Black Order

by James Rollins

  XERUM 525.

  He matched gazes with Marcia.

  “Not serum,” Gray said.

  “Xerum,” Marcia read, shaking her head in a lack of understanding.

  Gray used his stolen card. The green light flashed, the lock released, and he pushed inside. The room’s lights flickered on. The air here smelled vaguely corrosive with a hint of ozone. The floor and walls were dark.

  “Lead,” Marcia said, touching the walls.

  Gray didn’t like the sound of that, but he had to know more. The cavernous space looked like a storage facility for hazardous wastes. Shelves stretched deep into the room. Stacked on them were yellow ten-gallon drums with the number 525 stamped on them.

  Gray remembered his concern about a biowarfare agent. Or did the drums hold some type of fissionable material, nuclear waste? Was that the reason the room was lead-lined?

  Marcia showed little concern. She crossed to the shelves. Each shelf spot bore a label, marking each drum. “Albania,” she read, then stepped to the next one. “Argentina.”

  Other countries were named, in alphabetical order.

  Gray stared across the shelves. There had to be a hundred drums at least.

  Marcia glanced to him. He understood the sudden concern in her eyes.

  Oh, no…

  Gray hurried into the room, searching the shelves, stopping periodically to read a label: BELGIUM…FINLAND…GREECE…

  He ran on.

  At last he reached the spot he was looking for.

  UNITED STATES.

  He recalled what Marcia had overheard, something about Washington, D.C. A possible attack. Gray stared down the rows of drums. From all the countries named here, it wasn’t just Washington under threat. At least not yet. Gray remembered Baldric’s concern about Painter, about Sigma. They were his most immediate threat.

  To compensate, Baldric must have moved up his timetable.

  Above the label marked UNITED STATES, the shelf was empty.

  The corresponding drum of Xerum 525 was gone.

  7:45 A.M. EST

  GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “ETA on MedSTAR?” the radio dispatcher asked. He sat before the hospital’s touch-screen program, wireless headset in place.

  The helicopter crackled back, “En route. Two minutes out.”

  “The ER is asking for an update.” Everyone had heard about the shootout on Embassy Row. Homeland Security protocols were in effect. Calls and alarms were being raised throughout the city. Confusion reigned at the moment.

  “Embassy medical personnel pronounced two on the spot. Two of their own. South African nationals, including the ambassador. But two Americans are also down.”

  “Status?”

  “One dead…one critical.”

  14

  MENAGERIE

  1:55 P.M.

  SOUTH AFRICA

  Fiona listened at the doorway, Taser in hand. Voices approached the first-floor landing. Terror strangled her. Whatever reserve of adrenaline had been sustaining her for the past twenty-four hours was reaching its end. Her hands shook, her breathing remained shallow and rapid.

  The gagged and bound guard, the one who’d grabbed her, lay sprawled behind her. She’d had to shock him again when the bloke had begun to moan.

  The voices approached her hiding spot.

  Fiona tensed.

  Where was Gray? He had been gone almost an hour.

  Two people approached her door. She recognized one of their voices. It was the blond bitch who had sliced her palm. Ischke Waalenberg. She and her companion spoke Dutch, but Fiona was fluent in the language.

  “…key cards,” Ischke said angrily. “I must have lost mine when I fell.”

  “Well, dear zuster, you are home and safe now.”

  Zuster. Sister. So her companion was her brother.

  “We’ll change the codes as a precaution,” he added.

  “And no one has found the two Americans or the girl?”

  “We have all the borders of the estate under double guard. We’re confident that they’re still on the grounds. We’ll find them. And grootvader has a surprise.”

  “What sort of surprise?”

  “Insurance that no one leaves the estate alive. Remember he did take DNA samples from them when they first arrived.”

  Ischke laughed, chilling Fiona’s blood. The voices wandered away.

  “Come.” The brother’s voice faded down the stairs as they descended toward the main floor. “Grootvader wants us all downstairs.”

