Lazarus added, “I’ll take point. You watch my six.”
The elevator descended through alternating layers of masonry and bedrock until arriving at the basement. Officially, the subterranean levels of the fortress remained unexcavated, but clearly that was not the whole story. A simple passage led away from the elevator. A metal door awaited them at the far end. Although newer than the elevator, it was shrouded in cobwebs and spotted with corrosion.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s used this door in ages,” Pierce remarked. “They must have another way in. Something that doesn’t show on the blueprints.”
“That may work in our favor,” Lazarus said.
Pierce approached the door and swept it with his black box. The readings showed no electrical fields indicating an alarm system, so he tried the door. “Locked.”
“I’ll knock.” Lazarus stepped forward and placed a length of what looked like foam insulation over the latch plate, fixing it in place with tape. He motioned for Pierce to back up a few steps, and then he hit the detonator switch. There was a loud bang, like a car backfiring, and the door flew open. Lazarus immediately charged through, his MP5K at the ready. Pierce moved in behind him, searching for a target in the smoky room.
Pierce recognized the corridor from both the blueprints and firsthand accounts from Gallo and Kenner. There were doors to either side, and at the far end, a modern elevator, but little else of note.
“It’s clear,” Lazarus said. “But stay sharp. We don’t know what’s behind these doors.”
Pierce maintained a watch on the corridor while Lazarus methodically searched each room. They found personal quarters, classrooms and storage closets, but no Cerberus personnel and no Fiona. As they neared the end, Pierce finally voiced the thought that had been nagging at him for several minutes.
“Where is everyone?”
“We knew there would be minimal personnel,” Lazarus said. From his tone, Pierce guessed that the big man was as anxious about the situation as he. He stared at the sliding metal doors to the elevator for several seconds, then walked toward it.
The doors slid open revealing an empty car. Lazarus stepped inside, but as Pierce moved to join him, he raised a hand. “Better wait here.”
“If they’re waiting for you,” Pierce said, “you’re going to need me.”
“If they’re waiting, they’ll kill us both.”
Before Pierce could protest, the doors closed and he was left alone.
44
The doors opened and Lazarus shot out of the elevator like a burst from a machine gun. If there was an ambush waiting, he would have only a millisecond to acquire a target and fire before the bullets began tearing into him. His Kevlar vest would stop some of the rounds, especially if the Cerberus men were armed with pistols and shooting nine-mil, but some of their shots would undoubtedly find unprotected areas of his body—arms, legs, head—and he would go down.
He would die, but that would only be a temporary problem. What mattered was that he would be rendered combat ineffective.
To give Pierce a fighting chance at rescuing Fiona, he had to kill as many hostiles as he could, as quickly as he could, and to do that, he would have to be more than just Lazarus, the man who came back. He would need to be the man he had left behind on the bottom of Lake Kivu. He would need the rage again.
All his life, it had been with him…in him. He had never understood why. The traumas of his early childhood played a role, but they did not explain the intensity of his primal anger. Being a soldier had given him a way to channel the emotional firestorm that always burned within him, but that was not a solution. Rather, it just added fuel to the fire.
The regenerative serum had changed all that, forced him to control that which had always controlled him, because if his focus slipped, he would become nothing but rage. Yet, control was not the same as peace. The fire never went out. Not until Felice.
She had shown him that rage was not, as he often believed, his oldest and only true friend. It was a drug, and he was an addict. She had shown him how to kick the habit.
Like any addiction, the urges never completely went away, but every day that passed, every quiet moment spent meditating, every second in Felice’s arms, made it easier. Made him believe in a life without rage.
He knew how to tap into it, to make it work for him. He had done it in Liberia to survive the carnivorous plants and rescue Felice and the others. He had used it to withstand the assault of the Stymphalian birds, to help her and Pierce reach safety. Now, he needed to unleash it to save Fiona.
And to kill the bastards that took her.
It wasn’t enough. Indignation wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just throw a switch and decide to be mad. He needed more. He needed pain.
He needed to remember what that felt like. The birds tearing into his flesh. The vines, burning his skin like acid. The lake…