"That's a good question." Loren stepped closer to the sign, checking at his feet for ova that might be on the ground. "They probably sense carbon dioxide, sweat, and pheromones, like lots of worms and insects." Then he exhaled toward several of them. Just as the ova had done in their field lab, these immediately began to move in Loren's direction. "And we've been out here for most of a week, asleep in our tents, out in the woods sweating up a storm. That girl told me her entire party was killed by these things, and most of them were infected the first day they were here. How have we managed to not attract these things for all this time?"

  "Maybe luck," Nora said. "Plus, we've been spraying ourselves constantly with insect repellent. We know that direct contact with the repellent kills them." She looked at her wrist. "Oh yeah, and we've got these things." She held up her wrist, showing the repellentlaced plastic bracelet. When she moved the bracelet closer to the ova, they began to back away.

  "Well, that's good to know," Loren said. "At least it's a little protection."

  "Sure, but let's be practical. Tiny worms and ova are one thing, but these little bracelets aren't going to stop a large, fully mature worm. The one that attacked me in the water wasn't the least bit affected by this bracelet."

  "Yeah, and neither was the twenty-footer that got Annabelle. She had a bracelet too."

  "We better put more spray on now that we're thinking of it," Nora said and withdrew the narrow can from her pocket. She aimed the can down at her legs and pressed the button. Nothing came out.

  "It's all gone!"

  "Terrific," Loren said. "We better hope that Trent has some more."

  Nora tossed the empty can. "Come on, let's keep going anyway. just be careful."

  They burgeoned forward through heavier brush, and after just a few more yards ...

  "See it?" Nora asked.

  "Yeah ..."

  The old blockhouse building looked jammed into the woods, overrun with brush, Spanish moss, and vines that crawled down from the trees above.

  "The control center for the old missile site," Nora said. "Just like Trent told us."

  "Shit, that place looks like it hasn't been used for twenty years," Loren observed of the squat, bunkerlike structure.

  "Maybe it's just supposed to look that way. So no one bothers with it." Nora kept her eyes on the station, imagining what might be inside. What did she suspect? A secret barracks, a camouflaged field lab or research outpost? I don't know WHAT I'm thinking ...

  They both crept up slowly.

  "No windows," Loren noticed.

  "Of course not ... but there's the door."

  A black, metal-framed door stared back at them, with a similar warning: RESTRICTED. Loren noticed it at once: "Look. The doorknob."

  Nora saw what he meant. There actually wasn't a doorknob anymore, just a rust-rimmed hole. Loren hooked his finger in the hole and pulled, but the door didn't budge. "Maybe it was welded shut when they closed down the site."

  "Then why do I see light inside?" Nora questioned when she leaned over and peeked into the hole.

  "You're kidding me ..." Something caught Loren's eye. "But check this out," he said and pointed down to a heavily cased air-conditioning unit. It sat midbuild- ing, bolted to a cement grounding. It was rusted through, its grate corroded. They could see the fan deeper down, caked with more corrosion.

  "That thing hasn't turned in years," Nora said.

  "So that means there can't be anyone inside. With no windows open? It's 110 in there."

  Fine. But why's there a light on? Nora went back to the door. Head-level against the frame was a black plate of some kind. "What's that? A military dead bolt?"

  "Feels almost like plastic or polycarb," Loren said after he brushed his fingers against it. "The temperature's cooler than the door metal. It's a tack weld or something. If it was a dead bolt, there'd be a keyhole."

  Nora touched it too. "There is-at least I think so. See that?"

  Loren squinted.

  There was no sign of a key cylinder, but there was indeed a tiny slit in the black plate, perhaps an eighth of an inch long.

  "You can barely see it," Loren said. "Must be some high-tech security lock."

  Nora was unconscious of the impulse; she was reaching down into her pocket and before she even knew what she was doing, she'd withdrawn that pen- dantlike object she'd found in the woods: the strip of metal on a neck cord.

  "Interesting," Loren said.

  Nora put the end of the pendant into the slit. Out of reflex, she tried to turn it, as one would a key, but it began to bend.

  "Don't turn it," Loren directed. "There's no cylinder like a regular lock. Just push it in as far as it'll go."

  Nora did so, and-

  Tick.

  The door popped open an inch.

  Both of them stiffened.

  "I guess this is what we wanted," Loren said with no enthusiasm at all.

  Nora was suddenly scared herself. This is a new lock on a very old door. That key she'd found on the trail the other day could only mean that military people were using this island, in secret. Not even Trent knew about it ...

  "Cool air," she whispered to herself. Another question mark. With no sound of an air conditioner running?

