He bumped into Hammond ’s rear as she suddenly halted.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“There’s something just ahead of us. Something running.”

Dalton tried to hear over the roar of the generators reverberating up the tube. He caught the first whiff of exhaust fumes. She was right. A rhythmic sound ahead.

“A fan,” Hammond said. “There’s got to be a fan pulling the exhaust out. Jesus, I could have run right into it.”

“We can’t stay here.”

“I don’t know where the fan is,” Hammond said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

“We need to go forward.” Dalton squeezed up against Hammond, trying to get by. Their bodies pressed tight together and he inched past her. Once past, he began moving. “Come on.” He focused all his senses forward, keying on the sound of the fan, hearing it get closer, feeling the air moving on his cheeks getting stronger. As was the smell of the diesel exhaust.

Soon he knew they were close to the fan. The sound of it turning was louder than the generators, filling the tube. He could feel the backwash from it. A dozen feet away. Maybe more. He edged forward.

Stop.

For a second Dalton thought it was Hammond who had spoken.

Now.

He knew that voice better than any other, but it was inside his head. Marie. Dalton stopped.

A drop.

He reached forward with his hand. The floor of the tube abruptly ended less than a foot in front of him. Feeling about, Dalton realized the tube made a ninety-degree turn down. If he had continued, he’d have fallen in, to meet the fan, which he could now hear clearly just below.

Dalton pulled his pistol out and pointed it downward, hoping he was aiming for the center. He fired, shifting aim slightly each time he pulled the trigger. He heard several of the rounds hit metal. The seventh one did the trick, hitting the motor in the center of the fan. It stuttered to a halt.

Dalton could hear Hammond coughing. He felt lightheaded and very calm. He knew both were a bad sign. The lack of anxiety meant his mind was starting to shut down from the exhaust poisoning.

Reholstering his pistol, Dalton edged his feet over and lowered himself until he came in contact with one of the blades of the fan. He tested his weight-it held. Of course, he had no idea how the drop was below the fan.

Slide.

“Come on,” Dalton called to Hammond. He reached up. “Give me your hand.”

He searched in the darkness and then finally felt her flesh. He gripped it and pulled her toward him, despite her screech of protest. He held her weight in his arms. “We have to slide between the blades.”

“ ‘Slide’?” Hammond coughed. “Are you crazy? It’s a straight drop, God knows how far.”

“We’ll be safe. I know.”

There was no answer. Dalton shook Hammond and she stirred, muttering something. He lowered her between the blades and let go. Then he followed.

He dropped straight for about ten feet, then hit the side of the tube. As he slid he realized it was curving back to the horizontal. He put his arms and legs out, trying to slow down, afraid of slamming into Hammond whenever the tube reached the end.

Despite his efforts, he hit her hard, slamming her up against a grate. He felt fresh, cold air on his face.

Raisor had wanted to go back to his body before they left Bright Gate, but Valika denied him that option. She had seen the two Blackhawks leaving as they arrived and was sure some sort of alert had already been broadcast and reinforcements were most likely on their way. She had her mercenaries racing about, unhooking Sybyl and moving the two designated isolation tubes to the landing grate.

“What about the others?” she asked Raisor, indicating the tubes containing the rest of the other three teams.

“According to the computer, the only one who is still technically alive is him.” Raisor pointed at Kirtley’s tube.

“Do we need him?” Valika asked.

“No. And he’ll be lost as soon as you finish unhooking the computer.”

She tucked the stock of the MP- 5 in her shoulder and aimed at the tube. She fired a sustained burst, shattering the tube and freeing the freezing liquid. An alarm went off and a yellow warning light began flashing. One of the ancillary computer monitors flickered and came on. A man’s face appeared.

“Dr. Hammond.” Kirtley’s voice came out of the computer’s speakers, his face appearing on the screen.

Raisor and Valika went to the screen.

“If you are seeing this,” the man on the screen continued, “something has gone wrong and I am dead. I warned you not to do anything. You should have taken me more seriously.”

Valika looked from the screen to the body half-hanging out of the tube she had just shot. “It’s him,” she said, pointing. She had a very bad feeling about this, which was immediately confirmed as the man on the screen continued talking.

“If this program is activated, it means that life signs from my isolation tube have flat-lined-that you’ve killed me. So in keeping with my warning, I will now kill you and everyone else in the facility.” The face on the screen smiled and his right hand appeared, holding a watch. “Sixty seconds. How does it feel to know you only have a minute of life left?”

Valika didn’t wait to see any more. “Bomb! Evacuate!” she screamed at the mercenaries as she raced toward the exit. They dropped what they were doing and followed her.

Raisor didn’t run. The tube containing his body was on a cart near the door to the corridor abandoned. Along with the Aura generator that was giving him what little power he had. He looked at the screen.

“Fifty seconds,” Kirtley said. “I have to assume, though, that is more time than you gave me when you did whatever it is you did to me.”

Raisor reached out and flowed into the computer. Perhaps whatever Kirtley had planned was being run by the computer and he could stop it. He raced along electronic pathways, searching.

“Forty seconds. I was recruited by the Priory. Do you know that?” Kirtley’s voice echoed in the now empty control room, but inside the computer Raisor could still hear the words. He found the location of the recording, then followed the thread of data to a link with Sybyl’s monitoring program. Wrong way, Raisor realized with alarm-this was the direction the alert had come to start the destruct program. He reversed direction.

“Thirty seconds.”

On the grate, Valika jumped on board the Huey, grabbing a headset. “Lift,” she ordered the pilot. “Now!” she added with emphasis.

The helicopter shuddered as the pilot increased power. The blades began turning faster, but they were still on the grate. Valika knew it took time to gain enough blade speed to take off. She smacked the firewall in frustration at the blades turning overhead, willing them to go faster.

Raisor was back through the computer that Kirtley had used to display his message, passing along a data line to the computer that ran Bright Gate’s environmental system.

“Twenty seconds.”

Then Raisor “saw” it. Plastic explosive wired to each of the tanks holding the fuel for the generators. The detonator switch on each wasn’t electric-which he could have manipulated-but rather an acid drip over which he had no control.

“Ten seconds.”

The Huey’s skids lifted.

“Get us away from here as quickly as possible,” Valika told the pilot.

He responded by nosing over and dropping altitude along the slope of the mountain to gain speed. Valika turned and looked back, waiting.

The acid ate through, activating the detonators.

Raisor’s essence was right next to the first of the fuel tanks. He would have laughed if he had had a mouth to issue the sound.

All four tanks exploded, ripping through the levels of Bright Gate.

Dalton staggered.

“What the hell was that?” Hammond cried out as she fell to her knees.