“One last time,” the truck driver said as he began to gear the truck down to a stop, “you’re keeping my name out of this, right?”
Again, Slater nodded.
Fear and greed were mingled in the man’s eyes. He was short, with a gut that swayed inside his dull green work shirt and bounced against the steering wheel with every bump of the road.
“You’re Fine as long as we both stick to our stories,” Slater said. “One of your guys called in sick. And I showed up to help just at the right time.”
They both knew it had cost Slater five hundred dollars for the driver’s helper to agree to be conveniently ill for the day. Slater had spent another five thousand on the truck driver, telling him it was part of a journalistic effort to see the extent of the security of the aging nuclear base. Slater’s cover story wasn’t exactly a lie; after taking the kid to the airport, Slater had spent two hours documenting everything on his laptop computer. The disk, and an explanatory note, was already in the mail to one of his former investment buddies. If Slater didn’t return, he could only hope his efforts hadn’t been wasted.
Now, as the driver began to back the trailer to the loading dock, Slater felt a Fierce sense of joy. It surprised him – he’d expected fear and worry. He hadn’t felt this alive in years. He realized the sense of joy came from adrenaline and the vigor of purpose. He also admitted much of this purpose came from a possibly misguided romantic notion of charging in to rescue the fair damsel, for Slater didn’t have to think hard to recall Paige Stephens’s effect on him.
A jolt sent a tremor through the cab of the truck. The trailer had bumped into the rubber of the dock’s edging. The driver shut down his motor and looked at Slater.
“Good luck, pal,” he said. “You paid enough for the chance. I hope it’s worth your while.”
***
Slater was hedging his bet, waiting as long as possible before committing himself to action without return.
He first helped the driver use a hand forklift to pull pallets from the echoing interior of the semi. Crates of fresh vegetables, boxes of frozen meat, heavy cartons of canned goods.
“If anything, the military eats good,” the driver grunted as he maneuvered the forklift from the dock toward a double-wide door that led into the building. “Unless the cooks ruin it like I remember from my own time in the service.”
“The order’s always this big?” Slater asked as he pushed against the back side of the pallet.
“Yep.”
From the outside, the main building of the base appeared to have only two stories. Slater had his own suspicions about the real location of the recipients of this food.
“Is there a service elevator?” he asked.
“It’s where we’re headed,” the driver told him. “We usually just stack the food outside the doors.”
Slater was about to give a casual reply when they entered the double-wide door of a smaller warehouse space. A white van was parked prominently near a garage door. The same white van that had taken Del from the cafe in Los Alamos.
Again, adrenaline surged through Slater’s veins. This didn’t seem real – maybe that’s why he was going ahead, because it felt like it was happening to someone else.
They wheeled the forklift toward the service elevator’s dull steel doors at the far side of the empty warehouse.
Slater felt his heart pound. He’d gambled that somehow he would be able to slip inside the building itself. If the service elevator was operated by a key, his obvious and best bet would fail him.
They moved closer, and Slater allowed himself to breathe again. Two clear plastic buttons were plainly visible outside the elevator – one with an arrow pointing down, the other with an arrow pointing up.
“How about leaving this pallet here for me to unstack?” Slater suggested. “You go back alone for the next one.”
Slater winked elaborately at the truck driver. “Then when you don’t see me, you assume I’m so lazy 1 fell asleep in the back of the cab. If I’m not back to the truck in half an hour, leave without me.”
The truck driver gulped. This was the moment of commitment for both of them. Once the truck driver turned his back, he would be engaging in a federal violation of security and Five thousand dollars richer. Once Slater stepped into the elevator, there were no guarantees he’d be able to get back to the truck.
The driver found his voice. “You know, I’m not so sure this is something I can do. I...”
“You don’t think I’m scared?” Slater said. “What’s keeping me going is the good of this country. If a guy like me can get inside, what’s it say about security? And that’s the point we’ll both be making when I finish this story.”
Before the truck driver could answer, Slater pushed the elevator button with the down arrow. Internal cables began to hum.
Slater smiled at the truck driver, who rubbed his hands nervously through his thinning hair.
The elevator doors slid open.
The truck driver shrugged.
Slater stepped inside and let the elevator doors close upon the safety of the outside world.
***
When the man with the scarred face arrived to escort Paige from the ward – silently beckoning her from the doorway with his unbandaged hand – she did not provide resistance. Earlier, Louise Silverton, the new arrival to the ward, had been unsparing in her description of his strength, and Paige saw no reason to engage in a futile Fight.
Dressed only in a thin hospital gown, she walked with dignity down the hallway alongside the monster with the scarred face, refusing to ask their destination, watching, ever watching, for a chance to bolt. As she walked the corridor in padded slippers beside the huge, ugly man, Paige was discovering something about herself. Toughness.
It had come as a surprise when she suddenly realized – after more than two days as prisoner – that she didn’t feel the fear she thought she should at his silent, hulking presence. She was focused on survival, and because of it, she was watchful and waiting, ready for any chance to escape.
