Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

By eleven that night, Stepanski was secured and the setup checked and rechecked. Still, Ben made two more visits to the locker to look in on his prisoner and to replenish the beverage supply. At noon, just a few hours before he headed out to Whitestone, he sat down on the floor and, arms wrapped around his knees, told the flight attendant in detail exactly what was going on at the lab and what he hoped to do about it. Stepanski begged to be released and promised to head home and say nothing, but Ben had gone as far as he dared to go.

"I have sent a box to a friend of mine," he said, "a professor at the University of Chicago. It contains the keys for these locks and a letter of explanation. In three days, she will either send the box overnight to the Fadiman police or drive down and release you herself. Hopefully, that will be enough time for me to figure out who and what Whitestone is, and to gather enough evidence to put whoever's running things out of business and into prison. I'm really sorry to put you through this, Seth, but I believe that what's going on with these people is way bigger than either of us."

He put a pair of earphones around Stepanski's neck and set a pocket radio behind him.

"I tried this out myself," he said. "With a little practice you can learn how to adjust the volume and change the station. You'll get three or four stations in here, but I sure hope you like country-western."

Finally, he set three nips of Jack Daniel's and three of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila on the bridge table, with straws in each.

"Because you're traveling first class with us," he said, "there'll be no charge for these beverages."

He set the earphones in place, then patted the man on the shoulder, and left.

From the moment he opened the door to Unit 7, Ben was locked in a debate as to whether it was worth the risk to try to make it around the Oasis, and ultimately to the Winnebago. If he went, it would have to be with his contact microphone. His particular model of the spy gear was low end, but still serviceable for listening through walls. If he was caught carrying it, no amount of excuses would bail him out. Hoping against hope, he tried calling Alice Gustafson on his cell to discuss the situation. There was no signal whatsoever.

For a few hours, until darkness had firmly settled in, he rested and tried reading one of the magazines on his bedside table — a recent People. Usually for him, reading People was like drinking a chocolate frappe — absolutely effortless. Tonight, the celebrity-studded articles went down like ground glass. Somewhere out there a plane was being readied for a flight to someplace in South America. At the end of that flight, Ben felt fairly certain, someone with money, perhaps even one of the People stars, would be given life at the expense of someone like Lonnie Durkin or the chambermaid, Juanita Ramirez.

Wearing dark clothing, he stepped outside onto his room's small patio. The air was still quite warm and humid, but the vast, black sky was starless, and a hot wind had picked up from the west. Unit 7 was at the end of Building 2, not fifteen yards from the chain-link fence. Ben walked to the fence across a small corridor of grass. Beyond it, the blackness of the desert was indistinguishable from the sky, but in the distance, jagged spears of lightning pierced the night in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree cyclorama.

The Oasis itself was not well lit, and the buildings were close enough together to offer some protection. Ben scanned the nearest structures for cameras, not really expecting to see them even if they were there. Then he carefully made his way back to the Sebring for his contact microphone and, he decided, his pistol. At this hour, any trouble he ran into might be with a single security guard. If the gun could help him make it to the car, there was a chance he could ram through the massive gate at the end of the drive. Just the idea of having his life depend on surviving that collision sent a jet of acid percolating into his throat. His fictional heroes never had trouble crashing through such gates unscathed, but he suspected that this particular gate might be more unyielding.

Continuing his scan for security cameras, he crossed to the canteen in Building 3 and got a Diet Coke. Then, trying to stay under cover, he moved into the shadows of first one building, then another. The lightning spears appeared much closer now, and he swore he could hear thunder. The largest building, 5, had some pale light inside. Through the windows, he could just make out rows and rows of sophisticated laboratory equipment. It was neither difficult nor pleasant to imagine a tube of blood with his name on it being opened and processed by a tech working at one of those stations.

The streets of the Oasis seemed deserted, although in spots, the light from scattered windows washed into the night. Keenly on edge, clutching the case containing the contact microphone, and listening between every step for the sound of someone else, Ben maneuvered toward the Winnebago. Beneath his black, long-sleeved tee, he was unpleasantly damp.

The five minutes it took to reach the RV seemed like an hour. There was a faint glow from around the dining-area shade on the left side and the curtain pulled across inside the front windshield. Breathing heavily from tension more than exertion, Ben knelt just forward of the left rear tire and soundlessly unzipped the microphone case, which contained small earphones, an amplifier, and a thick, cylindrical receiver, about the size of half a roll of quarters. He worked the earphones into place and pressed the receiver against the side of the Winnebago. The quality of the reception wasn't great, but he could hear voices and make out most of what they were saying.

"Please, please let me go. I never did anything to you." The woman's voice, probably coming from the rear of the van, was quite clear.

"He's shooting the moon. For chrissakes, Connie, do you know how to play this game or not?"

Vincent! Ben was almost certain of it.

"Listen, Rudy, I have a kid, a son named Teddy. I told you all about him. Please, he needs me. Please let me go. Find someone else — someone without a little boy who needs her."

"Jesus, Connie, you dumb shit! You had to take a couple of hearts when you had the chance! Now he's going to get them all. Couldn't you tell that all he had was spades? Listen, Sandy, either you stop whining or I'm coming back there to put a sock in your mouth. And stop calling me Rudy. I hate the fucking name. I'm sorry I ever made it up."

The left earpiece was painfully tight. Ben pulled it out and was adjusting it when he heard the soft crunch of footsteps from his right. Pulling the.38 from his waistband, he flattened out on the ground and quickly worked his way under the van. Seconds later, a pair of cowboy boots appeared no more than two feet from his face, and only an inch, he realized, from where he had dropped the contact microphone.

For an interminable ten seconds, nothing moved except Ben's thumb, silently releasing the safety on his gun. Then the boots turned, passing so close to the microphone that one seemed to have brushed it, and headed toward the front of the van. Still frozen, Ben watched as the boots passed beneath the windshield and moved to the door on the far side. A moment later, two sharp knocks cut through the heavy quiet.

"Vincent, Connie, it's just me, Billy," a youthful voice said.

The door to the Adventurer swung open, bathing the ground with light. Instantly, from within, Sandy began screaming.

"Help! Please help me! For God's sake, they're going to kill me! I'm in a cage. My name's Sandy. Please, please help me. I'm a mother. I have a little boy! He's only eight!"

"Oh, I have had enough of this shit."

There was a brief scuffling of feet from directly above where Ben was lying, and instantly, the screaming stopped. Ben felt ill. He had to do something. Should he simply charge into the van shooting? He would have to kill the guard named Billy, Vincent, Connie, and someone else as well. Kill four people. Was there any chance he could do it? Would it be better to wait?