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  The room had been thoroughly ransacked and searched, but everything Jan had brought him had been in the briefcase he had taken to the office center; that much, he thought, was in their favor.

  Chant took a series of deep breaths to relax his muscles and fight back the black tidal wave of anxiety that was welling in him. Then he took his loaded 45 from his briefcase, closed the door behind him. He lay down on the bed, put the 45 on his belly and his hands behind his head. If they had meant to kill Jan, Chant thought, then she was already dead, and if they had known about him, they would have set up an ambush. There was nothing to do now but wait until morning—or, if Jan were forced to talk, they made the mistake of coming back for him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  His senses finely tuned to the slightest nuance of tension in the people around him, Chant passed through the warehouse employees’ entrance of R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals the next morning. There were two checkpoints where he had to show credentials, but at neither one did anybody give any indication that they had been waiting for him and that he was walking into a trap; none of the guards, including Uwe von Deck, looked at him suspiciously. It appeared, Chant thought, that he would have the freedom of movement he needed—at least for a little while longer.

  Chant had decided that it was the last bit of business with the computer that had done Jan in; if the people at R.E B. had been suspicious of the woman beforehand, she would have been detained at the plant. Her activity had been discovered later, after her last day, probably because she had triggered some kind of warning mechanism inside the computer that indicated that an unauthorized copy of a program had been made. The fact that Jan had been alone in the offices for part of the day had condemned her.

  Chant knew that Jan would not betray him willingly, but it was only a matter of time before Blake’s people, using a sophisticated combination of drugs, mental and physical torture, compelled her to reveal the identity of the man to whom she had given the computer disc and other information And R.E.B’s logs would show that he was in the complex …

  He did not have a lot of time, Chant thought, and so he would waste none. The pile of pallets in which he had hidden his uniform had been moved during the night, but it made no difference; he had not planned to wait until the end of the shift. With Jan captured, finesse was a luxury he could no longer afford.

  “I’d like to meet you in Warehouse D, Politan,” Chant said to Chuck Politan in his normal voice, purposely not using the name Politan was going under in Houston.

  The tattooed man stopped and quickly turned, frowned uncertainly. “What’s up, Tom? Why did you call me—?”

  “My name’s not Tom, and I need to talk to you and the others around here who took part in the research project at Blake College. Try to get them to Warehouse D as soon as possible—now. You know who they are. Your lives depend on it. Trust me now, as you did once before when I told you you wouldn’t die.”

  Politan’s jaw dropped, and he stared at Chant. “Hey, your voice … you sound like that—”

  But Chant was already walking away, very conscious of the fact that an alarm could be sounded at any moment, in which case dozens of guards would be converging on him.

  He found the chief of security in his office, inside a small annex abutting the main administration building. “Excuse me, sir,” Chant said in his Scottish brogue “There’s trouble in D.”

  Uwe von Deck quickly rose from his chair, reached down to his side, and unsnapped the flap on a holster holding a Colt revolver. “What’s the matter, Marsh?”

  “I think you’d better come and see for yourself.”

  With Chant limping along behind him, the burly security chief hurried across the grounds of the complex to Warehouse D, a storage facility with only one sliding metal door at the front and a standard door at the rear. The building was really nothing more than a large maintenance shed, and housed two gasoline pumps.

  As they entered the shed through the front, Chant was relieved to see Politan and the others who had been with him at Blake College standing at the rear, in front of a pile of gasoline drums. The men were shuffling their feet as they nervously glanced at one another.

  “All right,” von Deck said sharply as he abruptly stopped walking. “Now, what seems to be the prob—Hey, what the hell?!”

  Chant had pushed the lower button on a control panel near the entrance, and now the great metal door came crashing down, leaving the interior of the shed only dimly lit by four bare bulbs suspended from the ceiling.

  “Each one of you is marked for death,” Chant said in his normal voice, which echoed slightly inside the shed, carrying easily to the opposite end.

