The Paradise Key (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 5)

by Nick Thacker

  The second guard entered the room, and both men pointed their submachine guns at Dr. Lin. Dr. Lin looked pitiful, his disheveled hair still mussed, his hands raised in defeat. “I — I want to talk to Crawford,” he said.

  The man closest to Julie laughed. “Too late for that, Doc.” He fired, two quick shots. The first spun Lin around, while the second lodged into the left side of his upper back. The two guards stepped forward, walking toward Lin.

  Lin wavered a moment, then fell.

  Now, Julie thought. The moment had arrived, and she bolted up from her crouched position on the floor and ran to the door. She held out the dead man’s card and watched impatiently for the light to blink green and the door to unlock. It took a grueling two seconds, and she forced herself to not look over her head, to not look at the two armed men standing barely twenty feet from her.

  Nothing I’ll be able to do if they see me, she thought.

  The door clicked — loudly — and slid open. It was a soft click, but to Julie’s adrenaline-amped ears it sounded like the entire park could hear it. She knew for a fact at least one of the Ravenshadow guards would have heard it.

  She waited just long enough for the door to open wide enough for her to slide through, then she twisted and rolled alongside the glass on the opposite side of the wall.

  And it was just in time, too.

  A spattering of gunfire hit the glass where she had been standing only a split-second before. The glass held, but Julie felt the rippling impacts of the absorbed shock throughout her body. She forced herself to breathe. I’m still alive. I’m still fighting.

  She wasn’t going to back down, but she also wasn’t going to rush headlong into a battle without arming herself. This was the wrong time and place for a standoff, so she did the only thing that made sense.

  She ran.

  She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, deeper into the curving laboratory, and she ran for her life, and for the lives of the two women she’d only just met. The walls banked around to the right just like they had in the earlier sections of the lab, and she assumed she was about a quarter of the way around the ring. They were on Sub-1, beneath the surface of the water, and she suddenly felt the weight of the water surrounding her, separated by only a wall on each side. There was a palpable tension in the room, even though she hadn’t checked to see if the two guards had joined her or were still in the previous lab segment.

  She didn’t care — it didn’t matter where they were. She needed to find Sarah and Susan and get them to safety. Dr. Lindgren seemed tough, but Julie wasn’t going to assume she had ever been in a situation like this. Not many people had, and she was positive Susan would fare even worse.

  She didn’t worry much about Reggie or Ben, knowing that they were capable of taking care of themselves, but she did hope they’d figured out that Crawford was just as terrible as The Hawk.

  She hoped they hadn’t walked into a trap.

  It was after running into the next segment that she realized she had walked into a trap. Not one in a physical sense, but certainly one in a psychological sense.

  The laboratory segments had so far been typical of what Julie might expect: rooms with shelves and cupboards lining the curved walls, tall metal tables and stools spread out throughout the rooms, microscopes, beakers, graduated cylinders, and computers. Very typical of what she remembered from her own experience in chemistry class in college.

  But this segment was different. First, it was darker. It was lit poorly, either by design or from ignorance, but she guessed the latter. Second, the room felt completely unlike the rest of the laboratory rooms. It was humid, the climate control system working on overdrive to catch up with the added moisture in the space. Finally, it had a completely different layout. The tables and stools had been replaced by a long, slightly curving space, and the computers were absent, replaced by a massive monitoring station made up of a bank of display screens that was angled downward, mounted above her on the ceiling and wall.

  Lastly, there were no shelves or cupboards. Instead, there were cages.

  Inside the cages, people.

  She stopped, unable to help herself. The cages — all of them, to her left and right, stacked one on top of another in individual glass-faced compartments — were filled with people. One person per cage, each of them sitting or crouching in a very uncomfortable position, looking out at the room.

  Not at her, but at… nothing.

