Mitch poked around the room at the wood paneling, the picture of the president, the filing cabinets. No clock in the room, so he had no idea how long they’d kept him here. Apparently, they were letting him cool his heels. Trying to wear down his resistance, so he’d talk.
Like hell he would.
The picture of the president was a good yard tall and a couple feet wide. Had a thick wood frame. Mitch got his fingers underneath the edge. It didn’t budge.
He planted one foot against the wall, grunted and pulled harder. A peeling sound came from beneath the picture. Slowly, it pulled away from the wall, leaving wide patches of yellow foam glue behind.
Mitch hefted the picture to the floor. It weighed a good ten pounds. He figured it would do.
He carried it down to the doors at the end. On the inside, they looked like ordinary wood-paneled doors, except without handles. Mitch had seen the steel on the outside. This thing was an airtight ocean shipping container. There was no way he was going to break through it.
He leaned the picture on the floor, against the wall, and hammered on the door with his fist. He kept pounding until he heard a rattle on the other side.
A few seconds later, it opened. One of the crew-cut guys in a business suit stood outside, holding a submachine gun. The way he was breathing, Mitch figured he’d just come running.
Good.
No one else was outside. Just a row of shipping containers lit from high overhead by fluorescent lights.
Mitch said, “I want to talk to the boss man.”
“He’s not here. You’ll have to wait.”
Mitch looked past him at the white row of containers. Still nobody there. “Oh, wait, here he comes,” Mitch lied. “Hey, Arthur!”
Crew-cut looked over his shoulder.
Mitch lifted the picture of the president and stepped back, swung the picture around in an arc. Crew-cut turned back toward Mitch just before the solid wood corner of the frame connected with his head. The guy staggered.
Mitch followed him out into the aisle and swung the picture up overhead. He brought it down, and the wood splintered on impact. Crew-cut crumpled to the ground and didn’t move.
Mitch tossed the flapping remains of the picture back into the office. He snatched up the guy’s gun and pulled the strap free.
Voices came at him from down the aisle of white boxes. A woman giving orders. A radio squawking.
Mitch dragged Crew-cut into the office and dropped him on the floor. Then he stepped out and shut the door behind him.
The ventilation overhead rattled to life. Mitch looked over both shoulders, seeing no one, and stepped back to peer up at the top of the container. An eight-inch ribbed plastic hose curved up from the roof of the office container and headed away from him.
He slipped into the shadowed space between two containers and crept toward the other end, following the hose. The containers were barely a yard apart, forty feet long and placed end to end. It made one hell of a long, narrow alley. He moved as fast as he could without making noise.
He checked the submachine gun. He’d never fired one before, never even held one. It was heavier than it looked. Somebody had unscrewed the tip of the barrel, leaving a small threaded nub sticking out of the front grip. It looked weird. Weird and mean.
He realized he should have patted Crew-cut’s pockets for extra ammo. He had the feeling if he pulled this thing’s trigger, he’d empty the clip in about one second flat.
Two people walked past the end of the alley in front of him, a woman in a lab coat and a guy in a business suit. The woman said, “If the information is accurate, we don’t need him, then. Let’s verify the location.” Her voice faded as they walked away. The radio squawked again, but Mitch couldn’t make out the words.
He sagged against the cold metal wall, breathing hard, realizing how close he’d come to shooting them, giving himself away. And they hadn’t even seen him.
Very carefully, he pulled his finger away from the trigger and pointed it out straight. He held it that way until he got to the end of the alley. Slowly, he peeked out into another row of containers. High overhead, one of the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered out.
The ventilation tube led to the container on his right. It had an ordinary door set into the end, with a steel knob. He looked up and down the aisle. No one in sight except the doctor and the suit headed the opposite way.
He tried the knob. The metal was cold. He turned it. The door opened a crack.
He took a deep breath, brought the gun up, and shoved the door open.
He’d expected to find Arthur Givens or a half-dozen suits staring back at him. But they weren’t there. At the far end of the room, past wheeled metal carts draped with white sheets, sat a pale body strapped into a dentist’s chair.
Mitch closed the door behind him. The click echoed against the metal walls. The body at the far end didn’t move.
It only started to look like Michael when Mitch got closer. His chin rested on his bare chest. His hair, tangled with sweat, hung down over his forehead.
The straps on his wrists and ankles had dug into the skin. Trim muscles stood out on Michael’s bare arms and chest, but he was pale, as if he’d lost a lot of blood. A plastic IV bag hung on a pole next to the chair, filled with a sickly yellow liquid.
Mitch squatted down in front of him, the gun resting on one knee. “Michael? Hey. Can you hear me?”
