“We already know a lot of things,” Wahlman said. “You’ve done some rearranging since the last inspection. We want to make sure everything is still in order.”

  “Actually, we’re still in the process of moving some things around,” Miller said. “You know how it is when a new CO is assigned to a unit. The new guy always wants to shake things up a little, make some changes. The new guy being me, of course. And since we are still in the process of making these adjustments, it would make things a lot easier for everyone involved if the inspection could be rescheduled. Two weeks from now would be ideal.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Barbeau said. “It would throw everything off. I’m sorry the department didn’t give you a little more notice, but we’re here now and we plan to perform our duties as thoroughly as possible.”

  Miller sighed.

  “Highly unusual,” he said. “But if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is. You can get started at 0700 tomorrow morning.”

  “Negative,” Wahlman said. “We need to get started immediately, need to wrap it up by early tomorrow afternoon. We have a plane to catch.”

  Miller looked at his watch.

  “The bulk of the command is almost ready to secure for the day,” he said. “They’ve been at it for almost twelve hours. Surely you can’t expect them to—”

  “We can get by with your regular night watch personnel,” Barbeau said. “Just make sure someone’s around to open doors for us.”

  Miller shuffled through some of the papers on his desk, pulled out a crumpled sheet with a brownish stain on one of the corners and looked it over.

  “That’s going to be Sergeant Davenport,” he said. “She’s the senior NCO on duty tonight. I’ll give her a call and let her know what’s going on.”

  “You only keep one guard here at night?” Wahlman said.

  “We keep three. Two of them are stationed at the entrance, and there’s one rover. The rover’s in charge. You can meet her in the security office.”

  “Outstanding,” Barbeau said. “We’ll head on down there now.”

  Following the obligatory handshakes and departing pleasantries, Wahlman reached over and opened the door, and then he stepped into the hallway and led the way to the elevator.

  He stepped up to the stainless steel panel and pushed the DOWN button.

  “I hope the paperwork Victor gave us is legit,” he said.

  “He assured me that it is,” Barbeau said. “Down to the tiniest detail.”

  “Good. Because Miller seems like the kind of guy who might do some checking.”

  “Don’t worry. We’re covered.”

  “Even if he calls someone at the DoD?”

  “It’s a huge department. The names on our ID cards are the names of current inspectors. It’ll take a while for anyone to figure out we’re not them. We should be long gone by the time that happens.”

  “What if we’re not?” Wahlman said.

  “Don’t be so negative.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It’s good advice.”

  The elevator door opened.

  “After you,” Wahlman said.

  “Actually, we should take the stairs.”

  “The stairs?”

  “It’ll be good exercise.”

  “We’re on level sixteen right now,” Wahlman said. “The security office is all the way down at the bottom. Level forty-two. That’s twenty-six stories.”

  “We should recon those passages,” Barbeau said “In case we need to use them to get back up. We don’t want any surprises.”

  Wahlman shrugged.

  “Some pretty bad things would have to happen for us to resort to the stairways to get out of here,” he said.

  “I agree it’s not likely. But it’s possible.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in arguing about it.”

  “I don’t suppose there is,” Barbeau said. “Not that anything as trivial as a point has ever stopped you before.”

  Wahlman watched the elevator door close, and then he turned and followed Barbeau down the hallway and through a steel door marked EMERGENCY EXIT.

  “It’s hot in here,” Wahlman said, stepping into the stairwell.

  “It’s not tied into the ventilation system,” Barbeau said. “For obvious reasons. Of course we’ll need to go up to the ground level first, and then turn around and come back down.”

  “Of course,” Wahlman said. “We wouldn’t want to skip the enjoyment of climbing those sixteen flights of stairs for absolutely no reason.”

  “I already told you the reason.”

  “Emergency evacuation routes on government installations shall be kept free of obstructions at all times,” Wahlman said. “It’s in the United States Architectural Compliance and Restriction Manual. Section four, paragraph seven. There’s no reason to believe—”

  “I’m pretty sure you just made that up,” Barbeau said. “Anyway, it’s not really necessary for both of us to do this. And since I’m in charge, guess who gets the honors?”

  “Seriously?”

  “See you down in the security office. I’ll be the one with the cold drink in her hand.”

  Barbeau opened the steel door, stepped back out into the hallway and headed back toward the elevator.

  Wahlman stood there with sweat trickling down his back, debating over whether or not to follow the order to recon the entire stairway.

  All fifty-eight stories of it.

  Bare concrete, exposed pipes, naked lightbulbs protected by wire cages. The air was hot and heavy, and it reeked of cleaning solvent. Wahlman figured he would probably need some medical attention by the time he finished. Some IV fluids and some oxygen.

  Technically speaking, Barbeau was right. It was something that should be done. But the odds of finding any sort of obstacle that would impede the sort of last-ditch, run-for-your-life escape effort that the stairs would ever be utilized for were probably a million to one. And the odds that either of them would survive the unlikely theoretical catastrophic event that would precede such an unlikely theoretical escape effort were probably that great as well.

