Plague Ship

The welder was the closest to his size, so he took a moment to strip him out of his coveralls. He had to take the third mechanic’s boots because the others were hopelessly small. He did so without looking up from the man’s feet.

With a pair of wire cutters, he moved to the two trucks and opened the hoods, cutting the wires that sprouted from the distributor caps like black tentacles. As he started for the quad bikes, he saw a coffee machine set up on a workbench. Apart from filters, mugs, and a plastic container of creamer powder, there was a box of sugar. Max grabbed it, and, rather than waste time messing with the Kawasakis’

electronics, he unscrewed their fuel caps and dumped sugar into their tanks. The bikes wouldn’t run for more than a quarter mile, and it would take hours to clean out their fuel lines and cylinders.

A minute later, he was astride the one idling four-wheeler he hadn’t tampered with and pressed the button that opened the garage door. It was night, and wind-ripped rain lashed through the opening. Max couldn’t have asked for better conditions. There was no point closing the door. Kovac would know he was gone and how he was making his escape.

Slitting his eyes against the rain, he twisted the throttle and shot out into the unknown.

CHAPTER 24

KOVAC’S ORDERS HAD BEEN SPECIFIC TO THE FIVE men he’d dispatched to watch over the dismantled Responsivist facility in the Philippines. They weren’t to interfere with people investigating the building unless it became apparent that they were going to breach the underground sections. In the weeks they had observed the site, the only interest shown had been a couple of Filipinos on a well-used motorcycle. They had remained only a few minutes, looking over the building to see if there was anything worth looting. When they realized everything had been stripped, they had roared off down the road in a cloud of blue exhaust.

The way the two approached today had put the guards on immediate alert, and when the blast echoed across the open field they knew their caution had been well founded.

AMID THE TUMULT of crashing cement, Juan fell through the hole Linc had created, landing solidly on his feet on a flight of steep stairs. The air was an impenetrable wall of dust, forcing Cabrillo to run blindly down the steps, trusting that Linc had cleared out of the way. A piece of cement the size of his head hit his shoulder with a glancing blow, but it was enough to throw him off his feet. He tumbled the last few steps and lay dazed on the landing, as more debris rained down all around him.

A powerful hand groped for the back of his bush shirt and drew him into an antechamber and out of what was becoming an avalanche.

“Thanks,” Juan panted as Linc helped him to his feet.

Both men’s faces and clothes were a uniform shade of pale gray from the dust.

The timber scaffolding that supported the weight of the concrete plug gave way entirely, and tons of cement and broken wood crashed onto the staircase, completely filling the entrance to the antechamber with rubble. The darkness inside the chamber was absolute.

Linc pulled a flashlight from his haversack. The beam was as bright as a car’s xenon headlamp, but all it revealed were clouds of concrete dust.

“Remind you of anything?” Linc asked with a dry chuckle.

“Little like Zurich when we sprang that banker awhile back,” Juan answered with a cough.

“What do you think of our reception committee?”

“I feel like an idiot for thinking it was going to be that easy.”

“Amen, brother.” Linc flashed the beam across the choked-off doorway. Some of the concrete slabs had to weigh half a ton or more. “It’s going to take a couple of hours to dig our way out of here.”

“As soon as we open even a small hole, they’re going to gun us down like fish in a barrel.” Juan purposefully engaged his pistol’s safety and slid it into his waistband at the small of his back. “Outgu

“Wait them out?”

“Won’t work. We’ve got one canteen and a couple of protein bars. They could sit out there from now until doomsday.” As he spoke, Juan was fiddling with his satellite phone.

“Then we can call in the cavalry. Eddie can have an assault force here inside of forty-eight hours.”

“I’m not getting a signal.” Cabrillo turned the phone off to conserve its battery.

“All right, you’ve shot down all of my suggestions, what’s up your sleeve?” Juan took the light from Linc’s hand and played it along the downward-sloping tu

“What happens if they come in after us?”

“Hope we have enough warning so we can lay an ambush.”

“Why not wait for them right here?”

“If I was leading that team, I would lob in a bunch of grenades before committing my men. We’d be mincemeat before they needed to fire a single shot. If we hung back out of grenade range, we’d be too exposed in this tu

One wall of the tu

“This is a natural fissure the Japanese expanded during their occupation,” Cabrillo said as he studied the rock.

“Most likely split open by an earthquake,” Linc agreed. “They built their factory, or whatever the hell it was, where the hole reached the surface.”

Juan pointed out dark splatters on the stone floor. The spray pattern indicated it was blood—copious amounts of blood. “Gunshot.”

“More than one victim, too.”

Juan jerked the light away from the grisly tableau. His mouth was a thin, grim line.

The air temperature dropped and the humidity built as they descended deeper into the earth. It was thinking about the misery that had occurred here rather than the plummeting temperature that made Cabrillo shiver.

The tu

“Administration area?” Linc wondered aloud.

“Makes sense, being the closest room to the surface.” They found two smaller side caves before discovering a fourth in which the Japanese had left artifacts behind. This chamber had a dozen iron bunks bolted to the floor and several flimsy pressed-metal cabinets along one wall. As Juan checked the drawers, Linc examined the bedsteads.

“You wouldn’t think they would have bothered giving their prisoners beds,” Linc said.

“There’s nothing in any of these drawers.” Juan looked at Lincoln. “They needed the beds because they had to restrain their victims. Someone intentionally infected with typhus, cholera, or some type of poison gas is going to thrash around.”

Franklin snapped his hands away from the metal bunk as though he’d been burned.

They found four more side chambers like this one, some large enough to hold forty beds. They also found a small, waist-high cave entrance in the main tu