“They don’t make it here,” Golner said. “They won’t allow us to. Otherwise, we’d know too much. We’d be a threat.”
Another way for Shakir to keep his people off balance and subservient, Kurt thought. “Do you know what it is?”
Golner shook his head again.
“You might not know,” Kurt said. “But you can guess.”
“It would have to be some form of—”
Before the biologist could finish his sentence, the door behind them swung open. The red glow from the Mars-like incubation room spilled into the storage facility. Kurt knew it wouldn’t be Joe or Renata. He dove to the side immediately, grabbing Golner as he went and trying to pull him out of harm’s way.
He was a fraction too slow. Several gunshots rang out. One bullet grazed Kurt’s arm, two others hit the biologist squarely in the chest.
Kurt pulled Golner behind one of the centrifuge tables. He was barely breathing. He seemed to be trying to say something. Kurt leaned close.
“. . . The skins . . . put in hermetically sealed container . . . picked up every three days . . .” Golner tensed as if a new wave of pain had stricken him and then he relaxed and his body went still.
“Kurt Austin,” a much louder voice boomed from the open doorway.
Kurt remained on the floor, behind the table. He was hidden from view, but the thin wooden cabinetry of the table wouldn’t stop a bullet. He expected to be shot at any moment. But it didn’t happen. Maybe the men didn’t want a shoot-out in the midst of their toxin-filled lab.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Kurt shouted back.
“And that’s where you’ll stay,” the voice replied.
Kurt glanced around the corner of the table. He spotted a trio of silhouettes in the doorway. He guessed the silhouette in the center was Shakir, but with the red glow of the incubation room lighting them from behind, the three men looked more like the devil and his minions come to collect a long-outstanding debt.
51
“So you must be the great Shakir,” Kurt called out.
“The great?” his adversary replied. “Hmm . . . Yes. I like the sound of that.”
Kurt still couldn’t see him clearly, only that he was tall and lean and flanked by two men with rifles.
“You can get up now,” Shakir said.
“I’d rather not,” Kurt replied. “It makes me too easy a target.”
Kurt still had a pistol. But he was lying on the ground. And with at least two rifles pointed his way, he wasn’t going to win a shoot-out even if he managed to get off a shot or two.
“Trust me,” the man said. “We can hit you with ease right where you are. Now, toss your gun to us and stand up slowly.”
Making it look as if he was reaching for his gun, Kurt slid the cold pack of vials into his waterproof pouch and zipped it. When he brought his hand back out for everyone to see, he had the pistol in his grip. He placed it on the concrete floor and shoved it across the room. It slid easily, stopping only when Shakir trapped it with his boot.
“Up,” Shakir said, motioning with his hand.
Kurt eased to his feet, wondering why they hadn’t just shot him. Maybe they wanted to know how he’d discovered the place.
“Where are your friends?” Shakir asked.
“Friends?” Kurt replied. “I don’t have any. It’s a sad story, really. It all began in my childhood—”
“We know you came in with two others,” Shakir said, cutting him off. “The same two you’ve been working with all along.”
Truthfully, Kurt had no idea where Joe and Renata were. He was glad to know Shakir didn’t have them. They must have seen or heard danger coming and hid somewhere. On the odd chance they were following orders and heading for safety on their own, Kurt wanted to keep Shakir off their trail. “Last I saw, they went looking for a bathroom. Too much coffee. You know how that goes.”
Shakir turned to the man on his left. “Check the pumps, Hassan,” he said. “I don’t want anything interfering with them.”