The Doomsday Key (26 page)

Screams, shouts, cries.

It all sounded hollow.

He rolled back up, keeping sheltered behind the nearby wall. Smoke choked the lobby, lit by puddles of fire. The explosion had blackened a large section of the floor. Antonio’s body had been obliterated into bits of flaming ruin. The superheated air burned with a chemical sting.

Thermite and white phosphorus.

Painter coughed and searched the lobby. From Antonio’s position, the arrow had to have come from inside the hotel, off to the left. From that direction, two masked figures ran through the smoke from the staircase. Another slammed through the front door.

They pounded toward the Limelight Bar.

They were going after the senator.

12:04 A.M.

Monk stood at the open door. Beyond the threshold stretched a long hall. Lights turned on, one after the other, illuminating the way ahead.

“We’ll take a fast look,” Monk whispered. “Then get the hell out of here.”

Creed waited for Monk to take the lead, then followed. The kid barely breathed, and he definitely didn’t blink.

Halfway down the passage, double doors opened to the right and left. Monk headed toward them. The place smelled of disinfectant, like a hospital. The smooth linoleum floor and featureless walls added to the sense of sterility.

He also noted that there were no cameras in this hall. Apparently the company placed its full trust in the extra layer of electronic security down here.

Monk reached the doors. They were palm-locked like the other. Monk pressed his hand against it. Surely there were no areas off-limits to Karlsen.

He was right.

The lock
snicked
open.

Monk headed through and found himself in an enclosed entryway facing another set of doors. The antechamber was glass. Beyond the doors opened a huge room. Lights flickered on, but they were muted a soft amber.

He tried the next set of doors. Unlocked. The doors were clearly not intended to keep anyone
out,
so much as to keep the room’s occupants
in.

As Monk pushed into the next room, he gaped at the walls to either side. Extending the length of the long room were floor-to-ceiling windows. A low tonal buzzing filled the room, like a radio tuned between stations.

Creed followed at his heels. “Are those—?”

Monk nodded. “Beehives.”

Behind the glass, a solid mass of bees writhed and churned in a hypnotic pattern, wings flickering, bodies dancing. Racks and tiers of honeycombs rose in stacks to the roof. The hives were divided into sections along the length of the room. Each apiary was marked with a cryptic code. Studying them, Monk noted that each number was prefixed with the same three letters: IMD.

He didn’t understand the significance, but plainly the bees were used in some sort of research.

Or maybe Ivar just had a real hard-on for fresh honey.

Monk moved with Creed to the closest bank. The buzzing grew louder, the agitation more frenzied. The lights, though muted, must have stirred them.

“I think they’re Africanized bees,” Creed said. “Look at how aggressive they are.”

“I don’t care where they came from. What is Viatus doing with them?”

And why all this security?

Creed reached toward a small drawer in the hive window.

“Careful,” Monk warned.

Creed pinched his brows and pulled open the drawer. “Don’t worry. I’ve worked with bees before at my family’s farm back in Ohio.”

The drawer came out to reveal a sealed box with a meshed end. A single large bee rested inside.

“The queen,” Creed said.

The bees became even more frenzied within the cage.

Monk noted that the box was stamped with the same cryptic code as the cage. As Creed returned the drawer to its slot, Monk freed a small pen camera. Pressing a button, he took a short digital video. He recorded the banks of bees and the numbers above each hive.

It could be important.

For now, the best they could do was document it all and get the hell out. Once finished recording, Monk checked his watch. He still wanted to check the room across the hall before they headed to the servers and finished their primary mission.

“C’mon,” Monk said and led his partner back out into the hallway.

Stepping across the hall, Monk pressed his palm against the other door’s reader. As the door unlocked, he headed inside. It opened into an anteroom similar to the other lab. But here respirator masks hung on wall pegs to one side. Ahead, lights flickered on as before. The room beyond the door was the same size as the other.

But there were no bees.

The room held four long raised beds running the length of the room. Even from here, Monk recognized the little fleshy umbrellas growing out of the beds in riotous exuberance.

