Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

On the opposite side of the compound, where there was another gap in the video camera coverage, Eddie and Franklin Lincoln were making their covert entrance. Though Linc was the best the Corporation had at security bypasses, it had been Eddie who cut the wire for the simple reason that all the martial arts training in the world couldn’t give him the strength to hold Linc’s two-hundred-and-fifty-pound frame.

“So are we. Standing by.”

Keeping flat, Cabrillo led Murph away from the wall, snaking across the grounds in a seemingly random pattern, but the route had been carefully mapped out so they avoided the numerous cameras. At one end of the main building, the roof sported several satellite dishes and a spindly radio transmission tower. This was their destination, and it took seven minutes of crawling to reach it.

Juan removed his goggles, and, cupping his hands around his eyes, pressed his face to a window. There was a dim smear of light near the back wall, the glow of a computer on standby mode. The preraid reconnaissance had confirmed that this was the camp director’s office.

He note

d an alarm pod attached to the window sash that would trip if the window was opened. He pulled a device from his combat vest, and, when he aimed it at the alarm, an indicator glowed red. Next, he swept the device along the glass to determine if wires had been embedded between the two panes, but the device remained dark. If this was the level of security provided by Corinth’s finest company, he considered making a career change, to Greek cat burglar.

He attached two small suction cups to the glass and then scored the window with a cutter, moving slowly so the sound of the pane being sliced never rose above a rough hiss. He heard an audible sigh when the vacuum between the two pieces of insulated glass were released. He handed the cutter to Mark and carefully pulled the pane free of the frame with the suction cups. He repeated the process with the inner piece of glass and set it on the floor inside the office when he was finished.

Juan legged over the sill and ducked into the building. When Mark had scrambled through the window, Cabrillo drew down the shade. “We’re in the office.”

“Roger,” Eddie replied.

Juan gestured to the computer. “It’s up to you.”

Murph cracked his knuckles and took a seat behind the desk, turning down the screen before waking the system. From a fanny pack, he removed a battered piece of electronics covered in decals and wads of dried gum. He jacked it into the computer’s USB port. A moment later, a laughing skull appeared on the monitor. When it disappeared, Mark began to pound the keyboard with one ambidextrous hand while the other rolled the mouse like a child would a toy truck.

Juan left him to his work, and examined the office using a tiny penlight, making certain he stayed away from the window in case there was a gap around the shade. They had learned from the Responsivists’ website that the facility’s director was another Californian named Gil Martell. A little digging showed that Martell had sold luxury automobiles in Beverly Hills prior to his joining the group, and that his name had come up several times in an investigation of a car-theft ring. Although he was charged, several key witnesses vanished back to Mexico before the trial, and the indictment was dropped.

The room’s furniture was what Cabrillo expected—desk, credenza, a couple of chairs, a sofa along one wall with a coffee table. He recognized it was all expensive. The Oriental rug under the coffee table was a flat-weave antique kilim that would fetch a considerable price at auction. Framed photographs adorned the walls, Martell’s shrine to himself. Juan didn’t know some of the people smiling into the camera with Martell, while others were easily recognizable. He spotted several with Donna Sky. Even in these candid shots, the movie star’s beauty was undeniable. With her dark hair, almond eyes, and the sharpest cheekbones in the business, she was the epitome of Hollywood royalty.

Cabrillo wondered idly what part of her life was so miserable that she would allow a cult to take it over.

Another picture caught his attention. It was an older photograph of Martell and another man on the deck of a sailboat. It was signed “Keep the faith. Lydell Cooper.” The snapshot must have been taken shortly before Cooper vanished at sea on his ketch. He’d read the Coast Guard report, and it appeared that the boat simply capsized in a storm that had come out of nowhere. Five other small craft had also been caught unaware, and an additional three people drowned.

If Juan could use a single word to describe the scientist-turned-prophet, it would be bland. There was nothing distinguishing about Cooper. He was in his mid to late sixties, paunchy, with an egg-shaped head, glasses, and a hairline in full retreat. His eyes were a plain brown, and the gray beard and mustache neither added to nor took away from his appearance. It was as if the facial hair was expected on a retired researcher, and he’d grown it out of obligation. Juan saw nothing that could inspire thousands to join his crusade—no charisma, no charm, none of the things that would attract followers at all. Had he not known what Cooper looked like, he could have guessed Martell kept a picture of his accountant on his wall.

“Got it!” Murph cried, then looked around guiltily for speaking so loudly. “Sorry. I’m into their system. Piece of cake.”

Juan strode across the room. “Can you find which room is Kyle’s?”

“They have everything cross-referenced. He’s in building C, which is the newest one right near where Eddie and Linc climbed the wall. Kyle Hanley’s room is number one-seventeen, but he’s not alone. He’s got a roommate named, let’s see, Jeff Ponsetto.”

“Well done,” Cabrillo said, and relayed the information to Eddie and Linc. “Start to download what you can off their computer.”

Linda Ross came over the tactical net: “Chairman, check your view screen. You’ve got company coming.”

Juan glanced at his sleeve. Two men dressed in maintenance workers’ overalls were crossing the compound. They carried toolboxes, and appeared to be heading toward the main building, where he and Murph were. Had there been some sort of emergency call to the engineering staff, surely they would have heard voices. Whatever was going on, Cabrillo didn’t like it.

“Murph, forget the download. Let’s go!”

As Juan went toward the door, he tucked an electronic bug under the desk lamp. He knew it would be found quickly, once the break-in was detected, but it would transmit the first critical moments of whatever took place in Gil Martell’s office. He paused at the window and checked the view screen once again. The maintenance workers were approaching the building’s front door, which gave him and Mark the time they needed to get clear.

He slowly opened the shade and eased himself over the window sash. His Glock was in his hand, though he had no conscious memory of drawing it.

Keeping low and following their carefully laid map to avoid the cameras, they moved toward building C. The grass was dry under their shoes and crackled with each step. Like the others in the Responsivist compound, building C was one-storied, with whitewashed walls and a barrel-tile roof.

Linc and Eddie were pressed to the wall next to a door, out of view of the camera mounted above it. A security keypad was to the right, and its faceplate had been removed and left dangling by a bunch of wires. Linc had already installed his bypass. Despite having such large hands, the former Navy SEAL was the best lockpick the Corporation had, and he worked his tools with the delicate touch of a brain surgeon. With a pick and torsion rod in place, he gave the lock a jerk to the left, and the door snicked open.

“Fourteen seconds,” Eddie whispered.

“The maestro strikes again,” Linc smirked, and stepped into a long hallway running the length of the building.

The hall was lined with dozens of identical doors and was illuminated by shaded fluorescent fixtures hanging from the ceiling. The carpeting was an institutional gray, not much softer than the concrete slab on which the building was constructed. The four men started down, peering into a large kitchen to their left and a room lined with a dozen commercial washing machines to their right. Juan didn’t see any clothes dryers, and assumed they had drying lines behind the building. Part of Responsivism was to reduce one’s impact on the natural world, so not having dryers fit their beliefs, as did the solar panels they’d spied on the roof of one of the buildings.