I shot them both in the head.

Top and Bunny rushed out and dragged their bodies behind the sheds.

“Holy Jeez!” the Kid said.

“What’s our next move…?”

“There’s a door right at the corner of the first building. All of the buildings are connected to that one by hallways. I cut the alarms on all the doors and blanked out the cameras inside the buildings.”

“You’re making me like you, Kid. What do we do once we’re inside?”

“Um… okay, there are colored lines painted on all the floors. The blue line will bring you to the communications room, but you’re going to have to go through the maintenance pod and then the common room. It’s like a big lobby, with chairs and soda machines and a coffee bar. If you go straight across that, you’ll see the colored lines start again. Keep following that.”

“Roger that, Kid.”

“Wait!” There was some rustling noise and then he came back, breathless. “I think they’re coming back!”

“Can you lock yourself in until we get there?”

“The door’s just wood. They’ll kick it in.”

“Is your radio portable?”

“Yes. I rigged a headset.”

“Then get your ass out of there. Find someplace to hide. We’re going to have to make some noise.”

“God…”

“Are there any civilians we need to worry about? Any good guys?”

“Yes!” he said immediately. “The New Men. You’ll be able to spot them… they’re all dressed the same. Cotton pants and shirts with numbers on them. Please,” he begged, “don’t hurt any of them.”

“We’ll do our best, but if they offer resistance…”

“Believe me… they can’t.”

He said “can’t” rather than “won’t.” Interesting.

“Anyone else?”

“No… everyone else here is involved.”

“Then get out of there.”

“Okay, but… Cowboy? Watch out for the dogs.”

“What breed and how many?” I asked.

But all I got from the radio was a hiss of static.

“Okay,” I said to Bunny and Top, “pick your targets and check your fire. If anyone surrenders, let them. Otherwise, it’s Bad Day at Black Rock.”

“Hooah,” they replied.

“Now let’s kick some doors.”

Chapter Seventy-Four

The Hive

Sunday, August 29, 3:08 P.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 68 hours, 52 minutes E.S.T.

The exterior door was steel, so I stepped back as Bunny put a C4 popper on the lock with one of Hu’s newer gizmos-a poloymer shroud that was flexible enough to fold into a pocket but strong enough to catch shrapnel. It was also dense enough to muffle the sound, so when Bunny triggered it the lock blew out with a sound no louder than a cough. The door blew open in a swirl of smoke.

No alarms. Kid’s still batting a thousand so far.

I led the way inside.

The hallway was bright with flourescent lights and stretched sixty feet before hitting a T-juncture. There were doors on both sides. Everything was conveniently marked, and it was clear that this corridor was used by groundskeepers and technicians. Most of the rooms were storage. The left-hand rooms had bags of chemical fertilizer, shovels and garden tools, racks of work clothes. The right-hand rooms included a small machine shop, a boiler room, and a changing room for support staff. There were plenty of clothes and I debated having my guys change into them, but I didn’t. My gut was telling me that we were fighting the clock here, so we tagged each doorway with a paper sensor pad set below the level where the eye would naturally fall. The sensors had an ultrathin wire and a tiny blip transmitter. We peeled off the adhesive backing and pressed them over the crack in the door opposite the hinge side. If anyone opened the door, the paper would tear and a signal would be sent to our scanners. Simple and useful.

We found one room in which a large piece of some unidentifiable equipment hung from a chain hoist. From the scattering of tools and the droplight that still burned it looked like a work in active progress. There was no one around. Everyone must have gone to investigate the fire the Kid had set and, like most employees would, was probably stalling before heading back to work.

I still had the Beretta in my hands and we moved through a building that was empty and silent.

That all changed in a heartbeat.

Two men rounded the right-hand side of the T-juncture while we were still twenty feet away. Both wore coveralls stained with grease, and I knew they had to be the mechanics working on the equipment. They were deep in conversation, speaking German with an Austrian accent, when they saw us. They froze, eyes bugging in their heads, mouths opened in identical “ohs” of surprise as they stared down the barrels of three guns. I put the laser sight of my Beretta on the forehead of the bigger of the two men and put my finger to my lips.

All he had to do was nothing. All he had to do was stay silent and not try to be a hero.

Some people just don’t get it.

He half-turned and drew a fast breath to scream and I put one through his temple. Top took the other with two side-by-side shots in the center of his chest. They hit the floor in a sprawl.

If Lady Luck would have cut us a single frigging break we’d have been past them and into the complex within a few seconds. But she was in a mood today. There were other people behind them, out of our line of sight, farther down the side corridors.

People started screaming.

Then people started firing guns.

A moment later the alarms sounded.

So much for stealth.

Chapter Seventy-Five

The Dragon Factory

Sunday, August 29, 3:17 P.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 68 hours, 43 minutes E.S.T.

The three businessmen from China stood wide-eyed and slack jawed, all pretenses at emotional aloofness lost in the moment. Behind the glass, perched on the twisted limb of a tallow tree, its wings folded along the sleek lines of its sinuous body, was a dragon.

The creature turned its head toward them and stared through the glass for a long minute, occasionally flicking its flowing whiskers. It blinked slowly as if in disdain at their surprise.

One of the men, the senior buyer, broke into a huge grin. He bowed to the dragon, bending very low. His two younger associates also bowed. And just for the hell of it Hecate and Paris bowed, too. It might help close the deal, though both of them knew that this deal was already closed.

“Does… does…,” began the senior buyer-a fat-faced man named Chen-“can it…?”

Paris smiled. “Can it fly?” He reached out and knocked sharply on the window. The sudden sound startled the dragon, and it leaped from its perch, its snow-white wings spreading wider than the arm span of a tall man, and the creature flapped away to sit in a neighboring tree. The enclosure was designed for maximum exposure, so even though the dragon could move away, it couldn’t hide.

Chen murmured something in Mandarin that Paris did not catch. Neither of the Twins could speak the language. All of the business with these buyers had been conducted in English.

“How?” said Chen in English, turning toward the Twins.

“Bit of a trade secret,” said Paris. He was actually tempted to brag, because the creation of a functional flying lizard was the most complicated and expensive project he and Hecate had undertaken. The animal in the enclosure was a patchwork. The wings came from an albatross, the mustache from the barbels of a Mekong giant catfish, the horny crest from the Texas horned lizard, and the slender body was mostly a monitor lizard. There were a few other bits and pieces of genes in the mix, and so far the design had been so complicated that most of the individual animals had died soon after birth or been born with unexpected deformities from miscoding genes. This was the only one that appeared healthy and could fly.