“Mushrooms,” Creed said.

Monk passed into the next room. The door opened with the small pop of an air seal. The room was negatively pressurized to keep the air inside. Monk immediately understood why.

Creed covered his mouth and nose.

The stench struck like a slap to the face. The air was muggy, hot, and smelled like a mix of brine, dead fish, and rotted meat. Monk wanted to turn tail and run out, but Painter had related his discussion with Gray.

About mushrooms.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Monk freed his camera, ready to document it. Creed joined him. He handed over a respirator from the anteroom. Monk pulled it over his face gratefully.

At least someone’s thinking…

The respirator’s filters took the edge off the stink. Able to breathe, he headed to the closest bed. The mushrooms were growing out of watery black mulch that looked oily.

Creed slipped on a pair of latex gloves and joined him. He shook open another glove. “We should get a sample of the fungus.”

Monk nodded and set about recording it all.

Creed reached toward one of the mushrooms. He delicately grabbed it by the base and pulled it up. It lifted freely—but with it came a fleshy chunk of something attached to it. Creed shuddered and dropped it in disgust. It splashed into the wet mulch, shivering the surface like a soup of loose gelatin.

Only then did Monk recognize the growth medium for the mushrooms.

Clotted blood.

“Did you see…?” Creed stammered. “Was that…?”

Monk had noted what Creed’s mushroom had been attached to. It was a kidney. And from the size of it, possibly human.

Monk waved Creed back to the gruesome task. “Get a sample.”

With his camera recording, Monk moved down the long bed of mushrooms. The smallest were closest to the door. They were white as bone. But the mushrooms grew larger along the row, gaining a richer hue of crimson.

Monk noted a couple of brown stalks poking out of the blood. He lowered his camera for a closer look. They were not stalks. With a cold chill, he realized they were human fingers.

He reached and pinched one of the fingers with his prosthetic hand. He pulled the finger up, dragging a hand out of the muck. As he raised it higher, he saw it was attached to a forearm. Mushrooms grew out of the flesh.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the limb back into the tank. He didn’t need to see any more. Entire bodies lay buried in the blood, fertilizer for the mushrooms.

He also noted the dark brown skin of the arm, an uncommon sight in snow-white Norway. Monk recalled the farm site in Africa, the one destroyed in a night of bloodshed and fire.

Had more than
corn
been harvested from there?

Monk found himself breathing harder. He moved quickly to the end of the row. Here the mushrooms had matured into thick stems topped by ribbed pods. They looked fleshy and fibrous.

With his prosthesis, Monk nudged one of the pods. As he touched it, the bulb contracted in a single squeeze. From its top, a dense powdery smoke puffed outward and spread quickly through the air.

Fungal spores.

Monk danced back, thankful for the respirators. He did not want to breathe in those spores.

As if signaled by the first pod, others began to erupt. Monk retreated, chased by swirling clouds of spores.

“We have to get out of here!” Monk yelled across the room, his words muffled by the respirator.

Creed had just collected a sample of the mushroom and tied it into his loose latex glove. He glanced at Monk, not understanding. But his eyes widened as more of the puffballs exploded into the air.

They had to get back out into the hall.

Suddenly, overhead vents opened in the ceiling, perhaps triggered by a biological sensor. Foam jetted out of the ceiling in a massive flush. It spread over the floor and piled up quickly. Monk ran under one of the vents and almost got knocked down by the force of it. He slipped and slid.

By the time he reached Creed, the foam was waist deep.

“Go!” Monk hollered and pointed toward the door.

Together they slammed through the first door and into the anteroom. It was also full of foam, all the way to the ceiling. They had to paw their way through it blind.

Monk hit the hallway door first.

He shoved the handle and shouldered into the door. It refused to budge. He shoved again and again, but he knew the truth.

They were locked inside.

12:08 A.M.

As smoke choked the lobby, Painter vaulted over the low wall. Fires still burned on the floor. Blood made the marble slippery. He had his pistol out and skidded straight into the masked gunman who had barreled through the front door. Focused on the bar, the assailant failed to see Painter in time. Painter fired point-blank into his chest.

