Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

The more he read, the more certain he was that if the process was brought into the U.S., it would be through her branch. If Room 59 found out that she was involved, it wouldn’t matter to them that she was his wife. She and everyone there would be just another target.

Finally he’d read and picked up all that he could retain. He had a headache from his blurring vision and sitting in front of the laptop for so long had caused an uncharacteristic stiffness in his limbs. He rose and performed a quick set of simple calisthenics and waited for Liang to call him to dinner. In the corner, a simple futon waited, and he found that he was really looking forward to making use of it. The next morning he was going to need his wits about him. There had to be more to the MRIS complex than appeared in the schematics he’d gone over. There had to be a flaw, and he had to find it.

WHEN ALEX AWOKE the next morning, sunlight had crept in between the slats of the blinds and striped his face white and gray, making his eyes burn. He rolled to one side on the futon, trying to escape the light for a few moments before he was forced to face the day. It was no use. Thin bands of light fell from the wall to the center of the room, leaving him no safe haven.

He rolled to the edge and pushed himself into a sitting position. For the moment his legs and arms seemed still and pain free. A few blinks brought the room into focus and he risked standing.

Once he had finished his ablutions, he wandered into the living room, hoping there was coffee instead of tea for breakfast. Liang was seated at the dining-room table, smiling brightly and reading the newspaper.

Alex smiled. He was taken by how different Liang’s household was from what he’d known on previous visits to China. The way Liang and Soo Lin interacted, the Western styling of the table, the disco clubs lining the streets downtown—such things would not have been possible a decade before.

“Good morning, my friend,” Liang said, a smile lighting his face. “I hope you slept well.”

“Well but briefly.”

“There’s some coffee in the kitchen, if you care for some.”

Alex almost let loose a cry of joy. He walked at once to the kitchen, to find a very familiar coffeemaker, several cups, a sugar bowl and creamer all laid out. Soo Lin was thorough, and Alex laughed as he realized the coffeemaker was probably another benefit of being an electronics importer. Liang was a man of many talents, and good taste, it seemed.

Alex poured himself a steaming cup of black coffee and took a sip, grimacing at the heat as he walked back to the dining room.

“Where’s Soo Lin this morning? Still sleeping?”

“She has already left for work. She doesn’t have to work, of course, but it helps us to maintain appearances. It also keeps her busy, and prevents awkward situations when my work is of a less mundane nature. When she is home, she watches over that kitchen like a tiger. Nothing gets done there without her supervision.”

Alex smiled. “She’s quite a lady. If we’re alone, then, we can talk. Your plans were most helpful. I think I’ve memorized the highlights. I’ll go over them again if I get a chance, but it’s a pretty straightforward setup.”

“Excellent. We can leave in about an hour.

Perhaps the daylight will reveal more of the lab’s secrets, eh?”

“Hopefully,” Alex said.

He was actually hoping for a little divine inspiration. So far, it had not been forthcoming. Part of being a chameleon was having a grasp of the environment that went beyond the physical world; it was understanding deep down what other people saw when they looked around.

Liang and Alex drove the small car out to the lab site once again. They approached from the opposite side this time, circling through the woods and stopping at the top of the hill. From the facility, all that was visible of the woods was a small patch near the top. No one down there could even see their car as it drove along the dirt road.

Alex stared down at the parking lot and frowned.

“Does anything about that parking lot strike you as odd?” he asked. “You’ve seen the shifts change, people coming and going.”

Liang followed Alex’s gaze, then mirrored his frown. “The cars. There are too many cars. Only about half that many people come or go at any given time.”

Alex squinted through the binoculars at the fenced-in parking lot, scanning the area for other differences that hadn’t been reported.

“Exactly. There is something going on here that isn’t in those plans.”

“The entire facility isn’t large enough to house that many workers,” Liang commented. “Perhaps there is more here than meets the eye. Could there be more underground?”

Alex spotted something at the far edge of his field of vision and he focused the binoculars in on that one object. He’d been looking for someone of a particular physical type, an American or European who had basically the same build and coloring as himself, and just to the side of the main building, he’d spotted him. Alex studied the man as he crossed the parking lot to the security area.

There were six men there, standing at attention.

His target was apparently a squad leader of some sort. That was good—his clearance would be higher.

“Those guards are PMC,” he told Liang.

“Private military contractors of some sort. There are six per squad, two squads, a leader for each.

That’s on the exterior. I’m tracking the squad leader of the team on the right. See if you recognize him.”

Liang took the binoculars from Alex and studied the man. “He does not look familiar.”

“He looks enough like me that I can pass for him. It won’t fool his men, especially up close, but for our needs, he’s perfect. We’ll come back for him tonight. If the schedule is correct, he’ll change shifts around eight.”

Liang looked at him briefly. “You have a plan?”

“I do.” Alex nodded. Best to have a plan, he thought.

A field agent quickly learned that it was far too easy to improvise yourself right into an early grave.

“I’LL FLASH A LIGHT through the back window twice. Then you follow.” Alex zipped up his flak jacket and shoved his gun into its holster. The many pockets of the jacket were filled with his tools of the trade, weighing it down.

Liang nodded and slipped his own gun into its holster. “Good luck, Mr. Vance.”

Alex nodded and made his way down the hillside. The perimeter of the facility was well lit, especially at the fence line. But there was one spot that was dark enough to serve his purposes. He watched the two roving external squads carefully to gauge his moment. His target was a small, lonely stretch of fence running between the parking lot and the maintenance shed.

He moved quietly through the brush, nearing the fence at the center of that dark patch. One hand flipped open a pocket tool and pulled out a pair of wire cutters. He snipped the fence in a straight line upward, just large enough for him to enter. He would not be leaving the same way and didn’t want to call attention to the hole in the fence. Another pocket produced a handful of small metal clips, which Alex used to fasten the sections of wire together again.

Unless someone walked right up to the fence and stared, the damage would never be noticed.

Keeping low, he hurried off to the side of the maintenance shed. He could see both of the huge lights and all three cameras from where he crouched. He was in a small dead spot as long as he remained stationary. He’d noted the sweep of the cameras and the angle, and calculated the field of vision on each sweep.

A sudden noise rose from the back of the maintenance shed. Someone had turned on a pump of some sort, and once the shock of the sudden sound released its clamped grip on his heart, he realized it would work to his advantage, shielding any noise he produced. When the lights shifted just right, and the squad currently covering the lot had turned the corner at the far end, Alex made his move.