Page 66 of Jacob

Nick was done. Jacob, usually a control freak, would have checked the gear but there was no time. And really no need. Nick knew what he was doing. There were two big heavy duffels on the floor. Jacob shouldered one, Nick shouldered the other and they headed out to the service elevator.

Ready for war.

* * *

Alex pretendedto be weaker than she was, though her legs still felt unsteady. She was feeling stronger but didn’t let that show.

“Come,” the Colonel commanded and she looked up, blinking.

A touch of the taser, just a touch, was enough to shock her with pain.

“Come,” he repeated impatiently and gripped her elbow. She was on shaking legs. He lifted her almost bodily, steadying her when she risked falling to the floor. “With me.”

Still holding her elbow in a painful grip, he started walking to the door.

Alex tripped over her own feet and he shook her, hard. With his other hand, he grasped her shoulder painfully, fingers digging into the muscle. The Colonel stuck his face close to hers, cold eyes boring into hers.

“You will now follow me and you will not waste my time, am I clear?”

The hand, digging into her shoulder so painfully, clenched harder, then lifted and he brandished the prod. When he pressed a button, it emitted that crackling sound which she knew was connected to blinding pain. “I can reduce you to a whimpering heap on the floor, after which I will have one of my men drag you, not carry you. Is that clear?”

Her mouth trembled. She couldn’t pull in enough air to talk.

“Is that clear?”he roared, and she nodded frantically.

“Say it!”

“I—I will follow you,” she stammered.

He grabbed her elbow again and started walking fast. Alex had to scramble to keep up and had to work hard not to stumble. It took everything she had as she tried to coordinate her limbs.

They exited the room and two guards came to attention. The Colonel snarled something in Russian and they walked down a corridor to an elevator. Alex stumbled and one of the guards took her other arm in a painful grip and they entered the elevator practically carrying her. At one point her toes were dragging on tiles. The elevator took them down three floors and when they exited, she realized that they had reached the BSL-4 level.

Instinctively, Alex looked around. The lab was a room inside a room, like a separate fortress. They were in the outer room, which would be secure even without the massive safeguards of the inner lab.

It was freezing cold. She shivered and instinctively tried to hug herself for warmth, but her arms were held securely.

The men’s steps echoed off the concrete walls.

The BSL-4 lab had security cameras posted under the ceiling, but there was no light indicating they were turned on. She had no way of knowing if they were activated or not.

They moved toward the entrance of the inner lab. A series of monitors with warning signs in red flashed, detailing the risks and compulsory safety protocols.

The Colonel and the guard holding her showed no interest in the warning signs. She imagined that the signs were automated. She also imagined that the Colonel was aware that there was only one risk, and he and his men were inoculated against it.

No matter what he said, she wasn’t.

She was being force marched past the airlock into a room with weaponized variola. And she wasn’t wearing protection.

They entered the lab without protective gear, which alarmed her at the deepest possible level. She’d never entered a BSL-4 lab without being protected from head to toe. A BSL-4 lab is brimming with danger, an environment totally hostile to humans. Entering basically naked, without any protection, felt like walking off a cliff without a parachute. Unthinkable. Her feet dug into the floor in instinctive protest, but she was carried forward against her will by the two soldiers.

It felt like being marched to her death.

The Colonel’s vise-like hold on her upper arm tightened painfully. “Stop wriggling,” he commanded coldly.

It was like stepping into a minefield. She didn’t know this lab, she didn’t know who ran it. She had no idea how careful they were. If smallpox were here, the least movement could shatter a vial.

Even worse, they weren’t closing the airlock. It was such an important part of her working day, passing through the airlock, hearing the hiss of pressurized air, knowing that every precaution was being taken. If anything happened in this room, the virus would definitely escape.

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