he didn't notice; his attention was entirely on the two downed Scorps, waiting to see if they'd be ready to attack again before the men reached the door—
—except John and Red were movingtowardthe animals, pointing their weapons—
—and shooting out the eyes. They did it quickly and efficiently, and although both Scorps were moving again as they headed for the door, the blind creatures could only flail about in the sand. One of them managed to find a target; with a limber curl, it drove its extraordinarily toxic sting into the others back. The poisoned 12 whipped around and stabbed the first through the abdomen with one jagged claw, impaling it; it writhed weakly, alive but unable to move or see—bound, dying, to its dead brother.
Reston shook his head slowly, disgusted at the wasted time and money, at the millions of dollars and the man-hours that had gone into developing the inhabitants of phases One and Two.
And Jacksonwillwant that information. Once the test subjects are dead and their friends caught, I'll be able to put the right spin on things; with some of our backers coming in, such a poor performance from our "prize" specimens could be costly. Better to know now. . . .
Yes, he'd be able to pull it off. Now Red was unlocking the connecting door that would lead them
into Three; unless they had a case of grenades, they would be dead in minutes.
Reston took a deep breath, remembering who was in control, who was calling the shots here. Hawkinson would handle the surface situation, Jackson would be pleased, the three musketeers were about to be blinded, trampled, and eaten. There was nothing to worry about.
Reston exhaled heavily, managing a somewhat uneasy grin and forcing himself to relax into his chair, dialing up the screens that would show him the Ca6 habitat.
"Say good-bye," he said, and poured himself another brandy.
FIFTEEN
FROM THE TERRIBLE, BAKING HEAT OF THE blinding scorpion desert, they stepped into the cold shade of a mountain peak. They stayed by the door, surveying their newest crucible, Leon wondering if they'd be facing Hunters or Spitters in this very gray room.
Gray the rock-studded, sharply angled mountain of stone that loomed in front of them. Gray also the walls and ceiling, and the winding path that snaked west, bordering the "mountaintop." Even the scrubby grasses in and around the misshapen boulders were gray. The mountain looked real enough, rough-hewn chunks of granite mixed into cement, dyed to match and sculpted into crags. The overall effect was of a lonely, windswept ridge high on a barren mountain.
Except there's no wind—and no smell. Just like the other two, no smell at all.
"Might want to put your shirt back on," John said,
but Leon was already untying it from his waist. The temperature had dropped at least sixty degrees, already freezing the sweat he'd worked up from Phase Two.
"So where do we go?" Cole asked, his eyes wide and nervous.
John pointed diagonally across the room, southwest. "How 'bout the door?"
"I think he meant whichway,"Leon said. He kept his voice pitched low, just as the others did. No point in alerting the inhabitants to their position; they'd probably be interacting soon enough.
The three of them examined their options, all two of them: take the gray path or climb the gray mountain.
Hunters or Spitters . . .Leon sighed inwardly, his stomach knotted, already dreading whatever came next. If they made it out, if they found Reston, he was going to give old Mr. Blue a solid ass-kicking. It went against the belief system that had led him to be a cop, but then, so did White Umbrella's very existence.
"From a defensive standpoint, I'd say trail," John said, looking up at the rough surface of the slope. "We could get trapped if we head up."
"There's a bridge, I think," Cole said. "I only did one of the cameras in here, that one—"
He pointed up and right, into the corner. Leon couldn't even see it—the walls were fifty feet high, and their monotone color blended into the ceiling. It created a kind of optical illusion, making the room seem endlessly vast.
"—and I was on a ladder, I could see over, kind
of," Cole continued. "There's a gorge on the other side, and one of those rope bridges going across."
Leon opened his pack while Cole was talking, assessing his ammo situation. "How's the M-16?"
"Maybe fifteen left in this one," John answered, patting the curved mag. "Two more full, thirty each . . . two clips for the H&K, and one more grenade. You?"
"Seven rounds left, three clips, one grenade. Henry, have you been counting?"
The Umbrella worker nodded. "I think—five shots,
I fired five times."
He looked as though he wanted to say something else, glancing back and forth between Leon and John, finally staring down at his dirty workboots. John looked at Leon, who shrugged; they didn't really know anything about Henry Cole, except that he didn't belong there any more than they did.
"Listen ... I know this isn't really the time or place, but I just want to tell you guys that I'm sorry. I mean, I knew something was weird about all this. About Umbrella. And I knew Reston was a serious asshole, and if I hadn't been so greedy or so stupid, I never would have got you into this."
"Henry," Leon said. "You didn't know, okay? And believe me, you're not the first to be duped—"
"No doubt," John interrupted. "Seriously. The suits are the problem here, not guys like you."
Cole didn't look up, but he nodded, his thin shoulders slumping as if in relief. John handed him another clip, nodding toward the path as Cole tucked it into his back pocket.
"Let's hit it," John said, talking to both of them but addressing Cole. Leon could hear it in his deep voice, a note of encouragement that suggested he was starting to like the Umbrella worker. "Worse comes to worst, we can retreat to Two. Stick close, keep quiet, and try to shoot for the head or eyes—assuming they have eyes."
Cole smiled faintly.
"I'll bring it up," Leon said, and John nodded before stepping away from the hatch and turning left. The chilled air was as quiet as it had been since they'd come into the room, no sounds but their own. Leon brought up the rear, Cole walking slowly in front of him.
The path was grooved, as if someone had run a rake through the cement before it was dry. With the "peak" to their right, the trail extended about seventy feet and then turned sharply south, disappearing behind the craggy hill.
They'd gone about fifty feet when Leon heard the trickle of rock behind them. Loose gravel falling down the slope.
He turned, surprised, and saw the animal near the top of the peak, thirty feet up. Saw it and wasn't sure what he was seeing, except that it was walking, skippingdown the hill on four sturdy legs, like a mountain goat.
Like a skinned goat. Like—like—
Like nothing he'd ever seen, and it was almost to the ground when they heard a wet, rattling sound erupt from somewhere ahead of them, the sound of a snot-clogged throat being cleared, or a dog growling through a mouthful of blood—and they were trapped,
cut off from escape, the terrible sounds coming toward them from both sides.
Getting back into the compound was remarkably
easy. Rebecca needed help getting over the fence, but with each passing minute, she seemed to be improving, her balance and coordination sharpening. David was more relieved than he cared to admit, and almost as pleased with Umbrella's guard, or lack thereof. Three men, two at the fence and another at the van; it was pathetic.
They'd started back as soon as the helicopter had lifted and headed south, stretching frozen muscles as they moved silently through the dark. When they'd come within a few hundred yards, David had left the others for a quick recon, then come back and led the two shivering women over the fence and into the compound. Before they could take out the watchmen, David knew they needed to get to a safe place out of the cold, to go over their procedure and better assess Rebecca's condition; he chose the most obvious of the buildings, the middle structure. It boasted two satellite dishes and a series of antennae, plus a shielded conduit running down one side. If he was right, if it was a communications relay, it was exactly where they wanted to be.