  They were as empty as shells that had washed up on the beach. Signs of prior inhabitation, but devoid entirely of life. She stood still, stunned. She looked at each cage on her left, as far as she could see, then she turned and looked at the cages on her right. All of them full, all of them empty at the same time. The people inside stared back out, none of them showing any sign that they had even noticed her entrance to their miniature prison.

  She wanted to run back the way she’d come, but the guards were still back there, still chasing after her. They would likely have called it in by now that they were after three women, one scientist employed by OceanTech and two civilian visitors. The doors wouldn’t be a problem for them after that, she guessed, assuming that they wouldn’t need to stop outside each segment of the laboratory and wait for the control room to let them in.

  She had to continue forward, had to continue moving. These people — whoever they were — needed her help. The two women waiting for her up ahead needed her help.

  Reggie and Ben, wherever they were, needed her help.

  She looked once again at the first cage on her left, preparing to start running once again. She saw the man’s old, wrinkled skin, his blank, empty eyes, his hands, weathered and cold, sitting lifelessly at his sides. She watched him for a moment, unsure if he was actually breathing. Maybe they were all wax sculptures, some form of cruel joke put on by OceanTech and Adrian Crawford.

  But then she saw his chest move, quickly and sharply, once, then again. He sucked in a breath, not diverting his stare from the point he’d chosen directly in front of him. Maybe he couldn’t see through the glass, she thought.

  She started to move, slowly at first.

  But then his eyes moved.

  Tracking her.

  Watching her.

  She nearly fell down, and had to catch herself by reaching out for the next glass cage in the line. She caught her balance and straightened, looking back at the man in the first cage. It’s an illusion, she thought, like how a person on television seems to always be staring directly at you.

  But she knew it wasn’t true — this wasn’t a two-dimensional version. The man’s eyes held steady, examining her, coming to life and watching her stare back at him. They looked at each other for mere seconds, but to Julie it felt like an eternity. Captive and observer, man and woman.

  And then he reached up and placed his hand on the glass. His eyes softened, and Julie’s heart skipped a beat.

  He pleaded with her, no words exchanged, but she knew exactly what he was trying to say.

  Help.

  38

  “HARVEY, GARETH, COME IN!” CRAWFORD’S voice had not lost any of its characteristic charm, but to Ben it now felt contrived. Well-rehearsed, certainly, but contrived. The charismatic man standing in front of them, behind his desk, was a brilliant strategist.

  And Ben and Reggie had played right into his trap.

  “Shut it, Crawford,” Reggie said. “Enough with the games — what’s this all about?”

  Crawford feigned concern for a second. “Has my security team not treated you well?”

  “I’m not going to tell you again, Adrian. Cut the bull—“

  “Enough,” Crawford said, holding up a hand and silencing Reggie. “Fine. All honesty from here on out.”

  “Like I’m going to believe that,” Reggie said. “There’s no way I’m going to trust —“

  “You’re here because Vicente Garza told me it would be in my best interest to rid the world of the Civilian Special Operations,” he said.

  D
amn, Ben thought. That was honest.

  “Really?” Reggie stammered.

  “I told you, all honesty from here on out.”

  “Fine,” Reggie said, turning to face The Hawk, who was standing next to him. “Why’d you hire these guys in the first place? They’re criminals. The government finds out who’s running your security, you’re shut down within an hour, guaranteed.”

  Crawford smiled, and Garza grinned. The two Ravenshadow guards had entered with Ben and Reggie, but were standing behind them. Ben got the feeling they weren’t laughing or smiling.

  “You assume this place is under your government’s control,” Crawford said. “We have very minimal operational requirements from the United States and Bahamian governments, and OceanTech itself is registered as a corporation in Ireland.”

  “So you’re running a tax-free and regulation-free business,” Ben said.

  “Not out of the ordinary for a corporation,” Crawford said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that there is a lot of research here that will not be understood — or accepted — by typical government regulating bodies.”

  “Because you’re killing people?” Reggie said.

