Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  “We need the diversion.” Shinawa motioned them down and melted into the bushes. While they were waiting, a patrol moved along the road, poking a light at the dark pools of shadow on either side. At least they didn’t have dogs. Takamura, Chazz and Patria shrank back, wriggled silently under the bush. When the light probed toward them, they pushed their faces into the sand, showing only the black-draped tops of their heads, more shadow. The light passed on. They could hear the sentries talking curtly. Speculation about spies.

  “Russians,” one of them said, the one with the flash. Three rifle barrels followed the beam as it seeped into dappled spaces between branches. Long, irregular shadows fell across a well-watered lawn toward the empty Officers’ Club. “I heard Russian spies. After the speed paint. Hell, they wouldn’t want the fucking Ferret! The missile that never works!”

  From this angle, the scaffolding at the east end of the Club could be seen laced against the dark sky, a silver, bottom-lit tracery. Suddenly a gout of orange flame erupted from the empty windows, capped by a thick, roiling coil of black smoke. Shouts scattered through the night, followed by the urgent rising whoop, whoop, whoop of the emergency siren. Somewhere in the building a bell began clanging. The scaffolding buckled and collapsed in a curiously lovely slow motion.

  “There he is!” someone shouted, and a few shots– ridiculous pops amid the bedlam of noise– followed. Someone shouted, “I’m hit.” Not Shinawa, who reappeared on the road, walking calmly.

  “Come,” he hissed as he passed the bush, and the others scrambled out. They all removed their face wrappings and walked briskly toward the lab. The smell of smoke washed over them as fire equipment raced down the road.

  A panel truck was parked at the back of NBL-212 by the loading dock. Harsh lights and a squad of armed sentries inside the parking area protected it. The drive and road were protected as well by a high Cyclone fence topped by barbed wire tilted outward. Shinawa shook his head as they walked past. The fence was connected to thick steel posts embedded in the corners of the building.

  No one challenged them. The flames were visibly licking the facade, parts of which had already crumbled away, exposing the inner cinder-block construction behind veils of orange fire and gouts of smoke.

  “How’d you do that so fast?” Chazz wanted to know. They were approaching the V-shaped front of the lab. One wing had an elaborate door with sentries. The other wing was blank. They passed the door and moved on into relative darkness.

  “Ha,” Shinawa laughed almost soundlessly. “Ninja tricks.”

  The building was more than one story high, but less than two. Chazz had laid out for them the elaborate interstitial spaces needed for a P5 containment facility. “Assume they need P5,” he’d said. “Assume what they’re doing is very nasty. It’s a safe assumption.”

  That meant an extra half-story of ceiling space for ducts, fans, pipes, filters, a building within a building, which in turn would be within another: three layers of protection, each one isolated from the others. The third, inner nest would be the laboratory and manufacturing facilities themselves. Second layer would be P4 most likely. P5 was extraordinary, seldom used, even for those working with typhus or plague. P5 was mostly military, and Chazz was not certain what it might entail.

  At the east side a securely fenced area contained frost-covered liquid gas tanks, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, hissing. Pumps whined and thumped softly. A forklift held an empty wooden pallet waist-high. There was no one around, and the area was poorly lit; Shinawa was over the fence in one effortless movement. He opened the gate from the inside and the others slipped in.

  The sounds of pipe and pump covered their own. Leering shadows sprawled on the side of the building, mechanical ruled-edge shapes of pipe joint and pump housing. Sirens, bells, flame-crackle, chaotic shouts filled the night.

  The forklift was near the wall. The piping entered the building low, offering no place to step. Even standing on the wooden pallet, the roof was fourteen feet away. Shinawa produced something from a hidden pocket, whirled and threw. A three-pronged hook sailed over the edge of the roof. Shinawa pulled gently back on the thin nylon rope, and the hooks held firm. There were knots in the rope, which he handed to Patria. She wedged her feet against the first knot and hauled herself up. Takamura and Chazz held the end of the rope for her.

