Nightmare Army

Firke walked through the corridors until he came to a room marked Security. The door had no handle on this side, just a keypad and a card slot on the wall next to it. Firke pulled a black key card out of his pocket and swiped it through the reader. The door opened with a soft click.

“What are you doing back?” the guard at the monitors asked as he began turning in his swivel chair, a finger reaching for a large red button. “You’re not due for another thirty minutes...”

Firke held up the black key card. “Good reflexes. You know who I am, correct?”

The guard nodded dumbly, removing his finger from the alarm button.

“And you know who I work for?”

Another nod.

“Very good. I am conducting a surprise inspection of this facility’s security. I am pleased to see that you are at your post and alert. However, I must now ask you to step outside for a few minutes.”

Still nodding, the guard slowly got up from his chair and walked toward the door. He didn’t take his eyes off Firke, who watched him leave, not turning back to the main security console until the door was completely closed. Once it did, he casually glanced at the panel, which controlled every camera both inside and outside the complex, as well as doors that sealed off particular areas and even overrode controls for power, temperature and air intake. Firke didn’t bother with any of these; he just pushed the guard chair aside and sat on the floor.

Taking a screwdriver with an unusual, star-shaped tip from his pocket, he unscrewed six screws in a small panel under the console. Removing that panel revealed a small, unmarked console with another keypad next to five switches, each one underneath a small light and all in the down position.

Firke carefully punched in a long, memorized series of numbers. Then, taking a deep breath, he flipped each switch one by one from right to left. In each case, a green light came on. When they were all activated, he let out the breath he had been holding. If he had input the code wrong, activating the last switch would have been the end of him and the base—literally. Carefully, he replaced the panel and screwed it back into place.

Getting up, he checked the display on his tablet, which showed the camera’s view of the security room in what was supposed to be real time. Instead of him, however, the screen showed the footage of the guard Firke had recorded earlier. With a satisfied nod, he replaced the chair behind the console, then walked to the door and opened it to let the guard back inside.

“Is everything all right?” the man asked as he walked to his station.

Firke nodded. “Everything is exactly as it should be. You are doing a fine job. Keep up the good work and we may have a promotion for you once you’ve completed your duty here. And the best way you can do that is by never mentioning that you ever saw me here, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Firke nodded. “Excellent. As you were.”

The young man almost raised a hand to salute, but turned it into scratching an itch on his cheek. Smiling thinly, Firke stepped outside the security room and let the door close.

Retracing his steps, Firke was back in his room without a soul seeing him. Sitting on his cot again, he activated a control panel that showed a full blueprint of the base with small red Xs revealed in every room and ringing the outside perimeter of the complex. Below all of that was a simple sentence: BASE SELF-DESTRUCT SYSTEM PRIMED.

Satisfied, Firke cleared his tablet and set it aside, then lay down and was asleep within sixty seconds.

* * *

“YOU HAVE everything you need. Introduce it into the water supply, or even food will work. It can survive being boiled or cooked, so whatever way you find will get it into the target populace will be best. Of course, you and your men would be best advised to not eat or drink anything in the area once the contamination has been implemented.”

“Of course not.” Firke raised his voice over the sound of the approaching helicopter. “It has been a most interesting visit, Doctor. Thank you for your hospitality.” He reached behind him to check on the backpack strapped to his back.

Richter only nodded curtly as the helicopter stopped over the clearing and a line was dropped. Firke hooked his harness onto it and was drawn upward. The moment he was clear of the tree line, the helicopter rose higher into the air, carrying him, still on the line, with it.

Richter watched it shrink until it vanished into the sky, then turned and headed back into the lab complex.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_66dafb60-caed-54ce-82c1-b86506a26466)

Seventeen hours earlier

“To Armenia!”

Josh Tyrell clinked his raised his bottle of beer against his friends’ glasses. He took a healthy swallow, his dark brown eyes roaming over the mix of tourists and locals mingled in the bar of the Pergomesh Hotel in Arkatar. His eyes settled on an olive-skinned, raven-haired beauty who gave him a friendly glance and smile as she walked by in a miniskirt and sleeveless blouse. “Bari yereko.” Stumbling over the unfamiliar Armenian, he grinned as she smiled wider but still kept going.

“Would you keep your voice down? Jesus, could you sound more like a tourist?” With a frown, William Scott raised his glass of pilsner and sipped it, then waved his other hand in front of his face to try to move some of the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in a cloud over the entire room. “Probably going to get us all mugged and killed before the trip is over.”

“Jeez, Billy, would you relax?” Tyrell replied. “This isn’t Slovakia, and we’re not in Hostel. These are my people, remember? They’re gonna get my money one way or another, so I might as well enjoy myself while I’m here, right? Hell, we all might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here, if you get my drift.” Waggling his thick eyebrows, he grinned conspiratorially at the other two men, earning an aggravated sigh from Scott and a nervous smile from the third member of their group.

Gary Alcaster sipped his own beer and watched the two friends bicker. He wasn’t sure what made him more uncomfortable: Tyrell’s outspoken swagger and brashness, Scott’s peevishness and worry over seemingly every minute of this weekend getaway, or the fact that he was ostensibly here to get his cherry popped.

