As a consequence, Devereaux’s agency racked up a small fortune in intentional damages to property in the process. All told, nearly an hour passed before the entire train was searched and he finally accepted the fact that Sam and Ben were no longer on board.
He picked up his cell phone and dialed the Secretary of Defense’s private number.
“Tell me you have him!” she demanded.
“They’re not on the train.”
“So they got off earlier.”
“No. We had people watching at Rugby. No one got on and no one got off.”
The Secretary said, “Maybe he’s already there. You know what that means?”
Devereaux understood the consequences. Aliana Wolfgang owned a biotech company, theoretically capable of mass replicating Ben Gellie’s blood. There was a reason he’d come directly to this spot. Aliana provided him with the means to infect the world.
The muscles in his face stiffened. “I’ll stop him, ma’am.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The temperature seemed to drop quickly.
At least as the thermometer fell, the moisture in the air dissipated, meaning that it had finally stopped snowing. Sam pulled the hood of his thick woolen jacket tighter across his face. What little skin was still visible to the outside extremes now stung from the icy bite. A small snow-covered road led into the forest. There was a solid gate and what looked like a large house round the back.
Ben said, “We should go there, find some sort of shelter before this storm hits.”
“They’re not going to be happy about meeting a couple of vagrants in the middle of the night. They’re likely to call the cops, no matter what story we give them.”
Ben shrugged. “We can keep them quiet until we leave.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to die if we’re still out here when this storm hits!”
Sam mulled that over for a minute. “Do we keep following the tracks or find shelter?”
“Take the damned shelter.”
“All right,” Sam agreed. “Let’s go see what happens.”
A sliver of moonlight permeated the heavily forested conifer trees that lined the snow-covered lane. The driveway looked dilapidated, with overgrown branches making it unlikely any cars had driven down the laneway in a number of years.
Sixty feet in, and they were confronted by a large ornamental steel gate that seemed at odds with the rest of their impression of the property.
Sam ran his eyes across the gate, turning his gaze upward, at the fixed security camera. “That seem odd to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re not home over winter — hell I know I wouldn’t want to be — and so they like to have a security camera to watch over the place. Who knows?”
“You think they’re watching us?” Sam asked.
“At four in the morning? No way.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Sam gripped the fence and climbed over. It was vertical with a series of horizontal arms, making it easy to climb. If he had to guess, it was built to stop vehicles, not people.
Ben followed him over and they continued down toward what appeared to be a large log house. There were no windows to the house at all. It didn’t look like it had been boarded up for the winter; instead it appeared as though the entire place had been built with the windows intentionally left out.
“Something seem odd to you about this place?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, everything. The entire place gives me the creeps.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You want to look for another place to find shelter?”
“No way. Spooky or not, I want to get inside and get warm. I don’t see any cars around here. So maybe we got lucky and no one’s home.”
“All right. You still have those lock picks?”
“Yeah.”
“So show me what you can do with this door.”
Ben withdrew the two lock picks from his wallet and started to work on the door. It took longer this time. The padlock at the summer camp was straight forward, whereas the door lock was obviously made to a much higher standard.
Sam said, “Can you do it?”
Ben closed his eyes, feeling with his half frozen gloved fingers, instead. “I think so.”
“You never told me why you’re carrying lock picks.”
Ben made a thin-lipped uncomfortable smile. “It’s not what it looks like. I’m not interested in breaking and entering.”
“Sure,” Sam said, in a voice that clearly stated anything but that he believed him.
“I’m serious. I mean, what I do is far from legal, but it’s not breaking and entering, in a traditional sense. And it definitely doesn’t warrant getting me on the FBI’s number one most wanted list of fugitives.”
Sam grinned. “All right, so tell me what it is?”
Ben jiggled the pick upward. There was slight shift in the locking mechanism. He held it there and now maneuvered the second one in the opposite direction, searching for the latch.
“It looks like we’re going to be here all night; we might even freeze to death in the process, so you may as well tell me.”
“Yeah, whatever. None of it matters now. I think it’s fairly safe to say I’m never returning to my old life, so I suppose I can come clean.”
“What was it?”
“You know I worked for the justice department, right?”
“Right. I think you said that earlier.”
“So, politicians from both sides of the divide are constantly lobbied. Every one of them pushing their own agenda, you know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“What if I told you one of those groups boasted the ability to control nearly twenty percent of the senators in Office, meaning that those votes in Congress could be bought?”
Sam shrugged. “I’d say, twenty percent seems a little low, wouldn’t you?”
“Haha… very funny. I’d have you know that despite the in-house fighting that the media would lead us to believe, the majority of US senators have spent their lives serving their country, for no other reason than they were compelled by duty.”
“Except for the twenty cheats in Office?”
“Even the majority of the cheats as you call them mean well.”
Sam lifted his eyebrow with incredulity. “Really?”
“Yeah, that’s what makes this organization so dangerous. They target individual senators, find their weaknesses, and apply pressure. Most don’t even know they could be bought.”
“So where do you come in?”
“Well, the company that does this lobbying. One of its most capable lobbyists is a woman named Jessica Chase.”
“Jessica Chase,” Sam repeated the name. It meant nothing to him. “What about her?”
Ben’s lips curled into a suppressed smile.
Sam asked, “What?”
“Well, I was supposed to have a date with her yesterday…”
“You’re kidding me. What were you going to do?”
“I was asked to search her house, see if I could find anything.”
“What good would it have been if you did? Wouldn’t everything be inadmissible in court, given the means by which it was obtained?”
“Sure, but we’re not trying to go to court, not yet anyway. Right now, we’re still trying to prove to our bosses that this thing exists.”
“Right, so you’re sleeping with a girl to get a promotion?”
Ben shrugged. “Something like that.”
“I think I liked you better when I thought you were a common thief.” Sam chuckled. “At least then you would have unlocked this damned door by now, and we’d be inside getting warm.”
Something clicked on the lock.
Ben turned the handle.
The door swung open slightly.
Sam glanced inside. The place was open, like a giant hall. Large overhead lights filled the room with light. There were more than a dozen people working inside. They wore masks and stirred large metal vats that looked like cauldrons. No one looked up.