“We have to leave them, you know,” Zeke said gently. Elise looked pleadingly at him but he shook his head. “They’ll be fine; they will want them for the future research program. Just lock them up in the other building.”

Elise nodded tearfully and quickly did so. The childlike primates did not want to let her go but she had no choice.

The six of them streamed for the rally point, flames licking at the laboratory behind them. They heard two explosions inside, rattling the walls and spitting dust and debris out the doors. Larry’s claymores and thermite had done their work.

Zeke counted heads as they arrived, then led everyone quickly through the woods by moonlight. Daniel stayed right behind Elise. A couple of brief minutes later they got to the rubber boat.

The buzzing of the helicopter was closer, but the only thing they knew was it was coming from the east, and the trees blocked their view. They couldn’t embark on the raft until they were sure the helo wasn’t a threat. They heard it making a couple of passes near the burning lab, then it turned toward them.

It raced overhead, suddenly visible as it passed above the tree line and then out over the water. It looked like an OH-6 or Hughes 500 variant, commonly called a “Loach,” or “Little Bird,” probably the best light helicopter ever made. It made a sharp turn south, paralleling the shoreline two hundred yards out.

Suddenly tracers spat from the helo’s open door, striking the rented boat. Two assault weapons on full auto responded from the little squad on the beach, reaching out to intersect the insectlike device in flight. The helo’s tracers started to shift toward them, then the bird staggered in the air and lost power. Smoke started pouring from it, and they could see flames. A moment later it made a hard splashdown in the water beyond the boat, pieces of rotor flying.

“Stupid,” said Zeke, pain in his voice. “Dammit, why did they do that?” It sounded like the Eden Plague was plaguing his conscience as well.

At least it isn’t just me, Daniel thought.

“Arrogant,” responded Spooky. “Be glad they did. Is one less variable.”

“We have a bigger problem,” said Skull, standing up and walking out of the trees onto the rocky beach. “Look.”

Their rented boat, their way off the island, was already listing noticeably. The helo’s shooter must have holed it badly below the waterline before it was knocked down.

“Dammit,” said Larry, staring. “What now?”

“What are you doing, DJ?” Zeke asked. “We can’t save the boat.”

Daniel was singlehandedly dragging the rubber raft toward the water. “How about the people in the helo!” he yelled. “There might be survivors!”

Zeke stared at him for a second, then grabbed the other side of the raft and helped him get it to the water’s edge. “Spooky, you and DJ paddle out there.” Zeke ran back to the tree line. “Elise, is there a boat in that boathouse?”

“Yes there is! An 18-foot powerboat. Let’s go get it!” she said eagerly. She started back into the woods in the direction of the dock, Skull and Zeke following right behind.

Daniel and Spooky rowed out to where the Loach had hit. Wreckage was still floating, and there was one man clinging to a piece. They dragged him into the rubber boat and he lay there gasping. Spooky kept a weapon pointed at his nose. They looked around but couldn’t find anyone else. Daniel kept his mouth shut. They’d saved one man anyway.

By this time they heard, then saw, the powerboat screaming around the south end of the island at thirty knots or more. Daniel hoped they didn’t hit a submerged rock at that speed. As they got closer he could see Skull driving, with Elise in the back. The boat soon pulled in close to shore.

They got their feet wet loading up, leaving the helo survivor on the shore with his hands zip-cuffed and his eyes taped over. He could peel off the tape, walk back to the burned complex, find a sharp piece of metal to cut the cuffs, and free his two buddies, but by that time the team would be long gone.

It was crowded in the boat, but Daniel didn’t mind. Elise was pushed up against him, shivering in the cold spindrift wind. He wrapped his arms around her, just enjoying the feeling of survival, freedom and healthy woman.

She responded, pressing herself against his muscular warmth, but suddenly pushed him gently away. She put her left foot up against the coaming and pulled up her pants leg. Strapped to her ankle was an electronic device with a light on it, flashing angry red. “Cut it off,” she instructed. “They said they could track me with it.”

While the rest stared, Daniel took out his knife again and carefully sliced the strap. He tossed it into the blacking sea. Track that, spy-boys.

“Anything else you want to tell us?” Zeke yelled into the noise of the rushing air. Elise shook her head, looked down, embarrassed. Daniel squeezed her hand.

Spooky remarked over the net, “If I was them I would have a tracker on this boat.”

“Right. Zeke to Vinny, meet us at alternate marina Charlie with a bug-finder. We’ll pull in and you can give it a once-over. ETA maybe five minutes, so haul ass.”

Vinny met them at a little marina a couple of miles down the coast from where they had rented the boat. He went over the speedboat with an electronic detector, soon yanking out a fist-sized GPS transmitter. He tossed that into the water.

Larry, Elise and Daniel piled into Vinny’s Toyota and drove back to the motel. Skull roared off in the powerboat, to a different marina. Vinny dropped them off, then went to pick up the rest. Good thing there were dozens of landing places up and down the coast.

In the hotel room Daniel phoned in a huge order of Chinese for delivery. In the meantime they ate and drank everything that was handy. Crackers, cookies, cans of vegetable juice, full-sugar soda, tuna, it was all shoveled into their gullets like pelicans at a fish farm. When the take-out arrived, they plowed into that, too. When the others returned to the hotel, they found a half-eaten styrofoam buffet and two stuffed Eden Plague carriers sitting on the floor half-asleep. The third, Larry, was in the bathroom cleaning up.

Zeke caught a whiff of the food and grabbed the nearest box, eating with a grim determination. Daniel saw his rigger belt was cinched up tight and he looked like he had lost twenty pounds today. The other three started eating as well, though with only normal human urgency.

“We gotta get out of here,” Daniel said over the noise of the gobbling. He forced himself up to sit on the bed. “Even if they don’t make us here, they know we’re in the area.”

The rest nodded.

“All right, people,” Zeke said between bites. “Tear it down. Get ready to roll out.”

“Wait,” said Skull forcefully. He swept everyone with an even harder look than usual. “The lab’s burnt and unless there’s a lot of data stored off-site, we set them back years. But there are two loose ends. Or three.”

“Yes,” agreed Spooky. “The scientists and the doctor.”

Daniel preempted their argument. “So we go snap them up. Now. We know where they are. We know four of six shooters are out of the picture – at least two in the helo, two from the lab. We can probably snatch the scientists in their beds not three miles from here. Does the doctor in charge live here?”

“No, Durgan lives in Annapolis,” said Elise. “He comes down once a week or so. But he’s just an educated manager; he couldn’t recreate the work, though Arthur and Roger and I together could. Daniel is right.” She hugged his arm, sitting there next to him, and he felt warm all over.

“Much easier to just put a bullet into their heads,” observed Skull. He was staring at Daniel, like he was ready for the inevitable argument.

Zeke beat him to it. “No. No murder.”

“It’s preemptive self-defense,” retorted the sniper.