The toughness inside became something she regarded with amusement and pride. How many years had she been content to go with the flow, as long as the flow was comfortable? Now, with all pretense of contentment gone, and forced to rely on herself, she could actually do it. She needed no soap operas to distract her, no compliments from a husband to sustain her self-worth.
As for other men, Paige had realized unless she first trusted herself, she shouldn’t be wishing for strong shoulders to lean on. Hammond had fooled her completely. Slater Ellis, too, had disappointed her. During their brief talk, she’d sensed, or thought she’d sensed, an honestness. And a connection. But Slater, too, would have been a disappointment. On the run for attempted murder? Again and again Paige had shaken her head to think about her gift for becoming interested in the wrong kind of man. Darby. Hammond. Ellis. Of course, as she wryly told herself, after Darby and Hammond, attempted murder didn’t seem such a bad sin.
She’d been relearning prayer, too, something she’d lost over the years among the distractions of boat parties and weekends to Miami. There was real strength there. Enough strength that she didn’t ask nervous questions as she followed the monster.
No chances for escape arrived, and he led her into a small room that appeared identical to a doctor’s office. An examining table filled the center of the room. There was a disturbing difference to this table, however. Straps. For ankles, wrists, waist, and neck. It took little deductive reasoning for Paige to realize the table was designed to hold someone helpless on her back.
Paige shivered, partly from cold and partly with the certainty she would soon be on the table.
The man she knew as John Hammond did not keep her waiting long. He pushed a trolley ahead of him as he entered the office dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and a white lab coat. The monster with the scarred face nodded, then stepped outside, shutting the door behind him.
“Ready for motherhood?” he asked. With an arrogant sm
irk, he gestured at the catheter, test tubes, and a petri dish before him on the trolley. “Even if you’re not, Papa here is.”
The straps, the stirrups on the examining table. Paige understood immediately. Hadn’t he said in a chilling whisper to end their previous visit, you are definitely a suitable mother for my son. He meant to implant a baby in her womb.
Paige spat in his face.
He wiped saliva from his cheek. “This is precisely why all the others are drugged before they enter this room. It saves so much bother.
“Zwaan,” he called to the closed door, “you are needed.”
The door opened and the monster hulked inside.
“Slap her please. But don’t draw blood. I haven’t the patience for messiness.”
With incredible swiftness, the monster stepped forward and with a single fluid motion, struck Paige so hard she almost fell backward.
“Thank you. Wait outside, please.”
Moments later, they were alone.
“I trust I need not demonstrate more.”
Paige only stared as hard as she could, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.
“Good. Get on the table.”
“Why?” Paige asked. Not as a plea, but coldly and flatly, for she knew if she allowed any emotion in her voice, she would break into tears.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“All of them, carrying babies for you. Why?”
“I haven’t the time for theatrical nonsense. On the table.”
“Why? A black market in babies?”
“I see I’ll have to call my friend in again.”
Paige thought of the crazy story she’d heard from Slater Ellis. The story about three boys found naked.
“Are you a weirdo? Getting kicks from helpless kids?”
“You stupid sow,” he said. “You will bear the fruits of my genius. Thank me for your life. And thank me for the chance to be involved in the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.”
“I’ll fight you until I die,” Paige promised.
“And I’ll keep you alive, baby after baby, until your womb goes dry.”
She spat in his face again, amazed at how cold rage and hatred displaced her fear.
“Zwaan!”
The monster entered the room again. As he approached Paige, she lashed out to punch him. He caught her swing midway, and twisted her arm until she cried out.
“Get her on the table.”
The monster grabbed her other arm and lifted her off the floor. She screamed, bucked, and kicked, heedless of her loss of dignity. His incredible strength bore her down. Moments later, she was helplessly strapped to the table, her only movement the heaving of her ribs as she drew gulping breaths.
“Excellent. Thank you for your help.”
“I’ve received word that Ellis has arrived,” the monster said in reply. Paige felt her stomach tighten at the horrid sound of his strained whisper. This was the man she’d heard on the phone with Darby!
“You know what to do. Bring him here. I won’t be long with the sow.
“Remember,” the scarred man whispered, holding up his bandaged hand, “you promised I could hurt him.”
“Yes, of course. But later. Now go.”
The huge man backed out of the office and shut the door again, leaving Paige with her captor and his trolley of medical instruments.
***
The elevator hummed as it dropped.
The fact that he’d guessed right – the bulk of the facility was underground – gave him little comfort.
What was ahead?
Slater had planned to go only as far as the situation would let him. He was going in blind, and he knew it. It was stupid, and he knew it. Yet he felt it was his only hope, going in and trying to adjust to what he might find. If, for example, he stepped off the elevator and discovered dozens of bustling people in various hallways and rooms, he would try to blend in and cautiously proceed until a security checkpoint or something similar stopped him. On the other hand, if the elevator door opened to armed guards, he would hold up his clipboard and apologize for making a mistake as a rookie delivery person. It eased his mind slightly – only slightly – to be carrying a pistol in his back pocket. He’d definitely keep it hidden unless things became so desperate it would justify pulling a gun on a military base.
The elevator stopped one floor down.
