Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

“I’ll do my best. I’ll let you know when I make a move. Meantime, be a good boy and don’t give those guys with the spearguns an excuse to use you for target practice.”

They were directly above the hemispherical-shaped structure at the hub of the lab complex. Zavala remembered it as the transit module where the airlock for the shuttle vehicle was located. Phelps swam under the transit module, past four minisubmersibles attached to the underside like feeding puppies, then up into a shaft that opened into a round pool at the center of a circular chamber.

Phelps removed his mask and communications unit, and Zavala followed his lead. The guards surfaced seconds later. By then, Phelps and Zavala had used a ladder on the side of the pool to climb out. The guards emerged from the pool, and all four men hung their air tanks and gear on wall hooks. The guards took their masks off to reveal hard Asian faces. They put the spearguns aside and produced machine pistols from their waterproof backpacks.

Phelps pressed a switch and a door slid open. He led the way along a tube-shaped corridor to another door that opened into a small room. Phelps told the guards to wait in the passageway, and then he and Zavala stepped inside.

Half of one wall was made of glass, allowing a view of a laboratory containing several workers dressed in white biohazard suits. The workers looked up when Phelps rapped his knuckles on the glass. All went back to work except one, who waved in acknowledgment and disappeared behind a door labeled DECONTAMINATION.

Minutes later, Lois Mitchell stepped into the room. She was wearing a lab coat and slacks, and her raven hair was still damp from the decontamination shower. Despite his predicament, Zavala signaled his appreciation of Lois’s striking good looks with a slight smile. Lois saw it, and the corners of her lips turned up.

“I know you,” she said.

Zavala did a fast mental check of the hundreds of women he had dated through the years and drew a blank.

“Have we met?” he asked cautiously.

Lois laughed.

“I saw you on TV,” she said. “You were the engineer from NUMA who made the dive with Dr. Kane in the bathysphere.” She furrowed her brow. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Zavala said.

Phelps said, “Dr. Mitchell, this is Joe Zavala from NUMA.”

“Lois,” the scientist amended, extending her hand.

“Hate to break up this party,” Phelps said, “but things are moving fast, Dr. Mitchell. My boss is on his way to the lab. My guess is that he wants to check on your project.”

“Actually,” she said, “he’s coming to get the vaccine.”

Phelps narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“While you were away, I told one of those people you have following me around that we’ve synthesized the toxin.” She turned and gestured at the glass partition. “This is our fermentation, cell-culture, and analysis lab. Your boss will be able to take the vaccine culture with him and go into full-bore production immediately.”

Scowling, Phelps said, “That’s not good.”

“Why?” Lois asked. “Wasn’t that the purpose of this whole project, to produce a vaccine that can be given to the world?”

“You tell her,” Phelps said with a shake of his head.

“Once they have the vaccine,” Zavala said, “they’ll let the epidemic run until they bring down their government. Then they’ll offer the cure to the rest of the world. Pay or die. You and your lab have become expendable.”

The color drained out of Lois Mitchell’s already pale features.

“What have I done?” she wailed.

“It’s what you’re going to do that counts,” Phelps said.

There was a hard knock on the door. Phelps opened it and one of the guards leaned in close and whispered in his ear. Phelps stepped back inside.

“You haven’t said what you want me to do,” Lois implored.

“Whatever we do, it better be fast,” Phelps said. “Chang’s chopper has left Pohnpei for his ship.”

Zavala’s head was still reeling from its encounter with the six-hundred-foot-long Typhoon, and he was suspicious of Phelps’s abrupt change from foe to friend. But the announcement that the Triad’s enforcer would soon arrive at the lab had been more effective than having a bucket of cold water thrown in his face.