  So, after some careful consideration, after weighing the pros and cons, Wahlman decided that a full reconnaissance of the stairwells wasn’t warranted. Barbeau was a good operative, but she’d dropped the ball on this one. She’d made a bad decision. It was a bad order, and Wahlman wasn’t going to waste the time it would take to carry it out. Not when the relocation of the cryogenic preservation units he and Barbeau had been sent here to protect was scheduled to begin any minute now. That was the priority. That was where the focus belonged. If Barbeau wanted the stairways checked out, she could do it herself.

  Wahlman opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, happy to be able to breathe again. He took the elevator down to level forty-two and found the security office and walked inside. A woman wearing an Air Force desert camouflage uniform with tech sergeant stripes on the sleeves and a nametape that said DAVENPORT over the right breast pocket was sitting behind a desk similar to the one in the colonel’s office.

  Actually, Davenport’s desk might have been a little bit nicer than Miller’s. It was definitely more organized.

  “May I help you?” the sergeant said, standing and removing her reading glasses.

  She was petite. Probably not more than five feet tall. Probably not more than a hundred pounds. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, no makeup.

  “I’m with the DoD,” Wahlman said. “Here for the inspection.”

  “I was under the impression that there were two of you.”

  “There are two of us. I’m with Agent Barbeau.”

  “Who?”

  “She should have gotten here a few minutes ago.”

  “She didn’t. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to since Colonel Miller called.”

  I’ll be the one with the cold drink in her hand.

  “She might be looking around for a soda machine,” Wahlman said. “I’m sure she’ll be along shortly.”

  “The only machine on this level is in the breakroom. And it’s out of order right now. I guess she could have taken the elevator back up to forty-one.”

  “That’s probably what she did. She was really thirsty.”

  Davenport nodded.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee while we wait?” she said.

  “I understand you’re going to be relocating some of the cryogenics units,” Wahlman said. “How soon is that going to happen?”

  “A team of civilian contractors is handling that project. They’re supposed to page me as soon as they get onsite.”

  “How long until they’re supposed to be onsite?”

  “An hour. Give or take.”

  “All right,” Wahlman said. “Coffee sounds good.”

  “Be right back.”

  Sergeant Davenport exited the office. As soon as the door closed behind her, Wahlman checked to make sure there weren’t any security cameras mounted anywhere, and then he started rifling through the papers on her desk. It didn’t take him long to find something pertinent to the mission. It was a memo from Colonel Miller, dated 31 May 1994, a typed notice regarding the relocation of cryogenics units one, two, and three, from Laboratory J to Laboratory M. The work order had originated from the desk of an Army general named Ossleman, and an outfit called NitroLug Solutions had been contracted to perform the move. The civilian personnel were to be granted temporary access to all spaces relevant to the order, and the actual physical transportation of the equipment was to take place between the hours of 19:00 and 22:00 on 2 June 1994.

  NitroLug. It was probably a real company, with a real government contract. But the technicians assigned to the project had probably been replaced at some point. By Topple operatives. Assassins. The plan had probably been fairly simple. Maybe some kind of ambush. Maybe just a few miles down the road. It was a relatively easy way into the facility, if you didn’t mind obtaining some vital information from the foreman by whatever means necessary. And if you didn’t mind subsequently killing him, or her, and the rest of the crew. And if you didn’t mind dragging the corpses into the woods, where they wouldn’t be found for a while.

  It was the way Wahlman might have handled it, if he’d been a bad guy.

  He slid the memo back where he’d found it. The door opened. It wasn’t Davenport. And it wasn’t Barbeau. It was a man Wahlman had never seen before. A man with a black nylon satchel slung over his left shoulder. Gray coveralls, gray ball cap, black wraparound sunglasses.

  The ball cap had a company logo embroidered on the front of it.

  NitroLug Solutions.

  The man was breathing hard and sweating profusely. He reached into the satchel and pulled out a sound-suppressed semi-automatic pistol and aimed it directly at Wahlman’s chest.

  6

  Wahlman dove behind the desk an instant before a pair of .45 caliber rounds thudded into the wall behind him.

  Of course there was nothing stopping the man in the gray coveralls from casually walking over to where Wahlman had landed.

  Which he did.

  And there was nothing stopping him from taking his hat and sunglasses off and tossing them and the nylon satchel onto the desk and raking his fingers through his hair and looking Wahlman directly in the eyes and aiming and squeezing the trigger.

  Which he did.

  Only nothing happened. The gun must have jammed.

  While the man in the gray coveralls was yanking the troublesome magazine out of its well and preparing to hammer in another one, Wahlman was yanking the lamp cord out of the wall and preparing to hammer in a skull.

  Which he did.

  The lamp had probably been produced around the same time that the desk had been produced. Back in the good old days, when they made things to last. Back when a blunt instrument was a blunt instrument. The base was solid steel. It probably weighed about five pounds. The man’s cranium was no match for it. One swift blow was all it took.

