Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Read online

  The doors opened immediately. They all stepped inside the posh lift, appointed in rich exotic woods and crystal lighting.

  “So should we start at the top and work our way down?” Tucker asked. “Or the other way around?”

  “Neither,” Gray said, an edge of certainty hardening inside him as he bent down toward the elevator’s controls.

  He pointed to the rows of buttons lined along a flat touch-screen display. Illuminated numbers designated each floor. As he watched, each numeral slowly transformed and rotated through various characters in other languages: Chinese, Japanese, Arabic.

  Definitely trying to appeal to the global traveler here.

  “I don’t get it,” Kowalski said. “If we’re not going up, then where are we going?”

  Gray watched the lowest button glow in Arabic.

  Then it shifted to the English equivalent.

  “There’s a lower level,” Seichan said.

  Kowalski looked to his toes. “Wait. How could there be a basement on a floating island?”

  Gray knew this tower had been built in conjunction with the island’s construction. The bedrock upon which the foundation of this tower had been placed was the immense platform holding up Utopia. That concrete-and-steel stage lay approximately ten meters under them, leaving plenty of space for a basement here.

  “Must be a service level for the tower,” Seichan said.

  “And maybe more,” Gray added, pressing the button.

  The letter flashed green, and the cage dropped silently, so smoothly it was hard to tell they were moving at all.

  “Be ready,” Gray warned.

  Weapons appeared in hands. Tucker signaled his dog, who lowered his haunches, readying to spring.

  It felt like the elevator dropped much farther than just one floor, but at last, the doors opened. Gray took a shooter’s stance and quickly inspected a small, utilitarian lobby, dimly lit and drab. He searched for any guards, but it appeared empty.

  He stepped out cautiously, leading the way. Hallways branched off, with color-designated lines painted on the floor, likely to direct the hotel staff toward kitchens, laundry facilities, maintenance closets, and storage spaces.

  It looked like a maze down here.

  Gray waved everyone forward. “Tucker, have Kane hunt for Amanda’s trail. She could be anywhere.”

  Tucker set to work with his partner.

  Gray noted that two other elevators flanked this one. It seemed only three of the twelve elevators came down to this level. He had Kowalski hold their door open, in case they needed a fast exit.

  A tall set of windows along one wall drew Gray’s attention. He moved closer and stared into a cavernous neighboring space. The room was encased in concrete and climbed two stories high. Inside sat a row of massive turbine generators, looking like oversize metal elephants. Control panels covered another wall.

  “The building’s power plant,” Seichan said, joining him.

  Gray remembered Jack Kirkland’s description of the tidal turbines that powered this building. This must be them.

  Tucker came back after only a minute. “Nothing,” he said.

  Gray turned around, surprised. “What?”

  Tucker shrugged. “Kane checked all of the hallways leading out from here. Found no sign of Amanda.”

  Impossible. She has to be down here.

  “Have him check again,” he ordered.

  “I’ll do it, but it’s a waste of time. I’ll vouch for Kane’s nose.”

  “He’s right,” Seichan argued. “Coming down here made sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only path. There are fifty other floors. The longer we wait …”

  The more danger Amanda faces.

  He sighed heavily, conceding to the logic, but not happy about it. “Back upstairs, then.”

  The others piled inside the elevator.

  Gray paused at the threshold, staring at the two doors that flanked this one.

  “Hold on.” He stepped over, pressed the call button, and summoned the other two elevators.

  “What are you doing?” Seichan asked from inside the cage, as Kowalski continued to hold the door open.

  The other two elevators arrived. Gray inspected both cages. He returned to the others and studied the touch-screen display in their lift.

  “What?” Seichan pressed.

  “All three of these cages reach the service levels, so why did Amanda’s captors use the middle elevator? Human nature says they would have just gone to the one closest to the lobby.” Gray pointed to the first set of doors. “I checked those other two. This control panel is two inches longer than the others.”

