Silent Assassin(62)

“I’m really not liking all this stepping through airlocks,” said Morgan. “There’s got to be a damn good reason why this is here.”

“Sorry, Cobra, but we can’t afford to take those kinds of precautions now,” said Bloch. “Bishop and the others need your help.”

Morgan signaled for Rogue to follow and cover him. They passed through the now-open airlock together into an anteroom and into the clean area.

The barrage of bullets came hard and fast, from a door straight ahead. It was one of Novokoff’s men, clad in grey. Morgan didn’t have time to see anything other than the barrel of his gun before pivoting out of his line of fire.

“Shepard, get this door closed!”

The door slid shut, and the light on the handprint panel turned red. It was a heavy, solid door, and it would hold the man on the other side. Morgan turned to face Rogue.

He was on the ground. Blood, looking black on his black gear and bright red on the white floor, seeped from a wound from his neck.

“Agent down,” said Morgan. “Repeat, agent down. Rogue is down.”

“Shit, Cobra,” he said, dazed. “I got hit. They got me.”

Morgan knelt down and looked at the wound. It looked bad, like it had gone deep into his chest cavity. He pressed on the wound with his hands, and blood bubbled up around his fingers. Rogue’s breath was coming in ragged wheezes. “Aw, this is nothing, Rogue,” he told him.

“I’m gonna die, Cobra. Don’t lie to me. This”—he indicated the wound with his eyes—“people don’t survive this.”

Morgan didn’t have anything to say to that. Rogue was right. He was going to die.

“I remember you saving me,” he said. “Up there. I would have suffocated if you hadn’t gotten me up. Guess it didn’t do much good, did it?”

There was gunfire off behind them.

“Go,” said Rogue. “They need you.”

“I’ll come back for you,” said Morgan. “We don’t leave a man behind.”

He nodded. “My name,” said Rogue. “I want you to know it. My name is Ryan Sanford. I’m from Lebanon, Missouri.”

“I’ll remember, Ryan Sanford from Lebanon, Missouri.”

Morgan stood up and clutched his submachine gun.

“Rogue’s down,” he said. “I need another way into that room.”

The answer came in a door opening to his right. “Take that way,” said Shepard. “It’ll take you through the monkey lab, and you can get the drop on them.”

“Monkey lab?” asked Morgan. There was no answer, and he set off.

Morgan walked through a room that contained an examination table with leather hand and foot restraints, about right for a chimpanzee, as well as a large Plexiglas cage. The next room, through the door on his left, had to be the monkey lab.

So this was the source of the screaming. In the room, there was a row of cages containing chimpanzees, twelve in all. Their shrieking just grew louder and more frantic when Morgan entered the room, and some began throwing themselves against the Plexiglas doors to their cages, leaving blood smeared on the clear surface. One door led to a small supply closet, which seemed to hold food, syringes, other supplies, and a refrigerator full of tiny vials of medication.

Novokoff burst suddenly into the room, holding a small steel case by its handle, along with another man in grey and another in a lab coat, whom Morgan presumed was the scientist Shepard had talked about. Not a fight he could win on his own, especially without harming the scientist. Morgan spun into the supply closet. He reached for his flash grenade, and then remembered that he’d already used it.

“I need help here!” he said.

“He’s locked us out, Cobra!” said Bishop. “We’ll go around, but it’ll take us a minute. You’re on your own for now.”

Great.

“Drop your gun and come out or we kill the scientist,” said Novokoff.

“Do not let him die, Cobra!” said Bloch.

The chimps were screaming bloody murder.

“You need him too,” Morgan yelled to Novokoff.

“Toss it now!” came the answer.

“Shepard,” he said in a low voice, “do you have video on them?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Good. I’m going to need you to tell me exactly what they do in the next few seconds, understand? If they move at all, you tell me.” Morgan unslung his submachine gun and pushed it out into the middle of the room, where it slid to a stop.

“The handgun too!”

He cursed to himself and did the same to his Walther.

“They’re coming your way!” said Shepard.