Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

“Go,” the man said, nodding curtly into the compound. Alex took his badge back, affixed it carefully to the front of the dead man’s shirt and drove forward into the lot, scanning for open spaces.

Another thing he didn’t know was whether particular areas of the parking lot were assigned to particular groups, or individuals. Instead of making this an issue, he drove on to the rear of the lot and found the space where Boswell had parked the night before. There were places closer in, but somehow it felt right to put the sedan back where he’d originally found it. Again, it was a calculated risk, but it was a lower risk than taking an incorrect spot. He killed the engine and worked fast.

The false floorboard lifted easily and he slipped his hand under. Inside was the biggest risk he would take. He had to enter the compound with the explosives in hand. He’d left them secured as he entered in case there was any sort of routine search, but now he pulled out the utility belt, strung with black pouches filled with enough high explosive to remove the upper level of the building from the map. He snapped it around his waist, taking pains to move quickly and efficiently and to show none of the fear of motion the belt brought him.

As he’d done in the garage earlier, he closed his eyes and slipped back to the small snippets of Boswell that he’d recorded in his memory. He pictured the man crossing this very parking lot and then, without hesitation, he opened the door, stepped out, closed and locked the sedan and started off across the pavement.

At first he saw no one. He measured his breath by the paces, remembering each time he moved that he was not Alex Tempest, but Roy Boswell.

He wasn’t breaking into a secret biomedical laboratory to try and save the world, he was a regular guy with a job to do, a few men to supervise and another shift to get through. He slowed his pace just slightly when the day shift guards rounded the corner of the maintenance shed and came into sight. They paid no attention to him, and when he hesitated to let the last of them pass, their captain nodded to him in recognition. Roy returned the nod, passed on by and headed for the main entrance of the complex.

No one gave him a second glance. He stepped through an arched, stainless-steel entrance and stood before a chrome-framed door of very thick glass. To the left of the door hung a magnetic-strip-card reader. He slipped the badge in and swiped it down. Two small green lights appeared, one below and one above the lock. There was a hum and a heavy click. He grabbed the door, pulled it open and stepped inside.

Almost miraculously, the foyer was empty. It was tiled with smooth, reflective stone. Doorways led to the right, left and straight ahead. In the angles between two of the hallways were the main elevators. He walked to the one on the left, swiped his card again and waited. There was a hum deep in the guts of the building and lights came on, illuminating the upward-pointing arrow. Moments later there was another heavy clunking sound, then the door slid open. A tall, thin man stepped out, glanced at Alex with a harried, irritated expression, then turned and headed off down one of the hallways, a sheaf of papers half-crumpled in his grip.

The plans he’d memorized showed a main floor, a basement level, a maintenance level below that and three floors above the ground level. All of these were indicated by numbered buttons. There were also four buttons off to the side of the panel. They were not numbered, but each was emblazoned with a symbol in bold Chinese script, along with its counterpart in English, for which Alex was thankful.

Sometimes, it was better to be lucky than good, he thought.

He pressed the lowest of the numbered buttons, and the elevator came to life with a loud hum. The car began its descent, and he closed his eyes. He leaned on the wall of the elevator car to remove some of the pressure from his aching legs, and he brought up a mental image of the lower floor he was about to reach. He had to move quickly and avoid contact and, if discovered, he had to act without hesitation. He thought suddenly of Brin.

How many of those who were about to die would be like her? People coming to work every day, believing they were doing work that would help to improve the lives of those around them?

How many innocents would be destroyed in the interest of saving millions more? When he was done here, if he succeeded, would they send him—

or someone like him—to the MRIS office where Brin worked? Was the knowledge she possessed a danger to mankind—enough so that she’d become a liability? If she was considered a liability, he needed to find all of the evidence that might point to her and destroy it. He wasn’t about to let a loose asset or piece of research destroy his wife and his family.

He shook the thoughts from his mind and growled out loud, just as the elevator door slid open. Luckily no one was there to hear.

The break room on the lowest level had a small doorway leading to the laundry access. Alex slipped past vending machines, pots of tea and coffee and into the darker room beyond. He had managed to enter the break room without being seen, but he knew his time was limited. He would be late for Boswell’s shift in only a few moments, and someone was bound to report seeing him when he entered the main building. They would be looking for him, and before that happened, to give himself half a chance at escape, he had to get where he was going, set his charges and get out.

He walked straight to the dumbwaiter and opened the access panel. It was a simple device, as he’d hoped. It consisted of a single solid platform that rose and fell by the control of a pair of buttons that dangled from a cable attached to a basketlike frame. Luck was still with him—the car was at his level, and when he leaned in to peer downward, he saw that the shaft ran much farther down than where he currently stood. He reasoned no one would take it lower—why should they? It was probably not guarded, and he doubted there was even an alarm.

He glanced over his shoulder to be certain the break room was still clear, and then swung up onto the little platform, regretting instantly putting so much of his weight on the grip of a single arm. His hand cramped and he almost cried out. He felt the dumbwaiter bounce under his weight and grabbed the control in his other hand. He pressed a button, and the platform lurched upward. He cursed softly, regained his balance and pressed the other button.

The dumbwaiter descended slowly, dropping him through a shaft of utter darkness toward whatever lay below.

He listened carefully for voices, or for any sort of alarm that might have sounded, but he heard nothing. He rode down for what seemed an inor-dinately long time, but at last he saw the dim outline of an access panel rising to meet him. He timed his descent roughly and stopped a couple of inches below the panel. He reached out and slid it open a crack. No one moved or made a sound.

Alex reached down to the holster on his belt and pulled out his porcelain-framed 9 mm Glock pistol. It was a special piece of weaponry, equipped with a laser sight, a silencer and loaded with Glaser rounds. Very carefully he pulled the panel open the rest of the way and stepped out into a dark room.

It took a moment to orient himself, but when his eyesight adjusted slightly he found he was in a large chamber with a low ceiling. Pipes and ductwork ran in all directions, and it was warmer than it had been on the upper floors. He moved away from the dumbwaiter access carefully and began a circuit of the wall. He found power panels, circuit breakers with huge snaking ropes of cable stretching up through the ceiling above him, and eventually he came to what he assumed was the central furnace of the building.