  Their voices trailed to a stop near the bottom of the staircase. With her ear pressed to the door, Fiona could make out no other words, but it sounded like an argument over some matter. But she had heard enough.

  No one leaves the estate alive.

  What were they planning? Ischke’s icy laugh still rang in her head, mirthless and satisfied. Whatever was being plotted, they seemed certain of its outcome. But what did their DNA samples have to do with it?

  Fiona knew there was only one way to find out. She had no idea when Gray would return and feared time was running out for all of them. They would need to know what the danger was…if they were to avoid it.

  That meant only one thing.

  She pocketed her Taser and took out her feather duster. She twisted the dead bolt and unlocked the door. For this hunt, she needed all the skills from the street. She pulled open the door and slipped out of the room. Pausing, her back to the door, she pushed it closed with her rear end. She had never felt so alone, so purely frightened. Reconsidering, she rested her hand on the doorknob. She closed her eyes and steadied herself, offering up a prayer, not to God, but to someone who had taught her how courage came in many forms, including sacrifice.

  “Mutti…,” she prayed.

  She missed her foster mother, Grette Neal. Old secrets from the past had killed the woman, and now new secrets threatened Fiona and the others. For any hope of survival, she needed to be as brave and selfless as Mutti.

  The voices below drifted away down the staircase.

  Fiona sidled closer, feather duster raised in defense. She peered over the first-landing balcony, just enough to spot the white-blond heads of the twins. Their words reached her again.

  “Don’t keep grootvader waiting,” the brother said.

  “I’ll be right down. I just want to check on Skuld. Make sure she is back in her kennel. She was quite aroused, and I fear she might harm herself in her frustration.”

  “The same might be said of you, my sweet zuster.”

  Fiona took a step closer. The brother touched his sister’s cheek, creepily intimate.

  Ischke leaned into his touch, then pulled away. “I won’t be long.”

  Her brother nodded and stepped toward the central lift. “I will let grootvader know.” He pressed a button and the doors opened.

  Ischke headed off in a different direction, toward the back of the manor.

  Fiona hurried to follow. She clutched the Taser in her pocket. If she could get the bitch alone, make her talk…

  Flying down the steps, Fiona slowed near the bottom, resuming a more subdued pace. Ischke was headed down a central hall that seemed to run straight through the heart of the manor house.

  Fiona followed from a distance, head lowered, feather duster folded in her arms like a nun with a Bible. She took tiny steps, a nondescript mouse of a servant. Ischke descended a set of five stairs, passing a pair of sentries, and followed along another hallway to the left.

  Fiona approached the pair of guards. She increased her pace, appearing like a servant late to some obscure duty. Still, she stayed deeply bowed, half-buried in her oversize maid outfit.

  She reached the short stairs.

  The guards ignored her, plainly on their best behavior after the mistress of the house had just passed them. Fiona skipped down the five steps. Once in the lower hall, Fiona found it empty.

  She stopped.

  Ischke was gone.


  A mix of relief and terror suffused through her in equal parts.

  Should I return to the room? Hope for the best?

  She remembered Ischke’s cold laughter—then the woman’s voice barked sharply, close, coming from a double set of decorative iron-and-glass doors to the right.

  Something had pissed Ischke off.

  Fiona hurried forward. She listened at the door.

  “The meat must be bloody! Fresh!” Ischke hollered. “Or I’ll put you in there with her.”

  Mumbled apologies. Footsteps ran away.

  Fiona leaned closer, her ear to the glass.

  A mistake.

  The door shoved open, striking her in the side of the head. Ischke stormed through, running straight into Fiona.

  Ischke swore, elbowing her aside.

  Fiona reacted instinctively, relying on old skills. She untangled herself and bunched into a ball, dropping to a knee, cowering—it didn’t take much acting.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Ischke fumed.

  “Ja, maitresse,” she fawned, bowing deeper.

  “Get out of my way!”

  Fiona panicked. Where was she supposed to go? Finding Fiona at the door, Ischke would wonder what she had been doing crouched there. The woman’s body still held the door open. Fiona scraped her way, bowing through the open doorway, out of Ischke’s way.

