Altar Of Eden

He writhed and clawed at his face and neck, struggling against the pain, fighting to breathe with frozen lungs.

Lorna held back her own stunned horror before it paralyzed her. She’d never killed a person before-and though the soldier still fought, she knew he was a dead man, a living corpse.

She stumbled on numbed legs past his agonized form and reached the two crates. She knew she didn’t have much time. Others were on their way. She lifted one crate to the window, opened the gate, and upended the carrier. The two capuchins clung inside, scared and confused. She shook the cage, trying to dislodge them. One lost its grip and pulled its conjoined twin with it. The stunned pair tumbled into the dark.

Sorry, little ones.

She hated to abandon them, but their best chance of survival was away from here. She returned to the second crate and hauled it to the open window. Spooked by the gunfire, the frightened cub leaped out as soon as the gate was open.

She dropped the crate and retrieved her rifle. She considered going for the assault rifle, but the soldier writhed on top of it. She couldn’t get any closer-both guilt and terror kept her back.

But there was one thing she still wanted. During his violent struggles, the soldier had knocked the goggles off his helmet. She picked them up off the floor and pulled them over her eyes. The dark room suddenly snapped into a green-phosphorus clarity.

Able to see in the dark, she considered hopping out the same window, fleeing after the animals, but she’d be exposed out in the open. The intruders were well equipped and likely had the grounds under surveillance. The small animals might escape that net. She would not. Her best chance of survival still lay inside, to keep hidden for as long as possible. With the animals free, her only responsibility was to herself-and the others still trapped below.

She fled her lab and headed toward the rear of the facility. Now able to see, she moved swiftly, with more confidence. She needed to reach the veterinary clinic, her domain.

If she could reach there, she had a plan.

OUT FRONT, DUNCAN listened to the garbled moans die over the radio. He had no idea what had happened to his man, the one who had found the woman and the animals, but he’d clearly been incapacitated in some manner.

Another of Korey’s team came on the radio. His voice was raspy with static, but the anger came through clear. “Fielding is down. Dead. No sign of the woman. Crates are empty.”

Duncan touched his throat mike. “Find her.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and sucked on a lime-flavored Life Savers. If the crates were empty, she must have tossed the others out with the bird. The specimens were loose on the grounds.

Opening his eyes, he turned to his second-in-command, Connor Reed. He knew the man had been listening to the radio chatter. Connor’s face was a hard mask. He ran a hand over the stubble of his red hair. The younger man had been with Duncan’s unit going back to boot camp. He’d been the one who led the charge and blew away the mutated chimp that had mauled him in Baghdad.

“Who’s on the west exit?” Duncan asked.

“Gerard is at the tree line with a sniper scope.”

“Go join him. Search for those specimens. Shoot anything that moves out there.”

“Yes, sir,” he said and ran off.

Duncan knew Connor would not fail him. The man was as brutal and unrelenting as a machine. Once let loose, he would lay down a swath of destruction. Two years ago, Connor had wiped out an entire Somalian rebel village-men, women, children, even the stray dogs-all to avenge a comrade who’d lost a leg to a roadside bomb. He’d get the job done here with the same ruthless efficiency.

As Connor disappeared around the corner Duncan’s radio crackled to life again. “Alpha One, Korey here. Reporting from the morgue.”

“Go ahead,” Duncan said. “Have you secured the carcasses of the two cats?”

“Yes, sir. Their heads are on the way up. But we believe we’ve also discovered where the other targets-the scientists-are holed up. Found some sort of big meat locker down here. It’s locked tight, but I thought I heard movement inside.”

Duncan brightened at the news.

“Permission to blow the doors, sir. Though I can’t guarantee there won’t be target casualties.”

Duncan understood the man’s caution. They needed at least one of them alive. He weighed the risk of killing everyone inside and decided it was worth it. He knew there was at least one person still running loose. The woman. That was good enough.

“Do it,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Duncan returned his attention to the smoking ruin of the front of the facility. Fires burned deeper inside, glowing through the pall. No one was coming out this way, and Duncan had a man posted at the entry road.

It was time to end this.

He pulled out his sidearm. The heft of the Sig Sauer pistol helped weight and center his determination. He headed toward the least smoky window. There was a woman loose in there. Scared. On the run. Likely armed.

He smiled-or at least half his face did.

He didn’t want her killed. At least not until he was done with her. Got answers from her. And maybe a little more besides.

With his scarred face, few women would give him a second glance, except in horror. And even fewer would ever satisfy him. Unless paid or at the point of a gun.

He headed for the building, determined to find this woman. The hunting would make the prize all that much sweeter. Afterward he would get all he could out of this woman.

Then put a bullet in her skull.

Chapter 33

Jack kept to the forest.

He wanted to move more quickly as he circled toward the rear of the complex. He had traveled out and around, intending to come at the place from the back. He knew any eyes would be focused toward the facility, not over their shoulders.

Still, he dared not make a sound. He forced himself to move silently, to place each foot with care. Burt shadowed him, moving just as quietly, recognizing that this was a hunt. Jack’s heart thundered against such caution, urging him to run headlong back toward the facility, guns blazing.

Moments ago, he had heard gunfire, muffled and indistinct, coming from somewhere inside ACRES. He recognized the rattle of an assault rifle. He pictured Lorna bleeding, sprawled in death.

He fought against despair as he approached the southern side of the facility. From fifty yards away, he took a position under the low limbs of an old black oak, half shrouded by Spanish moss, and studied the building and grounds. The pathology lab lay to the rear of the facility, in the basement level. The others had holed up there.