The Doomsday Key (Sigma Force 6)

Creed covered his mouth and nose.

The stench struck like a slap to the face. The air was muggy, hot, and smelled like a mix of brine, dead fish, and rotted meat. Monk wanted to turn tail and run out, but Painter had related his discussion with Gray.

About mushrooms.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Monk freed his camera, ready to document it. Creed joined him. He handed over a respirator from the anteroom. Monk pulled it over his face gratefully.

At least someone’s thinking…

The respirator’s filters took the edge off the stink. Able to breathe, he headed to the closest bed. The mushrooms were growing out of watery black mulch that looked oily.

Creed slipped on a pair of latex gloves and joined him. He shook open another glove. “We should get a sample of the fungus.”

Monk nodded and set about recording it all.

Creed reached toward one of the mushrooms. He delicately grabbed it by the base and pulled it up. It lifted freely—but with it came a fleshy chunk of something attached to it. Creed shuddered and dropped it in disgust. It splashed into the wet mulch, shivering the surface like a soup of loose gelatin.

Only then did Monk recognize the growth medium for the mushrooms.

Clotted blood.

“Did you see…?” Creed stammered. “Was that…?”

Monk had noted what Creed’s mushroom had been attached to. It was a kidney. And from the size of it, possibly human.

Monk waved Creed back to the gruesome task. “Get a sample.”

With his camera recording, Monk moved down the long bed of mushrooms. The smallest were closest to the door. They were white as bone. But the mushrooms grew larger along the row, gaining a richer hue of crimson.

Monk noted a couple of brown stalks poking out of the blood. He lowered his camera for a closer look. They were not stalks. With a cold chill, he realized they were human fingers.

He reached and pinched one of the fingers with his prosthetic hand. He pulled the finger up, dragging a hand out of the muck. As he raised it higher, he saw it was attached to a forearm. Mushrooms grew out of the flesh.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the limb back into the tank. He didn’t need to see any more. Entire bodies lay buried in the blood, fertilizer for the mushrooms.

He also noted the dark brown skin of the arm, an uncommon sight in snow-white Norway. Monk recalled the farm site in Africa, the one destroyed in a night of bloodshed and fire.

Had more than corn been harvested from there?

Monk found himself breathing harder. He moved quickly to the end of the row. Here the mushrooms had matured into thick stems topped by ribbed pods. They looked fleshy and fibrous.

With his prosthesis, Monk nudged one of the pods. As he touched it, the bulb contracted in a single squeeze. From its top, a dense powdery smoke puffed outward and spread quickly through the air.

Fungal spores.

Monk danced back, thankful for the respirators. He did not want to breathe in those spores.

As if signaled by the first pod, others began to erupt. Monk retreated, chased by swirling clouds of spores.

“We have to get out of here!” Monk yelled across the room, his words muffled by the respirator.

Creed had just collected a sample of the mushroom and tied it into his loose latex glove. He glanced at Monk, not understanding. But his eyes widened as more of the puffballs exploded into the air.

They had to get back out into the hall.

Suddenly, overhead vents opened in the ceiling, perhaps triggered by a biological sensor. Foam jetted out of the ceiling in a massive flush. It spread over the floor and piled up quickly. Monk ran under one of the vents and almost got knocked down by the force of it. He slipped and slid.

By the time he reached Creed, the foam was waist deep.

“Go!” Monk hollered and pointed toward the door.

Together they slammed through the first door and into the anteroom. It was also full of foam, all the way to the ceiling. They had to paw their way through it blind.

Monk hit the hallway door first.

He shoved the handle and shouldered into the door. It refused to budge. He shoved again and again, but he knew the truth.

They were locked inside.

12:08 A.M.

As smoke choked the lobby, Painter vaulted over the low wall. Fires still burned on the floor. Blood made the marble slippery. He had his pistol out and skidded straight into the masked gunman who had barreled through the front door. Focused on the bar, the assailant failed to see Painter in time. Painter fired point-blank into his chest.

The impact spun the attacker away, blood flying.

One down.

People screamed and fled out into the street or hid behind furniture. Painter sprinted straight across the open lobby.

Ahead, at the entrance to the Limelight Bar, the senator’s bodyguard appeared in a shooter’s stance, arms out, cradling his service weapon. He had taken cover behind a potted plant. It wasn’t enough shelter. The other two gunmen already had their sights fixed on the entrance.

Fern leaves shredded under a barrage of machine-gun fire. The man was knocked flat on his back. Painter never slowed. He leaped to a chair outside the bar and flew headlong into the space. He landed on one of the leather sofas and shoulder-rolled to his feet.

He had only seconds.

A cascade of gunfire tore into the room. It arced across the wall behind the bar, shattering bottles and mirrors.

Painter took in the room with one glance.

The senator was not in sight.

The bodyguard would not have left him in the open. There was only one door leading out of this place. The restroom at the back. Painter ran for it and slammed through the door. A bullet burned past his ear. The shot had come from inside the bathroom.

Senator Gorman stood with his back to a row of sinks, a pistol in his hand, pointed at Painter.

Painter raised his arms. “Senator Gorman!” he called out firmly. “I’m General Metcalf’s man!”

“The DoD investigator?” Gorman lowered his pistol, his face collapsing with relief.

Painter rushed forward. “We have to get out of here.”

“What about Samuels?” The senator glanced back at the door.

Painter guessed that was the bodyguard. “Dead, sir.” He motioned the senator toward the stained-glass window at the back of the restroom.

“It’s barred shut. I looked.”

Painter shoved the window sash open. An ornate set of iron bars did block the way. He punched his palm into them, and the grate popped free and swung open on its hinges. During his earlier canvass of the meeting place, he had removed the bolts.

Never hurt to secure a back door.

“Out!” Painter commanded and offered the senator a knee to climb up.