Phoenix

22. The Ambush

The five-minute mark arrived with the precision of a ticking clock. Alpha-One checked his watch, the green phosphor glow reflecting in his night-vision goggles.

Though the gas was calculated to settle in three, they waited two extra minutes-a professional's tax for certainty. They did not want to stumble upon a lingering, conscious guard. There was no harm in being a little late when the alternative was a bullet from the dark.

​Alpha-One nodded to his partner, and they stepped out of the operation center. Protected by their respirators, the neuro-sedative air was harmless.

Through their goggles, the world was a monochromatic landscape of emerald shadows. They moved with predatory speed; the gas would keep the facility's occupants under for thirty minutes. They had to finish the job and vanish before the first person stirred.

​They reached the security chief's office in under two minutes, breaching the door with weapons raised. But the sight inside froze them.

​"What the hell!" Alpha-Two hissed, his light sweeping the room. "Where did the professor go? I don't see the other two people who were talking to him either!"

​Instead of the prize, they found the wreckage of a skirmish. Four bodies lay on the floor-Chief Blickman and three guards-all neutralized with clinical efficiency.

​"Maybe they somehow escaped from here," Alpha-One growled, his eyes scanning the corridor. "But they shouldn't be gone too far. With this gas-maybe they are somewhere in the corridor, unconscious by now. Let's see."

​They moved back into the hall, checking the slumped forms of technicians and security personnel. Every face was wrong.

​"No, they're not here!" Alpha-Two's frustration was audible. "How is that possible?"

​Alpha-One's expression curdled into a mask of cruelty behind his respirator. "I don't know how, but either way, they succeeded in evading the gas. But that does not mean that they are allowed to leave."

​"But where did they go?"

​"They must be trying to escape through some exit route!"

​Alpha-Two paused, his tactical mind mapping the facility. "Transport! They need transport to escape. That means they are going to the garage!"

​"Right!" Alpha-One clicked his safety off. "Then let's go and let them catch the transport. To hell."

​Jin waited in the fire-fighting store until the oxygen had fully cleared the fog from Arya's and Donnen's minds. He needed them sharp.

The knockout gas was designed to dissipate after ten minutes, but the risk remained. Jin rigged the air cylinders to their backs with improvised harnesses, keeping the masks sealed tight.

​They emerged cautiously, moving like ghosts through the pitch-black corridors. Jin led the way, followed by Arya, with Dr. Donnen at the rear, whispering directions toward the garage.

They walked in a rhythmic, silent cadence, stepping carefully over the unconscious bodies littering the floor.

​They reached the T-junction-the final gateway to the garage. The hangar was sixty yards to the right.

​Jin stepped toward the turn, but his sixth sense suddenly screamed. It was a cold prickle at the base of his neck, a primal warning of impending violence.

​Because light travels faster than sound, Jin saw the strobe-like flickering of a muzzle flash before the roar of gunfire reached him.

​"Watch out!" he roared, the command muffled by his mask.