  Shinawa leaped lightly off the pallet and moved to the corner, both palms against the two walls, and inched upward. Chazz watched for a moment, shaking his head. The small old man was a wonder.

  Patria vanished over the edge, and Takamura took the rope. Chazz started up behind him as the facade of the Officers’ Club collapsed with a roar. Sparks spiraled into the sky, flickering in black smoke, which obscured the stars.

  66

  Shinawa was waiting beside an aluminum intake vent. The sound of air sucked through the first array of physical filters was loud. Chazz set to work immediately while Patria held the pencil light.

  “Arson,” Takamura said softly, as though to himself. “Destruction of federal property. Assault, with and without deadly weapons. Criminal trespass. We could be in some trouble.”

  “Not to mention the hunter,” Chazz said. A bolt fell into his waiting palm and he went to work on the next one. “After all, he works for these people. He’s real trouble.”

  Takamura assented with a smile. “No shortage of trouble this trip.”

  “I just wish I knew where Renfrew was now,” Chazz muttered. Without looking up from his work he laughed uneasily. “You once quoted your mentor Charlie Chan as saying, ‘Trouble rain over many already wet.’”

  “Sure,” Takamura agreed. “He also said, ‘Perfect case like donut– have hole.’”

  “You think our case has a hole?” Chazz pried the metal mesh cover off the vent and set it to one side. A filter blocked further progress. “Damn,” Chazz said. “They’ve added some refinements since I worked on design for these things.” He started removing the clamps that held the filter in place. “Are you having doubts, Lieutenant?”

  “I think of Renfrew, and Sammy Akeakamai with an aluminum arrow through him and doubts disappear,” Takamura said. “I was just rolling over some of the laws we have trifled with.”

  The filter popped loose, and went to one side as well. The sound of rushing air diminished to a duller roar. “Think about the laws these people have messed with.” He stood up and smiled. “Shall we?” He ushered Takamura and Shinawa to the vent. Patria took up her position. The orange flames leaped, lighting her smile. “You know how to whistle, don’t you?” he asked Patria.

  “Sure,” she said, pulling the headset on. “Just put your lips together and blow.” She tested her microphone, and the puff sounded in their ears.

  “Ah,” Takamura said. “To Have and Have Not. Lauren Bacall. You like old movies too.” He turned and vanished inside.

  “Just call us if there’s any activity at the loading area. We’ve got to stop it. If they load it on a plane or submarine, or even on the truck, it’ll be too late. We’d never prove a thing. This’s gotta be stopped now.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Chazz. Just get going.” She gave his bottom a smack.

  He started to say something else, then tapped his earphone with his forefinger, entered the vent and vanished into utter black.

  Despite his girth, he had to press his feet and palms against the metal sides as he slid down. He could hear, now he was inside, the rasps of Takamura and Shinawa breathing over the whine of moving air, yet he envied them their agility here. He did not like cramped spaces, nor the thought that he was going down a shaft that might not have an outlet, which would mean a difficult climb back up in this darkness, pursued by deadly bacteria.

  His hands were sweat-slick already, and squeaked as he slid a few inches at a time. He had to press his feet out harder, and his thighs began to cramp.

  “We’re at the bottom,” his earphone tweaked. “The duct turns west.” Takamura’s voice was a cobweb in the dark. Chazz could not se
e past his own bulk to the light they had until a tiny feeler of white twitched past him, catching the wall, the sleeve of his black jacket, his eye. “We’ve got you,” Takamura said, and he felt hands on his ankles, easing him down.

  The three of them crawled single file away from the right angle of the duct when Patria’s voice came on the channel. “The loading bay door just opened,” she said. “No one visible yet.”

  “Time check,” Chazz muttered into his throat mike.

  “Oh-two-thirty-six,” she said after a brief pause. “There’s a big fuss at the front, shouting. Shots too, I think. I’ll go see what’s up.”

  “Be careful,” Chazz muttered. He could hear the fans, feel their vibration and the air moving faster. The rush of air wrapped them all in a cocoon of noise as it first tugged, then pulled them along.