  The guard started to grab for his gun. Chant’s right fist shot straight out and hit von Deck in the right shoulder, directly over a major nerve cluster; the man’s right hand spread open, and the Colt clattered to the concrete floor. The chief of security looked down at his paralyzed arm, as if he could not believe what had happened, then abruptly reached with his left hand across his body for his walkie-talkie. Again, Chant’s fist shot out, and von Deck’s left arm went limp. His face flushed with rage, the guard reared back and lifted his leg to deliver a powerful side kick. Chant, with speed that made his movements seem no more than a blur to the guard and ex-convicts watching, stepped inside the kick, spun, and brought his right elbow hard directly into the man’s solar plexus; von Deck dropped like a stone to the floor, where he writhed, clutched at his stomach, and gasped for breath.

  Chant unhurriedly bent down, took the walkie-talkie from von Deck’s belt, and picked up the gun. As the astonished ex-convicts slowly started to walk toward him, Chant stuck the Colt in his waistband, set the walkie-talkie on top of a nearby gasoline drum, then abruptly tore off his wig and mustache and tossed them aside.

  “Holy shit,” a man by the name of Roger Gray said. “Neil Alter.”

  “Not Neil Alter,” Chant said, glancing at each of the men in turn. “That’s not my name, any more than Tom Marsh is. My real name is John Sinclair. Some of you may have heard of me.”

  Politan, Gray, and one other man nodded; the two others simply gaped. Respect—and not a little fear—moved in the eyes of the men as they stared at the tall man with the iron-colored eyes and hair, a man they had all assumed was dead.

  “The reason I became involved in this business in the first place is the same reason I’m here now,” Chant continued evenly. “The man who owns both this plant and Blake College is responsible for the deaths of many innocent people, including a friend of mine. These people have been killed by men like you—ex-convicts carefully culled from a larger group of ex-convicts, then lured to places like this by promises of new identities, fresh starts, good jobs. Those promises were delivered on, but you weren’t told the price you’d all have to pay. You’re here for the sole purpose of forming a pool of unwitting assassins—men who, when the time comes, will be kidnapped, drugged, and hypnotized, then sent out like a zombie on a killing mission from which you won’t return.”

  Chant paused, reached down and grabbed the front of Uwe von Deck’s shirt, hauled the man to his feet. “Tell them I’m right, von Deck.”

  Still breathing hard, von Deck glared back at Chant, both fear and defiance in his dark eyes. Feeling had begun to return to his arms, and he feebly swung at Chant, who reached out and effortlessly caught the man’s fist in his hand. “Just answer my questions, von Deck, and I won’t hurt you again,” Chant continued. “Resist me, and you’re not going to have a chance to get your breath back Am I telling these men the truth?”

  The guard hesitated, glanced where Chant still held his fist in an iron grip, nodded. There were angry grunts from the other men, who had moved closer in a semicircle around Chant and von Deck Chant quickly but calmly related the sequence of events that had brought him to Blake College He told them about the deaths of the Greenblatts and Ron Press, the recent disappearance of Dale Reeves from their midst, and how Reeves had surfaced long enough to murder a union official
before jumping to his own death from a highway overpass—and he told them about the capture of Jan Through it all, the ex-convicts listened intently. Fear of Chant had vanished from their faces, but respect remained, and was intensified.

  “Thanks, Sinclair,” Roger Gray said, as Politan and the others nodded their affirmation.

  “I would strongly suggest that you men split,” Chant said. “You still come out ahead The new identities and backgrounds these people have cooked up for you are fairly solid, and they can’t very well blow the whistle on you without having to explain why they broke a number of federal and state laws to cook them up for you in the first place. You still have the chance to start new lives, as long as you don’t get into trouble and have people doing deep background checks on you.

  “If you’re leaving now, you might consider doing a bit of trashing on the way out I’m not talking riot, because there are too many guards. However, a fire here and there in the next twenty minutes might begin to pay them back for what they tried to do to you. Also, it would help me by providing a diversion; I’m going into the research section now to get the woman out before they damage or kill her.”

  If they hadn’t already.