Michael’s head lifted up, trembling. One bruised eye looked out at Mitch through the hair. “You,” he whispered.
Mitch felt his stomach turn. What they’d done to this guy, he couldn’t imagine. But he knew pain when he saw it.
“Go ahead,” Michael whispered. “Do it.”
Mitch stood up. “Do what?”
Michael’s head tilted up to follow him, still shaking with the effort. “You need an excuse? Just kill me. Get it over with.” He lunged at Mitch, against the straps, teeth bared. “Kill me!”
“Whoa.” Mitch stepped back. “What’d they give you?”
Michael let out two huffing breaths, blowing his straggly hair out, then sagged back into the chair. “Water. Please.”
Mitch looked around. A bottle of spring water sat on one of the metal carts. He twisted the cap off and put the bottle in Michael’s hand. Then he undid the straps on his wrists.
Michael pulled the IV tube out of his arm, watching Mitch. Then he drank, gulping, water trickling from the corners of his mouth.
“Easy. Not all at once.” Mitch went to work on the ankle straps. Michael started coughing, and Mitch put a hand on the bottle, pushed it away. “Easy, easy. Don’t overdo it.”
Michael’s whole body shook with coughs. When he could speak, he scowled at Mitch. “Why are you doing this? Why help me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Michael pushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at Mitch. “You’re joking.”
“You got a strange sense of humor, you know that?”
“Perhaps. You’re a difficult man to read.” Michael’s eyes narrowed down. “I still haven’t figured out if trying to kill you was a mistake, or not.”
“Don’t know what you’re asking me for. Have to figure that one out on your own.” Mitch straightened up and held out his hand. “Come on. We gotta get out of here.”
Michael grabbed his arm, pulling him closer. His fingers were cold. His eyes searched Mitch’s. “You could have walked away from all of this any time you wanted to. Why are you still here?”
Mitch pulled his arm free. “Listen, jackass. Pull yourself together. There’s a girl out there who needs you. She’s hurt, and she’s scared. We gotta get out of here, find her, and blow the Archangel straight back to hell. Any questions?”
Michael stared into space, his jaw working.
“Look, you don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself,” Mitch said. “Let’s move.”
“It’s here.”
“What’s where? Can you walk?”
“What we need. It’s here.” Michael pushed himself up out of the chair and swayed on his feet. He gripped the arm of the chair to steady himself. “A weapon. To destroy the Archangel.”
“Geneva told me you don’t want to destroy it. You only want to capture it.”
“It’s too late for that.” A look of determination spread over Michael’s face, bringing him back to life. He squared his shoulders. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He turned toward the door and stumbled.
Mitch caught him before he hit the ground. With a grunt, he set him back on his feet. “Huh. You’re heavier than you look. You okay?”
Michael swayed and leaned one hand against the wall. “Oh, I can walk just fine, thank you. Soon as the room stops spinning.”
Mitch pulled Michael’s arm over his shoulders and half led, half carried him to the door.
“We’ll need to neutralize one of the guards,” Michael said.
“Way ahead of you.”
“Excellent. We’ll have to move quickly, before their guard patterns change and they’re alerted to the fact someone is missing from the ranks.” Michael leaned one hand beside the door and lifted a lab coat from a hook. “We can use his sequence key to gain access to the vault.”
“His what key?”
Michael gave him a bloodshot stare. “For heaven’s sake, tell me you searched his pockets, at least.”
Mitch shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to go back. But if we get stopped, you let me do the talking.”
“That’s a terrifying idea.”
Mitch opened the door and peeked out. Nobody there. He stepped out into the hall, pulling Michael along with him. Behind them, the door clicked shut.
It was hard to walk between the containers with Michael hanging off of his shoulder, but they had no choice. He ended up crabbing sideways, accidentally bumping the gun on the steel wall.
They got to the end of the alley and Mitch poked his head around the corner, breathing hard, expecting to see a guard. But no one was there waiting for him.
He opened the door to the office and pulled Michael inside. “Don’t let the door shut on us. It’ll lock.”
Michael leaned against the wall and used the splintered portrait of the president to prop the door open a crack. He nodded at the unconscious guard. “What happened to him?”
“He voted for the other guy.” Mitch felt for a pulse at Crew-cut’s throat.
“Still alive?”
“Yeah. But he’s gonna have a hell of a headache.”
Michael leaned against the wall, looking drained. “Be best if you killed him. He’ll only give us away.”
“I don’t operate like that.”
“That could be part of your problem.”
Mitch ignored him. He felt through the guy’s pockets and found a roll of Tums, a toothpick in a plastic wrapper, and a couple of long black magazines loaded with ammo for the gun. He jammed those into his back pocket.
