Shadow of Betrayal (39 page)

The problem he faced was how to get down there without being detected. As far as he could tell, there was only one direct route. The elevator. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just get on and ride down without taking a huge risk of getting caught. And while his job was full of risks, the smaller they were, the better.

Before leaving the northern hallway, he looked at the map again. There had to be stairs somewhere, didn’t there? OSHA would have had a field day with this place. Of course, it had been built thirty years before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was even formed. But there still had to be some other way down. It wouldn’t make sense not to have a backup.

But if there was, it wasn’t on the map.

Short of tunneling through the rock by himself, it looked like the elevators were his only choice. Or, more specifically, the elevator shaft.

According to the map, there were two elevator cars running side by side in a shaft that went from the lowest level up to the surface. If he could somehow get into the shaft, he could make his way down without being seen. Except the only way in would be through the elevator doors. That meant taking the hallway on the other side of the main east-west corridor.

He swore under his breath, counted to three in his head, then reentered the Yellowhammer labyrinth.

The sentry at the guardhouse reported that there had been no further activity outside the gate. Good news for sure, Tucker thought. It was just further confirmation that Furuta had come alone.

Tucker guessed that the man had been an advance scout, probably had received a tip and had been checking it out first before calling in a whole team. Intelligence gathering, the stiffs at the Agency would have called it. Even if Furuta had somehow gotten word back to his people—which Tucker was confident he hadn’t—they wouldn’t be able to mount any kind of response before Tucker’s team evacuated in a few hours.

The radio on his desk beeped, then the voice of one of his men came on. “Tucker?”

“Go for Tucker,” Tucker said.

“Mr. Rose is asking for you.”

“Tell Mr. Rose I’ll be there in just a bit.”

“Said you should be here supervising us.”

Tucker tensed. “Tell him I’ll be there in just a bit.”

“Sure. Got it.”

Tucker felt like throwing the radio across the room. What did Mr. Rose want him to do? Take care of security? Or babysit a bunch of grown men who could handle a packing job just fine on their own?

Whatever
, he thought. Mr. Rose was the one paying the bills. If he wanted Tucker to come down to the lab to help, fine.

He radioed the guardhouse one last time just to make sure nothing had changed. All was still quiet. He switched to channel four.

“This is Tucker,” he said into the mic. “Everybody up.”

He waited for a moment, then repeated the message.

A sleepy voice came over the speaker. “What time is it?”

“We’ll be loading the helicopters in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours? Hell, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Get up,” Tucker said. “And wake the others. I don’t need any of you still groggy when you fly us out of here.”

There was a pause. “We’ll be fine.”

“Get up or you won’t be paid.”

“Goddammit,” the pilot said.

“Check in with me after you eat.”

Tucker slipped the radio into the holder on his belt, knowing the pilot would get his flight teams moving. Maybe he’d stop in the kitchen and get a bite himself before heading down to the lab.

Anything to delay being near the cargo.

Quinn wished he had a wrecking bar. He would have only needed the small, foot-long version. It would have made things a hell of a lot easier. What he did have was a nine-inch flat blade screwdriver.

He worked it between the sliding doors of the elevator on the left. There was a rubber lining inside, so he had to be careful not to rip it. Once the screwdriver shaft was all the way in, he pushed sideways, trying to create an opening between the doors.

There was resistance at first, the doors holding their position as he applied pressure. Then the right half gave an inch. He jammed the fingers of his right hand in, holding the door in place, then dropped the screwdriver on the floor at his feet and used his left hand to grab the other half.

As he pushed his hands away from each other, the doors began to part. A few inches, then six, then a foot. But at twenty-four inches they stopped, some now-ancient security device kicking in.

He leaned through the opening. It was dark and he could see neither the bottom nor the top of the shaft. At least the elevator car wasn’t there.

He scanned the walls just inside, looking for something to anchor his rope. There were several pipes to the right, but he wasn’t quite sure
how he would reach them. The most promising thing he found was above the opening—a steel bolt sticking out of the wall several inches. It was nowhere near a perfect solution, but Quinn thought he could use it to maneuver over to the pipes.

