Nick Carter: The Omega Terror

“What do you want?” the big Moroccan asked in strongly accented English.

“Is Dr. Zeno inside?”

“He is.”

“I must deliver this file,” I said, showing him the file under my arm.

“Do you have Class One clearance?”

“I was sent by Li Yuen,” I explained.

“You must have a Class One clearance card,” he insisted. “If you do not, I will deliver the file.”

I shrugged “All right.” I handed the precious file over to him. As soon as both his hands were on it, I went for Wilhelmina.

But he was sharp. He saw the movement, dropped the papers and grabbed at my wrist as it came out of my lab coat. I struggled to turn the gun toward him, but he was too strong for me. He twisted hard on my wrist and the Luger fell from my grasp. I thought for a moment he had broken a bone. He grabbed me with both hands and smashed me against the wall beside the door. My teeth rattled, and I couldn’t focus my eyes for a minute. The big hands closed around my throat. His strength was so great that I knew he’d crush my windpipe before he suffocated me. I freed my arms briefly and brought them down hard onto his forearms, loosening his grip. I kicked at where I thought his left kneecap would be, connected and heard bone snap.

The Almohad yelled a dull yell and fell away from me. I chopped hard at his head with my right hand. He did not go down. I hit the same place again, and he fell to the floor.

But in a second he was going for the pistol on his belt, and he moved very fast for a big man. I landed on him just as the gun was clearing the holster. Hugo slipped into my hand as I hit him. As he fell onto his back and saw the flash of the knife, he brought an arm up to block it, but I knocked his arm aside long enough to make one quick plunge, driving the stiletto into his head, just under the left ear. There was a hiss from his open mouth, a violent shudder of his massive body, and he was dead.

I looked up, and the corridor was still empty. I walked a few steps and opened a door to a small office. Nobody was there. I went back to the guard, dragged him into the small room, and closed the door. Then I straightened my white coat, replaced my weapons, and gathered up the file. I pushed open the door to the lab and walked in as if I owned the place.

It was a large room, crowded with tables and equipment. On the tables were rows upon rows of small glass tanks, in which, I guessed, Omega was being grown. A large electronic machine of some kind stood at one end of the room, and an attend-ant bent over it. There were three other lab men in addition to Dr. Z himself, who was busy scribbling notes at a stand-up desk.

To my left was a tall cabinet constructed of metal and wood. The doors on this cabinet were reinforced glass, so that its contents were visible. There were hundreds of glass cylinders with labels affixed to them. Inside the containers were a greenish gray substance, which, I concluded, was the cultured Omega Mutation.

Dr. Z had moved over to a counter near the desk and was studying a beaker on top of a low flame. As I knew from the previous brief meeting and from AXE photographs, he was a tall, chalky-faced man with stooped shoulders. His hair was thick and iron gray. The nose was thin but prominent, and his mouth was wide, with a full underlip. Unlike most of the other men in the room, Z was without spectacles, and the dark gray eyes held a cold, brilliant intensity.

I remembered Hawk’s advice. Bring Zeno back if I could. Kill him if I could not. The choice was Zeno’s.

Nobody in the room had seen me, or if they had, they were paying no attention. I moved quickly over to Zeno, and as I approached him, I placed the Omega file on a table where it would be out of my way. I walked up beside him, putting myself between him and the other white-coated men in the room, so that they could not see what was going on. Then I pulled Wilhelmina. Zeno looked up just then, regarded the gun impassively for a moment, then stared at me with those hard, bright eyes.

“What is this?” he said coldly to me, in a strong, resonant voice. “What are you doing in here?”

“I’ll give you a small hint,” I said in a low hard voice. “I’m not with L5.”

His dark eyes narrowed slightly as he looked me over, and understanding came to his face. “So that’s it.” He tried to mask his fear. “You’re a fool. You’ll never get out of the laboratory alive.”

“Getting out alive is not part of my assignment,” I said to him slowly and deliberately. I let that sink in a moment. I saw his eyes dart to the other men behind me. “Don’t do it. Not unless you don’t mind having a slug punch a baseball-size hole through your chest.”

He looked down at the gun, and then back into my eyes. “What do you want?” he asked.

I pushed the Luger up against his ribs. “Tell the others to leave,” I said quietly. “Tell them Li Yuen wishes to meet privately with you here. Tell them anything, but get them out for a while. And make them believe it.”

Damon Zeno glared at the gun and then at me. “I can’t do that. These men….”

“I’ll squeeze this trigger if you don’t.”

Zeno struggled to keep his growing anger under control. But his fear was stronger. “It’s Li Yuen’s fault that this has happened,” he muttered bitterly to himself. When he glanced into my eyes, he saw that I meant what I said, and he turned slowly to the other men in the laboratory.

“Gentlemen, your attention, please.” He waited while they all turned to him. “The director has requested an emergency meeting with me here in ten minutes. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask that you absent yourselves from your work for a short time. Why don’t you all take a coffee break and I’ll join you shortly?”

There was some muttering, but they filed out of the place. I hid the gun until they were gone. Then I turned back to Dr. Z.

“Where are your recent findings and notes?” I asked. “The ones that supplement those in Li Yuen’s file.”

Zeno’s eyes flicked involuntarily toward a locked metal cabinet on a nearby wall. “You must be mad,” he said softly. “Do you actually think I would deliver Omega to you on a silver platter? At any rate, the notes would mean nothing to you or anyone else in American intelligence.”

“I bet the notes are in that cabinet,” I said, watching his reaction. “And that the cultured Mutation is behind the glass on that wall.”

Zeno’s face was dark with frustration and rage. “Get out of here while you can,” he said thickly. “Or Li Yuen will cut you into little pieces.”

I grunted. “Li Yuen is dead.”

I watched the expressions flit across his face. Disbelief, then shock, anger, and finally, renewed fear.

“So is General Djenina,” I said. “You’re pretty much alone now, Zeno, even if they kill me.”

Zeno’s pallid face was fighting for control. “ If Li Yuen is dead, he is expendable. It is Omega that counts, not Li.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That’s why it must go. And you too if you’re stubborn. God knows why, but I have orders to bring you back with me if you want to come.” My voice revealed my contempt. “I’m giving you your option right now.”

He glanced again at the Luger. “And you will destroy Omega?”

“That’s right.” I moved over to the cabinet, picked up a microscope, smashed it against the lock, and broke it open. I threw the damaged instrument onto the floor, took the lock off, and opened the cabinet door.

Inside was a manila folder and some other pa-pers. I gathered them up and glanced at Zeno. The strained expression on his face told me I had hit the jackpot. I laid everything on top of the file I had taken from Li Yuen’s safe and glanced through the material quickly. It looked like the right stuff.