James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

As he rounded into the hall smoke choked the passageway ahead. Flames danced up the walls to either side. At the far end, the steel door to the meat locker had been blown off.

He heard a woman crying through the smoke. The assault team must have learned the scientists were holed up in here and had tried to blow their way inside. But someone had been heavy-handed with the C-4.

Jack rushed forward, heedless of the spreading flames.

As he sidestepped the blackened door an arm thrust through the smoke and stabbed at his face. Jack leaned back, catching a flash of silver as a blade passed in front of his nose.

“It’s me,” he hissed out. “Agent Menard!”

Through the pall of smoke, Lorna’s brother appeared, holding a scalpel in one hand. His other arm was cradled to his waist. From the angle of his hand, he’d broken his wrist.

Kyle pushed forward, unapologetic about nearly blinding him. He had only one thought. “Where’s Lorna?”

Jack shook his head, and his heart sank. He had hoped she would’ve made it down here somehow and joined the others.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Kyle looked like he was ready to lash out again with the scalpel.

“I left her upstairs, locked in her office.”

Jack moved past Kyle, drawn by a woman’s sobbing. He had to get these people moving. Inside the cooler, he found the neurobiologist, Zoë Trent, kneeling over her husband. He lay on his side in a pool of spreading blood. A thick steel pipe pierced his chest, impaled through by the force of the blast.

The man wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing.

The pathologist, Greer, knelt on the other side, a finger to the man’s throat. He glanced to Jack and shook his head.

A cold fury flashed through him.

Kyle spoke at his shoulder. Guilt rang in his voice. “If I hadn’t locked this place up so tightly… if they didn’t have to blow it…”

“Then you’d all be dead,” Jack said and knew it to be true.

Carlton Metoyer stood over Zoë, his face sunken and much older. He tried to get her moving. “He’s gone, my dear,” he said softly. “We must go.”

“Noooo,” the woman moaned and clutched her husband’s hand.

Jack had no time for niceties. He stepped forward and bodily picked her up. She struggled against him. He carried her away from her husband and down the fiery hall. The woman’s thrashing died down to a limp-limbed moaning. She hung on to him as if drowning-and maybe she was. But Jack was in no position to pull her back.

Reaching the main floor, he passed her to Greer and Carlton. “Get her out of here. Out the back. The way should still be clear for a few more minutes. Make for the woods and keep moving.”

They didn’t argue, too shell-shocked and scared.

Kyle hung back as they headed away. “My sister…”

Jack pointed after the others. “Go. I’ll find her.”

Still, he hesitated.

Jack shoved him after the others. “Trust me. I’ll get her,” he promised. Or die trying.

LORNA KNELT AT the entrance to the surgical suite. Wearing her night-vision goggles, she had a clear view across the treatment room to the entryway. She had been staring for so long her eyes felt dry and sandy. But she dared not even blink.

And it proved fortunate.

Without warning-not a footstep, not a whisper-the door swung open. Two shapes burst inside, staying low and splitting to either side, weapons at their shoulders.

A third followed, standing taller.

Something about his posture set her heart to pounding harder.

Lorna leaned out of direct sight and picked up the flint striker from the floor. She normally used the tool to ignite the Bunsen burner in her veterinary lab. Minutes ago, she had picked it up from the lab bench-along with the portable propane tank that fueled the burner. This far out, they had no natural-gas lines.

With her other hand, she lifted the loose air hose that rested in her lap. Normally the hose connected the anesthetic machine to the oxygen bib on the wall. She had disconnected the anesthetic machine but left the hose running up to the wall, where plumbed pipes ran from here to the oxygen tanks in the mechanical room. Afterward, she had spent two minutes backfilling that line with propane gas.

Lifting the hose now, she unpinched its end and raised the striker.

With a fast squeeze, the flint scraped, spit out a spark, and ignited the leaking gas.

Flames spat out the hose end. She pinched it closed again and watched a blue flame shoot down the propane-filled hose. The glow rushed up to the wall bib and vanished away. She pictured the fire continuing, sweeping through the pipes, a flaming arrow headed straight toward-

THE HISSING DREW Duncan’s attention as soon as he stepped across the threshold. Snake was his first thought, jumping immediately to a bestial threat. But it came from the left, from behind a closed room plastered with a pair of hazardous-warning emblems.

Blood rushed to his temples and pounded there.

Across the room, a tiny flicker of flame flared in his night-vision equipment. It could mean only one thing.

Ambush…

He didn’t have time to warn the others who had flanked right and left. He lunged away from the hissing door, shouldering into Takeo. His other teammate stood directly in front of the door-

– when it exploded.

A blue fireball shattered the door off its hinges. It struck the unsuspecting man in the back, splitting in half. A secondary explosion followed. Duncan managed to roll Takeo’s body between him and the blast.

Shrapnel blew, along with the tumbling clang of a green oxygen tank.

With the din still ringing, Duncan pushed Takeo off him.

The Asian man rolled to his knees, dazed, stunned. He turned toward Duncan as if looking for an explanation. Shrapnel peppered his face. Blood flowed. He was missing one ear.

Then the man slapped a hand to his neck.

His fingers removed a dart from under the angle of his chin.

A tranquilizer dart…

Deafened by the blast, Duncan hadn’t even heard the shot.

Takeo’s head fell back. He garbled something, choking up a thick white froth-then went rigid and fell back to the floor.

Before Duncan could move, something struck him square in the throat like a punch to the larynx. He scrabbled and knocked the dart off, furious at being caught off guard.

Despite his forewarning, it seemed he had still underestimated Dr. Polk. But there was nothing he could do now except curse her.

Fuck you, bitch…

LORNA WATCHED THE second man drop. She could tell he fought against the tranquilizer. But even a pinprick of M99 could be fatal. And she’d shot them both in the throat, where blood vessels were rich, and unloaded enough drugs to drop a rhino.

Still, she waited for thirty seconds until there was not even a twitch.

But she dared wait no longer.

Across the room, the flames spread, making the night-vision goggles a hindrance. She swept them off, cautiously stepped out, and headed toward the exit. She didn’t want to risk being trapped here by the fire. She also wanted another weapon. Her rifle had held only the two cartridges. She was out of ammunition.

She crossed to the first man and scooped his rifle from the floor. It was heavy, muscular, and unfamiliar. She studied the weapon as she sidled past the second man-but as she stepped away, something snagged her ankle, jerked her leg, and flipped her face forward to the ground.

DUNCAN ROSE AS the doctor’s face struck the floor. She cried out and tried to roll over, dazed, her chin split and bloody. With a savage grin, he climbed on top of her, swung his Sig Sauer, and cracked the pistol’s butt against the back of her skull.