He pushed her away from him. “What? Are you mad?!”
He looked exactly the way Kate had two days ago in that van when David had questioned her.
She leaned in again. “Please. You have to trust me. I need your help. I need to find those children.”
He searched her face, then puckered like he had tasted something awful and couldn’t spit it out. “Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, some security drill or sick game, but I told you I don’t know anything about those children — if there are any. I’ve just heard rumors.”
“Where would they keep them?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never even seen the subjects. I just have access to the labs.”
“Guess. Please, I need your help.”
“I don’t know… the residential wings I assume.”
“Take me there.”
He waved his card at her, “Hello? I don’t have access. I just told you, I can only get into the labs.”
Kate looked down at her card. “I bet I can.”
The security guard watched as the woman accosted the man, took the phone from him, then grabbed him and whispered in his ear — possibly a threat. The man certainly looked scared. They had just had another seminar on sexual harassment, but it was mostly about men making women have sex with them. So this wasn’t that. But it could be something. The guard picked up the phone. “Yeah, this is post seven, I think we may have a problem in Bell Primary.”
CHAPTER 52
Immari Corp. Research Complex
Outside Burang, China
Tibet Autonomous Region
David waited in line as they processed the security guards through. The structure was massive — beyond anything he expected. Three giant vase-shaped cooling towers reached into the sky, billowing white smoke into the clouds. They loomed over the buildings.
The complex must be some kind of combined hospital/medical facility and power plant. Other trains were arriving — from other tracks. All the personnel must be shipped in from off-site — there was a very wide quarantine zone around the site — maybe even a hundred miles. Why? The cost would have been staggering. Building something like this in the middle of nowhere and carting supplies and personnel in every day.
“Sir!”
David looked up. His turn. He swiped the card. A red beep. He looked over. He had it backwards. He quickly flipped the card, got a silent green beep, and proceeded into the building.
Now the hard part: where to go.
Another thought tickled the back of his mind: Kate, she was in way over her head. He had to finish his part and get to her, fast.
He found a map on the wall — the emergency escape route. There was no reactor room on the floor. In fact, based on where the water vapor towers had been, he didn’t think it was even in this building.
He moved out of the main corridor, following the flow of mostly men into an open area with rows of lockers. Most of the guards were either conversing with each other or grabbing weapons and radios and heading off.
He heard a few guards talking about the power plant, and he followed them, grabbing a radio and side arm from the rack before he left. The rear exit to the small security building opened onto a small courtyard, and David got a glimpse of the three buildings beyond: the enormous power plant, a building without many windows, maybe a medical facility, and a smaller building with windows and the Immari Corporate Flag Flying from the roof — probably the administrative center.
The men ahead of him were lost in a conversation about the upcoming World Cup game.
David reached back to feel the backpack, wondering if he would have enough explosives. Probably not. The place was much bigger than he had expected.
At the entrance to the power plant, an obese guard sat on a barstool, inspecting the IDs of each man entering and consulting a printed page on the podium in front of him. He checked off the group of World Cup fans, then extended his sausage fingers to David without a word.
David handed over the ID. In the line outside the train, he had scratched the picture mostly off, just as a precaution. Hopefully it would work.
“What the hell happened to your badge?”
“My dog.”
The man half snorted and began searching the list. His face slowly contorted, as if the list had turned to a language he couldn’t read. “I don’t have you down for today.”
“That’s what I said when they woke me up this morning. Now if you’re saying I can go, I’m out of here.” David reached for the ID.
The list master threw up a sausage hand. “No, hold on now.” He buried his head in the list again and took a pen from behind his ear. He glanced from the ID back to the list every few seconds, scrawling “Conner Anderson” at the bottom of the page in childish block letters. He handed the ID back to David and sausage waved the next guy in line.
The next room was some kind of lobby with a receptionist at a desk and two guards talking. They eyed him as he walked past, then resumed talking. David found another emergency evacuation route poster and began making his way to the reactor section.
To his relief, his card worked on every door he came to. He was almost to the reactor room.
“Hey, stop.”
David turned around. It was one of the guards from the lobby.
“Who are you?”
“Conner Anderson.”
The guard looked confused, then drew his gun. “No you’re not. Don’t move.”
CHAPTER 53
Barnaby looked as scared as Kate felt. Somehow it made her feel more confident: being the leader of the conspiracy.
Her confidence waned slightly when she saw the skinny Asian guard reading a comic book outside the double doors to the residential wing. When he saw them, he tossed the thin staple of pages on the table and watched them approach the card reader on the wall.
Kate scanned her card. Green.
She pushed the door open and took a step inside. Barnaby followed, close on her heels.
“No! You— You scan too!” The guard pointed at Barnaby, whose eyes grew wide as he stepped back, like he was about to be shot.
“You scan.” The man pointed at the scanner.
Barnaby clutched his card to his chest, then swiped it. Red.
The guard rose. “ID.” He reached toward Barnaby.
The blonde scientist backed into the wall, dropping his ID. “She made me do it. She’s crazy!”
Kate stepped between them. “It’s ok, Barnaby.” She picked up the ID and handed it to him. “I wanted him to walk me to work, but it’s ok.” She put a hand on the small of his back and pushed him away. “It’s ok. See you later, Barnaby.” She turned back to the guard, held up her ID and swiped it again. “See — green.” She punched through the door and waited for a second.