  “Because it’s cutting-edge,” he responded. “And it’s state-of-the-art, and therefore it’s valuable. Ravenshadow has a proven track-record of protecting many assets that require care, discretion, and anonymity.”

  “What research?” Ben asked.

  Crawford flashed him a dimple-laden smile. “Glad you asked. As I said, all honesty here. OceanTech has always been a company working on the forefront of genetic research. Paradisum will still be a park, intended first and foremost for entertainment through education, but OceanTech has built its flagship product on this location because of the raw materials available for continuing our research.”

  “Saltwater?” Ben asked.

  Reggie shook his head. “The shipwreck.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But why that shipwreck? Surely it’s not just about finding any shipwreck and building a hotel on top of it.”

  “Of course it’s not. This particular shipwreck was part of a Spanish Treasure Fleet in the 1700’s. One that started its voyage with a very special cargo.”

  “You’re mining Spanish gold and silver from the wreck?” Ben asked.

  Crawford shook his head. “No. Though we have found a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold and silver artifacts, the ‘precious cargo’ this vessel was carrying was people.”

  Ben’s mind immediately flashed back to Sarah’s mention of the human cargo she believed was on the ship. The article she’d read — the one that had nearly immediately after been removed from the publication — had mentioned that the ship was found with the skeletons of people inside not belonging to the actual Spanish crew.

  “Incan?” Ben asked.

  Crawford squinted. “Yes, precisely. Good guess?”

  Ben shrugged. “Dr. Lindgren is a capable anthropologist, I guess.”

  Crawford seemed impressed, then his face darkened. He looked up at Garza. “Do we have a location yet, Garza?”

  Garza gave a quick shake of his head.

  “Fine. Keep looking. But I need them found.”

  “Of course. It would be easier to find them, however, if you had allowed me to install surveillance equipment in the —“

  “Not in the lab, Garza. We talked about this.”

  Garza nodded, but Ben could tell he was unhappy to be told what to do. It was probably an uncommon feeling for the man.

  Crawford recovered, taking a step sideways and turning slightly to once again address Ben and Reggie. “Indeed she is. Quite fascinating individuals, both her and Ms. Richardson.”

  Ben waited for the man’s tell.

  “I hope we’ll all be together again soon,” Crawford said.

  “What’s this about, Crawford?” Ben asked. “What do you want with us?”

  “I told you. I want to ensure that the CSO will not interfere with our research here in any way. You have the unique ability to operate somewhat outside of any sort of direct oversight, which worries me.”

  “Fine,” Reggie said. “We’ll stay out of it. Let us off the island.”

  Crawford shook his head. “I’m very sorry. I can’t allow that.”

  “What’s with these skeletons? Why build a park on top of them?” Ben asked. He was intrigued by the entire idea, but Crawford’s words were only causing him more worry.

  “They are a very special find,” Crawford said. “The Spanish discovered the members of this tribe and immediately wanted to explore the possibilities garnered by their unique capabilities. They were, of course, a bit too primitive to make any successful medical leaps.”

  Medical leaps? Capabilities?

  “What capabilities?”

  “The people of this tribe, one of the many that made up the Incan civilization, were thought to be descended from the Incan gods themselves, or so the story goes. They were capable of regeneration.”

  “Regeneration…” Reggie said. “Like zombies?”

  “No, no. Not at all. I meant limb regeneration. They were believed to be able to regrow arms, legs, fingers, and toes. Sometimes both, but most records state that the tribe was reclusive and kept to themselves. They were mostly unknown, and the Incan civilization usurped their lands without their even knowing about it. They were technically an uncontacted tribe within the larger geographic area of the Incan population, and they remained a mystery to the Peruvian inhabitants. Simply a myth, a legend.

  “But the Spanish apparently found them — they were the real gold the Spanish crown was after. Can you imagine? To be able to recreate the process of limb regeneration in humans?”

