James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

Under him, her body went slack. Out cold. Only she wasn’t playing possum like he’d been doing a moment ago.

In the end, who underestimated who, Dr. Polk?

Duncan rubbed his throat. It still stung from the impact of the dart. He’d likely be hoarse for days. But nothing worse. The dart had struck his throat mike, blunting the needle enough that it only lodged shallowly into a thick callus of scar tissue. Not a hard target, considering most of his neck was wrapped in leathery scars from that old attack.

He flipped her over. She was still breathing. Good.

He also noted she was quite the looker. And blond, just the way he liked them.

Satisfied with his trophy, he leaned down and hauled the woman up and over a shoulder. He clamped a hand on her buttocks to hold her and headed back through the facility, intending to vacate the building the same way he came in.

Riding on the adrenaline, he quickly reached the main hall. Smoke choked the passageway. Out there, he spotted a body in camo gear, sitting and leaning up against one wall.

A hand lifted as he appeared, beckoning. A voice croaked out to him. “Sir.”

It was Korey, the assault-team leader.

The man had been down in the morgue, supposedly blowing his way into a meat locker to fetch one of the scientists. Fat lot of good that did. He plainly screwed it up, leaving Duncan to take matters into his own hands.

Korey groaned and dropped his arm, too weak to hold it up. The man sat on the floor, in his own blood-and shit from the smell of it-holding a fist to a belly wound. It looked like he’d taken a cannonball through his gut.

“Help…”

Someone must have gotten the drop on Korey’s team.

Duncan glanced back down the smoky hall, suddenly feeling eyes on him. It was time to get out of here. Ignoring the wounded man, he hurried to the open window.

He had what he came for. Fuck the rest.

Reaching the window, he hunkered down and climbed through the window with the woman. Once outside, he touched his throat mike and called up his second-in-command.

“Connor, prepare the team to move out.”

“Sir?”

“You have your orders. I’ll meet you out front.”

He headed in that direction.

“What about the escaped specimens?” Connor asked. “We’ve still not found them. These tracking transponders are shit in close quarters.”

That was true. The GPS was only good for pinning down a location to a quarter square mile or so. With so much forest and brush, it was a needle-in-a-haystack situation out there.

Connor continued. “All we’ve spotted so far is some stray dog.”

Dog?

Duncan then remembered the hound from the Chevy, the one who’d startled him. Fire entered his voice. “Did you kill the motherfucker?”

“No. Bastard ran off.”

Too bad.

“Then abandon the search,” he ordered with finality. “Once clear, blow this place to hell.”

“Understood.”

He hurried toward the truck parked out front. Whatever pride had fueled his need to apprehend all the animals had cooled. He had a good enough trophy in his arms. The remaining animals were weak and immature. They wouldn’t survive long on their own in the wild. And besides, he had what he needed for damage control. The woman could tell them what was learned here and who else knew. That should satisfy his superiors at Lost Eden Cay.

Then the woman would be his to dispose of as he pleased.

And he intended to be pleased.

Jack knelt in the smoky hall beside a man bleeding to death. It was one of the enemy, maybe the very one he had shot earlier. The soldier hadn’t gotten far. From the gaping wound in his gut, he didn’t have long to live.

The soldier stared at Jack with glazed, pained eyes.

Knowledge of his death shone there.

Jack had seen it often enough in the battlefield. He placed his trust in that shine, knowing that in such moments absolution was often sought.

“There was a woman here,” Jack pleaded. “Blond. A doctor. Do you know where she is?”

Jack had already wasted too much time. As he fled the lower level he was forced to balance between caution and panic. He feared stumbling headlong into an ambush-he would be no good to Lorna if he was dead. But he also sensed that time was running out.

Where could she be?

The man croaked a single word, never taking his eyes off Jack, as if needing even this tiny bit of companionship at the end. “Captured…”

Jack tensed, biting back a curse. “Where did they take her?”

The soldier struggled to answer, but his eyes rolled back.

Jack gripped the man’s free hand. “Where?” he begged.

Eyes fluttered back to stare at him. The man’s head fell to the left. He stared toward an open window. A slight breeze stirred the smoke there.

“They took her out?” Jack asked.

No answer. Jack reached to the soldier’s chin and turned the man’s face toward him. Open eyes stared blankly. The man was gone.

He gave the soldier’s hand a final squeeze and shoved to his feet.

Following the only bread crumb left to him, Jack rushed to the window. He stuck his head out and searched the grounds. He saw no one. He quickly clambered out the window and landed in the wet grass. Off to the east, the sky was beginning to brighten.

He heard a truck engine roar to life from the front of the building.

Pistol in hand, he ran in that direction. His chest tightened with a cold certainty. The assault team was pulling out as dawn beckoned. And they had Lorna.

He reached the corner of the building and caught taillights through the smoke. A truck bounced out of the yard and onto the road heading toward the river.

Jack lifted the pistol, but he held back from firing.

He could just as easily hit Lorna.

Frustrated, he lowered his gun and sprinted toward the neighboring parking lot. The rolling smoke from the fires, which now licked up from the roof of ACRES, helped hide his flight.

He pounded across the gravel and reached his truck. He yanked the door, leaped inside, and keyed the ignition. Popping into gear, he smashed the accelerator. The engine roared and gravel spat out behind the spinning tires. The Ford leaped forward as Jack fought the steering wheel. He spun the truck, fishtailing in the gravel, and took off after the other.

He couldn’t let them get away.

Ahead, taillights sped down the winding entry road.

Jack flattened the gas pedal to the floor. Steering one-handed, he lowered the side window and stuck out his pistol. He fired at the other truck, low, toward the tires. He didn’t truly expect to hit them, but he hoped to get their attention, to startle them enough to either slow down or lose control.

He hit a pothole as he fired a third time, throwing his aim high.

The rear window of the other truck splintered with cracks.

Jack silently cursed. He had to be more careful.

Ahead, brake lights flashed for a second-then the truck sped faster. From a moonroof in the other vehicle, a figure climbed into view bearing aloft a rifle. Shots blasted back at him.

Jack ducked low but didn’t slow. His windshield spattered with cracks. A slug puffed into the passenger headrest.

The other truck’s brake lights flared again. The driver had to slow to make the turn onto the levee road that ran alongside the Mississippi.

Jack kept his boot pressed hard on the accelerator. If he could ram them from behind, send them sailing over the far side of the levee, he had a chance of stopping them.

The distance closed between them.

The other truck began to swing for the turn.

C’mon…

Jack urged more speed out of the V-8 engine.

Focused on the other truck, he almost missed seeing a man step from behind a tree alongside the road’s shoulder. He lifted a grenade launcher to his shoulder and pointed it at Jack’s truck.