Slowly, Owen reached out, slid in the key, and gave it a twist.
We braced for everything. An alarm. An attack dog. The night cleaning crew. Everything.
Instead, pushing the door open, we got exactly what we desperately wanted. Nothing.
Just silence. And darkness.
I motioned for Owen to stay put, peering around the hinges like some guy who'd seen too many cop shows. Before turning on any lights, I wanted to shine my gun around a bit, as it were. The good news about that xenon light attachment was that being on the other side of it was like looking into the high beams of an oncoming car. The flashlight app on Owen's phone times ten.
Basically, I was a walking one-way mirror.
The first surprise was that there was no reception area, just a short hallway. After a small kitchen to the left and an even smaller bathroom directly opposite on the right, everything was right there in front of me, and it was pretty much as advertised by Wittmer. "The facility," he called it.
I stared through the blast of white light funneling out from my Glock, the red streak from the laser sight moving with my hands from one corner of the room to the next. Only the far wall had windows, three across with horizontal slat blinds that were drawn and closed tight.
What I was looking at was somewhere between a high school chemistry classroom and a meth lab, not that I'd personally seen a lot of meth labs. Truth be told, everything I knew about them-as well as pedophiles, runaway brides, high school teachers who sleep with their students, and people who try to hire hit men to kill their spouses-I owed to a guilty-pleasure habit of watching Dateline NBC.
Even in the moment, the thought was all but inescapable. This would make one hell of an episode … .
The room was messy. Almost chaotic, even in its stillness. There were things everywhere on the large island in the center. Vials and beakers. A couple of Bunsen burners. A centrifuge, as well as a few other bulky machines that were a combination of glass and stainless steel, including one that was connected to a large ventilating air duct that shot up straight through the ceiling. There was also a red binder stuffed thick with papers.
What there wasn't, though, was another surprise. We were alone.
I looked back over my shoulder, Owen's silhouette peeking out from behind the doorway.
"No one home," I said.
And technically, that was the truth.
CHAPTER 69
THE SMARTEST thing I could do was get out of his way.
Owen stepped into the room, flipped on the lights, and closed the door behind him so fast I was out of breath just watching him. The kid was on a mission.
At first, I didn't quite understand the rush. Sure, we didn't want to loiter, but it wasn't like there was a shot clock ticking away in the corner. We had time.
Then I saw him reach for it. The way he reached for it.
Sidling up to the island in the middle of the room, he had over a dozen things to choose from, including what appeared to be the serum itself, contained in a rack of vials. He barely even noticed them, though. It was as if there was only one item he cared about, and that was when I understood.</ol>
With both hands, he pulled the red binder toward him.
Of all the base emotions that must have been kicking around in his head over the past few days-anger, fear, guilt, to name a few-they were still no match for what makes a genius a genius. Curiosity.
Someone had piggybacked on his brain and taken his work into uncharted territory. It might have been seriously misguided and ultimately doomed, but it was also something else, the one thing in common with anything that pushes the boundaries of innovation. It was bold.
And damn if Owen didn't want to see the blueprint.
Silently, I watched him make his way through the pages in the binder, one after another after another, his index finger tracing the words and formulas like he was in one of those old Evelyn Wood speed-reading commercials.
I kept waiting for him to take some sort of mental breather, at the very least a simple pause. Scratch his chin. Shift his weight from one leg to the other. Instead, he kept plowing his way through, barely even taking the time to blink.
Then, suddenly, he froze. I took that as my cue, if there was ever going to be one.
"What is it?" I asked.
Silly me, thinking I was about to get an answer. I was pretty sure Owen didn't even hear me. He was too busy now looking around the rest of the room, his eyes pinballing from one item to the next. Whatever he was searching for, though, he couldn't find it.
That was when his head snapped back with an idea.
He spun on his heels, disappearing into the small kitchen by the door. I could hear the refrigerator open, followed by the shifting and rattling of metal and glassware. Again, it was like someone had a stopwatch on him.
"You okay?" I called out.