  Wahlman reached down and grabbed the man’s pistol before the quickly-spreading puddle of dark red blood got to it. The man had convulsed a couple of times after hitting the floor, and the fresh magazine he’d been holding had skittered into the corner. Wahlman walked over and picked it up and slammed it into the well and jacked a round into the chamber. He grabbed the ball cap and stuffed it into his back pocket, unzipped the satchel and looked inside. There was a roll of electrical tape and a two-way radio with Property of NitroLug Solutions crudely etched onto one side, along with a bunch of similarly marked hand tools and electronic devices. Screwdrivers and wrenches and calibration meters. Specialty items, for the cryogenic storage units. Wahlman figured the original owner of the satchel and its contents was dead. Then again, so was the second owner.

  Wahlman clipped the radio to his belt, thinking he might be able to listen in on some communications. He didn’t have any use for the tools, so he left them there on the desk. He walked over to the door and opened it slowly and surveyed the area outside the office. It was quiet. There was nobody around. The man in the gray coveralls had probably been sent to take care of Davenport. Get her out of the way right off the bat. He’d probably been surprised to find a man in her place, a man who stood six-four and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds. He’d definitely been surprised when the gun jammed. Wahlman had seen it in his eyes. The panic. The sudden realization that things might not go the way he wanted them to go.

  The man had been surprised, but Wahlman had been surprised too. According to Davenport, the crew from NitroLug wasn’t supposed to be onsite yet. Which ordinarily would mean that the Topple replacements weren’t supposed to be onsite yet. They were early. Wahlman figured the rest of the phony team members were probably making their way to Laboratory J by now. No telling how many people they’d killed already.

  Wahlman hoped that Barbeau wasn’t one of them.

  But her absence was not a good sign.

  Wahlman exited the office and headed toward the stairs, sidestepping quickly but cautiously, his back against the wall and both hands wrapped tightly around the grips of the .45.

  Sergeant Davenport rounded the corner. She had a paper cup in each hand. Lidless. The kind you get from a vending machine. The coffee was a little foamy around the edges. From being squirted out forcefully with an electric motor. It probably didn’t taste very good, but at least it was hot. Plumes of steam rose from the cups as Davenport hustled over to where Wahlman was standing.

  “What are you doing out here?” she said. “And where did you get that weapon? You’re not authorized to—”

  “Set the cups on that stack of pallets over there,” Wahlman said, aiming the .45 at her core. “Then take your gun out of its holster and set it on the floor and slide it toward me.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I can’t tell you what it’s all about. Just do what I told you to do. Slowly. I need to see your hands at all times.”

  Davenport could have slung both cups of steaming hot coffee into Wahlman’s face, hoping to buy enough time to go for her service revolver. But it would have been a bad decision. Because if that had happened, Wahlman would have blasted a hole the size of a quarter through her heart. He wouldn’t have had much of a choice. He couldn’t allow her to jeopardize the mission. But she didn’t sling the coffee. Maybe she didn’t think about it. Or maybe she figured her best chance of making it out of this alive was to do as she was told. Which, in this particular instance, happened to be absolutely correct.

  She set the coffee on the stack of pallets. Unsnapped her holster and pulled the revolver out with her thumb and forefinger, set it on the floor and spun it toward Wahlman with the tip of her shoe.

  “Now what?” she said.

  Wahlman leaned down and picked up the gun and slid it into his waistband.

  “Now you’re going to lead me to Laboratory J,” he said.

  “What happened to your partner?”

  “Don’t worry about it. She can take care of herself.”

  “Did she smuggle a weapon into the facility too? Surely the two of you were aware that—”

  “Stop talking and start walking,” Wahlman said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Davenport turned and headed toward the elevator. Wahlman followed, keeping a distance of approximately three feet. Far enough away to avoid any sort of assault, but close enough to make it apparent to anyone monitoring a security camera that he and Davenport were walking together. Nice and casual. Nothing suspicious. Just another routine DoD security inspection. Not that Wahlman had noticed any cameras anywhere, but it was always best to err on the side of caution.

  Wahlman zipped his leather jacket about halfway, and then he unscrewed the sound suppressor and slid the .45 into his pocket. Now both guns were concealed.

  “I just remembered something,” Davenport said.

  “Why are you talking again?”

  “You might have noticed that some of the buttons on the elevator are inaccessible to visitors.”

  “There were four of them,” Wahlman said. “They had little steel caps over them.”

  “Right. There’s a scanner and a keypad next to the emergency telephone. You need a permanent identification badge and the current four-digit code in order to—”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Lab J is up on fourteen. It’s one of the levels you need a badge for. Mine is back in the security office.”

  “We don’t have time to go back to the office,” Wahlman said. “There has to be another way.”

  Time was indeed an issue, but there were some other reasons Wahlman didn’t want to go back to the office. He didn’t want Davenport to walk in and see the guy lying there with his head cracked open like a walnut. No telling what kinds of conclusions she might come to, none of which would be helpful, and many of which could be harmful.

  And it was possible that there was some kind of secret panic button hidden somewhere in the office. Which would definitely be harmful.

  “There is another way,” Davenport said. “There’s an override key. But I don’t have it. I would have to page the administrator on duty, and she would have to come from home and bring the key in. I’m guessing that’s not something you want to deal with at the moment. And of course it would be quicker just to walk back to the office.”

 

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