Casper parked the car approximately a mile away from the lab as marked on the maps found in her father’s files. After they hiked through the hilly terrain, he motioned Ashley down into the weeds, where he pulled out a set of binoculars.
Seemingly, he’d been right. Their escapade in leaving the hospital went unnoticed by the local news media. The one radio station that covered the town hadn’t had a mention of it. That was surprising considering they’d been shot at in the open daylight. Perhaps no one noticed because of the muted gunfire. Casper reasoned Jared had likely convinced the small local police department, if they’d attempted to become involved, that doing so would put a federal investigation in jeopardy. After all, Jared was still employed by the government.
For Casper, that didn’t mean good things. How many people in this town could be under Jared’s thumb? Was there a threat that Casper didn’t understand? Or was the operation so secretive that it hadn’t garnered any local scrutiny?
Through the lenses, Casper looked at the site. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot. In fact, just two. An argument could be made that the day shift had ended and they were operating with a skeleton staff, but Casper felt differently. According to the files, this lab had been decommissioned as part of sequestration.
There shouldn’t be anyone on-site.
The lab looked like any other nondescript, gray concrete building. No sign called attention to it. There were a few outdoor lights. Outside defenses looked relatively easy to get through. A chain-link fence. No razor wire. But from this distance, it would be hard to tell if the fence was electrified. Casper zeroed in on the one door he could see. It opened and out came two figures. He didn’t recognize them.
They were leaving the building unattended—at least that was what it looked like.
“Do you think it’s that simple?” Ashley asked as each man got in a car and drove off. Now the parking lot was empty.
“That no one’s inside? Maybe. Jared might be convinced we’ve left the area.”
“This seems like it should be our next step. Should we risk going inside?”
Casper rolled onto his back, taking a moment to think. Bright stars filled his vision. It was risky, but what else could they do? Seemingly the men were gone. This could be the place that would hold all the evidence they needed to prove Jared’s scheme, to find out where and when the biological attack was taking place, to finally end this nightmare.
This plan worried Casper, but they were also at a dead end. Who could he call? If the town wasn’t talking about the incident at the hospital, who knew what powers were keeping this secret or what threat they had in place to keep people quiet?
He turned back to Ashley. “Let’s see what Jared’s hiding.”
* * *
Ashley agreed with Casper’s plan to take a wide berth around the building. They approached it from the other side of their observation point. There were a few outdoor lights embedded in the dormer as they grew closer. Casper raised the firearm he had and shot out the lights.
Was this too easy? Did Jared and his henchmen feel so comfortable in their lawlessness that they didn’t fear discovery by anyone?
They neared the building under a shield of darkness and slowly made their way around to the door that had released the two men a few hours earlier. Casper shot the lights flanking the entrance, as well as placing a hole in the center of the surveillance camera. The door was held closed by what appeared to be another facial scanner.
Ashley’s heart dropped.
“Let’s just try it. Your father might be craftier than we think. He’s left a trail for us so far. Maybe he left a way for us to get in.”
Casper input the same code they used at the cabin. A shield opened up. Ashley set her face on level with the scanner. After a few moments, there was a whir and a faint snap.
Ashley placed her hand on the lever and pulled.
The door opened.
Her fingers tingled as Casper held the door open an inch.
Casper nudged her back and took the flashlight from his pocket. Ashley gripped the door and pulled it back wider. The air drifting out was dank, and Ashley pressed the back of her shirtsleeve to her nose. The stench reminded her of her time in the cadaver lab at medical school—hints of decay with an overwhelming smell of formaldehyde. Though here there was more of a notion of something medicinal.
Seemingly satisfied that the entry was safe, Casper stepped inside the cavernous hall and Ashley followed. The door swooshed closed behind them. Ashley swallowed over the notch in her throat.
The hall was lit with dim red lights. Casper walked forward, reaching behind him for Ashley’s hand and she grasped his. Sweat trickled down her back from the humidity. Considering how dry a climate Colorado had, the dense air inside the building seemed strange.
Casper’s flashlight bounced from side to side. At the end of the hallway was another door with a lock that resembled the same one on the outside of the building. They repeated the code. Just as before, only a scan of Ashley’s face was required for admittance.
The second door opened.
Why was that? All the times before something had been required from Casper, as well.
Ashley’s skin pricked.
Casper looked back at her, his eyes narrowed in question. Were they asking themselves the same thing? Each of them had a reason to go on. Did this building hold the secrets to finding Ashley’s father? Would Casper get the answers he was looking for about who was responsible for killing his partner? Despite their joint reservations, confirmed by Casper’s guarded movements into the next section of the building, they proceeded farther, though Casper’s grip on Ashley’s fingers tightened—almost uncomfortably.
Once they were through the next doorway, Casper dropped her hand.
