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They were greeted by the blinding glare of white light. Before their eyes could adjust, a Scottish-accented voice said, “Hey, who are you? What are you—”
Hand held before his eyes, Sam jerked the Glock up and pointed it toward the voice. “Hands up!”
“Okay, okay, for God’s sake, don’t shoot me.”
Their eyes adjusted. They were in a laboratory clean room, painted all white save the floor, which was covered in white antistatic, antimicrobial rubber tiles. In the center of the space was a twelve-by-six-foot worktable surrounded by rolling stools. On the shelves and tables was, Sam estimated, a quarter-million dollars’ worth of restoration equipment, including autoclaves, glass-fronted refrigeration units, two Zeiss stereomicroscopes, a polarized fluorescence microscope, and a handheld XRF (X-ray fluorescence) device. On the table’s Formica surface rested what looked like pieces from Bondaruk’s war collection—a broken spear handle, a double-sided ax head, a tarnished and bent Civil War cavalry sword. A triangle of articulated stainless steel halogen lamps shined down from the ceiling.
The man who stood before them was short and bald save a fringe of orange hair above his ears. He was dressed in a knee-length white lab coat. From behind a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses his eyes were comically magnified.
“Well, that’s a familiar sight,” Remi said, pointing.
Projected on one of the monitors was a piece of cracked leather bearing a grid of symbols.
“Eureka,” Sam m
uttered. Then he said to the man, “Who are—”
Even as the words left Sam’s mouth the man spun and began sprinting toward the far wall—heading for, Sam realized, the red mushroom-shaped panic button mounted there.
“Stop!” Sam shouted, to no effect. “Damn it!”
Behind him, Remi was moving. She leaped forward, snatched the spear handle from the table, and hurled it sidearm. It spun through the air in a flat arc and smacked the man behind the knees. Arm already outstretched for the button, he grunted and pitched forward. His head slammed into the wall with a dull thud just below the button. He slid face-first to the floor, unconscious.
Sam, eyes wide, his gun still raised, stared at her. She looked back at him and offered a shrug and a grin. “I used to toss a baton when I was a kid.”
“It shows. Bet you’re hell in a horseshoe pit.”
“Hope I didn’t kill him. Oh, God, I didn’t kill him, did I?”
Sam walked over, knelt down, and rolled the man onto his back. Protruding from his forehead was a purple egg-shaped lump. Sam checked for a pulse. “He’s just down for a long nap. He’ll have a headache for a few days but nothing else.”
Remi was standing before the monitor displaying the symbol grid. “You think it’s the bottle from Rum Cay?” she asked.
“I sure hope so. If not, that means Bondaruk’s got more than one bottle. Look around, see if it’s here.”
They checked the humidity-control cabinets, the refrigerators, and the drawers beneath the worktable, but found no sign of either the bottle or the label.
“It’s probably a digital image,” Remi said, studying the monitor. “See the edge there, on the left? It looks color enhanced.”
“As much as I’d like to get the bottle away from Bondaruk, this might be all we need. See if you can print—” Sam stopped talking and cocked his head. “You hear that . . . ? Oh, crap.” He pointed.
In the corner, partially hidden from view by a cabinet, was a wall-mounted video camera. It stopped panning, the lens aimed directly at them.
“Company’s coming,” Remi said.
“Quick, check the keyboard, see if you can print us a screen capture of the label!”
As Remi started tapping on the keyboard, Sam sprinted to the corner, grabbed the feed wire beneath the camera, and jerked it loose. Next he ran to the door, flipped off the lights, and returned to Remi, who said, “Got it!” and tapped a key. The laser printer’s lights blinked green and it hummed to life.
From the control room they heard a door bang open, then shut, then open again. Footsteps clicked on linoleum, then went silent.
“Down,” Sam whispered, then dropped onto his belly and pulled Remi with him. “Stay here and grab that printout.” He crawled down the short side of the table and peeked his head out.
At the door, the knob was slowly turning. He extended the Glock and took aim.
The laser printer started rhythmically humming.
“Printing,” Remi whispered.
