The Last Chamber (28 page)

Armenian Mountains

DeGard had overstayed his welcome with Lindsey. But the annoying
Frenchman didn’t seem to take the hint. Will and Kaba had finished cleaning
their weapons and had prepared a simple meal over a few small camping stoves.

“You really did come prepared,” DeGard gazed at the supper with wide
eyes.

Lindsey slurped some hot soup peered over his glasses at the
archaeologist. “We were ready to set up a dig site. Don’t you normally have
things like this for an excavation?” He enjoyed seeing the epiphany smack
DeGard in the face.

“Of course. I had not really thought of it that way. So you were ready
to be here for a few weeks, non?”

“That is correct.”

DeGard waited for Will and Kaba to get their soup from the small pot
before helping himself to a bowl that had been set out on a makeshift table. He
poured the rest of the steaming liquid into the bowl and grabbed a spoon from
nearby.

“I suppose this isn’t the kind of fare you’re accustomed to, eh?” He
dug the spoon into the noodles and broth, heaping it into his mouth like it was
a shovel.

“Not at all,” Lindsey disagreed. “When I was young, I was part of a
boys group that went on many camping expeditions. And this,” he motioned to the
tent around them, “is much more luxurious than what we used to sleep in. And
these mattresses are far better than sleeping on the hard ground like we did in
those days.”

“Ah,” DeGard swallowed the soup, surprised at how hot it was and at
the interesting back story to his employer’s life.

Unexpectedly, Lindsey’s cell phone began to ring on the cargo box next
to him. He frowned for a moment, wondering who was calling him. Will was in the
same room, and only a few people had his personal number.

“How do you get service out here?” the Frenchman interrupted the
internal line of questioning.

“Satellite phone,” Will answered for his boss.

Lindsey reached over and picked up the device then glanced at the
number after re-adjusting his spectacles. It was an Atlanta area code. Biosure
headquarters.

The people in charge of the pharmaceutical company had been ordered
not to try and contact him unless it was an emergency. The vice presidents he
had appointed were both members of his council, so he knew they could be
trusted, especially after what had happened to his two adepts a few weeks
before in Utah.

He hit the green button on the screen and put the device to his ear.
“This is Lindsey, what’s the problem.”

“Sir, we have a problem,” the man’s voice on the other end reported.

“Well, what is it?”

“We had a security breach in our Atlanta facility. Somehow, the
database was hacked. We believe it happened earlier today.”

“They didn’t wreck the system did they?” Lindsey asked in an almost
dismissive tone.

“No, sir. Nothing was touched in the database.”

Lindsey appeared wary. “Then what is the emergency?”

“It seems whoever hacked into the system created security codes and
then broke into our facility. It happened about an hour ago. We still aren’t
sure how they got past our additional security protocols, but we are
investigating every possible lead.”

The old man’s face turned even more ashen than was natural. “Who was
it?” his voice carried a tone of righteous anger.

“We have a positive ID on the suspects and have a team en route to
their location now.” The voice seemed confident, but to Lindsey it felt like
the man was leaving something out.

“What did they do?”

There was a momentary pause for a few seconds before the man answered.
“It seems they broke into the warehouse and took a sample of the flu vaccine.”

Lindsey said nothing at first. His face continued to lose color even
though his blood boiled. Will and Kaba stared at him, concern filling their
faces. DeGard seemed unaffected, continuing to slurp soup into his mouth.

When the old man spoke, his voice was gravely, carrying a sinister
tone. “Kill whoever is responsible for this. And see to it that the sample is
recovered or destroyed. We cannot let this get into the wrong hands.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lindsey hit the red button to end the call and laid the device back
down on the makeshift table.

“Problems?” DeGard asked with half-full mouth of broth and noodles.

Old, tired eyes peered through the Frenchman’s soul. “Everything is
fine,” he lied. “I have it all under control. At sun up, we need to continue
the search. If we have to go back for more fuel, we will. We will do whatever
it takes.”

Ararat, Armenia

Sean stared at his phone. His feet were propped up on the church pew’s
worn cushions while his back was leaning against the armrest on the end of the
seat. He figured his casual treatment of the sanctuary’s facilities and
furniture wouldn’t do any harm. After all, it wasn’t a church anymore. No one
had probably held a ceremony in the room in the better part of three years.