He positioned his leg in the gap so that his knee pushed against one side of the door, and his foot against the other. He then worked his backpack off and removed the rope from inside. As he was trying to zip the bag back up, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground, hitting the handle of the screwdriver. The tool rolled away from the bag, under Quinn’s foot, and into the gap.

He whipped his head back inside, but could see nothing. Then, a few seconds later, there was the crash of the screwdriver hitting bottom.

Quinn froze.

Had anyone on the lower level heard? He waited, expecting to see a flood of light as someone below opened the elevator doors to investigate. But the shaft remained dark.

He was just beginning to relax when he heard the footsteps.

They were coming down the hallway toward the elevator.

Quinn grabbed his bag off the floor and moved it into the shaft, hanging it off the bolt he was going to tie the rope to.

He only had seconds now. He squeezed through the opening and grabbed the rail that ran across the top of the door. The sliding sections closed again the moment he was out of the way.

He could hear the steps come into the elevator alcove, then stop. There was a moment of nothing, then the sound of an electric motor starting somewhere below Quinn.

Quinn looked behind him to see if he could tell which car was on its way up. But it was too dark.

The sound got louder and louder. Quinn kept his eyes on the darkness below him, looking for any change, prepared to jump if the car appeared directly beneath him.

The whir grew louder and louder. Then he saw the outline of a car moving up. Not below him, but next to him.

The car stopped seven feet to his left. There was a slight delay, then he heard the door open and the waiting passenger get on. As soon as
the doors closed again, the motor restarted, and the elevator plunged back down into the darkness.

Quinn donned his backpack, then inched over to the pipes he’d spotted earlier, and attached the end of his rope to one of them. Once it was tied off, he cinched the loose end around his waist and began a controlled descent into the inky well below.

“Quinn?”

Marion looked up. Nate seemed to be talking to himself. When he noticed her, he said, “Radio.” He turned his collar out so she could see the black dot attached on the inside. “Quinn?”

“Maybe he’s hiding and can’t talk,” she offered.

Nate frowned. “Maybe. But he should have done a radio check by now.”

Before he could call out his friend’s name again, there was a buzzing sound. He shot a hand into one of his pants pockets. When he pulled it back out, he was holding a vibrating cell phone.

“Maybe his radio’s not working and he’s using his phone,” she said.

“It’s not him,” Nate said, looking at the display. He flipped it open. “Hi.” He listened for a moment. “I’m in the emergency exit tunnel…. No. He went back in…. about fifteen minutes ago…I can’t get through. I think he can’t get a signal on the second level…. There’s a reason, a good one…. Wait, wait. Orlando, let me talk for a moment…I didn’t go with him because I’m not alone. We found Marion Dupuis. She’s with me…. No, no kid. That’s who he went back for … are you there?… Yes. Said if he didn’t get back in a few hours, I was to try and get Marion out…. Where
are
you?… Jesus, you’re as crazy as he is…. You need to watch out for the motion sensors. They go all along the road, then fan out in a wide arc as you near the gate. Maybe you should wait at the … Okay, okay. But you’re not going to be able to get through the gate without them knowing…. What’s that mean?… Orlando?… Orlando?” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Shit.”

Orlando had been the name the other man, Quinn, had mentioned before he left. Marion assumed it was another member of their team.

“What did your friend say?” Marion asked.

Nate continued to stare at the ground for a few seconds longer before looking at her. “She’s on her way to help us.”

“That’s good, right?”

He forced a smile, then turned and walked back down the tunnel toward the facility corridor. “Maybe I can get a signal if I go back into the hallway.”

“Don’t. Please,” she said. “I mean Quinn wanted us to wait here.”

Nate nodded. “All right. I’ll give him another fifteen. If we don’t hear from him by then, I’ll go back in. That fair?”

“Sure … yes. Very fair.”