  “Should be just before the next set of filtration,” Chazz said. “Access to replace the grids. Electrostatic filters will be downstream of the fans, after the big stuff is removed.”

  The hatch was designed to be opened from the outside, of course. The three crouched in the duct, staring as Takamura moved the pencil light around the outline. It was sealed tight.

  Shinawa moved Takamura aside gently, produced a tool from one of his pockets and went to work. A line appeared along the edge of the hatch, grew longer, came to the corner, turned. Ten minutes later a large square of metal fell in. Shinawa caught it, and the light stabbed out into a low-ceilinged space filled with a complex of ducts, pipes wrapped in white insulation, electrical conduits and junction housings, X-shaped supports.

  They crawled out onto the joists.

  Acoustical tiles lifted from the floor, pushed out by the air pressure below. Shinawa replaced the metal square he had cut out, and taped it. The panels fluttered back into place.

  Cable trays, bolted to the joists and supports, ran in all directions. Pipes were carefully labeled: NITROGEN, OXYGEN, VACUUM, with arrows indicating the direction of flow. Chazz led the way.

  “Ah,” he breathed. “Look.” He rapped the surface under them with his knuckles. A dull metallic clank sounded. “Faraday cage. This is the P5, RF-shielded. The whole room will be contained inside a steel cage. If we get in there we’ll be out of radio contact. It’s like getting into a submarine.” He pointed to the RF shielding clad around the conduit where it entered the steel room.

  “Patria,” he murmured into the throat mike.

  “There’s a battle at the front door. Someone’s trying to get in, I think. Looks like he succeeded.”

  “Keep watching. We’re going to be out of radio contact. There is a shielded room. If the truck gets loaded, drop the grenade.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said.

  They moved on.

  The labeling was clear on the thick electrical cable they found next. Chazz moved aside, and Takamura crawled forward. The device he had was small, just an oblong box with a clamp, which he slipped around the cable. When he turned it on, there was a brief hum, then the fans died.

  “Induction. Power supply is off. The charge will last a half-hour. After that, the lights’ll come back on. It better be all we need.” His light found the round top of a hatch. “I wonder what that’s doing here. It’s a safety hatch. See, there’re the filter boxes. For emergencies. This is an emergency.”

  They could hear the sound of the emergency generator whining up the scale then. Abruptly, and unexpectedly, the sound ran out of control for a moment, followed by a series of harsh metallic barks, and the emergency generator died.

  “What the… Quick, help me get this open. The emergency generator shouldn’t have died like that. Something’s happened. We don’t have much time at all now. Only the emergency batteries are supplying power, and they won’t last long.”

  The three worked together at the hatch, spinning the wheel that opened it. This too had RF shielding around it. It opened out with a puff of air.

  “I hope to hell this isn’t contaminated,” Chazz said as he dropped through a short tunnel to a floor below. The others followed.

  They found themselves inside a small rectangular room lit dimly by red lamps. A few empty animal cages were heaped on the floor. A door at the far end was closed. When Takamura tried it, he found it was locked and immobile.

  “Don’t mess with it,” Chazz said. “This is the cage sterilizer room. We might be able to get in through here. Understand, we’re entering the lab backwards. The air will be blowing behind us, into the lab. Looks like they haven’t used this autoclave in a long time.”

  It was the size of a restaurant dishwasher, large enough to hold the animal cages. The door was ajar, and Chazz squeezed himself inside. He crawled along the conveyer belt that ordinarily carried the cages through, when the back of his jacket caught on a spray nozzle. He couldn’t move forward.

  “I’m stuck.” He felt Shinawa behind him, unhooking the snag; then he broke free. “Thanks.”

  The entry door was closed, but swung open when he pushed on it. “Christ, they’ve given up here. These doors should be sealed. Of course, the positive air flow would have kept it closed. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t notice. They finished with animal tests some time ago.”

