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The parking lot out front was dimly lit by several light poles. The only present occupant of that lot was Stan's beat-up, old pickup truck, its drooping fenders a stark contrast to the clean lines of the modern building he guarded.

Stan shifted his gaze back to the internal cameras. Six screens showed empty offices. Two showed larger rooms that reminded Stan of the chemistry lab many years ago in high school. The last screen portrayed the main corridor that stretched the length of the building, accessed by double doors to his rear. That corridor ended in another double door with a boldly lettered restricted access warning painted on it.

Stan didn't know what was beyond those end doors, but he did know that everything the people in this building worked on was highly classified by the government. Whatever was behind those doors was something more highly classified than his secret clearance. Stan understood that, and asked no questions. One of the things that his twenty-four years as a noncommissioned officer in the army had taught him was the importance of security. If the feds said he didn't have a need to know what was back there, then that was fine with Stan. The name on the front of the building, and on Stan's paychecks — Biotech Engineering — meant nothing to him. Quite frankly, Stan wasn't overly curious about what happened here during the day. As long as they paid him on time, they could do any damn thing they pleased.

He lifted his feet off the desk and eased them to the floor. His knees constantly ached, the result of too many years carrying a rucksack in the infantry. Pouring a cup of coffee from his thermos, Stan glanced at the computer screen that was centered among the telemonitors. In all his time on the job, Stan had never seen anything come across the screen — just the cursor in the upper left-hand corner blinking like an eye that never slept.

Stan had been briefed that all the building's alarms were linked into the computer. If the warning light on top of the desk indicated an alarm going off, the location would be displayed on the computer screen along with instructions. If any alarm warnings came up on the screen, Stan was to call the staffer on the alert roster before doing anything. According to the instruction binder, under no circumstances were local law enforcement personnel to be allowed inside the building. The staff doctor whom Stan was supposed to alert would take care of anything occurring inside.

If Stan had been an imaginative man, he might have thought that was a little odd. Why were they more worried about internal alarms than external? Why the difference in response? And how could an internal alarm be tripped without an external one going off first? However, Stan wasn't very imaginative, which may well have been why he was hired for this job in the first place.

One thing Stan had noticed, though, was that if he mentally pictured the location of the restricted double doors against the dimensions of the building, there wasn't much room behind those doors. Stan suspected that they led to a staircase or an elevator and that there might be hidden, lower levels to this complex. The keys on the master ring on his belt were labeled, some of them for doors that were not on this floor. He had found that out during his first week on the job, when he had gone through the building. His curiosity had not led him to open the restricted double doors, though. Stan enjoyed getting paid to sit on his ass. In Stan's book, cold cash outweighed idle questioning every time. Curiosity had gone by the wayside on his first tour in Vietnam and had remained an unnecessary character trait throughout the rest of his time in the army.

Kicking his feet back and sipping his coffee, Stan returned to his favorite pastime of watching the numbers on the digital clock wind their way down to the end of his shift.

Vicinity Exit 40, Interstate 24, Kentucky
2:34 A.M.

"Where is that fucking bitch!" Hill exclaimed as the mud-soaked trio of escaped convicts struggled to the top of a grassy knoll overlooking the interstate.

"Watch your mouth," Chico muttered halfheartedly as he peered at the highway. "That's my sister you're talking about." He could see the ramp for Exit 40 illuminated as the occasional vehicle went by, so he knew that they were in the right place, but where was Leslie?

Hill had come up with the plan and prepared the way under the fence when on a work party; Parson had been the one with the money for the blades; and now Chico's contribution wasn't materializing.

"There!" he cried out as two headlights slid to a stop on the near side of the highway, just past the end of the ramp. A jag of lightning showed that it was a van. "That's her."

"Let's go." Hill was already running down the small hill and Parson and Chico struggled after him, their feet sliding out from under them on the slick grass. Parson's limp was gone in the excitement of the final piece falling into place.

The side door of the panel van slid open and the three tumbled in, Chico closing the door behind him.

"You all look like shit," the driver remarked nervously as she looked at her catch. The slender dark-complected woman anxiously sucked on the dying stalk of a cigarette as the three men caught their breath. Leslie "worked" Murfreesboro Road down in Nashville selling herself, and she was none too pleased to be involved in this operation. She'd had little choice, though, since Chico had made her an offer she couldn't refuse: Show up with the van or he'd track her down in Nashville and kill her. She knew that he was quite capable of the latter, since he'd already killed four men, and sibling love was an unknown entity in the Lopez family. "The alarm out yet?"

Chico shook his head, water flying out of his soaked hair. "We didn't hear no siren, so we're still good to go. Let's get the fuck out of here."

Leslie slid back behind the wheel. Chico climbed into the passenger seat next to her while Hill and Parson remained on the floor in the back.

"Take the ramp and head back south," Chico ordered. "You got the clothes?"

"In the bag back there."

Chico waited until they crossed over the cloverleaf and were heading southeast on I-24. "Take Exit 56 when we get to it and head south on 139 toward Cadiz. The first thing they'll do is seal up the interstate when the alarm goes out. We need to get out in the back country and head on down to Dover."

Biotech Engineering
3:05 A.M.

Stan sipped his coffee slowly. His thoughts centered on tomorrow's activities, or more accurately, as he again noted the digits on the wall clock, what he would be doing later today. He figured to catch a few hours of sleep after being relieved at six, and then head over to the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) and do some fishing. Lake Barkley, which marked the eastern boundary of the large LBL recreation area, was less than three miles west of Stan's present location. With the weather as wet and chilly as it was, he knew he'd have the lake to himself. He hoped the storm would have passed over by dawn and the fish would be biting.

As Stan was trying to decide on a fishing spot, the lights inside the building flickered briefly and then went out, replaced by the dim glow of the battery-powered backup lighting system. The video screens were dead, but the computer display still glowed. Stan leaned forward in the chair and stared at the words etched there in eerie black letters against the green background:

POWER OUTAGE / EMERGENCY POWER ON.

0:23 TO BACK UP BATTERY DEPLETION AND CONTAINMENT LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM FAILURE.