Altar Of Eden

Chapter 57

Lorna kept the children lined along one side of the hallway. She edged up to the set of swinging doors that led into the main lab room. Voices reached her.

“How much time is left?”

Lorna recognized Malik’s accent. She also heard the panic in his voice. She used the tip of her pistol to ease open the door and peek through.

Bennett stepped across her view, his back to her. He kept his voice low. “Less than twenty minutes. So hurry up.”

Malik stood by a bank of computers. He was shoving hard drives into a metal suitcase. A portable Dewar flask for transporting cryogenic samples stood next to it.

“What about the rest of my team?” the doctor asked.

“Expendable,” Bennett said, his voice pained. “That’s why I sent everyone out. We keep this evacuation on a need-to-know basis.”

Lorna struggled to understand. Why were they leaving? Why this sudden urgency? She attempted to fold this new reality into her plans of escape. Could she somehow use this to her advantage?

Bennett checked his watch. “Pack up everything and let’s move.”

Malik snapped his briefcase shut, passed it to Bennett, then grabbed the cryogenic bottle from the tabletop. “We have to get these viral samples into a secure lab within twelve hours or risk losing everything.”

“Understood. We’ll make arrangements en route.”

They turned and headed toward a far door, but it was not the one leading into the villa. An Emergency Exit sign glowed over the doorway.

Where did it lead?

As if hearing her question, Malik asked, “The tunnel to the helipad, is it secure?”

“It’s out of the direct line of fire. And the pilot is armed.”

Lorna stayed hidden. For the first time since her arrival here, hope bubbled through her. There’s another way out! If she maintained a safe distance and followed them out this back door, she could take the children into hiding in the woods and wait for this war to end.

But her luck wasn’t holding.

A harsh voice barked behind her. She turned to find a stick figure of a man standing by the entrance to the surgical suite. She recognized the technician, Edward, the one who had drawn her blood, injected her with hormones. She also recognized the rifle pointed at her.

“What are you doing here?” he called out loudly. He eyed the kids and kicked the closest one. “Drop your pistol and move into the lab.”

Lorna had no choice. She let the pistol clatter to the floor. The children came rushing up to her. She backed through the swinging doors into the main lab.

She turned to find Malik and Bennett stopped and staring at her.

“Dr. Polk?” Bennett said, his voice full of surprise, suspiciously so. Lorna noted a flinch of guilt pass over his features.

Malik’s eyes widened upon seeing the clutch of children sticking close to her legs. “What luck.”

Bennett glanced to him.

“I could use a couple of these specimens,” the doctor explained. “They’d be perfect seeds for the new facility.”

Lorna’s stomach sank toward her feet. She’d delivered them straight into the hands of the monster.

Edward pushed into the room behind her. He had confiscated her pistol and pointed it at her. He took in the scene with a glance: the briefcase, the Dewar flask. His eyes flicked up to the emergency exit sign.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Malik took a step forward, crouching slightly with a hand on his hip. He eyed the remaining children, as if trying to pick out a ripe melon. “I won’t lie to you, Edward. You deserve at least my honesty. The island is going to blow up in about seventeen minutes.”

Edward stumbled forward. The tip of the pistol wavered with his shock. “What?”

Lorna felt equally stunned. She now understood their furtive urgency.

“Don’t worry,” Malik said. “Your work won’t be in vain.”

Edward swung his pistol toward the two men. “Take me with you.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. No room. Especially now. We need these specimens.”

Malik straightened from his crouch. A tiny pearl-handled pistol had appeared in his hand as if by magic. He pointed it at Edward’s face and fired.

The shot was loud, stinging her ears.

Edward fell backward, tipping like an axed tree.

Even Bennett gasped at the cold-blooded murder.

Malik turned to his boss, but he kept his pistol aimed at Lorna. “We could each take one specimen. A breeding pair would trim at least a year off our new start-up.”

Bennett checked his watch, knowing he had no time to argue. He growled, “Pick which ones and let’s go.”

His gaze briefly brushed across Lorna’s. The guilt that had flickered before now shone steadily. Lorna suspected he normally kept himself above such dirty work, purposely diverted his eyes from the bloody reality of this project. But such innocence was no longer possible.

The same couldn’t be said of Malik. Working in the trenches from the start, he was covered in blood up to his elbows. “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you here, Dr. Polk. You’ll have your freedom for”-he checked his own watch-“another fifteen minutes.”

Malik bent down and grabbed a boy by the arm and dragged him into the air, carrying him like a sack of groceries. “We’ll need a female, too. Take that one.”

He pointed his pistol.

Bennett bent down and gently scooped the child in one arm. His gaze fixed to Lorna. “I’m sorry.”

As they backed away a massive explosion ripped through the space.

The blast lifted her off her feet and tossed her backward. She slid across the floor. A flaming book tumbled past her nose, trailing ash. More debris blasted into the space. She fought to raise up to an elbow.

Children had been blown to the far wall. Bennett and Malik lay sprawled facedown.

Lorna searched around for a weapon.

Edward’s body had rolled against a table. There was no sign of her pistol, but his rifle was still tangled over his shoulder.

If she could reach it-

But Malik was already pushing up off the floor.

Bennett heaved over to his back. He had sheltered the girl with his body and still clung to her.

Lorna began to sidle toward the rifle-when something massive bounded out of the fiery doorway and landed in a crouch. She stared in disbelief at the monstrous tiger. The beast roared, black tongue curled, exposing saber-sharp fangs.

Malik scuttled away like a crab.

Bennett froze in place only yards from the monster.