  Ben was somewhat fascinated, but very disturbed. “So… what? You were able to extract DNA from the skeletons and try it?”

  Crawford shook his head. “No, unfortunately. Though we tried for a couple years. But the DNA was too old, the samples too worn. There was nothing useful available to us within the ship’s decayed hull, so we decided to pivot and build on the knowledge we already had. The information that linked this tribe to the legends.”

  “And where was that information?” Reggie asked.

  Ben knew Reggie was a history buff, and from his time living in Brazil, this all would be piquing his interest. Still, it sounded quite far-fetched, and Ben knew Reggie was skeptical.

  “Most of it went down with the Spanish ship,” Crawford said. He looked down at his desk, in a sort of feigned reverence. Solemn, chewing the inside of his lip and and shaking his head. What an actor, Ben thought. “But there was a set of documents my company found in Peru. In an old Jesuit church, written on parchment that was crumbled and faded.”

  Man, this guy has a way with words, Ben thought. He’s still playing us, even though he has no reason to.

  “The parchments were examined by my science team, and I myself compiled them into workable documentation of the period just before the Fleet left port. The priest who wrote them was acting as a sort of quartermaster for the ship’s captain, apparently, as he kept a ledger and a manifest, and one particular paragraph seemed to imply that the Spanish ship was bound for the Florida coast, then on to Spain, as quickly as the weather would allow.

  “They were loaded down with ‘items of the crown’s interest, including possessions of silver and gold and —‘ I quote — ‘inhabitants of the Tribe of Legend, for purposes unknown to me.’”

  “So this priest got a little pen-happy. How do you know that he was telling the truth?”

  “It was an educated guess,” Crawford said. “But it was a correct one. The skeletons were useful to us, if only to point us in the direction of finding more of them.”

  Ben frowned. “More?”

  “Yes. More. This time with the skin attached. We needed fresh subjects, if you get my drift.”

  Ben’s eyes widened, and he looked at Reggie, but his friend was glaring at Crawford. Ben imagined Reggie lunging for the man’s
throat, knowing it would only take a few seconds for Reggie to end him. But that would be a mistake, as Garza and his men were standing by. Julie and Dr. Lindgren would only be in more danger if they did something rash now.

  “Why are you telling us this?” Ben asked. “Why reveal your hand?”

  Crawford laughed. “Reveal my hand?” he asked. “I’m not revealing anything, Mr. Bennett. This is going to be common knowledge in a month, possibly less, when we publish our initial findings. But it won’t matter — no one can touch OceanTech anyway, as I explained earlier, and there will be thousands of organizations and pharmaceutical companies interested in our research. It won’t matter how we obtained the research.”

  Ben was growing more and more upset, but he knew Crawford was right. Once it was out that OceanTech had figured out the secret to human limb regeneration, no one would care about the means to get there — the end result would justify nearly anything.

  But he knew. And that was Crawford’s first mistake.

  The second was telling Reggie.

  39

  SHE FOUND THEM AROUND THE next bend, behind the next set of glass doors. She was breathless, her heart pounding, still thinking about the laboratory worker named Susan who was huddling behind a table next to Dr. Sarah Lindgren, waiting and watching the doors. Julie used Dr. Lin’s card and waited for the door to unlock, once again thanking whoever it was in the facility that hadn’t yet seen Lin’s access and shut it down.

  “Dr. Lin?” Susan asked.

  Julie shook her head. No more explanation needed, she thought.

  The two women stared at her, but neither asked a follow-up question.

  “Why did you stop?” Julie asked.

  “We were talking,” Susan said. “This is halfway around the ring, so it’s the farthest we can get from the elevators on the other side.”

  Julie saw that she was right; there were no elevators on this side of the ring. However, there was a set of doors, unmarked, behind Sarah’s and Susan’s location. She wasn’t sure where the doors led, but they were solid, thick doors, and an ID reader mounted next to it. Wherever those doors go, they don’t lead into a broom closet.