I should get my brain scanned for agreeing to all this, he thought. Of course, it had all been Tyrell’s idea. The three had met while preparing to attend their second year at King’s College School of Medicine in London. Tyrell was a broad-shouldered former linebacker from Dublin, Texas, with a knee injury that had effectively ended his football career and left him with a slight limp when he walked. Blond-haired Alcaster was born and raised in the slightly larger city of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and this was his first time out of his hometown, not to mention Canada. Scott, rail-thin and bespectacled, hailed from the small town of Haltwhistle, in the northern part of England. Despite their differences, the three had quickly bonded over their status as outsiders in the sprawling, cosmopolitan city.

Over beers and a Texas Hold’em game with a couple other students one night, Alcaster had lost a side bet and, red-faced, admitted that he hadn’t yet slept with a girl. Ever since, Tyrell had talked about nothing else, not even their upcoming exams, but helping his friend lose his virginity.

That was how they had ended up here, during a bank holiday weekend when they probably should have been studying instead. After four days of persuasion, with Tyrell saying the three of them would have a story unlike anything else in their lives, he’d convinced Scott first and then the two of them had persuaded Alcaster to take the plunge, so to speak. The Canadian’s biggest concern had been to go somewhere where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone who might recognize him. Tyrell said he had the prefect place for them to go.

The three had taken the Chunnel to Paris, then a day on the train traveling to Bucharest. From there they had rented a car and driven north-northeast, with Tyrell saying his ancestors came from around the area. A few hours later they had checked into the hotel and had spent the afternoon seeing the small town’s sights, of which there were few.

Other than Scott’s increasingly worried demeanor, they’d only encountered one spot of potential trouble so far. While walking through the old, cobblestoned streets, they’d seen a large, modern house, surrounded by a high stone wall with unfriendly-looking iron bars, looming over the rest of the village. Oblivious to the two thickset men at the gate and his friends’ warnings, Tyrell had wanted to get a closer look and had crossed the street to look through the gate. He had been intercepted halfway across by one of the men, who’d had a quick, firm conversation with him, while opening his light jacket to reveal something inside.

While Scott and Alcaster watched with their hearts in their throats, trying to figure out whether they should grab Tyrell and run, or just take off themselves, the Texan pointed the other two students out, and the two men laughed about something. Then the gate guard pointed back the way they had come, said something with an emphatic nod, and sent the med student on his way with a smile that never came close to his pale blue eyes.

When he returned, Tyrell was ecstatic. “Dudes, that guy was in the mob! He showed me his pistol and everything!”

Scott had nearly lost it right there. “I swear to God, Josh, you’re going to get us killed!”

The taller American flipped black hair out of his eyes. “Would you relax? He knew exactly why we’re here. Tourists come from all over to sample the nightlife, so to speak. He said to stick around the bar in our hotel, especially after eight. That’s when the best girls start coming in for drinks.”

Although Alcaster had his misgivings about any truth in the information they had been given, that was how they all found themselves sitting in the hotel tavern, which could have been just about any older drinking establishment in Europe, with a long, dark wooden bar along one side of the room, surrounded by several round tables and a row of booths along the far wall.

They’d had a surprisingly good dinner, washed down with a variety of regional beers, ranging from pale golden pilsners to a weak, dark dunkel that all three had agreed was the worst of the lot. Now, with dinner behind them, Tyrell tapped his fingers restlessly on the tabletop, obviously anxious for the evening’s entertainment to begin. Scott looked uneasy, while Alcaster was engaged in his internal struggle—which he’d been waging with himself since the trip began—as to whether he was really going to go through with this. His mind churned with equal parts anticipation, nervousness and flat-out fear. He swallowed through a suddenly dry throat and his palms were sweating so much he nearly dropped his beer glass when he went for a drink. He could back out right now, say he wasn’t feeling well from dinner or something—

Having made up his mind to do just that, Alcaster was rehearsing what he was going to say before excusing himself and going back to their room when the cuckoo clock on the wall over the bar began chiming the hour. As if drawn on cue, the main doors of the small lobby next to the bar opened and a parade of young women in tight dresses, high-heeled shoes and a range of makeup entered the bar. Although most of them had game smiles on, it was relatively clear that none was here of her own free will. However, that really didn’t seem to matter to the men waiting in the bar.

All of the men there—many of whom had been furtively counting the minutes, much like Tyrell, Scott and Alcaster had—perked up, smiling and waving as they looked over the night’s offerings. The three students huddled together, eyeing the women as they made the rounds, with Tyrell urging the other two to make their selections quickly.

“We need to cull the ones we want out of the herd, or they’re gonna go elsewhere,” he insisted.

“For God’s sake, Josh, these are people, not cattle!” Scott hissed.

Tyrell rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, would you pull that stick out of your ass for just one night? Look, we all know why we’re here, and so do they. If we don’t take advantage of the situation, someone else will. Now—” Tyrell craned his head up as three women, a blonde, a brunette and a dark-haired woman somewhere in their twenties, all dressed in different varieties of brightly colored, skintight dresses, approached their table. The trio of younger women had headed off a pair of more mature-looking prostitutes who had glared at the interlopers but still retreated. “Uh...can we help you ladies?” Tyrell asked.

“You are Americans, yes?” the brunette asked in decent English. “We love Americans.”

“Well, I am, and my friends are from Canada and England, but don’t worry, they’re all right.” Tyrell’s weak joke made all three ladies laugh, however, and he nodded at the other two to push a table over to make more room as he waved them in. “Won’t you join us?”

“Thank you.” The brunette introduced herself as Anoush, the blonde as Lusine and the raven-haired young woman as Siranush. Once Scott and Alcaster had gotten another table and chairs, the three women sat among the suddenly tongue-tied young men.

“You are all here on vacation?” Lusine asked.