"Mmm." Maddox looked at the floor. "Listen, Richard, I know what we've done is amazing. It will save lives. Countless lives. But I can't help but feel bad for the lives that were lost."
Ridley sniffed and rubbed his nose. "You've heard the expression about broken eggs and omelets, I'm sure. It applies here as well. Except that we've done much more than create an egg and cheese patty. I would have willingly sacrificed a thousand lives. Two thousand. More. With billions to benefit, my conscience is clear. Always will be." He laughed at Maddox's wrinkled forehead. "Relax, Todd. You have accomplished the impossible. By dawn we'll be immortal."
Maddox smiled. Ridley made a good point. His feelings of guilt over the deaths he helped cause had already faded some. In two hundred years they would be a vague memory. He sipped his champagne. In the meantime, work and alcohol would dull his conscience.
Knight had heard enough. He had to risk getting word to the others. Manifold had to be brought down, and now. By the next day they'd be facing an immortal security force. He headed back the way he'd come and found an elevator. He entered the elevator, pushed the button for the top floor and took out his PDA. He turned it on, took a deep breath, and attempted to make a connection. A status bar on the screen glowed blue, then flashed red. A message appeared on the military modified device.
Signal blocked…
Digital device detection network found… Shutting down…
The screen went black, just as the lights in the elevator flashed red and an alarm sounded. The doors opened as Knight pocketed the
PDA. In his peripheral vision he caught movement. Someone drawing a weapon. He drew his handgun and swung it around, aiming the silenced muzzle at the face of a beautiful woman, whose three-barreled Metal Storm handgun was aimed at his forehead.
FIFTY-ONE
Using the soft layer of pine needles coating the forest floor to quiet his approach, King sidestepped down the mountainside using trees for cover along the way. Bishop descended the incline on the other side of the helipad. The two guards stood chatting, oblivious to their presence. King stopped behind a tree trunk and peeked around the edge. He took in every detail of the guards. Their boots were polished and their black uniforms free of wrinkles. Military discipline. They bobbed from one foot to the other as they talked. Disciplined, but bored. He listened to their voices. One was nasal. The other cracked occasionally. Disciplined, bored, and young. King took note of the Metal Storm weapons strapped to their waists. And deadly.
He was about to signal Bishop, who was hiding on the opposite side of the helipad now, to attack, but noticed a wire rising out of one of the men's collars. It merged with the man's earpiece behind his ear. Damn, King thought. The two sentries wore health monitors. Checking in by radio was often time consuming and could give away positions. Using a heart monitor was a newer method of knowing guards were still alive and kicking. They were no doubt being monitored by cameras as well. King looked for cameras and found two. One was scanning back and forth, the other, up and down. Not only would the guards have to be subdued alive, the job would have to be completed in a very short amount of time.
King relayed the information using a series of hand signals. The message was crude, but the team knew how one another thought and Bishop came to the same tactical conclusion that King had. At least King hoped so. He wasn't sure how Bishop would handle himself in combat now, with every injury threatening to make him a raving psychotic. It was only the man's long time practice of rage control that kept him in check.
He watched the cameras move back and forth, up and down, their timing just slightly off like windshield wiper blades matching a musical beat for a few seconds, then fading away. The cameras would only match the required angles for two passes every twenty minutes or so. King watched, as the horizontal camera swung toward Bishop at the same time as the vertical pointed down. As they reversed direction, he signaled Bishop. This was his chance.
The vertical camera reached its highest point just as the horizontal pointed fully in King's direction, making those watching the feed temporarily blind to what was happening on the helipad. Amazingly silent for his size, Bishop launched over the fallen tree he'd taken cover behind, covered the distance to the helipad, and struck out with one of his big fists just as the guard facing him noticed. The man's face had barely registered surprise when Bishop's blow connected with the side of his head. The guard crumpled to the cement helipad. The second reached for his weapon, but Bishop's hulking arm, which had flashed past the second guard's head in order to strike the first, wrapped around his neck. Bishop spun, picking the man off his feet, and smashed his head into the stone wall. The man fell limp in his arms.
Fighting the urge to continue pummeling the men, he took the first by the collar, kept the second in a head lock and dragged them both behind the fallen tree. He ducked down just as the horizontal camera faced his position. The whole attack had taken just under fifteen seconds. To the camera, it would look like the men either vanished or simply stepped within the door frame where the cameras couldn't see. Bishop checked their pulses. Strong and regular.
The waiting began again as the cameras began their dance, but within three minutes, both King and Bishop were standing beneath the cameras, out of view and ready to storm the castle. The metal door looked like it could take a direct hit from an RPG, but its weakness lay in the technology that kept it locked. Gen-Y might be high tech, but when it comes to breaking and entering, the CIA had all the best tools, and thanks to Deep Blue, so did the Chess Team.
To the right of the door was a fingerprint analyzer, card swipe, and numerical keypad. Bishop swiped the card he'd taken from one of the guards. The fingerprint pad glowed blue. Bishop place a fingerprint mold made from the same unconscious guard's finger against the pad. The phony finger was scanned. The light turned green. Just then, King popped the front panel off the wall mounted device, revealing three wires — yellow, red, and black. Power cables. He pushed them aside and found the maintenance port where new key codes could be input. King plugged his PDA in, activated a program created by Lewis Aleman, and let it run. The program snuck past the firewall, inserted a new key code, then displayed the number on the screen. King smiled when he saw the simple number. "One through five," he said to Bishop, who keyed in the code. The door unlocked and slid silently open. King unplugged the device and slipped inside the door behind Bishop. The door closed and relocked behind them.
King led, sound-suppressed assault rifle at the ready. From here on, it was shoot to kill. He doubted Gen-Y monitored the life signs of the interior guards, and the silenced weapons would keep things quiet, to a point, but their luck could only hold out so long.
The short hallway ended in a stairwell. They took it down one flight and entered the first floor they came to. The stairwell exited into a long hallway. Brown metal doors lined both sides of the hallway. King knelt and took aim. Bishop took up position behind him.
"Looks like a college dorm," Bishop said.
As a man exited a room and walked away from them, towel around his waist, King realized that wasn't far from the truth. It was a barracks. Hopefully for the scientists, not Gen-Y. The man walked into a room at the end of the hall, this one had no door. A bathroom. Voices came from the room as two men inside greeted the newcomer. The words couldn't be discerned, but it was clear the two men were exiting. King and Bishop maintained their aim.
Two Gen-Y guards, dressed in uniform, exited the bathroom. They headed in the opposite direction, but one looked back over his shoulder. His reflexes were quick. One hand took hold of his partner while the other began drawing his Metal Storm pistol. He got out a partial word, "Hosti—" Then two large holes burst in his forehead, splattering blood, bone, and brain matter on the hall wall. The other guard didn't have a chance to reach for his pistol. He fell on top of his partner, gagging on his own blood as it drained from a gaping wound in his neck. Five seconds later, he was dead.