It wasn’t the fear of being discovered that had made Marion stop Nate. It was the fear that he might actually get ahold of Quinn. And when he did, Quinn would tell them that Iris was dead.

At least this way, she could hold on to hope a little longer.

FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF TUCKER HAD PLAYED THE
good boy, standing beside Mr. Rose as they both watched the others get the cargo ready. The technicians had started the job by prepping the solution that would put each package—as Mr. Rose had dubbed them early in the project—under for as long as would be needed, then administering it one by one. Tucker’s men then moved the gurneys each package was on into one of the two storage rooms nearest the elevator.

Tucker purposely didn’t look at any of their faces. It wasn’t because he was afraid of feeling a sudden rush of sympathy. In fact, quite the opposite would have been true. Their faces, their bodies, turned his stomach. They were just…
wrong.
He’d felt that way since he’d picked up the first one in Bangladesh two months earlier. Still, they were the key, the method in.

But not the delivery device itself. That was also a stroke of genius. No one would suspect a thing. And when it was over, not only would the targets be eliminated, but the unwanted brats, too. The fact that Mr. Rose was using them in this way made perfect sense to Tucker. It was economical. No waste at all.

After the cargo was in the storeroom, they packed up the remaining materials and wheeled everything on carts to the small trash incinerator at the far end of the second level. There could be no evidence left.

“What time is it?” Mr. Rose asked as the last cart was wheeled down the hall.

Tucker looked at his watch. “Eleven fifty-three.”

“They’re running slow. This should have been done twenty-three minutes ago.”

“We’re still ahead of schedule.”

Mr. Rose turned his laser eyes on Tucker. “That is
not
the point. Done by eleven-thirty was what we agreed to.”

Knowing it was useless to argue, Tucker said, “You’re right. My apologies.”

“I don’t want your apologies, Mr. Tucker. I want your efficiency. Tomorrow is a
very
important day. Everything must run smoothly.”

“It will. We’ve gone over it dozens of times. My men know what to do.”

“They’d better, because if something goes wrong and you somehow get away, I will find you. And I promise, I will not kill you.”

Despite himself, Tucker felt a shiver go down his back. He knew Mr. Rose had vast resources. Hell, he’d been able to assemble and pay for this operation in a matter of months. And it hadn’t been cheap, not even close. Forget what he was paying everyone. The travel, the special equipment, Yellowhammer, it had all cost big-time.

“I understand,” Tucker said. “Everything will be fine.”

Mr. Rose stared at him for another several seconds, then said, “I want the helicopters in the air by one-thirty.”

“I thought the plan was to go at two.”

“One-thirty,” Mr. Rose said.

There was no need for Tucker to respond. Mr. Rose had already turned and walked away.

Quinn had waited in the elevator shaft for forty-five minutes before he felt it was safe to sneak into the lower level. Even then, he’d been forced to duck into an unused office before he’d been able to get very far.

Several people had gone by. There had also been the unmistakable sound of wheels rolling over the metal floor. Less than a minute later a second set of wheels passed his door. This went on for a quarter hour, with another cart each minute.

The only time he heard any conversation was when the last cart passed by.

“… of there. I don’t want to leave anything for …”

The voice trailed off, and was replaced by just under sixty seconds of silence before Quinn could hear the footsteps returning. It was the same pattern that had occurred every time. The cart would go by, and, soon after, footsteps would return on their own.

But this time after the steps receded, no new cart wheeled past. Quinn waited several more moments, then opened the door just enough so that he could listen unimpeded.

There were voices off to the left. Distant and indecipherable. He also thought he heard another cart. He waited to see if it might be headed in his direction, but it never grew closer. He opened the door wide enough to slip through, then stepped out into the corridor and looked to the left toward the noise. The majority of the facility was in that direction. Whatever Tucker’s people were up to was going on in that area. Quinn was sure of it.

It took him less than a second to make his decision. Right first. See what they were doing with the carts. Maybe it would help explain what was going on. If not, he would have only lost a few minutes tops.