  “So?” Kowalski asked.

  Seichan bent down and studied the lower section of the touch screen. “You think there are other buttons here, hidden ones.”

  He nodded. “Leading to restricted levels that only this elevator can reach.”

  Seichan searched the edges of the screen. “But I don’t see any keyholes or slots for pass cards to activate those levels.”

  Gray hit the lobby button, sending the cage back up, demonstrating. “The screen is touch-sensitive.”

  Seichan got it, her eyes smiling. “It could be keyed to a fingerprint.”

  Gray stepped back into the lobby as the doors opened. “The soldier who Kane took out. He looked like he was the head of the security escort from Africa. He might have been granted access below.”

  Gray turned to Kowalski.

  The big man rolled his eyes and sulked out, mumbling under his breath, “Why do I get all the dirty work?”

  He returned a minute later, wiping a blade on his pants. He held out his hand. “I brought both. Just in case.”

  Resting on his palm were a thumb and a forefinger.

  Kowalski also carried the dead man’s beret and tugged it on his head. “That guy was more my size,” he said and pointed toward the ceiling of the cage. “In case of any more cameras. I’m not playing prisoner again.”

  Gray took the severed thumb, pressed it against the empty space below the LL button, and kept it there. He held his breath—then a new button bloomed to life under the thumb.

  If he had any doubt before, it ended as that odd symbol appeared. Gray flashed to Somalia, to running across the abandoned camp toward the tent cabin. He remembered the same marking had been painted on the outside of the jungle hospital.

  A crimson cross with tiny finial decorations along its crosspieces.

  The cage fell again, dropping much deeper now.

  Kowalski’s face had a sick tint to it. “How far down did these pirates bury their treasure?”

  Gray pictured the giant concrete pylons that supported the island. The outer ones were twenty meters across, but the centermost pylon, the one directly under Burj Abaadi, was far larger. He knew that it was not uncommon for the support pillars of oil platforms to have caissons engineered in them, hollow pockets used for storing oil.

  So why not here, too? But instead of oil, an entire base could be hidden inside a pillar this huge.

  Gray knew Amanda was down there. His doubt centered on a larger concern. It weighed heavily as they dropped like a rock toward the heart of the island.

  Is she still alive?

  3:25 A.M.

  Dr. Edward Blake watched the sheen of hatred fade from Amanda’s eyes as he injected the last of the propofol into her IV line. Her lids slid to half-mast, her breathing deepened.

  Her last words had been a curse, a promise of revenge.

  I will see you both in hell.

  But it was an impotent threat.

  Amanda, the person, the loving mother, would be gone in a few more minutes. All sentience would be wiped away, leaving behind nothing but the most basic of functions.

  “You should scrub up,” Petra said.

  His nurse was already gowned and adjusting a monitor that showed Amanda’s CT scan. The young woman lay on a surgical table, draped from the neck down, her bald head gleaming under the surgical halogens ove
rhead. Small blue markings decorated her scalp, like so much scientific nomenclature tattooed in place. The markings delineated the multiple drill sites and electrode insertion points.

  Petra prepared the stereotactic system for the pending surgery. It integrated his surgical workstation with an intra-operative MRI and microscopy setup for visualization. She secured Amanda’s head inside a fluid-filled alignment cuff, a vast improvement from the older head frames that had to be screwed into a patient’s skull.

  After working in the mountains of Somalia and having to deal with tools that seemed antiquated in comparison, Edward felt a surge of childish joy at having such fine equipment to play with. The station in Somalia had served its purpose for the past few years, allowing him to harvest eggs, embryos, and collect viable or promising subjects for the various other reproductive labs around the world. But he had always had larger ambitions. It was pure happenstance that Amanda Gant-Bennett had landed on his doorstep versus one of the many other reproductive facilities and egg-collection centers in India, Malaysia, Australia, or countless other points around the globe. It allowed him the opportunity to shine in the eyes of his superiors, to climb higher up that ladder.