Owen reappeared, clutching a large Styrofoam cup. He was staring down into it. I couldn't see from where I was standing, but I was guessing it wasn't coffee.
"N-stoff," he said, finally.
N-stoff? I looked at him blankly. It certainly wasn't my first blank look since we'd been together. "Excuse me?"
"That was the code name of chlorine trifluoride at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Nazi Germany."
Great. More Jeopardy! I'll take Random Trivia When You Least Expect It for six hundred, Alex … .
At my continued blank stare, Owen went on. "The Nazis experimented with chlorine trifluoride as a combined incendiary weapon and poison gas. What a big surprise, right? Thing is, though, it was too volatile. It would literally explode in their faces."
"And that's what you're holding in your hand?" I asked. "Three feet away from me?"
Owen tilted the cup so I could see the slightly green-and-yellowish liquid inside it. "It doesn't react with closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam," he said.
I shot him a deadpan look. "You mean Styrofoam?"
"Yeah, sorry," he said. "Of course, if this were most any metal, like an aluminum can, for instance … then boom."
I swallowed hard. "Then thank God for Styrofoam," I said. "But what does chlorinated-"
"Chlorine trifluoride," he said. "CTF."
"Yeah, what does CTF have to do with the serum?" I asked.
"I'm not sure it has anything to do with the serum."
"Why are you holding it, then?" It seemed like the obvious question, as did my follow-up. "How did you even know it was here?"
"It's listed in the binder," he said.
"Under what?"
"Inventory."
How neat and organized of them. "So they needed it for something, right? If not the serum, then what?"
I watched Owen. He was thinking. At least, that was what I thought. His head was cocked to the side, his eyes narrowed to a squint.
Of all things, he began removing his sneakers. Huh? I then watched as he tiptoed past me oh-so-quietly in his bare feet-he wasn't wearing socks-and carefully placed the Styrofoam cup on the center island in the room before picking up my SIG, which he'd set down. What's going on?
I was about to ask that very question when his index finger shot up in the air, stopping me. Right then I knew. He wasn't thinking; he was listening.
He'd heard something.
And the next second, I heard it, too.
CHAPTER 70
IT WAS the sound of someone trying not to make a sound, an otherwise quiet set of footsteps betrayed by the wet pavement outside the building.
My guess was running shoes, maybe cross-trainers. Something with a soft and forgiving sole, perfect for sneaking around.
Unless, of course, it happened to be after a rainstorm. Rubber and water don't play quietly together.
I looked at Owen. He looked at me. We both looked at the light switch by the door. If those footsteps were coming for us, they already knew we were inside. No point making it any easier to be seen.</ol>
Owen grabbed the binder, stuffing it in his backpack before killing the lights. He settled in the doorway of the kitchen area by the entrance while I slipped off my Pumas and quietly lifted my duffel over to the doorway of the bathroom opposite him.
With our shoes off and bags in tow, we looked like we were about to go through airport security. Of course, what we wouldn't have given for an X-ray machine to see through the door outside.
No one could blame us for being paranoid, and hopefully that was all we were being. But better to be safe than dead.
We had the door covered. Our shoes were back on our feet. I was on one knee with my Glock raised, the xenon light turned off and the laser sight aimed waist high.
Next to me, Owen was standing with his strong-side leg slightly back like a boxer and his elbows bent just a little. The Weaver position, as it's commonly called among police and military. Smaller profile, greater stability.
Somewhere in his nineteen years, someone had clearly taught him that. Not surprisingly, the kid had paid attention.
A minute passed with Owen and me having an entire conversation without words. Just nods, shrugs, and prolonged stares.
Neither of us could hear what we'd first heard. In a glass-half-full world, that meant it was just some passerby. A random. Maybe some Starbucks employee-excuse me, barista-taking the back way into work.
Of course, in the glass-half-empty world …
We kept listening, our eyes now trained on the door. I could feel the sweat forming in my palms, my right calf cramping, the strain building in my left shoulder from trying to hold my gun steady. It was like a thousand needle jabs.
But all in all, the feeling was relief. The longer we went without hearing anything, the better. Way better.