  Ahead was a short corridor. The room to the left had a drain in the floor, and a furnace on the opposite wall. “Incinerator,” Chazz said. “For dead animals. Or anything else that would burn.” He led the way down the corridor. A sealed door closed off the only way out.

  Chazz stood back, and Takamura went to work. The door swung open. The small room they were in contained racks of animal cages, all empty and clean. Chazz pointed, and they went through the room and out the opposite door into another short corridor. They turned right, and moved down to the end where an airlock door stopped them only for a moment. The door was open. Inside, a rack held a series of pressure suits: clear bubble helmets, heavy overalls, gloves, boots, air tanks.

  “Find one that fits,” Chazz said, searching through the series. He was locking on the helmet of the largest when the door they had entered started to swing shut.

  67

  Renfrew, with a small part of his mind, had heard the crump of the emergency generator going. He hadn’t expected the front of the lab to be this heavily guarded, not by a long shot, and even though he had Bradley’s help, it had not been easy getting in.

  Bradley had done a creditable job. He’d led him to the biology lab, and discovered the present whereabouts of the man named John with the mustache. Unfortunately, Bradley was now dead, killed in the crossfire.

  The guards were also dead, all three of them. Renfrew had seen to that. Well, Renfrew thought, almost dead. One’s breathing still bubbled noisily through the gash in his throat.

  With both the main and the emergency generators out, it was only a matter of pushing the heavy electronically locked front door aside to get in. None of the electronic security measures was effective without power. Renfrew moved into the building, his Jennings cocked and ready. Beyond the second door, the building was lit only by red emergency lighting. The sergeant at the desk was standing in three-quarter view, talking to someone inside the first office. He had his gun drawn, and Renfrew calculated his options in a fraction of a second before he shot him. The arrow made no sound, and the silencers on the bowstring did their work. The sergeant slumped softly. His .45 slid from limp fingers onto his desk before he tilted sideways and collapsed on the floor.

  Renfrew had another arrow nocked and ready by the time Commander Goode got to the corridor. Goode raised his hands.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said softly. The Razorback broadhead arrow tip protruded from the sergeant’s chest. A drop of blood fell from the tip onto Goode’s spit-polished shoe. It looked black in the red emergency light. Goode moved his foot back. “You’re Renfrew. What the hell are you doing? You’re working for us.”

  Renfrew barked. It might have been a laugh. “Not any more,” he said. “Contract’s canceled. It’s the other way around now. You’re working for me.” H
e gestured slightly with the razor tip of his arrow. The light glanced blood red off the steel.

  “I don’t understand. All hell’s breaking loose. Tonight is crucial. We need you.”

  Renfrew ignored him as he stepped over the body, touching the arrowhead to Goode’s chest. On the way he picked up the .45 and slipped it into one of his patch pockets. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Goode backed away, then turned and went down the corridor. Renfrew followed. “What do you want?” he asked without turning.

  “I want the poison,” Renfrew said. “Whatever it is.”

  “You’re crazy.” Goode stopped for a moment, but the tip prodded him into motion again.

  “Depends on your point of view,” Renfrew said. “That way.”

  They moved on to the P4 facility.

  “We’ll have to suit up,” Goode said.

  Renfrew shook his head. “Let’s just get the vials,” he said. “This is the end of your Project, anyway.” He swung open the door.

  The emergency lights were slowly dimming as the batteries drained. Renfrew looked through a thick glass window into the P5 lab, where a small group of space-suited figures tugged at the airlock door. He could hear systems shut down one by one, refrigeration units, fans, electric appliances he could not identify. They moved on.

  “Where are they?” Renfrew hissed. Cautiously Goode led him into the lab.

  The cabinet was dark and rapidly warming; the small vials looked black. Renfrew took them all, scooped them into his pouch pockets until they bulged. Goode stood with his back to the cabinet, hands down. “You’re crazy,” he said again.

  “Move.”

  Goode moved. They were alongside the big window again when Renfrew noticed all the activity. The airlock door was open, and a group of suited figures was moving in while another group was trying to get out. Red-black shadows leaped on the vinyl walls.