A few more yards, and another green massive door unlatched, its four detainees pushed outside in the blinding light.
Dr. Teng, from Taiwan, emerged with tears that streaked his face, and with hollow, expressionless eyes. His achievements in psychosomatic medicine and his latest research in brain imaging had made the thin, fragile man well-known in their circles. He was barely recognizable now.
Dr. Alastair Faulkner, a British national and the world’s foremost authority in regional and seasonal affective disorders, was grayish pale and a little unstable on his feet. He touched the walls a number of times to gain stability. Definitely not a good sign, and, by the sad, accepting look in his eyes, he was well aware of it.
Dr. Fortuin, Klaas Fortuin, if Gary remembered correctly the Dutch man’s first name, professor of biochemistry and neuropharmacology, held his spine upright, in typical Dutch manner. Gary remembered he’d read somewhere that the Dutch are tough, almost harsh in their parenting, being focused on building character and resilience in their offspring. Dr. Fortuin definitely displayed character and resilience in the face of adversity, walking tall and almost proud, calm, unfazed, as if not noticing he walked between two loaded machine guns, not reacting to the barrel of the AK47 bruising his left ribs.
The last to vacate the cell was their pilot, his uniform wrinkled and stained; most likely he’d slept in it despite how warm it was. As usual, Gary noticed the most unusual details for the respective moment, and that time he noticed the wear and tear on the man’s uniform. The sleeves shined at the elbows, and the cuffs were almost fringed with wear. That level of wear couldn’t have been from just three days of incarceration; that was months’ worth of daily use. There used to be glamour about a pilot’s job; apparently, not anymore.
Gary found himself counting the members of their group, as King Cobra had resumed his walk down the endless corridor. They were nine scientists and two flight crew. So far.
King Cobra opened a massive door, but this time gestured his followers to walk in. Gary entered a large room, organized as a makeshift lab. As soon as he stepped through the door, he found himself at the top of a five-step flight of descending stairs, leading to the main floor.
He hesitated a second, taking in everything in the huge lab. More than two hundred feet wide by maybe one hundred and fifty feet deep, the space had tall, dark gray, concrete walls, one of them curved, matching the curvature of the hallway they’d just walked through. The opposite wall had windows, placed at least ten feet high above the ground, with rusty frames holding dirty, almost completely opaque glass. The room seemed to be a part of a larger, round structure.
Rows of tile-covered tables lined up almost wall-to-wall, covered with equipment and chemicals. Autoclaves, incubators, Bunsen burners, and refrigerators took the first row of lab tables. Microscopes, scanners, centrifuges, a liquid chromatograph and a mass spectrograph lined another row of tables. Against the wall, there was a surprising collection of modern lab equipment: a Hitachi 917 automatic analyzer, a microscale, a recent model Belson biochemistry machine, Chinese but decent, state-of-the-art pharmacology analysis equipment, and a digital amalgamator. Some of the equipment was antiquated, but most of it was modern, the latest the industry had to offer.
Supplies were neatly organized and stored against the right wall, labeled in English. Almost forty feet of refrigerators filled with drugs, chemicals, reactives, and serums covered the wall. Past the refrigeration area, several tens of feet more continued with room-temperature shelving, holding thousands of drug formulations and chemical compounds. It was, by all appearances, a well-equipped lab. Where the hell were they? What was this place?
Some sleeping cots stood against the back wall, leading Gary to assume they wouldn’t be leaving the lab anytime soon. Simple, folding military cots, with dirty blankets on each one. In the far corner, an improvised separation for personal use, probably the Russian version of a port-a-potty. And everywhere, the same insufferable, inescapable, musty smell of moldy concrete.
“What is this place?” Dr. Chevalier whispered, her French accent stronger than usual.
“It’s a nuclear missile silo by the looks of it,” the pilot replied. “This facility is half-buried underground.”
“Nuclear?” Dr. Adenauer jumped in the conversation. “Does that mean there’s radiation here?”
“Oh, my God…” the flight attendant whispered, tears running freely from her red eyes.
“Quiet,” King Cobra shouted, punctuating his words by pounding his weapon into the ground. “No talking.”
A middle-aged man wearing a lab coat walked through the door and closed it. The noise of the massive door latching got everyone’s attention. They turned toward him.
“I am Dr. Bogdanov,” he said in harsh, heavily accented English. “This is your lab. You all work for me now.”
They shifted their weight nervously, some gasping, others wringing their hands.
Forced labor, Gary Davis found himself thinking, doing who knows what for the Russians. We are so fucked.
“Make no mistake,” Bogdanov continued. “If you are not worth keeping in the lab, we will use you as lab rats for the test batches. One way or the other, you will work for us.”
A deathly silence engulfed the small group. Bogdanov smiled, satisfied.
“Now get to work. Organize everything, make a list of what you’re missing, make sure you’re ready to produce the chemicals we need. Is that clear?”
No one replied. He waited a few seconds, then turned to leave.
“Dr. Bogdanov, if I may,” Dr. Bukowsky spoke, his Canadian politeness intact despite the circumstances. “We need insulin. Dr. Crawford is diabetic, and she ran out of supplies yesterday.”
Dr. Crawford grabbed Bukowsky’s sleeve, as if asking him to stay quiet.
“We will see about that,” Bogdanov replied. “How useful is she? What does she do?”
Someone gasped behind Gary. As if hypnotized, he heard himself speak.
“She is quintessential to any neurochemistry research,” Gary spoke clearly, calmly, and sounding sure of himself. Although he was making it up on the fly, he hoped he was right about the Russian’s intentions. “Her dissertations on the clinical aspects of applied psychopharmacology, and her fellowship experience with the University of Virginia make her irreplaceable to any drug study.”
Dr. Crawford looked at him with amazement, a hint of a smile fluttering on her lips as she mouthed, “Thank you.”
“I will bring insulin,” Bogdanov said. “Now, get to work.”
Dr. Faulkner, still weak on his legs, stumbled forward and said, “You can’t do this! You can’t force us to work for you! What kind of doctor are you?”
Bogdanov turned and stared at Dr. Faulkner in disbelief, then gestured at King Cobra with a swift head movement.
Cobra took three large steps and, as he reached Faulkner, struck him in the stomach with his knotted fist. Dr. Faulkner gasped, then keeled over, curled up on his side. He moved his legs spasmodically, and, as Gary and a couple of others rushed to assist him, he drew his last breath with a terrifying groan.
Gary put his fingers on Faulkner’s neck, searching for a pulse.
“He’s gone; probably a massive coronary,” he said bitterly. “Great job,” he turned and said to Cobra. “At this rate, you’ll kill us all before we do whatever the hell you got us here to do, you stupid fuck!”
Cobra took a step toward him, cussing in Russian, his face congested and scrunched in anger, wielding his fist in a threatening motion. Gary stood there, not even flinching. Que sera, sera, he thought, bracing himself for the beating that was to come.