Flipping open his wallet, Ward pulled out the card he had been given two years ago and had never used. Grabbing the phone, his fingers rapidly punched in the designated numbers.
The other end was picked up on the third ring. "Site and code, please."
Ward followed the instructions on the laminated card. "Site seven. Code three alpha eight six."
"One moment, please."
Ward licked his lips as he waited. His mind went into overdrive as he tried to figure out a way to salvage his research from this disaster. Then it leapt to a more immediate issue — where were they? Nervously he glanced out into the parking lot again. For all he knew they were watching the building at this minute. He pulled the pistol closer on the desktop.
A deep voice came over the phone. "This is Agent Freeman. I'm the station chief here. Who am I talking to?"
Ward remembered Freeman from the man's few inspection visits to the lab. "This is Doctor Ward from site seven. I have a class-one security violation here."
There was a slight pause on the other end. Ward could barely hear the man talking to someone else in the background, then the voice came back on the phone. "Go secure."
Ward punched the red button on the STU III phone. "I'm secure."
He heard a hiss and beep as the other end went secure. Now, even if the phone line was tapped, the conversation would be unintelligible to anyone except himself and the man on the other end.
The agent's voice was calm. "All right. I'm going to ask you some questions so I can do an initial assessment. Please answer as succinctly as you can."
"All right, I'm ready," Ward said. He heard a rustle of paper on the other end.
"What's the status of the Synbats?"
"Gone. Present location unknown."
"How many other cleared people are aware of this incident?"
Ward looked out into the parking lot again. "Just me so far. No one else has shown up for work."
"Good. Is there anyone else, unauthorized that is, who is aware of this incident that you know of?"
"No."
"What's your best estimate of when this happened?"
"Sometime last night. I just discovered them gone a few minutes ago."
"What about the security guard? What does he report?"
Ward glanced about the lobby. "He's missing. I've got three other bodies here."
There was a pause on the other end. "Three bodies? Who killed them? The guard?"
"I think the Synbats did it."
Another pause. "Have you identified the bodies?"
"No. Just three males. One in the lobby and two inside the outer containment doors."
"Were they trying to steal the Synbats?"
Ward rolled his eyes. "How the hell am I supposed to know? If they were, they certainly didn't do a good job of it."
"Unless there were more than three, or the guard was involved."
Ward wasn't interested in this line of thinking right now. "Maybe they tried to steal the Synbats and underestimated what they were up against. I don't know, but the bottom line is that the Synbats have either been taken or have escaped."
Freeman obviously decided to stick with the immediate problem. "All right. Here's what I want you to do. First, secure the inside of the building."
Ward looked down at the computer screen and called up the building security program. All external alarms indicated that the building was secure except for the front door. He rapidly punched in instructions, electronically relocking that door, and was rewarded with a secure status on the external alarm. "I've done that."
"OK. Next, is there anyone on your staff you'll need to help in the search for the Synbats? Try to keep it to a minimum."
Ward considered that quickly. "Yes. I'll need my primary assistant, Doctor Merrit."
"There's one last thing you need to do. Abort the Synbats."
Ward stared at the phone. He'd been afraid that would be the decision. Actually, he knew that it wasn't a decision made by Freeman. It was required. "Can we hold off on that until we get a chance to track them down?"
"They've already killed. If they've been stolen, we need to get them terminated immediately. If they escaped we can't have them wandering around the countryside. According to standard operating procedure, termination is the next step. You agreed to it when you got your security clearance. It's right here in black and white in your project response plan."
Ward knew he needed to stall. Two years of his work couldn't be destroyed like this. "They're probably holed up somewhere right now. Or whoever took them has them secure. They couldn't have gotten far. Once we get the direction finder running, we can track them down in no time."
The voice on the other end didn't bend. "Blow the collars. I'll be there in forty minutes. I've got a chopper en route to my location right now to pick me up. I want you to send everyone else home as they arrive. Tell them there's a federal security inspection shutdown and they'll be called when it's over. Don't go downstairs again. Keep everything the way it was. My people will need to go over it all."
Ward wasn't overly worried about what had happened. He was more concerned with what was going to happen. "How about if I access the direction finder and run an azimuth on them? If I find they're in an area where they aren't likely to run into people, I really believe we should hold off on termination. We've invested more than two years and sixty million dollars in this project."
Ward glanced nervously toward the parking lot again. For all he knew the Synbats could be right out there in the tree line. They might even come back on their own. He didn't want to face that by himself, but he also didn't want to lose the results of his efforts.
Freeman was implacable. "I repeat, Doctor Ward: Get an azimuth on them and terminate now. I've got an alert started at Fort Campbell to get us some help tracking the bodies. Just hope they didn't run into anyone else before now. Hold in place and do as instructed. I'll be there shortly."
There was a click on the other end. Ward stared at the dead phone for a long time. He realized that he hadn't told Freeman about what had been taken from the freezer. Time enough for that when the government man got here. Ward glanced up. The rain had finally stopped and a car was pulling into the lot. He rose and scurried across the foyer. He recognized the driver as the day shift security guard. Ward ran out into the parking lot and waved him over.
The car pulled up next to Ward and the guard rolled down the window. "What's up, Doctor Ward?"
Ward stood between the guard and the building. "The feds have called a security shutdown. They've got people en route now to do one of their unannounced inspections. I'd like you to park over at the entrance to the lot and tell everyone to return home. We might be shut down for a while — today at least. Tell everyone I'll call to let them know when we're open again."
The guard frowned and tried to look around Ward at the building. "Security shutdown? What happened, sir?"
"Nothing happened," Ward snapped. "They're just running one of their damn tests and it's our turn to be checked. You can go home, too, after…" Ward glanced at his watch and estimated."…after eight-thirty. Everyone should have come by then."
"Yes, sir." The guard could see the pickup truck. "What about Stan? Are you going to relieve him?"
Ward nodded. "Yes, I'll let him go once the test team from the feds are here." He started to head back and then remembered something. "By the way, let Doctor Merrit in. I'm going to need her to get the paperwork ready for the inspection."
"Yes, sir." The security guard drove off, back to the entrance of the parking lot.
Ward returned to the building and the security console. He accessed the security historical file and read the initial messages with growing concern. Using the cursor key, he scrolled the messages backward. The last message disappeared at the bottom of the screen as the previous ones appeared at the top. He ran through the file until he had a complete listing of everything the computer had logged the previous night. Then he went through once more in chronological order.