  "Yeah, feels like seventy degrees in there," Loren said. "You tell me."

  "There must be fans on or something," Nora replied. "But I'd say we've got bigger questions to answer."

  "How's this for a question: Who's going to be the first to go in?"

  Nora peered ahead into the murk. "How about you?"

  "Why? Because I'm the man?" Loren frowned into the doorway. He didn't hear anything but he did see some dim lights on. A clean-floored hallway led straight down the middle of the building, with doors on either side.

  "This was my idea," Nora owned up.

  "Yeah. Plus, you get paid more than me."

  Nora almost laughed. She stepped inside, and Loren followed.

  "Shhh," she reminded him.

  She took long, slow steps. The coolness inside sucked around her, which felt good after being in such dank, humid heat. When they'd first stepped in, the building seemed dead silent, yet after a few steps Nora heard something humming. Odd white lightbulbs that were small and circular dotted the wall up near the ceiling. They both stopped at the first door. There was no dead bolt on it like the outside door. A sign read PROCESSING UNrr, but it was peeling at the corners, obviously very old.

  "Are we really going to do this?" Loren whispered. "What if there's somebody on the other side?"

  Nora didn't want to think about it. They'd come here for information, and chickening out now seemed worse than pointless. "We'll run," she said and turned the knob.

  Old hinges creaked as she pushed open the door.

  "Wow," Loren said.

  No one stood waiting for them, but they immediately saw old desks and tables pushed together to form a platform for some very fancy-looking security monitors.

  'These are the highest-tech LCD flat screens I've ever seen," Nora said of the dozen one-foot-square panels. Each panel framed a different area of the island.

  "We were right," Nora said. "All those little cameras are operational."

  "They're monitoring the entire island." Loren leaned toward the glowing screens. "Look, there's the shower, our campsite, and-shit!" He pointed to a frame. "I was just there! That's where the girl killed herself, on that boat."

  Nora saw the canopied Boston Whaler anchored in a small lagoon. "We never even knew that lagoon was here."

  "Here's another lagoon," Loren said and pointed. "And another boat ..."

  This panel showed another lagoon hemmed in by trees and mangrove roots. Tied off to one of the roots was a small, unoccupied skiff.

  "Jesus, there really have been a lot of people on this island," Nora guessed.

  "Yeah, and they're probably all dead now, infected. The girl who shot herself said they were being used for a scientific test, and that these military people in the gas masks were monitoring them."

  "Which means they've been monitoring us too," Nora reminded him.

  They both chewed on the thought for a while. The silence began to unnerve Nora.

  "Why monitor the north beach and not the others?" she said next, looking at the one frame that showed the shore.

  "Well, for one, that's where the bristleworm nest " was.

  "Yeah, and it's also where the trench is, where these guys parked their submersible." She'd almost forgotten about that. "They came here in it, in secret, to set up. But I'm sure there's a lot more than this," she said of the room itself. Security equipment was suspicious. But Nora needed more proof.

  Proof of genetic experiments.

  'Let's look in some more rooms."

  "Or let's not," Loren posed. 'Ms is crazy coming here in the first place. We're going to get caught. We already know the navy or army or some military agency is engaged in a secret project. So let's just go."

  'You go, then. Go back to the campsite and wait for Lieutenant Trent. I'll only be another few minutes."

  Loren scowled. "Shit. Come on, I'll go with you."

  They left the room and went into the next. More screens on more tables, and old shelves filled with cases almost like tackle boxes.

  "More of that code," Loren said when he looked at a screen.

  "It must be their research data after being encrypted."

  The screen was filled the same dots and dashes they'd seen on the cameras and the key.

  The first line on the screen read:

  "I wish I could take a picture of this," Nora said. "Or print it out."

  Loren looked around. "I don't see a printer hooked up to any of this gear."

  She pointed. "Look and see what's on those shelves. I'll check this closet."

  A rusted door narrower than the others stood in the corner. I was wrong it's not a closet, she thought when she opened it. It was another room, illumined by more of the small round lightbulbs. Hanging along the wall were several black rubberized suits with hoods, and widely visored gas masks. From pegs on the opposite wall dangled narrow black belts, and connected to the belts were fabric pockets containing tools.

  The tools, too, were black. Nora slipped one out. What the hell is this? A ruler? The tool extended via a slide mechanism, but for the life of her she didn't know what it might be used for.

  These narrow doors must connect all the rooms, she gathered when she opened another door like the one she'd used to enter here. She was looking into the first room they'd searched, with all the surveillance monitors.

  "Nora," Loren whispered. "I think I hit pay dirt."