His eyes were fixed on a picture of him and Tommy. It was a day the
two boys had been dressed in their little league baseball uniforms. Their
parents had thought it would be cool to take a few pictures. It was hard to
remember a time when Tommy wasn’t around.

He wondered when he would get another report from his friend, but that
would drive him crazy. Sean had to put it in the back of his mind for the time
being. Tommy was in good hands, he assumed. And he would be fine. But there was
something else that kept nagging at Sean.

With all the talk about retiring and leaving IAA, he had started to
feel somewhat guilty about the whole idea. A big part of him kept saying it was
his responsibility to protect his friend and take care of him. Why, he had no
idea. Even though he and Tommy had been great friends for much of their lives,
they were both grown adults. Each could take care of themselves. Or so Sean
believed.

The fact was, Sean had always watched out for Tommy for most of their
lives. When his parents had been mysteriously killed, Sean and his family took
him in, making the boys more like brothers than ever before. Sean had always
treated his friend like a little brother and done all he could to protect him.

Several people were confused by the dynamic of their relationship.
They had been the modern day Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Sean laughed quietly to
himself at the thought, trying not to disturb anyone else in the room. A memory
of a prank they’d pulled in high school rang in his mind.

It had been their senior year, and everyone in the class was racking
their brains to figure out what prank they should play on the school. It had to
be better than the ones from the past, but it couldn’t be the same idea. And it
couldn’t be anything that would get them expelled. So, no permanent defacement
of property or anything like that.

Sean and Tommy had come up with the idea of breaking into the school
and unlocking the huge indoor swimming pool then letting all the seniors into
the building for some midnight swimming. Neither one of them knew how to pick
locks, though. Well, at least not at that point in their lives. So, the only
solution they could come up with was to stay in the building late one night,
and remain hidden somewhere until the school had been locked up.

At the end of the school day, they had hung around for some of the
extracurricular activities that were going on at the time, trying to look
inconspicuous. About thirty minutes before the custodial staff was to go around
and begin their locking procedures, Sean and Tommy hoisted themselves up into
the ceiling by way of a bookshelf in the counseling office. The ceiling tiles
were easy enough to remove, and as their intel had belied, there were floors
everywhere just above them. Sean had observed some maintenance workers climbing
up into the space once before and had asked how they moved around. The
unsuspecting man had explained that there was basically an entire floor hidden
above the ceiling, from which all the inner workings of the school could be
accessed.

The boys had replaced the tiles and sat impatiently, frequently
checking their watches to see when the school would be locked up for the
evening.

Sean smiled again in the church pew, thinking about how nervous he had
felt while waiting for the custodians to leave the building. He and Tommy had
told all the other students in their class to give it an hour before showing up
to the school. They wanted to make sure it was dark and everyone was clear of
the facility. Kids showing up in the parking lot while someone was leaving
would have thrown up a huge red flag.

While they sat there in the dark silence of the school’s underworld,
Sean and Tommy didn’t say much. They had been afraid someone would catch them.
There was a little bit of whispered banter between the two of them about how
epic the prank was going to be, and that no one in administration would even
have to be the wiser. It could be something that went down in history with
their class and became the stuff of legend.

Tommy had checked his watch for the thirtieth time, finally deciding
they had waited long enough. The boys climbed down from the ceiling and made
their way through the cavernous high school halls, the cafeteria, gym, and to
the doors where they could unlock the pool.

Sean shook his head thinking about their surprise when they realized
all the doors leading into the pool were locked. Through the door window, could
see the first few students starting to arrive outside of the pool windows.

“What should we do?” Sean had asked. “We don’t know how to unlock the
doors. And if we go out, we’ll be locked out there with the rest of them.”

Tommy looked around for a minute and then realized the solution. “You
think there’s another space above those ceiling tiles?” He pointed up to the
ceiling ten feet over their heads.

Sean followed his friend’s eyes as he realized what Tommy was
thinking. He was staring at the ceiling tiles that extended out over the pool,
all the way to the far wall of the facility. The drop from the ceiling to the
pool was easily thirty to forty feet, certainly a dangerous proposition.

“No way, man,” Sean had said. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Tommy had turned his head, spotting a ladder that just happened to be
leaning against the wall not far from where they were standing. “Dude, the
class is counting on us. This is our chance to do something amazing that no one
else has ever done or will get to do again.”

