around the contact on the door and

jamb, he made the contact impossible to break.

Sixty seconds later he gingerly tried the

door. Reached for the handle and

Locked!

Now to work with the picks.

“They locked an emergency exit”…”…Chance demanded.

“Yeah. Real bastards, huh?”

Tommy Carmellini knew his business. When the

lock clicked, he put his picks back in his

knapsack, pulled the knapsack into position, and

palmed his pistol.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

Carmellini eased the door open, looked

quickly each way with just one eye around the jamb.

The door opened into a well-lit foyer. The entire

opposite wall of the room was made of thick

glass, which formed a wall of a large,

well-equipped laboratory. No people in sight.

And no security cameras or motion detectors.

Both men came in, pistols in their hands and pointed

at the floor. Chance pulled the ddor shut behind them.

They knelt by the long window and with just their heads sticking

up, surveyed the scene.

Row after row of culture trays, units for mixing

chemicals, deep sinks, storage cabinets, big

sterilizing units, stainless steel containers by the

dozen, analysis equipment, retorts,

microscopes …

“Holy damnea”…Carmellini said softly. “They are

sure as hell growing something in there.”

“Somethingea”…Chance agreed.

On the end of the room to their left was a large air

lock.

“That’s the way in.”

“Do we have to go in?”

“We need samples from those culture trays.”

Chance led the way. He walked, holding the pistol

down by his right thigh.

Around the corner slowly, looking first.

There were actually two air locks. After they went

through the first one, they found themselves in a dressing room

with a variety of white one-piece coveralls hanging

on nails. Each man donned one, pulling it on

over his

STEPHEN COONTS

clothes, then zipping it tightly, fastening the cuffs with

Velcro strips. Gas masks were there too, but they

were already wearing masks.

The second lock was equipped with a large vacuum

machine which suctioned dust and microorganisms from the

white coveralls.

They opened the door to the lab and stepped inside.

“The culture traysea”…Chance said, and led the way.

From his backpack he took syringes, quickly

screwed on needles.

The glass trays sat on mobile racks, three

dozen to a rack. They were readily transparent, so

he could look inside, see the bacteria growing on

the food mix at the bottom of the tray.

He selected a rack of trays, pulled one

tray from the rack and laid it on the marble-topped

counter nearby. He opened it. Used a syringe.

With the syringe about half-full, he

unscrewed the needle, deposited the syringe in a

plastic freezer bag and sealed it.

Meanwhile Carmellini had been exploring. As

Chance sealed up his second sample from this rack of

trays, Carmellini came back, motioning with his

hand. “Better come look. Looks like they are growing

several kinds of cultures.”

The second kind looked similar to the first, but the

organisms were of. a slightly different color.

Chance selected a tray, took a sample, then

replaced the tray on the rack, as he had the first

one.

He was finishing his second sample from this batch when,

out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carmellini

motion for him to get down.

He dropped to a sitting position, finished sealing the

syringe bag.

He put the samples into his knapsack, reached

up on the countertop for his pistol.

Carmellini was creeping along below the counter with his

pistol in his hand.

Someone was in the air lock. By looking down the

aisle

between the counters Chance could just see the top of his head as

he pulled on the gas mask in the dressing

room.

Whoever it was was coming in.

Carmellini looked at Chance, lifted his hands in a

query: Now what?

Chance made a downward motion. Maybe this person

would just come in, get something, then leave.

It would be impossible, he decided, to sneak out

while the person was in the lab. Although the lab was

large, at least a hundred feet long, anyone in

the air locks could be seen from anywhere in the lab

unless the viewer was behind a piece of large

equipment.

Shit!

Well, the Cubans were about to discover that their lab was

no longer a secret. That was not a disaster;

unfortunate, perhaps. Perhaps not.

The person coming in wore a complete protection

suit and mask. Not a square inch of skin was

exposed.

Large for a woman. A man, probably. Almost

six feet. Hard to tell body weight under a bag

suit like that, but at least 180 pounds.

He checked the safety on the pistol. On. With his

thumb he moved it to the off position, checked it

visually.

Now the person was coming out of the air lock, walking

purposefully down the aisle between the counters and

trays of cultures.