  Chant’s words were abruptly punctuated by crackling from the walkie-talkie sitting on top of the gasoline drum. The crackling stopped, and a voice—tense, urgent—came on “Intruder! Intruder! Red alert! Pick up Thomas Marsh in the warehouse section! Bushy red hair and mustache, walks with a limp! The man’s a spy! Get him!”

  The ex-convicts glanced at one another, and Politan motioned for the others to come with him. They followed Politan to the rear of the shed, where they stood in a tight knot talking quietly but animatedly.

  “Where are they keeping the woman?” Chant asked von Deck, placing his fingers on a nerve cluster at the base of the man’s skull. “Tell me quickly.”

  “Preparation room,” von Deck gasped, wincing as pain shot down through his chest at the same time as air seemed to leak out of his lungs.

  “Tell me precisely how to get there after I go through this inside gate.”

  “Turn right—”

  “No,” Chant said, and pressed harder. The guard cried out, and Chant released the pressure slightly. “I’ll know if you’re lying; the next time you lie, I break both your collarbones. Think about that, because you know I’ll do it.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “No. Not if you tell me what I need to know.”

  “Commander von Deck, where are you?! We’ve got a spy on the grounds?”

  “Remember, one more lie, and I start to break things. Now, simply and clearly, tell me how I get to this preparation room after going into the first building beyond the gate.”

  “It’s in the first building,” von Deck said in a defeated voice, lowering his head and wincing, as if in anticipation of more pain “Immediately after entering the building, turn left and go to the end of that corridor. Then go right. The prep room is the first door on your right after you go through a set of swinging doors.”

  “Guard posts? Remember not to lie if you want the use of your arms for the next two or three months.”

  “It’s hard to tell how many men may be on free patrol, walking around.”

  “Just answer the question. How many fixed stations?”

  “Besides the one at the entrance gate, the only other fixed position in that part of the building is outside the preparation room.”

  “Which side of the swinging doors?”

  “The other side.”

  “The preparation room is where you drug and hypnotize the subjects?”

  The man nodded slightly, and Chant hit the security guard on the jaw with a straight right. The man crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  “Commander von Deck, where the hell are you!”

  Without even glancing at the men who were still gathered in a knot, talking, Chant strode purposefully to the back of the shed, reached for the doorknob.

  “Sinclair,” Chuck Politan said, “wait a minute.”

  With his hand on the knob, Chuck turned toward the men, watched as Roger Gray and another man rolled two drums of gasoline toward the opposite end of the shed.

  “You want a diversion, you’ll get one hell of a diversion,” Chuck Politan said with a broad grin that served to shrink the daggers on his cheeks “You give the word, this shed goes up—and that’s just for openers. We’ll give the folks who run this place plenty to think about When do you want her lit up?”

  Chant nodded toward the unconscious security guard. “Take him out and put him in a safe place. He’ll be out for at least a half hour, and I told him he wouldn’t be killed if he told me what I wanted to know.”

  “But—”

  “I want him out, Politan.”

  “He’ll never know.”

  “I’ll know. He won’t be awake soon enough to be a threat to anybody. Besides, he’s just an employee.”

  “Make sure you get von Deck out of here before you blow the place,” Politan called to one of the other men, then turned back to Chant as Roger Gray walked over to join them.

  “Chuck and I talked it over, Sinclair,” Roger Gray said. “You can use some help, and we’re going in with you.”

  Chant shook his head. “I’ll appreciate any diversion you can create, but I don’t want anyone with me. You’re both likely to get killed.”

  “What?” Politan said in mock dismay. “You think you can dodge bullets any better than we can?”

  “Yes,” Chant replied simply. “Stay in this section long enough to do what you want to do, then get out.”

  Politan and Gray glanced at one another, seemed to reach some kind of mutual, unspoken conclusion between themselves. It was the man with tattooed daggers on his cheek who voiced it.

  “Sooner or later Roger and I would have been dead anyway, Sinclair, if not for you and the lady,” Chuck Politan said “You got the guts to go in there after her, then Roger and I have the guts to run interference for you. The other guys will provide plenty of excitement for the guards You’re wasting time by arguing with us.”