  Fiona’s hand went to her hidden Taser, but it took her a moment to drop what she had just stolen from Ischke’s sweater pocket. She had not meant to steal it, just reflexes. Stupid. Now the delay cost her everything. Before she could free her Taser, Ischke swore and strode away. The heavy iron-and-glass door swung shut with a clang between them.

  Fiona cringed, cursing herself. What now? She would have to wait a few moments before leaving. Suspicions would be too aroused if she were spotted on Ischke’s trail again. Besides, she knew where Ischke was headed. Back to the lift. Unfortunately, Fiona didn’t know the house well enough to take an alternate route to the main hall, to attempt an ambush.

  Tears threatened, a mix of fear and frustration.

  She had bollixed the whole deal.

  Despairing, she finally took note of the chamber ahead. It was brightly lit, with natural sunlight streaming through a geodesic glass roof. It was some type of inner circular courtyard. Giant palms rose from the central floor and crowned toward the glass roof. All around, massive colonnades supported the high roof and set off deep cloisters around the room. Three lofty halls, arched and as high as the central courtyard, branched off like chapels off a church’s nave, forming a cross.

  But this hall was no place of worship.

  The smell struck her first. Musky, fetid, the reek of a charnel house. Cries and ululating moans echoed across the cavernous space. Curiosity drew her a step forward. Three stairs led down to the main floor, empty of staff. The man whom she had heard run off after being scolded by Ischke was nowhere in sight.

  From her post, she searched the room.

  Fitted into each of the sunken cloisters around the edges of the giant courtyard were massive cages, sealed in front by iron-and-glass grates, like the entry door. Behind the bars, she spotted hulking shapes, some curled in slumber, others pacing, one hunkered over a knob of leg bone, gnawing. The hyena creatures.

  But that wasn’t all.

  In other cages, she spotted additional monstrosities. A gorilla sat sullen near the front of one cage, staring straight at Fiona with an unnerving intelligence. Worse yet, some mutation had stripped the beast of its fur. Wrinkled elephantine skin hung from its body.

  In another, a lion paced back and forth. It was furred, but it grew out bleached and patchy and was presently fouled with feces and gore. It panted, eyes red-rimmed. Fangs protruded, saber-toothed and sickled.

  All around were twisted forms: a striped antelope with corkscrewing horns, a pair of skeletally tall jackals, an albino warthog plated like an armadillo. Gruesome and sad at the same time. The jackals caged together wailed and yipped, moving woodenly, crippled.

  Still, pity did little to hold back the terror of seeing the giant hyenas. Her eyes fixed on the one gnawing a thigh bone of some massive animal. Water buffalo or wildebeest. A bit of meat and black fur still waited to be worried from the bone. Fiona could not help imagining that it could have been her. If Gray hadn’t rescued her…

  She shivered.

  Tensing its massive jaws, the giant hyena cracked the leg bone, snapping it like a gunshot.

  Fiona jumped, awakened again.

  She retreated to the door. She had waited long enough. With her mission a failure, she would sneak back to her hiding place with her tail tucked between her legs.

  She grabbed the door and yanked on it.

  Locked.

  2:30 P.M.

  Gray stared at the row of heavy steel levers, heart pounding in his throat. It had taken him too long to find the master circuit switches for the electrical board. He could sense the power flowing through the giant cabling in the room, an electromagnetic force felt at the base of the neck.

  He had already wasted too much time.

  After discovering one of the drums of Xerum 525 was missing, one intended for the United States, urgency weighed heavily upon Gray. He had abandoned any attempt to reconnoiter the remainder of the subbasement. Right now, it was more important to get a warning off to Washington.

  Marcia had reported seeing an emergency shortwave radio in the security block when she had been taken from her cell. She knew whom to call, a partner of hers, Dr. Paula Kane, who could pass on the warning. Still, they both knew that to go for the radio was probably a suicide mission. But what choice did they have?

  At least Fiona was safely ensconced away.