  So far, besides a few hiccups, matters had been proceeding smashingly. Amanda’s death had been framed as an unfortunate encounter with Somali pirates; the child had been delivered and secured in the new high-tech research lab here; and after this last bloody bit of work, Amanda would be shipped off, no longer his problem, leaving him in peace to dissect and test the new research material.

  The newborn slept in a small crib down the hall, waiting his turn.

  But first, to attend to his mother.

  An array of surgical instruments shone brightly: drills, bone curettes, cranial rongeurs, scalpels, suction and irrigation tubing.

  He couldn’t help but be excited. Though the technique had been developed here, he had only performed this procedure once. A few of the region’s reproductive scientists had been rotated through here to learn it. But it had been fairly easy. The right and left sides of the cerebral cortex were connected with a layer of neural tissue. Using the surgical imaging as guidance, he would first perform a procedure known as a corpus callosotomy, which cuts the brain into two halves. It was a radical technique originally developed to treat severe epileptics, to sever that wild flow of electricity through the brain, which caused seizures.

  The second stage of the procedure was one developed by another of his superiors’ agencies. It was called α-ECT, or alpha-alternating electroconvulsive therapy. Electrodes would be permanently inserted into the two severed hemispheres. Small electric shocks of alternate polarity would be administered to those two halves. The resultant whirlwind of mini-seizures trapped within either cranial hemisphere, swirling in opposite polarities, caused total shutdown of the cerebral cortex, leaving only the brainstem functional, which continued to control such vital tasks as heart rate and rhythm, respiration, even gastrointestinal activities.

  In the end, the body was left intact, but the mind was gone.

  A perfect tool for reproductive studies.

  Edward glanced one last time toward Amanda’s prone form.

  After this, there would be no more Amanda.

  As he exited the surgical suite for the scrub room, a chime sounded from a wall monitor overhead. It was a security feature of the station, announcing the arrival of the elevator. Every room had such a screen. A name scrolled across the bottom of the monitor.

  Buggas Abdiwalli

  It was the captain of Edward’s personal security force. The screen showed a black-and-white view of the tops of helmets and a black beret.

  What does that bloody Bug-Arse want now? he wondered, irritated, using the slang for the man’s name.

  He knew the captain was in a foul mood after losing so many men back in Somalia, but Edward didn’t have time for this. He would let security deal with Buggas. If the captain became obstinate, the new automated systems would discourage him from putting up a fuss.

  Nothing could get through that layer of defense.

  Petra’s voice came over the intercom as he began scrubbing.

  “Doctor, we’re ready for you.”

  28

  July 3, 3:30 A.M. Gulf Standard Time

  Off the Coast of Dubai

  Now comes the hard part …

  Gray prepared his team in the seconds before the elevator doors opened. He expected another layer of security beyond a fingerprint-coded elevator key. The Guild was much too paranoid. Anyone could hold a member of their staff at gunpoint and force their way down here.

  Or cut off a finger.

  No, there had to be a second level of defense. But Gray’s team didn’t have the luxury of planning, which meant only one thing.

  No time for subtlety.

  Only one man fit that job description.

  And Kowalski wasn’t happy about it. “Why the hell did I grab that bastard’s beret?”

  “You’ll do fine,” Gray said.

  Besides the beret, Kowalski also matched the height and bulk of the Somali leader. It wasn’t much, but they only needed the ruse to continue for a few seconds. He had to trust that the guards down here were as confident in their safety on the island as the Somalis had been earlier. He didn’t expect to catch the enemy napping or with their pants down, but he could hope for some momentary carelessness.

  Gray pointed to Tucker. “You and Kane take point as soon as we’re through. You don’t wait. You track Amanda. We’ll be on your heels as soon as possible.”

  Tucker rose from preparing his partner and nodded.

  Seichan had her SIG Sauer in her hand.