Ashley shielded her eyes against the bright lights, blinking rapidly until her pupils constricted to regulate the images she was seeing. Casper turned and they were standing back-to-back at the edge of a circular room.
The first thing Ashley registered was the yellow, tri-circled emblem that denoted they were in the presence of potential biohazards. There were four large rooms, each enclosed with glass. Casper moved forward, Ashley trailing behind him, with the awestruck feeling of a kid seeing an amusement park for the first time.
Except what this building represented wasn’t exuberant fun, but death cultured secretly.
Each room was designed to fit a biosafety level—all the way up to level four—which meant they were experimenting with the deadliest pathogens.
“Looks like this lab wasn’t decommissioned after all,” Casper said.
Any response Ashley thought to say seemed moot. Who was funding this? Casper had made it clear that the United States didn’t participate in the development of these weapons anymore—that the Russians had verified it at one point in time. How could that be the case? Two towns having suffered from a frightening, engineered pathogen wasn’t a coincidence. Who other than Jared could be behind this? Considering the equipment alone and what it would take to maintain such an operation, this entity had to be requiring millions of dollars.
They kept walking forward. Each room had progressively more equipment. The first room, merely lab tables and microscopes. Little personal protective equipment was in view—things like gowns and face shields. Boxes of gloves lined the wall. Several notebooks sat in a bookcase close to the glass with large black lettering on the binders.
Ashley broke away from Casper and pressed her nose to the window. “Casper, come look at this.”
He sidled up next to her. A brief thought flashed into her mind. This is how people viewed newborns in the nursery. Faces up against the glass, breath misting in puffed exhalations, as they looked for their new bundle of joy wrapped in a pink or blue blanket.
Except nothing they were looking at held one ounce of joy.
On the back of each notebook was a letter and a number.
“It’s the same code the Russians used for their weapons programs.”
Ashley stepped away from the room and walked to the next one. The second room had enclosed hoods. From what Ashley remembered from her brief exposure to infectious disease medicine, level two safety was typically for “mild” infectious diseases. Mild in the sense that they were unlikely to kill the host. Things like measles and hepatitis. A little more caution required but exposure didn’t mean death. There was more protective clothing in view. An open cabinet held packaged gowns, face masks and goggles. There was a single door into the room from the hall.
Ashley walked to the next window, stopped and examined the inside of the room. “Casper, maybe we’re thinking about this in the wrong way.”
Outside this room was a box similar to the facial scanners they’d used to access the building. Controlled access was a requirement of a biosafety level three lab. Also, there were two doors to get in so airflow out could be controlled.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Casper said.
“Jared is working with someone within the Russian government to deploy this bioweapons attack, but why?”
“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to make that claim. Whoever is running this place is definitely using the Russian system, but it could also be a free agent. Someone who wants to cash in on the knowledge he has.”
“If we have access to this place, it means my father was here at some point. Do you think he could be aligned with them? That he turned to the other side?”
Casper looked at Ashley, his brown eyes dark as he considered her questions. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that—I can’t believe it. That you have access to this place...concerns me. This lab’s existence on the surface doesn’t mean anything nefarious. Perhaps it’s funded by a private entity. Perhaps they’re researching a cure for ES1 and they have these notes through CIA spies. I don’t think we have a smoking gun yet. Maybe your father is helping the good guys and he wanted other good people—” Casper motioned his hand between the two of them “—to find it to help keep it that way. To make sure it stayed in the right hands if he ever went missing. Maybe that’s what his files were intended to do.”
They passed the fourth room. Now they found the characteristic yellow pressurized suits hanging. The same style Ashley had found torn and discarded in Black Falls. Orange hoses hung from the ceiling.
Casper pointed to a door exiting the circle. “Let’s see what’s through there.”
Ashley followed. As soon as they were through the door, the raucous noises of animals bit into her ear. Metal clanged against metal. As they walked, Ashley identified several different types of animals. Mice. Rabbits. Monkeys.
Some looked listless in their cages. Were Casper and Ashley being exposed to something right now?
Casper turned to his right and stopped abruptly. He backpedaled, turned on his heel and grabbed Ashley by the shoulder.
“Ashley...”
“What don’t you want me to see?”
She pushed past him around the corner. There was a small alcove, and at the end of that alcove sat a man, secured to a chair with leather straps.
Her father.
Adrenaline surged through her body. She rushed forward, but felt Casper’s hand briefly try to catch hers.
“Ashley!”
Russell Drager’s cry for her wasn’t joyful.
It was angry.
She slowed, her heartbeat faltering.
“Go back!” he screamed at her.
The loud pop made her stop in her tracks. There was a loud clang as something metallic clattered against concrete. Ashley looked down.
A bomblet had crashed to the floor and vapors leached from its cracks.