  Chant nodded slightly, then turned toward the other men, one of whom was holding a book of matches. At his feet was a puddle of gasoline with liquid tributaries leading to at least a dozen other drums of gasoline, which the two other ex-convicts were busy opening. Gasoline was splashing on the concrete floor, spreading …

  “One minute,” Chant said curtly, glancing at his watch. “You’re going to have quite a blast here, so make sure you leave yourselves time to get out—and make sure that you take von Deck with you.”

  “We’ll do what you say, Sinclair,” the man standing over the spreading puddle of gasoline said. “You’ve got one minute from now go And good luck. Chuck, Roger—good luck.”

  Politan and Gray grabbed pickaxes from a pile of rusting tools, followed Chant through the door, and flanked him as he started to walk across the grounds toward the gate in the electrified fence surrounding the research section. Chant glanced at his watch, saw that he had fifty-five seconds. Security guards were running in all directions, searching. Two guards saw them emerge from the maintenance shed, stopped abruptly, and studied them.

  “Just keep walking,” Chant said in a low voice, angling away from the guards. “Make out as if nothing is wrong. They’re looking for a lone man with bushy red hair and a mustache.”

  Using his peripheral vision, Chant watched as the two guards turned away and ran off in opposite directions. He glanced at his watch … thirty seconds. The gate to the research section was a little less than forty yards away.

  Twenty seconds.

  Chant picked up the pace slightly, angling toward the gate. The two men flanking him, pickaxes on their shoulders, unhesitatingly followed, imitating Chant’s casual manner and stride.

  Ten seconds.

  Chant suddenly turned at a sharp angle, pulling the two other men with him, and started walking directly toward the gate, which was guarded b
y two men with Skorpion machine pistols. The guards looked up, exchanged startled glances at the sight of the three men striding purposefully toward them, then started to raise their machine pistols.

  Suddenly the ground shook as Warehouse D exploded a hundred yards away.

  Chant leaped forward, followed a split second later by Politan and Gray. A secondary explosion shook the ground again as Chant’s right fist came up under the jaw of the guard on the left. Chant ducked low under a burst of machine-pistol fire, spun, and brought his heel crashing into the other man’s sternum, crushing his chest and killing him instantly.

  Politan raised his pickax in the air, brought it crashing down on the heavy lock on the gate. Sparks flew, but the electricity did not pass through the wooden handle. Sirens began to wail, the piercing sound coming from all directions, as Roger Gray struck at the lock with his pickax. More sparks flew, but the gate sprang open. Chant leaped through the opening a fraction of a second before a hail of bullets from an automatic weapon ripped through the space where he had been standing. Gray suddenly cried out in agony, spun around, and fell as bullets tore through his chest.

  Chant, with Politan running beside him, sprinted the fifteen yards from the gate to the entrance of the first windowless building. Suddenly two guards appeared in the doorway directly ahead of them, Skorpions raised Without breaking stride, Chant pulled the Colt from his waistband, aimed and squeezed off two rounds. Holes opened in the foreheads of both guards, and they fell backward, their weapons firing harmlessly into the air.

  “Grab the other one!” Chant snapped as he scooped up one of the guards’ automatic pistols. “We’re going left! You watch our backs!”

  Politan dropped his pickax and grabbed the second Skorpion, then raced after Chant. Chant, sprinting ahead, suddenly heard shots behind him. He dived, rolled, came up on his feet facing in the other direction with the Colt in one hand and the machine pistol in the other Chuck Politan was kneeling in the center of the corridor, trading bursts of fire with a guard who had appeared from a doorway behind them. Suddenly the ex-convict cried out and clutched at his stomach as bloody holes exploded open in his back. As he fell forward, Chant fired a single round from the Colt into the guard’s throat. As the guard spun around and fell back into the room, Chant stepped back against the wall, turned, and used the Skorpion to cut down a guard who had suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor.