Chapter Sixteen

T he research facility was run-down and surprisingly shabby. The pale-blue walls had faded, and dirty handprints and assorted stains marred every surface. The linoleum, which might once have been glossy with industrial wax was scored with deep, black grooves and scuff marks. A glance inside some of the glassed-in offices revealed piles of paperwork and garbage strewn about as if in the aftermath of a storm.

For now, there wasn’t much Savage could do except follow the rest of the procession as they moved deeper into the facility. He couldn’t break away from them like he had at the Pegasus building. Unlike his previous mission, his sole focus now was to stay close to Carlson and make him feel superior and secure in the thought that no one would try to take him down in a building like this.

Well, he was there to do precisely that, if indirectly, but the man didn’t know that. For all he knew, Jeremiah was merely one of the new guys. His scheming and plotting notwithstanding, the executive seemed to trust his inner circle despite not knowing a thing about them. It wasn’t a terribly clever trait, but it was one he could exploit.

Carlson looked like he was recovering from his earlier condition fairly quickly. He didn’t say much as the man in charge of securing what was carried in and out of the facility explained the process to him.

“It’s not easy to move an entire scientific testing facility,” one of the team explained. “I was here for about five days, talking to the people who run this place as they complained about the problems that arise when you move tests in progress. As it turns out, jostling a collection of Petri dishes in an armored car isn’t good for the percentages or something.”

That man has to be stripped of the armor he’s wearing , Savage decided. He recognized it from some of the military installations he’d been in. There were power functions to the armor that allowed the people wearing it to carry heavier weapons and take heavier fire. Of course, they weren’t as good as the full suits they had started to roll out for the grunts in the Marine Corps. And no, he didn’t begrudge soldiers some way to keep themselves alive in the field of battle, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that if the big man in armor noticed that he wasn’t a part of the original security team, there wasn’t much that he could do to defend himself. He could handle men in Kevlar, especially with a knife. But that man’s suit wouldn’t give him any opportunities like that. Worse, a punch from one of those bad boys would dent his face in ways that didn’t buff out.

Oh, well, closed-casket funerals are all the rage these days, he thought with a small sneer.

“I don’t care about a few ruined tests,” Carlson said and rubbed his temples with obvious irritation. “These people work for me, and I’m sure they won’t mind if their work is pushed back a couple of weeks so long as the funding checks continue to come in.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir,” the man inquired and looked sheepish. “Why are you moving all this out of here?”

“I do mind,” he grumbled. “But considering that I’m happy with how you’ve managed to get the move back on track, you should know that a few weeks’ delay in the deadline of these tests is a small price to pay. The people who have taken over the company are the kind of buzzkills who don’t see the big picture. They’ll bring everything to a stop for months or maybe years and…you’d believe me if I told you that I was doing this to save the world, right?”

“Sir, with all due respect,” the man in armor said, and Savage could see a small smile on his face. “For three hundred large for two month’s work, I’ll believe whatever the fuck you want me to believe.”

“I normally don’t approve of that kind of language used by my employees,” Carlson said with a small smile. “But I am paying you a small fortune for your opinion. And I’m not some prude who gets all up in arms about language.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Wasn’t this a happy circle jerk, Savage mused. They continued deeper and deeper into the dingy facility. Most of the place was abandoned, but there were a handful of labs still in operation. Some of the men and women in white coats seemed to be in a hurry, and from the looks of things, they were forced to work around the clock and with minimal supplies.

He couldn’t help but wonder what it was they were doing that was so important. Saving the world? Was the man that egomaniacal, or did he really think that what he did there was saving the world?

Of course, there was always the possibility that he was merely a lying prick, but that wasn’t as much of a problem. He didn’t really care whether they could stop global fucking warming at this point. His task was simply to stop him.

At the same time, he didn’t trust his own moral compass that much. He knew he had a couple of screws loose in his head. But then, there were guys like Anderson. Men who really had an idea of what people were supposed to fight for, and Jeremiah, while he lacked that, knew how to identify someone whose ideas he could trust. He also knew how to spot the kind of men who sounded like they knew right from wrong but were more than willing to do wrong. These were simply pricks who knew all the secret codewords to make people follow them.

Carlson was one of those. Sometimes, they learned the tricks but sometimes, they were born with them. They lacked the earnestness that came with men like Anderson. They sure as hell could fake it, though.

The executive and his security chief continued to talk and walk. Savage knew he needed to get away. The two men had resumed their useless chatter about how they were saving the world, and as distracted as they were, he decided he couldn’t stand around watching it. He wasn’t sure his gag reflex could take it.

As they circled a corner, he waited until he was in the back of the line and broke away from the group. This place was fucking massive, and if he was ever going to find something that would help their cause, he needed to do it on his own. He had a feeling that the planned tour wouldn’t cover any of the really interesting places.

“So, how was the tour?” Anja asked once he was alone. He stood in front of a men’s lavatory and could smell the sharp odor of urine.

“Can you see me?” he asked and looked around. A couple of cameras and sensors were clearly visible.

“Well, the security in the facility is all run on a closed circuit and not connected to the internet,” she said but her chuckle sounded smug. “I needed physical access.”

“Hi, there,” he grumbled under his breath. “My name’s Physical Access. I’ve heard all the jokes. You don’t need to make it worse. My parents really hated me, and that’s all you need to know.”

“It’s still better than Jeremiah Savage if you ask me,” she mused aloud.

“Nobody asked you, Russian hacker-lady,” he retorted.

“I heard that,” she hissed.

“Well, I did say it aloud,” he reminded her. “So, now that you’re patched into the camera feeds, do you have any idea of what I’m looking for? Do I need to find a server room or something? Hard drives?”

“Oh, please,” Anja sneered. “They have the whole place under a web of wireless connections. I couldn’t get in from outside, but now that we’re inside, this whole damn place is my playground. I copied all the files they have online. They might be moving everything out, but they still keep files on what kinds of tests they’re running. If I’m honest, I don’t understand a word of what they’re talking about, but then, I don’t have to.”

“Let me guess,” Savage said with a sigh. “It’s need to know, and I don’t need to know?”

“Do you really want to know what Anderson and Monroe are doing?” she asked.

“Not particularly.” He chuckled. “Then again, I don’t like being kept out of the loop. The last time that happened, my people died, and I’m still angry about that. If people start dying because Anderson and Monroe think they know more about the situation than someone with boots on the ground, you can tell them that the savage they wanted is the savage they’ll get.”

“Oh, is that a threat?” she asked. Her voice was dead serious now, and he could practically see her suddenly sit straight and rigid in her chair.

“It’s a promise, actually,” he replied, and his voice gained an extra edge of chill. “But if you’d like to pass it on as a threat, I don’t mind.”

The Russian was silent for a few moments. “How do you do that?” she asked, her voice a little softer. “Get your voice all mean and menacing like that? It’s a neat trick to have up your sleeve, you know.”

“I know. But there’s no secret. You simply really have to mean it. Do I actually have to do anything, or should I stick around until you have everything you need?”

“I need you to keep the connection for thirty seconds,” she said and laughed. “Come on, you should know that’s not how all this works, right? I’ve already copied everything I’ll get from their digital files. You need to look around and see if you can find some hard copies that you can whisk away. Oh, and maybe see if there’s any trace of where they’re sending everything. I haven’t been able to find anything on my end.”

“Sure,” he said softly as he wound his way slowly through mostly empty halls. “Wait—back on the Pegasus building, on the roof, where was all this alacrity then?”

“I needed to crack the encryption, that’s all. Once it was done, a couple of seconds, tops. Seriously, what is it about the speed of connections these days that you don’t understand?”

“The core concept, I think.” Savage kept his voice low and moved cautiously. He could hear people talking. “Too many TV shows. You know, I’ve heard that they rot your brain.”

“Shut up.” She sounded amused like she tried to be serious but actually enjoyed herself a little too much. “There are some scientists ahead of you, packing up a lab. Apparently, the stuff is a little too delicate for the rough hands of the security boys. If there’s anything to be learned, it’s from them.”

“Look at you, being all helpful,” he murmured. He couldn’t say any more as he approached the group of men and woman in crisp white lab coats. Unfortunately, it was the only thing that looked crisp about these people. They looked like they had been run ragged.

His training told him to find a weak link. The people who conducted experiments in a facility like this would be secretive, so he wouldn’t be able to learn anything from them. He needed to find someone who was capable enough to know about what was going on but didn’t care enough about it to keep quiet.

