Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

“There’s nothing in any of these drawers.” Juan looked at Lincoln. “They needed the beds because they had to restrain their victims. Someone intentionally infected with typhus, cholera, or some type of poison gas is going to thrash around.”

Franklin snapped his hands away from the metal bunk as though he’d been burned.

They found four more side chambers like this one, some large enough to hold forty beds. They also found a small, waist-high cave entrance in the main tunnel. Juan wriggled his head and shoulders into the aperture and saw that the cave beyond dropped precipitously. At the extreme end of his light’s range, he could see the floor of the cavern littered with all sorts of unidentifiable junk. This had been a communal dump, and amid the rubbish were human bones. They had become disjointed over the decades, so Cabrillo couldn’t tell how many there were. Five hundred would be a conservative estimate.

“This place is like a slaughterhouse,” he said when he pulled himself free. “A death factory.”

“And they kept it running for eighteen months.”

“I think the surface facility was used solely to maintain the secret laboratories down here, where they experimented with the really nasty stuff. Using a cave system meant they could isolate it in a hurry if they ever had a viral outbreak.”

“Ruthless and efficient.” There was no admiration in Linc’s voice. “The Japanese could have taught the Nazis a thing or two.”

“I’m sure they did,” Juan said, still a little unsettled by what he’d just seen. “Unit 731 has its roots going back to 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. Just before war’s end, information and technology transfers went the other way. Germany supplied Imperial Japan with jet and rocket engines for suicide aircraft, as well as nuclear materials.”

Linc’s next comment died on his lips.

Deadened by distance and the surrounding rock, they couldn’t hear the explosion at the cave’s entrance. Rather, both men felt a jolt of air pressure against their bodies, like the windblast of a passing truck. The Responsivists had breached the pile of debris and were now in the tunnel system hunting them.

“They probably know the tunnels and will be coming on fast,” Cabrillo said grimly. “We have maybe a half hour to either find a way out of here or someplace we can defend with a pair of pistols and eleven rounds of ammunition.”

The next medical chamber hadn’t been stripped as much as the others. There were thin mattresses on the beds, and the cabinets were stocked with jars of chemicals. The labels were in German. Juan pointed this out to Linc, as it proved his earlier point.

Linc studied the labels, then read aloud in English: “Chlorine. Distilled alcohol. Hydrogen peroxide. Sulfur dioxide. Hydrochloric acid.”

Cabrillo had forgotten Linc spoke German. “I’ve got an idea. Find me some sodium bicarbonate.”

“I don’t think this is the time to worry about a bellyache.” Linc remarked blandly as he scanned the bottles and jars.

“High school chemistry lessons. I don’t remember too much about the safe stuff, but my teacher delighted in showing us how to make chemical weapons.”

“Lovely.”

“He was this aging hippie who thought we needed to defend ourselves when the government eventually came to seize all private property,” Juan explained. Linc threw him an odd look and passed over the appropriate glass container. “What can I say?” Cabrillo shrugged. “I grew up in California.”

Juan asked Linc to find one other jar of chemicals.

“So what do you want to do with this stuff?” Linc handed over a jar containing an amber liquid.

“Chemical warfare.”

They agreed on a spot to lay their ambush in one of the smaller medical wards. Linc bundled up some blankets and mattresses, in the shape of two men huddled under the farthest bedstead. Juan rigged a booby trap using a roll of electrical tape from Linc’s bag, the chemicals, and his canteen. In the uncertain glow of a flashlight, the mannequins were more than sufficient to lure the Responsivists. He placed Linc’s cell phone on walkie-talkie mode between the two inert figures.

Linc and Juan backed off into a room opposite and a little farther down the tunnel to wait.

If Juan had any difficulty with what they were about to do, he only had to think about the victims aboard the Golden Dawn to harden his resolve. The minutes trickled by, the luminous second hand of Cabrillo’s watch moving as if the battery was nearly spent. But he and Linc had lain in countless ambushes, and they remained perfectly still, their eyes open, although they could see nothing in the stygian tunnel. Each leaned against the stone wall with his head cocked, his ears straining to pick up the slightest sound.

After only twenty minutes, they heard them. Juan picked out two, then three distinct footfalls, as the Responsivis

t gunmen rushed headlong down the tunnel. There were no lights, so he reasoned they carried an infrared lamp and night vision goggles capable of seeing in that spectrum.

The gunmen slowed well before they came to the side cave, as if expecting an ambush. Although Juan couldn’t see the guards, he could tell by the sounds what they were doing. They had gone almost silent as they approached the entrance, advancing only when they knew they were covered by their teammates.

Metal clattered against stone, and almost immediately a voice called out.

“I see you there. Give yourselves up and you won’t be harmed.”

The sound had been one of the guards leaning his weapon against the cave entrance to steady his aim as he pointed his assault rifle at the bundles of mattresses at the far end of the chamber.