Chapter 5 - The Glass Room
We moved through the rear service door of the laboratory like shadows. Frank and two enforcers neutralized the night guards silently with non-lethal tasers, securing them in the security office.
Emily led us up the rear stairwell to the third-floor bio-hazard facility. Through the heavy reinforced glass windows of the central lab, a man in a white lab coat was frantically packing glass vials into a metallic cooler.
"Dr. Aris Vance," Emily whispered, her eyes narrowing. "My father's former deputy director."
I didn't wait. I raised my boot and slammed it into the lock mechanism of the double glass doors. The heavy electronic lock shattered with a loud CRUNCH, and we spilled into the sterile room.
Dr. Vance shrieked, dropping a glass beaker that shattered across the linoleum floor. "Who are you?! Security!"
"Security is sleeping, Doctor," I said, stepping into the fluorescent light, my gun pointed squarely at his forehead.
Vance’s face drained of all color as he recognized me. "M-Michael Carter..."
"Hello, Aris," Emily said, stepping out from behind my shoulder, pulling off her rain hood.
Dr. Vance’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "Emily...? Emily Parker?! You're dead! Moretti said you fled to Europe!"
"Moretti lied to you," Emily said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly cold tone as she walked up to his work table. She picked up a silver flask labeled VX-3 Stabilizer. "Just like he lied when he told you my father's death was an accident."
"I... I had nothing to do with Richard's car!" Vance stammered, backing against a row of centrifuges. "Moretti forced me! He threatened my family!"
"You manufactured the poison that almost killed my six-month-old son tonight," I said, stepping forward, pressing the cold steel barrel of my pistol directly between Vance's eyebrows. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't leave your brains on that whiteboard."
"I have the master ledger!" Vance screamed, dropping to his knees, his hands held up in surrender. "I have the hard drive! It contains every transaction, every payment, and every contract Moretti signed for the chemical assassinations over the last six years!"
"Where is it?" I demanded.
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"In... in the primary server in the basement," Vance gasped, sweating profusely. "But you can't access it! Moretti's son, Anthony, is on his way here right now with six armed men to destroy the servers and kill me!"
Right on cue, the muffled sound of heavy automatic gunfire echoed from the ground floor lobby.
