Страница 25 из 38
It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds. They'd both felt it, both been affected by the realization of what had gone on there. Karen's right eye itched, distracting her from the terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the pres– ent. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again. It had been only twenty minutes since the team had split, though it felt longer. There was a sound of a door opening, followed by David's excited shout through the corridor. He'd come in through the west entrance.
"Karen, John!"
John gri
His footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few seconds, he appeared at the comer and jogged toward them, his face tight with concern. "Is everything…" Karen started to ask, but David cut her off.
"Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?"
John frowned, his smile fading. "Yeah, it's back the way you came."
"Did either of you touch anything? Do you have any cuts, any small wounds that might have come in contact with anything?"
Their confusion must have shown. David spoke quickly, looking back and forth between them. "We found a journal, naming it as the room where they were infecting the Trisquads." John smiled again. "Well, no shit. We figured that much out in about two seconds."
Karen held out her hands, turning them over for David to see. "Not a scratch." David exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over that something had happened. We found the researchers in block A; Ammon was right, he killed them and our 'he' has a name now. Rebecca seems certain that it's Nicolas Griffith. He was the one she recognized from Trent's list, and he has a rather sordid history, she can fill you in when we regroup…" He shook his head, a wavering smile on his lips. "I just… I suppose I let my imagination run wild for a moment." John smiled wider. "Jeez, David, I had no idea you cared. Or that you thought we'd be stupid enough to stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like this." David laughed, a soft, shaky sound. "Please accept my sincerest apologies."
"Where are Steve and Rebecca?" Karen asked. "Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them safely off to block B before I came here… did you find test seven?" "This way," John said, and as they started down the hall, he began to recount their run-in with the Tri-squads. Karen followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse. And to top things off, she felt a headache coming on. She wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing. She never got headaches unless she was coming down with something. The swim in the ocean must have set her up nicely for a cold and from the building throb in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.
ELEVEN
After he'd instructed athens and sent him on his way, he'd prepared the syringes and decided on a place to hide. There was nothing left for him to do but wait. In spite of his earlier feelings of confidence, he was nervous now, pacing through the lab restlessly. What if Athens had forgotten how to load a rifle? What if the enclosure release didn't work, or the intruders had the firepower to stop the Ma7s?
He'd tried to prepare for every possibility, each plan unfolding into a backup, but what if everything failed, if all of them fell through? I'll kill them myself, I'll strangle them with my bare hands! They will not stop me from doing what must be done. They can't – not after all I've accomplished, not after everything I've been through to get to where I am…
For the second time that day, he flashed back to the takeover of the compound… the strange, vivid im– ages of that bright and su
A bright and su
Once he'd realized what had to be done, he'd pla