He also found a blank white card, half the size of a credit card and twice as thick, with a metal strip at one end and a slowly changing code blinking at the other. He held it up. “This it?”
“Well, now. That’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” Michael pushed off the wall and took it from him. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“We’re both gonna look a lot dumber, we get caught hanging around here. Come on.” He pushed past Michael and peeked out the door. He still didn’t see anyone. “This place is way too empty. Giving me the creeps.”
Michael squinted at the key. “Their guard pattern just changed. We’ve only got a minute before they realize your friend here isn’t in the little boys’ room.”
Mitch swallowed. “Which way?”
Michael pointed to the right. Mitch pulled Michael’s arm over his shoulders again and headed down the aisle. Twenty yards away, Arthur Givens came around a corner, followed by a pair of guys in suits. They stared at each other for a shocked second before everybody pulled out guns.
Mitch held on tight to Michael’s arm and dove between the nearest two containers. Michael hit the ground wrong and grunted. Behind them, the guns jackhammered. Bullets sparked off the metal containers and the concrete floor.
Mitch hauled Michael to his feet. “Come on!” He sprinted for the far end of the alley, dragging Michael along, trying to keep him from slamming into the wall.
They got around the corner just as the two suits reached the far end of the alley. Mitch brought up the stumpy little submachine gun and squeezed the trigger. It stuttered out a plume of fire and noise, making the two suits dive for cover. When he stopped, his ears rang. Spent brass casings jingled across the concrete at his feet. People started shouting across the warehouse.
“Reload!” Michael climbed to his feet, his legs shaking.
“What?” Mitch felt sick and hyped up at the same time. His pulse thudded in his ears. He wanted to run and hide, but anywhere he hid could get him killed.
So could standing out in the open, he realized. He could get lost fast. This row of containers looked just like the last one. The place was a maze. “Which way?”
“There!” Michael pointed down the aisle at a gray box, twenty feet long. It was different from the rest, heavy duty. Thick steel plates. This must be the vault, Mitch figured.
Michael reached for Mitch’s gun. “Reload, for God’s sake. You’re empty.”
Mitch grabbed Michael and led him, stumbling, to the vault. Instead of a roll-up door on the end, it had two solid slabs of metal with black-and-yellow danger stripes painted over the toothed edge where they met. A little control box on the side had a red glowing light on top.
The echoes of running footsteps came at them, but Mitch couldn’t tell exactly where they were coming from. He looked down at the gun, trying to figure out how to reload it. It took him a second to find the answer staring back at him. There was a tab at the bottom of the grip, where the magazine went.
“Christ.” Michael slumped against the gray wall of the vault, breathing hard. “Hand me the gun, will you?”
Mitch pulled the gun back out of Michael’s reach. “I got it. Open the damn door.” He pressed the tab, and the empty magazine slipped out. The new one went in easy. He yanked back the cocking lever on top. It made a satisfying metal swoosh and click.
Michael reached over and fumbled with the card key until he got it slotted into the front of the little box. It beeped twice. The light turned green.
The doors hissed and swung open, letting out a puff of mist. Lights clicked on inside the vault. Mitch pulled Michael inside.
The air was unexpectedly cold, walk-in freezer cold, and it nipped at his skin. Polished steel drawers lined the walls. At the far end, lights blinked across a control panel of some kind. A button glowed green just inside the hatch. Mitch hit it. The doors hissed closed, sealing them inside.
“What’s in here?” Mitch whispered, looking down the long row of steel cabinets. His breath fogged the air. “Weapons, right? Exactly what the hell kind of weapons are we talking about here?”
“Weapons of last resort.” Michael’s face showed awe for the first time. Soft blue lights on the drawers winked on and off, lighting up his pale skin. “Humans may not be the highest form of life in the universe. But we can invent things to make up for that.”
“So what are we up against? What is the Archangel?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Mitch stepped closer. “Try me.”
Michael gave him a measuring look, then nodded. “‘Behold,’” he recited, “‘a sweeping wind came from the north, and a great cloud on it. There was brightness round about it, and gleaming fire. And there was written in it lamentation, and mournful song, and woe. Behold, I bring a sword upon you, and your high places shall be utterly destroyed. I will scatter your bones round your altars. The cities shall be made desolate, and the mountains utterly laid waste. And Man shall fall slain, for the end is come.’”
Goose bumps stood up on Mitch’s arms. “What’s that from?”
“The Book of Ezekiel. Old Testament.”
Mitch stared at him.
“We have to stop the Archangel,” Michael said. “Before it can get the black box.”