  “What are you waiting for?” Marcia asked. She had cut free her sling and changed into a laboratory smock from one of the storage lockers. In the dark, she might pass for one of the lab’s researchers.

  Marcia stood at his back, clutching an emergency flashlight.

  Gray raised a hand to the first lever.

  They had already located the fire stairs for the subbasement. The stairs should lead back to the main house. But to get outside and reach the security block, they needed an additional means of distraction, extra insurance.

  The answer had come a few moments ago. Gray had been leaning against one of the hallway doors. He noted the vibration and hum of the level’s power plant. If they could fry the main board—create more chaos, possibly blind their captors for a spell—they’d have a better chance of making it to that radio.

  “Ready?” Gray asked.

  Marcia flicked on her flashlight. She met his gaze, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  “Lights out,” Gray said and yanked the first lever.

  Then the next and the next.

  2:35 P.M.

  Fiona watched the lamps around the courtyard flicker and die.

  Oh, God…

  Fiona stood in the center of the courtyard, near a small fountain. Moments ago, she had slipped from her post by the locked main door and had crept halfway across the central courtyard. She had gone in search of another exit. Surely there had to be one.

  She froze now.

  A momentary silence spread across the room, as if the animals sensed some primary change, a loss of the perpetual subsonic hum of power. Or maybe it was merely a sense of power shifting to them.

  A door creaked open behind her.

  Fiona slowly turned.

  One of the iron-and-glass cages nudged open, nosed by one of the hyena monsters. The blackout had demagnetized the locks. The beast crept out of its cage. Blood dripped from its muzzle. It had been the one gnawing the thigh bone. A low growl flowed from it.

  Somewhere behind her, Fiona heard a cackling yip as some silent communication passed through the menagerie’s predators. Other doors creaked on iron hinges.

  Fiona remained fixed by the fountain. Even the water pump had died, silencing the waters, as if fearful of drawing attentio
n to itself.

  Somewhere down one of the arched side chapels, a bright scream echoed forth. Human. Fiona imagined it was the zookeeper whom Ischke had scolded. It seemed his charges would get their bloody meal after all. Footsteps ran in her direction. Then a new scream erupted, pained and garbled amid a yowl of yips and cries.

  Fiona shut her ears against the last cry, followed by the sound of feeding.

  Her full attention remained on the first escapee.

  The bloody-muzzled hyena approached. Fiona recognized the creature from the shadow of spotting on its flank, barely discernible, white on white. It was the same beast from the jungle.

  Ischke’s pet.

  Skuld.

  It had been denied its caged treat before.

  But no longer.

  2:40 P.M.

  “Help us…bitte!” Gunther rushed into the hut, followed by Major Brooks.

  Lisa stood up, lowering her stethoscope from Painter’s chest. She had been monitoring a systolic murmur. In just the past half day, it had changed from an early-peaking murmur to a late one, suggesting a rapidly progressing stenosis of the man’s aortic valve. Mild angina had worsened to bouts of syncope, swooning faints if Painter overexerted. She had never seen such a rapid degeneration. She suspected calcification around his heart valve. Such odd mineralized deposits had begun appearing throughout Painter’s body, even in the fluids of his eye.

  Lying flat on his back, Painter pushed to his elbows with a wince. “What’s wrong?” he asked Gunther.

  Major Brooks answered with a worried southern drawl. “It’s his sister, sir. She’s having some type of fit…a seizure.”

  Lisa grabbed the med kit. Painter tried to stand but had to be assisted by Lisa on his second attempt. “Just stay here,” she warned.

  “I can manage,” he answered, showing his irritation.

  Lisa didn’t have time to argue. She let go of his arm. He teetered. She hurried to Gunther. “Let’s go.”

  Brooks waited, unsure whether to follow or lend an arm to Painter.

  The major was waved off.

  Painter hobbled after them.

  Lisa ran out of the hut and crossed to the neighboring one. The day’s heat struck her like stepping into an oven. The air hung motionless, burning, impossible to breathe. The sun blinded. But in a moment, Lisa was ducking into the cooler darkness of the next room.