Sean stared at the image on his phone. His friend had been right. It
was a mantra Tommy lived by. He based his life on treating everything like it
was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As a result, the boys had climbed up into the ceiling and crawled on a
narrow catwalk out over the pool. Once they had gone what they figured to be
about half way, Tommy reached down and removed one of the ceiling tiles. Below
them, the chlorinated water rippled in the darkness of the facility, lit only
by a few orange outdoor lights just beyond the wall’s windows.

Tommy had looked over at him with a grin on his face, dangling his
feet over the edge.

Sean thought better of the idea, letting doubts swirl around in his
head. “I don’t think we should do this, Tommy. We could get hurt.”

There would be no convincing him. Tommy patted Sean on the shoulder.
“It’s gonna be fine, buddy. It’s only water.” Those were the last words he said
before shoving himself through the hole in the ceiling and plummeting into the
water below.

His body disappeared for a few seconds before his head popped up in
the dark water fairly close to where he’d gone in. He let out a yell, pumping a
fist in the air.

“You okay?” Sean shouted down.

Tommy nodded as he dogpaddled in the middle of the pool. “I’m great,
man! Come on down!”

Sean hung his feet over the edge for a few seconds. A familiar pain
snuck back into his stomach, and his head swirled. He had been afraid of
heights since he could remember. He was pretty sure something had happened when
he was a child to cause the inexplicable phobia, but nothing concrete ever
presented itself. The only remotely plausible explanation was that his mother
had pushed him out of a swing when he was three, landing Sean on his head but
unhurt, for the most part.

Sean took in a deep breath of the musty church air, remember how
nervous he had been at the thought of jumping. In the end, he never took the
plunge. He couldn’t do it. Fear had overcome him, paralyzing him from taking
any action.

Tommy had insisted it was okay that he didn’t jump. But Sean had felt
like a failure, instead electing to crawl back through the ceiling and let his
friend unlock the upper door from the inside. By that time, most of the senior
class had arrived outside and were clamoring for the two friends to open the
doors.

The prank had been an incredible success. Students flooded into the
pool area, thrilled at the fact that they were pulling off the greatest prank
in school history. One kid had brought a boom box, and the music blared off the
facility’s walls. People danced on the concrete around the edge of the water,
some of the couples made out up in the bleachers, while most of the group
splashed around in the warm waters of the forbidden pool. They had had the time
of their lives that night.

Sean smiled briefly as he remembered the evening. He looked around the
darkened sanctuary. One of Jabez’s men stood by the door, keeping watch. They
had been rotating out every two hours, taking turns so each man could get some
sleep. His eyes drifted to the pew where he knew Adriana was sleeping.

Tommy’s voice from high school rang in his ears. “Jump, Sean. Jump.”

He had messed up enough with relationships in the past. At the moment,
Sean had a good working friendship with Adriana. He didn’t want to jeopardize
that. Then again, no risk no reward. That was the way Tommy had lived his life.
Sean had, instead, chosen to take risks in other areas of his journey.

Every piece of his being told him to go back to where she was
sleeping, wake her up, and tell her he wanted to see where things could lead.
It wouldn’t be a cheesy conversation where he told her he was in love with her
or anything like that. He just wanted to let her know he was interested in
seeing what could happen.

A twinge stuck him in the chest as he realized he was still sitting
there on the catwalk, hanging over the pool in high school. Sean had always
wanted things to be perfect. He took every precaution to ensure safety and
success. It was one of the reasons he had been the best agent Axis had ever
had. His methods had caused him to be the desire of several other government
agencies as well.

He looked back one last time at the pew where Adriana slept, knowing
full well he wouldn’t take the leap, at least, not tonight. Letting out a deep
sigh, he slid down into the church pew and rested his head on the bag he’d
brought along. He slid the phone back into his pocket and pressed the button on
the top to turn it off for the night.

Above, the cracked white ceiling stared down at him. He wondered what
his friend would think of him at that moment, if Tommy had known what Sean was
feeling and pondering. Tommy never said anything about Sean’s unwillingness to
jump into the pool. That wasn’t his style. He had always been a supportive
friend. They’d always had each other’s backs, no matter what. Just like
brothers.

As Sean closed his eyes and started to drift away, he could hear his
friend’s voice echoing through the sanctuary. “Jump.”