  A chime sounded as the elevator settled to a stop with a small shudder of its cage. Gray waved everyone to the side as the doors rolled open, keeping their faces shadowed by their stolen helmets.

  Except for Kowalski.

  The big guy was out of the elevator before it finished opening. With the beret pulled low over his eyes, he stalked ahead as if he owned the place.

  In a single sweep, Gray took in the view beyond the doors. A small security lobby sealed access to the rest of the facility. The floor and walls were bare concrete; gone was the opulence of above. The ceiling was raw steel in a honeycomb pattern. A single metal door opened off the space. Next to it rose a bulletproof window, like those found at a bank, only the teller here wore a black uniform and carried a rifle over his shoulder.

  The guard didn’t look up. He leaned to a microphone. “Present identification and place your palm on the reader.”

  A panel glowed atop a narrow counter. A small drawer was shoved through the window and popped open, awaiting papers.

  Kowalski reached and dropped a fistful of marble-size pellets into the tray. Curious, the guard finally looked up. With the heel of his hand, Kowalski slammed the drawer back to the other side.

  He pressed a transceiver in his other fist.

  The C-4 pellets—normally used for blowing deadbolts and locks—exploded in the guard’s face and chest. His body went flying back, a smoking ruin.

  Kowalski was already in motion, spinning to the side and slapping a square of C-4 against the steel door.

  “Fire in the hole!” he bellowed.

  Kowalski dove back into the elevator, ducking with the others to the side. The explosion rocked the cage, deafened their covered ears.

  Gray rolled out into the smoke, inspecting the damage. The remains of the door glowed a fiery red through the pall. Spatters of molten steel splashed the walls and floor. The air stung with a chemical signature.

  That wasn’t just C-4.

  He glanced at Kowalski, who shrugged.

  “My own recipe. Added polymer-coated thermate-TH4 to the C-4.”

  Gray inwardly cringed. Thermate was the primary ingredient in incendiary grenades, used for cutting through tank armor. But overkill or not, Kowalski had gotten the job done—and Gray hadn’t asked for subtlety.

  Nothing moved beyond the doorway. H
e spotted bodies back there, but to be certain the way was clear, Gray tossed two flash-bang grenades into the outer hall. Everyone looked away and covered their ears. The flash-bangs erupted—then Gray gave Tucker his signal.

  Dog and handler burst across the room, avoiding the molten pools of steel on the floor. Gray and the others followed, weapons ready.

  Then the sky began to fall.

  Hexagonal pieces of the roof rained down from above, clattering to the floor. Gray thought they were just ceiling tiles shaken loose by the blast.

  Then those tiles sprouted legs—steel, articulated, razor-sharp appendages—and came swarming at them like a horde of metal spiders.

  3:34 A.M.

  “Doctor …?” Petra stood frozen by the tray of instruments. She had been prepping the neuro-endoscope when the first thunderous blast sounded.

  Then an even louder detonation rocked through the facility, rattling everything in the room, including Edward’s nerves. His first thought was that the concrete walls of the pillar had given way. That worry always lurked in the back of his mind.

  Immobilized by terror, Edward remained at his workstation, fully gowned and masked. He had been manipulating and aligning the micro-robotic arm and its fine cranial drill, getting ready to start.

  Additional smaller explosions continued.

  “We’re under attack,” Petra said, looking to him for guidance.

  Her words finally shattered through his shock. They had to get out of here—but not empty-handed, not without their hard-earned prize. If they survived without the newborn in their possession, the backlash would be deadly.

  “The child,” he said, locking eyes with Petra. “We still need him alive for now. Grab him. We’ll make for an evacuation station.”

  She dropped the endoscope, turned toward the door, then back again. “What about the patient?” Her eyes flicked in the direction of Amanda.

  “Not important.” The voice on the phone had all but admitted it. The young woman could be replaced—but not the child. “We have all of her tissue and blood samples. That should be enough. I’ll grab those. You see to the child.”