Slater tried to put a dumb, happy-go-lucky look on his face. He was dressed for the part of a warehouse employee – dirty jeans, wrinkled T-shirt, scuffed shoes. Would it fool a military guard, if indeed one waited on the other side of the doors?
Anticlimax disappointed him.
The elevator doors opened to show a door set into a recessed entry way. Slater stepped forward, keeping one foot behind him to wedge the elevator doors from shutting on him completely.
First, Slater looked up for a surveillance camera. Nothing. Then he reached forward – the recessed entry way wasn’t very deep and he could easily reach the doorknob. It was locked. There was a keypad for a security code that Slater did not possess.
Slater stepped back into the elevator. He punched the next button down.
The floor below was identical. A recessed entry with a locked door.
Another floor lower, the same thing.
Having exhausted the down buttons, Slater tried the top floor and found the same setup.
Each floor was barred to him unless he could pick locks. But even with those abilities, he wouldn’t have tried. No telling how the doors had been wired for security.
Slater felt beaten before the fight had begun, his pistol dead weight in his pocket.
He stared at the panels of the elevator’s interior.
His feeling of defeat grew. He couldn’t even penetrate the first layer of security. His only consolations were that he hadn’t been arrested in discovering this, and, defeated or not, he still had plenty of time to return to the grocer’s truck.
In a way, it relieved him.
He’d done all he could in trying to rescue Ben Austad and Paige Stephens. It meant he could return to Los Alamos, try a different approach. One, perhaps, that put them in greater danger because of the time element, but he could honestly tell himself it was the only option left.
Slater punched the button that would take him back to the loading dock and his duties of unloading groceries.
His heart lurched with the next movement of the elevator, for, unbelievably, it continued dropping well past the dock level.
***
The elevator door opened with a gush of air, showing Zwaan his expected visitor. Ellis stood, framed by the open doors, holding a clipboard in front of his chest.
“Tough day at the office, hon?” Zwaan said. His whisper made it sound like a threat, Zwaan lifted his damaged hand. “Come on in and let me make you comfortable.”
Ellis reacted by pulling the clipboard aside to reveal the small automatic pistol in his right hand. “Sit on the floor,” Ellis said. “Hands on top of your head.”
“No.”
“You’ve got to three. One...”
“Kill me and the woman dies. So does Austad.” Zwaan stepped forward and extended his hand, palm upward. “Give me the gun.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Hardly. Video surveillance covers this hallway. I die, they die. You won’t even get through the vault door behind me to reach them.”
“How do I know they’re still alive?”
“You only get one guarantee.” Zwaan didn’t lower his extended hand. “That they will be dead if you don’t give me the gun.”
Zwaan smiled as Slater lowered the pistol onto his palm Zwaan transferred the pistol to his bandaged hand and gripped it awkwardly. With his good hand, he reached in a flash of movement to pin Slater by the neck against the rear of the elevator.
“You must weigh two hundred pounds,” Zwaan said as he pressed forward. He didn’t expect an answer, not with Slater’s windpipe almost crushed in his iro
n grip. One-armed, Zwaan began to lift Slater. “How many men do you know with this kind of strength?”
Slater’s face had purpled.
Zwaan heard faint music in his head. Less at the pain he was delivering and more at the thought of how much he must be scaring this man. Early intimidation softened them; it made the music sweeter later.
Zwaan continued to lift until Slater’s feet were well off the ground, until Slater’s eyes were on level with his. Slater clutched uselessly with both hands at the corded muscle of Zwaan’s forearm.
Zwaan enjoyed the moment. “Try to kick me and I’ll squeeze until your throat collapses.”
He watched until Slater’s eyeballs began to roll. When that happened. Zwaan abruptly let go. Slater fell to his knees and fought for air.
“Consider that a prelude,” Zwaan whispered. He grabbed Slater by the back of his shirt and yanked him upward. “Until then, you have questions to answer.”
Zwaan reached into his back pocket for handcuffs. He snapped them around the dazed man’s wrists. Then Zwaan stepped briefly out of the elevator. Along the wall rested the aluminum pole with a wire noose. Using Slater’s pistol as a threat to keep him motionless, Zwaan grabbed the pole and lowered the noose over Slater’s head and pulled it tight around his neck.
“Trust me,” Zwaan said as he led Slater to the security check-point at the vau1tway door, “if you enjoy oxygen, you’ll avoid any struggle.”
***
“What a timely arrival,” Van Klees said to Slater. “Your friend may not need to suffer after all.”
Although the gesture was not necessary, Van Klees pointed at Paige Stephens strapped to the examining table. Paige’s hair was matted with sweat, her face and neck flushed red with exertion. The hospital gown had twisted around her body, a small mercy that it still provided enough cover to keep her from complete humiliation in the presence of three men.
Slater made an involuntary step forward.
Zwaan released the pressure on the noose and swatted Slater’s head, crashing him into the wall. Slater clawed the wall – hampered by his handcuffed wrists – to keep his balance. Zwaan used the pole and wire to jerk him back to facing Van Klees, using such force that a thin line of blood began to curl around the edges of the wire.
Double Helix Page 26
