Jeff Buick - Lethal Dose

They were in a small lab, perhaps one-quarter the size of the lab Andrews had used to create the virus. Two long lab benches, anchored securely to the floor, ran perpendicular to the wall that housed the door they had just entered through. They were covered with equipment and sophisticated-looking machines. There was a secondary exit at the far end of the lab and Jennifer headed for it, groping her way in the dark and trying to remember where the lab benches were from the brief glimpse she’d had when the light was on. Gordon moved to one of the benches and ran his hand along until he found a sharp metal spike used for stirring liquids. Then he returned to the door and rammed it into the light switch. Outside, he could hear the men on the phone calling back to the security desk with the lab number.

“Move, Jennifer,” Gordon said quietly as he came up behind her. “They’re talking to the security guard. They’re probably asking him to open the door remotely for them.”

The door clicked and it opened, throwing a beam of light from the hallway into the lab. Gordon and Jennifer were on the far side of one of the long tables and out of the light. The man entering the lab tried the light switch, but the metal spike had destroyed it. He cursed and moved slowly into the semidarkness, searching for Gordon and Jennifer.

“You can’t get away,” he said quietly. His voice carried through the empty room. “Just come out and we’ll talk. We need to talk with you.”

“Bullshit,” Gordon whispered to Jennifer. “Andrews’s guys. They need to kill us.”

He could barely see her shape in the darkness, but he could tell she was nodding. “The rear exit,” she whispered back. “Let’s get out of here.”

They crawled along the floor, staying below the level of the lab benches. Jennifer’s hand bumped into a stool, and it wobbled for a second until Gordon caught it and stopped it from toppling over. They remained motionless for a minute, then continued. Behind them they could hear the sounds of unsure feet shuffling across the tiles. Jennifer reached the exit and asked quietly, “Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

She gripped the handle firmly and pulled. An alarm instantly sounded and the emergency lighting system kicked in. Jennifer was already through the door, and Gordon dived after her. He had a fleeting glimpse of a man with a pistol aimed at him, then that strange sound and a searing pain in his right leg. His momentum carried him through the doorway, and Jennifer slammed the metal door behind him.

“Damn it,” he said, grabbing at his leg. His hands came away bloodied. He pulled his pant leg up and looked at the wound. There was a small hole in the calf muscle where the bullet had entered. He felt on the other side of his leg and found another hole. “It went through,” he said, struggling to his feet. “Just a flesh wound. Now get out of here. Head for the exit at the south end of the building and I’ll be there in a minute.”

“I’m not leaving without you,” she said.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “This isn’t a movie. And it sure as hell isn’t time to get heroic. Get back to the cab. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. He was serious. She set off down the secondary hallway at a brisk run. She glanced back at a corner in the hall and saw Gordon kicking in a door with his good leg. Then she was alone, running for her life down the dimly lit corridor.

Gordon smashed in the wooden door marked MAINTENANCE.

Inside was standard fare for cleaning an industrial building. He pulled a mop off its hanger and swung it hard against the wall. The mop broke off, leaving just a splintered handle. He grabbed a bottle of ammonia and unscrewed the lid. A second later, the door crashed open and a man entered, a silenced pistol in his outstretched hand. Gordon stabbed at the man’s hand with the sharp end of the mop handle, the splintered wood driving into his attacker’s wrist. The gun flew from his hand and he howled in pain, the shattered handle shoved clear through his arm. He looked up at Gordon with disbelief in his eyes and saw a liquid coming at him. The ammonia hit his exposed eyes and he dropped to the floor, screaming and clawing at his face. Gordon gave him one well-placed kick in the head and he went silent, unconscious.

The alarm from opening the back door had ceased; that worked for Gordon, as he needed the quiet. He knew from the footsteps in the hall that there was more than one person after them. He took deep slow breaths, his ears in tune with every noise. Nothing for a few seconds, then a slight scraping sound just outside the door. The second attacker was right there, just on the other side of the wall. Gordon put his foot on the first man’s arm and pulled the mop handle out. Then he moved back a couple of feet and rammed the sharp end of the handle into the wall. It punctured the drywall on both sides of the studs as if it didn’t even exist, then hit something solid. Gordon heard a strange sound, something he’d never heard in his life. It was like air escaping an enclosed space, except that it was accompanied by the strangest gurgling sound. He waited a minute until the sound had diminished to almost nothing, then ventured a quick peek around the corner. The sight brought bile to his throat.

The second attacker was impaled by the broken handle, like a pig on a barbecue spit. Blood poured from his mouth and he made feeble efforts to dislodge himself. It was useless-he was dying. Gordon looked at the man, into his eyes, and felt sick. The stare was vacant, almost as though his spirit had already left his body and the physical part of his being had yet to expire. He had just severely maimed one man and killed another. He took one last look and ran down the hall, toward Jennifer and the cab.

The driver was exactly where they had asked him to wait. Jennifer was already sitting in the backseat, and she broke into a smile when he came running out the fire door. He sprinted to the cab and jumped in.

“Get us out of here without anyone else seeing us and there’s an extra thousand in it for you,” he said as he collapsed into the seat.

“That would be a good thing,” the driver shot back.“I’m sure that if anyone sees me leaving and gets my plate number, I’m going to be in some serious shit. Another thousand bucks is just a little more incentive to do something that was already on my mind.” He steered the car back into the parking lot, switched off his headlights, and took the back roads until he reached the main access to the I-64. He turned his headlights back on once he was on the ramp to the freeway. He accelerated up to the posted speed limit and blended in with the night traffic.

“You okay?” Jennifer asked Gordon.

“Sort of,” he said, thinking of the look in the dying man’s eyes. “I’ll be all right. How about you?”

“Scared,” she said. “Scared shitless.”

“Well, at least we’ve got proof of what Andrews was up to.”

“And this,” she said, pulling out of her pocket the small package that she had stripped off the underside of the lab table. She opened it and showed him. It was a CD with Chinese markings on the top. “It’s a trick lots of researchers use. We hide disks near our computers with confidential information on them. That way, if someone hacks into your computer or steals it, they don’t get your latest research. It seems Dr. Wai thinks the same as I do. This was hidden under the desk.”

“What do you think is on it?” Gordon asked.

“I’m not sure. Probably something to do with the work he was doing for Andrews in the lab. It could be another nail in Andrews’s coffin.”

“Then let’s get somewhere with a computer and find out what’s on it.”

“Slight problem,” she said, pointing to the writing. “You speak Mandarin or Cantonese?”