There were a few extra steps to that, but those escaped him at the moment. He needed to play it by ear. After a casual survey of the group, he identified his target, a younger-looking woman who labeled the vials the rest of the scientists were packing up. She didn’t have the stuffy professor look of the man who pretended to read notes while looking at his phone, but since she was in charge of labeling and not packing, she would at least be knowledgeable of what was happening on location.

“Hey, how’s everything going around here?” Jeremiah asked casually and tucked his hands in his pockets as he assumed the look of a bored security guard.

“We’ve been here for the past fifteen hours trying to get everything wrapped up before the weekend,” the woman said and didn’t bother to look up from her work. “How do you think we’re doing?” She did, indeed, look exhausted and her voice dripped sarcasm.

He tilted his head and his gaze slid across the stacked packages. The writing on the labels was a series of numbers and letters. They looked like some sort of algorithm, he decided. Maybe an obscure filing system but with vials instead of files?

“I thought the bigwigs were paying overtime for this,” he ventured.

“Yeah, well, they said they needed it done before the weekend, and you’re crazy if you think I’ll hand my life’s work over to the bozos handling the transport,” she replied and finally turned from her work to peer at him from behind a thick pair of glasses. “Some offense intended.”

“Some taken,” he replied with an easy grin. As scientists went, she wasn’t quite what the stereotype demanded. While yes, she had to be legally blind without those glasses of hers and there was a ragged look to her features, she looked normal with her thick brown hair wound in a bun over her head. He should have known better than to trust in stereotypes.

Her hard look at him softened marginally. She sighed and shook her head, then rubbed her eyes under her glasses.

“I’m sorry,” she said and shrugged apologetically. “It’s been a long month and a half, and I’m stressed because it’s finally over. Soon, anyway. Hi, I’m Dr. Jessica Coleman, one of the…well, I was one of the senior researchers around here. I’m not sure how long that’ll last, though.”

“What do you mean?” Savage asked and blinked when he realized that the woman had actually extended her hand and offered her name as a form of a polite greeting. “I’m sorry…Raymond Burrows. I was just moved here since Mr. Carlson came to oversee the last day of moving himself. Well, he thinks it’ll be the last day, but who knows at this point, right?”

“Right.” Coleman shook her head dismissively. “I mean, we want to have everything done here so we can actually continue with our work. There’s nothing we want more, but at the same time, all the stuff we’ve worked on here—in some cases, for years—could be ruined if improperly stored. Worse, you dumbasses won’t let any of our people ride along in your damn armored cars, which means we have to anticipate that anything you might do will fuck things up and prepare for that. It’s been stressful.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more stressful than having to anticipate the actions or lack thereof of stupid people.” He deliberately injected a note of sympathy into his tone. “And that’s coming from one of the aforementioned dumbasses. Although, in my defense, we don’t actually work for the same company. They manage all the moving. We only handle the personal protection.”

“Oh, right,” Coleman replied with a nod. “You know, they never actually gave us a reason for why we’re moving, Yeah, they simply up and told us that the facility would close, fed us a bullshit line about how the funding was drying up in this region and if we wanted to continue to receive grants for our work, we would have to move to a more accessible location. Which would make sense if we worked in some charitable organization, but this is a company-run lab.”

“Hey, you know as much as I do,” he responded with an offhand shrug. Well, he wasn’t Savage anymore. He was this Raymond fellow and probably liked surfing and taking long walks on the beach when he wasn’t writing poems or playing a ukulele or something.

“I doubt it,” Coleman replied dryly. “What we’re transporting here is volatile, so unless Mr. Carlson has put in for the paperwork to move it across state lines, we’ll still be in North Carolina. That, along with the fact that the stuff needs to be kept secured… Seriously, this Zoo crap is a frigging nightmare.”

“The Zoo, huh? I’ve actually spent some time in the area and even made a couple of trips inside the jungle. That considered, your stuff might be in better hands than you think.”

“But I thought you weren’t going to transport anything?” Coleman asked with a smirk as she tugged something out of her pocket. “But I need to get to work. These vials won’t pack themselves. That said, you should give me a call. We can grab a drink and you can tell me more about the safe hands my life’s work is in.”

“Fair enough.” Savage grinned broadly, took the card, and noted that the number inscribed on it was a personal number. “I think I might do that when we both don’t have our bosses riding us like rented mules.”

“I look forward to it,” she said, and he moved casually away. He’d learned everything that he could from this place, and what he needed to do was get the hell out before one of the men he’d left incapacitated woke up and tried to call for help.