One of the secretaries rose from her hiding place behind the hedge and tried to run on wobbling high heels. The lab tech emptied the rest of his clip into her back and reloaded. He moved out of Bob Jr. and Slade’s line of sight, heading for the main entrance.
“Whoever he is, they had him here for a reason,” Slade said. “I’d be willing to wager he is not the only one. Let’s move, before the rest of the team gets here. Their arrival is imminent, make no mistake.”
Bob Jr. eased open the door and they moved cautiously into the murky light. Blackened flecks of corn leaves and gritty ash floated in the gentle breeze. The air smelled of smoke and ash. Bob Jr. shifted his grip once again on Slade, putting the old man between himself and the main entrance, and dragged him along the flagstone walk as it curved around to the massive greenhouses.
This was the only upside to hauling the old man around; he might provide a shield for any bullets.
Slade realized this as well and said again, “Hurry up, dammit!”
The greenhouses had been built along a low cliff and looked down on a boulder-strewn shore. “A boat is waiting down there,” Slade said. “It is secret, hidden, and reserved for upper management, regularly maintained in case of emergency. I would say that today certainly qualifies.” Slade caught Bob Jr.’s eyes. “Understand this. You will not gain access without me. The stairway is locked with a code. I know the code. Get me to the boat and you will live.”
“That’s the plan,” Bob Jr. lied.
The doors to the greenhouse had been sealed in red biohazard tape. A short chain encircled the handles, secured with a padlock. The distant lights of the sun and fires reflected in the myriad windows, making it impossible to see inside. Bob Jr. didn’t want to think about what that meant. He stopped short. “We can’t go in there. We’ll have to find another way around.”
“There is no other way. The stairwell to the dock is inside.”
“Then how? It’s locked.”
Slade shot Bob Jr. a withering stare. “Break the glass, moron.”
Bob Jr. didn’t want to make any more noise than necessary, so he lugged Slade around the far side of the building, near the cliff, leaned the older man against the wall, and lifted a football-size rock out of the border separating the bushes from the grass. He held his breath.
Slade looked back to the main building. “Do it. Now.”
Bob Jr. heaved the rock at the nearest pane. It bounced off.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Slade said.
Bob Jr. retrieved the rock, lifted it over his head, and threw it so hard both feet left the ground. This time, the rock smashed through the glass with a tinkling explosion. Spinning red lights flickered to life inside, and a deep, insistent buzzing erupted. Bob Jr. felt his insides go watery.
“Go, go!” Slade said, clutching at his arm and pushing him inside. Bob Jr. tried to ignore the broken glass in the soft dirt and crawled into a forest of cornstalks. A cobweb smeared across his face but he couldn’t stop to wipe it away. Some of the strands pulled taut across his tongue, then broke free, drying against his teeth. He gagged and spit, hating the feeling of the threads disintegrating in his saliva even more than the glass slivers in his palms.
He turned back and wasn’t gentle about dragging Slade through the shards. If the old fuck got cut, then he deserved it.
Slade was tough enough to keep quiet and not complain. They pushed through the glass and dirt, cracking cornstalks as they crawled deeper into the greenhouse. The temperature wasn’t much different from outside. If anything, it was cooler.
They slid over a wooden partition, landing in an aisle of some kind. Rows of corn stretched into the gloom, lit only by the spinning red lights high above. The deep, throbbing buzz of the alarm reverberated through Bob Jr., rattling his bones. He caught sight of his bleeding hands and knees and whirled on Slade. “Where’s that goddamn staircase, old man?”
Slade wiped soil and cobwebs from his eyes. “Down… down there. I think.”
“You better be fucking right,” Bob Jr. said, hauling Slade to a standing position.
Their leather soles scraped concrete as they struggled down the aisle. The greenhouse was full of corn and nothing else. Most seemed to be healthy, mature stalks, bursting with nearly ripe ears of corn. The only thing that felt out of place was the abundance of cobwebs, glistening in the spinning red lights. Husks of caterpillars hung in the strands. The webs stretched everywhere, even across the walkway, and the two men had to plow through the intricate designs as they shuffled along.
Bob Jr. didn’t think much of it. Fucking spiders. Nothing more. He was focused on the boat.
And so he didn’t notice the movement along his arms, his back, his hair.
“Where? Where!” Bob Jr. demanded. His tongue felt dry and thick, too big for his mouth. There was a tickle in the back of his throat.
For the first time, Slade looked like he was about to panic. “They told us… it’s supposed to be around here.”
Bob caught a glimpse of some dark insect, a spider of some kind, creeping through Slade’s silver hair. He ignored it and spun them in a circle. Webs encircled their bodies. “There’s nothing here. They lied to you, old man. They lied.”
“There!” Slade shouted, his voice full of triumph. Bob Jr. followed his finger and saw a metal door, crusty with rust, sunk into the wall. There was no traditional door handle; instead, a two-foot iron pipe crossed the door, waist-high. A number pad enclosed in a greasy-looking plastic cover waited next to the door.
Slade said, “It runs off a different system. It’s an older grid, not on the books anymore.”
Bob Jr. decided that the old man was getting one chance to get the fucking code right. If the door didn’t open immediately, he was going to ditch the old fart and get out of this awful greenhouse. No doubt the alarms had drawn the fake lab tech with the automatic weapon. And there was no way in hell he was going to sit around and wait to get shot.
Slade broke the seal on the plastic cover and hit six digits. He waited a moment, then pushed two more.
A solid chunk came from behind the door.
Bob Jr. wrenched the handle out of the locked position and slammed it down. They heard a dusty click inside the doorframe and glanced at each other.
Bob Jr. swung the door out, opening it on a fire escape and the sky. He could smell salt water. Below, hungry waves lunged against the rocks. When he saw the black Zodiac tied and secure, bobbing around in a tidal pool at the bottom of the fire escape, he couldn’t help himself and blurted, “Sweet fuck.” He went back and slung Slade around his shoulders again. They left the greenhouse and started down the steep steel steps.
Bob Jr. shook out his free arm and pulled webs out of his hair. They stuck and broke, leaving a tacky net across the left side of his head. He felt something crawl under his collar near his tie and slapped at it, feeling it pop, almost like a rotten pea. He spit again, just to get the taste of the spiderwebs out of his mouth.
The engine started on the first pull. Bob Jr. crawled over Slade in the bow of the rigid inflatable boat, clearly something left over from Allagro’s military contract days. He ignored Slade’s protests and fished around in Slade’s pockets, finally pulling out the knife he’d seen at the conference table.
It made a muted, dense click when he snapped the blade open. Bob Jr. liked that. He didn’t bother trying to untie the knots, and slashed the mooring ropes, then sat back next to the engine and steered the Zodiac straight into the eastern winds.
The first wave blasted warm salt water around the bow, soaking Slade. The old man bounced and flopped as the boat smashed against the incoming waves. The ride settled out once they turned south into the deeper swells.