William Henry Chance stood up, pointed the

pistol straight in the face of the masked person

walking toward him.

The man froze. If it was a man. Stopped dead

and slowly raised his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye Chance saw Tommy

Carmellini moving toward the Cuban.

“Find something to tie him withea”…he said loudly, hoping

Carmellini would understand his muffled voice.

Carmellini seemed to. He held up a roll of

duct tape. He

moved toward the man, who turned his head so that he

could get a good look at Carmellini.

Garmellini had his pistol in his hand. His holster was

under the white coverall, as was Chance’s, so both men

had carried their pistols with them in their hands.

Now Carmellini placed the pistol on a counter,

well out of the man’s reach. He walked behind him.

The man pushed backward, slamming Carmellini

against a counter.

Damnation! Chance couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting

Carmellini. As if the .22-caliber

bullets in the Ruger would drop a big man at this

distance.

Chance walked around the counter, up the aisle, intending

to shoot the Cuban in the head from as close as he could

get.

Carmellini kicked violently and the Cuban went

flying back into a rack of culture trays.

Three or four of the trays fell from the rack and

shattered on the floor.

The man launched himself at Carmellini, who ducked

under a right cross. The man kept right on going,

heading for the pistol lying on the counter.

Carmellini caught him by the back of his coverall and

swung him bodily around. With a mighty punch he

sent the man reeling backward, straight into the rack

of culture trays he had already bit. The man

slipped, fell amid the broken glass.

Without sights, wearing the silencer, the Ruger was hard

to aim. Chance squeezed off a round anyway. Where

the bullet went he never knew.

Before he could fire again the man screamed in agony.

All his muscles went rigid. He bent over

backward, screaming in a high-pitched wail.

“Let’s goff”…Carmellini yelled.

The man got control of an arm. He

tore at his mask, trying to get it off, all the

while screaming and thrashing around on the floor amid

the broken glass.

“Holy shit.”

The stricken man finally just ran out of air. All

motion stopped. He was bent over backward, almost

double, his head within a few inches of his heels.

Careful not to step on the broken glass, Chance bent

over the man. He carefully took off the gas

mask.

Eyes rolled back in his head, every muscle taut

in a fierce rigor, the man seemed almost frozen.

“He must have torn his suitea”…Chance muttered to himself.

The Cubans must have vaccinated everyone with access.

Why didn’t the vaccination protect him?

“Let’s get our asses through the air lock and get

the fuck outta hereea”…Carmellini said loudly.

They stood in the vacuum room for the longest time,

neither man willing to be the first to leave.

“We must goea”…Carmellini said at last, after almost

ten minutes of suction, after using a high-pressure

jet of air from a hose to blast every nook and fold

of the coverall.

They hung the coveralls on the nails. Stood in

the next air lock, were vacuumed again, then

they were out, still wearing their gas masks.

“We might kill everyone in Havanaea”…Chance said.

“We’ll never know itea”…Carmellini shot back.

“We’ll be in hell before they are.”

“Can’t figure out why the vaccination didn’t

protect him.”

“Later. How the hell are we going to get out of

here?”-

“The easiest way is to just walk out the front

door, shoot both the guards, and walk around the

corner to the van.”

“They’ll see us going up the stairs.”

“The elevator. We’rl use the elevator.

Keep the pistols where they can’t see them.”

“You are fucking-A crazy, man. One crazy

motherfucker.”

The elevator was right there with the door open. Chance

walked in. When Carmellini was aboard, he pushed

the button to take it up.

With their pistols down by their legs, they walked out

of the elevator, straight for the guard shack at the

front door.

Only one man was there, reading something. He looked

up as they approached. Now he stood.

“Que

pasa”…”…he began, and Chance shot him in the forehead from

six feet away.

The guard toppled over backward.

Chance and Carmellini kept going, out the door at a

walking pace, down the sidewalk under the

streetlights looking like two refugees from a flying

saucer, and around the corner. They jerked open the rear

door of the van and jumped in.

Chance ripped off the mask.

“Let’s get the hell outta hereea”…he roared at the

driver, who was as surprised at their sudden