The impact spun the attacker away, blood flying.

One down.

People screamed and fled out into the street or hid behind furniture. Painter sprinted straight across the open lobby.

Ahead, at the entrance to the Limelight Bar, the senator’s bodyguard appeared in a shooter’s stance, arms out, cradling his service weapon. He had taken cover behind a potted plant. It wasn’t enough shelter. The other two gunmen already had their sights fixed on the entrance.

Fern leaves shredded under a barrage of machine-gun fire. The man was knocked flat on his back. Painter never slowed. He leaped to a chair outside the bar and flew headlong into the space. He landed on one of the leather sofas and shoulder-rolled to his feet.

He had only seconds.

A cascade of gunfire tore into the room. It arced across the wall behind the bar, shattering bottles and mirrors.

Painter took in the room with one glance.

The senator was not in sight.

The bodyguard would not have left him in the open. There was only one door leading out of this place. The restroom at the back. Painter ran for it and slammed through the door. A bullet burned past his ear. The shot had come from inside the bathroom.

Senator Gorman stood with his back to a row of sinks, a pistol in his hand, pointed at Painter.

Painter raised his arms. “Senator Gorman!” he called out firmly. “I’m General Metcalf’s man!”

“The DoD investigator?” Gorman lowered his pistol, his face collapsing with relief.

Painter rushed forward. “We have to get out of here.”

“What about Samuels?” The senator glanced back at the door.

Painter guessed that was the bodyguard. “Dead, sir.” He motioned the senator toward the stained-glass window at the back of the restroom.

“It’s barred shut. I looked.”

Painter shoved the window sash open. An ornate set of iron bars did block the way. He punched his palm into them, and the grate popped free and swung open on its hinges. During his earlier canvass of the meeting place, he had removed the bolts.

Never hurt to secure a back door.

“Out!” Painter commanded and offered the senator a knee to climb up.

Gorman took the help and hauled himself into the window.

As Painter pushed the senator, he heard a
thunk
behind him. A glance revealed a black arrowhead sticking out of the restroom’s plank door.

Oh, crap…

Painter sent the senator sailing out the window and followed on the man’s heels. Literally—he took an Italian loafer to the left eye. But it was small damage, considering the explosion that followed.

Flames and smoke blasted out the open window.

The heat rolled over them.

Painter shoved off the senator. As the blast of flames died, Painter dashed to the window, tugged the lower sash down, and swung the iron bars back in place.

Let them wonder how they’d escaped a locked room.

The confusion might buy them an extra few minutes as their pursuers continued to search the hotel.

Painter returned to Gorman’s side. “I have a car stashed two blocks away.”

They hurried off together.

Gorman puffed at his side, cradling a jammed shoulder. After a block, he stared over at Painter and asked an existential question. “Who the hell are you?”

“Just your everyday civil servant,” Painter muttered while concentrating on another task. He resecured the throat mike to his neck and activated it. “Monk, how are you doing over there?”

Monk heard a few frazzled words in his ear, but after knocking loose his respirator, he fought a mouthful of foam. He shoved against the door, hoping it would miraculously open. It must have locked down once the foam had been triggered.

Maybe there was another way out.

Before he could move, hot water blasted from above. The foam immediately melted from the top down. The sheer volume of it collapsed in on itself. It took less than thirty seconds.

Monk glanced over at Creed. He stood there like a skinny wet dog waiting to shake. The man’s eyes were bright with shock.

“Biohazard foam,” Monk explained. “Used as a knockdown agent for airborne pathogens. We should be okay.”

Proving that, the lock clicked open at Monk’s elbow. It must have been timed to the sterilization cycle. He twisted the handle and exited into the hall.

As he stepped free, voices echoed down the hall. He had a clear view to the elevator lobby. The door stood half open as someone argued in Norwegian out in the lobby. Monk recognized the uniformed arm of a security guard.