  She went back out. Loren had taken down one of the cases and opened it. It reminded her of the bloodsample cases that doctors' offices sent to labs. When the case had been opened, racks popped up on either side. The racks contained what she could only guess were-

  "Specimen tubes," Loren said, holding one up. "They're square instead of round, but it's obvious that's what these are. Check it out."

  Nora took the tube. Floating in a fluid that looked like light mouthwash was a spotted ovum identical to those they'd seen all over the island.

  "Here's another one."

  The next tube contained a half-inch-long worm.

  "There's your proof," Loren said, "so let's go."

  Nora looked at more tubes, which all contained either pristine examples of ova or worms. Are they alive? she wondered. Preserved? Are they prototypes? Ultimately, it didn't matter.

  And Loren was correct: Here was proof of what she'd come here to find out. A military test in the field. A worm that's obviously a cross-species, the product of either a mutation process or a genetic splice ...

  And humans are what they're testing it on.

  Loren put the case back, then squeezed her arm. "How can I put it more eloquently, Nora? We have to get the fuck out of here."

  "All right, all right ..."

  He practically dragged her out of the room. The door remained opened at the end of the hall, light pouring in. Nora peeked in the first room as they brushed by; then she tugged back at him.

  "Wait a second-"

  "Damn it, Nora!" he whispered. "We're going to get caught in here!"

  "I don't think anyone's here right now," she said.

  "Then where are they?"

  "Outside. Look at that ..."

  She was pointing to the security monitors in the first room. Loren edged in behind her, seeing what she meant. "That's one of them," he said.

  On one of the higher screens, a man was kneelinga man in a gas mask and decon suit. He was kneeling at a large slab of concrete.

  'fhat's the RTG, isn't it?" Loren noticed.

  "It sure is." A chill went up her back. "We were just there a few minutes ago."

  "And look, there's two more of them-"

  Yet another screen briefly showed two more masked and hooded men moving down a trail.

  "Three of them total," Nora counted.

  "Plus the one I shot ..."

  Both of them looked back at the RTG screen, and the mysterious figure kneeling before it. A gloved hand produced a small black box and rested it on the slab. Then he opened the box and withdrew a black disk that looked like a hockey puck.

  "What the hell is he doing?" Loren asked.

  "That disk," Nora said. "What's that rod he just pulled out of it?"

  They both stared. The man extracted a short rod from the disk; from the end of the disk, he seemed to remove a cap.

  Then he pushed the rod against the slab's cement face. A moment later, the disk had been mounted onto the concrete.

  "The rod must be some kind of stand," Nora said. "And ... shit. I've got a bad vibe about this."

  Loren looked right at her. "Me too. Nora, why do I have a funny feeling that black thing is a bomb?"

  "I ... don't know ..." She was thinking the exact same thing. "It's not big enough to be a bomb is it?"

  "A piece of C-4 the size of a hockey puck? It could probably break that concrete slab in half."

  "And then the pressure from the explosion might split the fuel-source casing."

  "Instant dirty nuke. Shit, Nora. If that really is what he's doing..-..."

  "It would look like a terrorist operation," she realized. "The radioactive dust from an explosion like that would contaminate the entire island."

  "And anyone or anything on it would die from radiation sickness in a matter of days."

  This is madness, she thought, still staring at the screen.

  Then the man in the gas mask got up and walked away, leaving the disk propped up on the slab.

  "We're out of here,' Loren insisted, but just when they would turn to leave, a security monitor in the corner began to blink.

  "What's happening now!" Nora exclaimed.

  It was the screen showing the north beach. The panel's frame was suddenly bordered by a blinking red line.

  The camera showed the water beyond the beach ...

  "That's where the trench is," Loren murmured.

  "And where their sub is ...'

  They stared fixedly at the screen.

  Nora supposed she could guess what was about to happen even before it did. In a few moments the water beyond the beach began to stir.

  "Holy shit," Nora muttered.

  "Uh, yeah," Loren agreed with her, because they both saw it very clearly.

  The sub was surfacing.

  CHAPTER WENTYTWO

  (I)

  There he is, Trent thought.

  The clearing.

  Then another thought: What if he's not dead?

  The man whom Loren had shot lay utterly still, gloved hands outstretched, legs and booted feet sprawled. The visor of his gas mask was tinted; Trent couldn't see through it.

  Probably the latest generation decon gear, he thought of the flat-black finish. He knelt and touched it-the material felt like sheer polyester. Trent tried to pull off a glove but then saw that it was fastened somehow, perhaps snaps on the inside.

  He was about to pull off the mask but something dark caught his eye.

  A dark gray patch over the left breast. In the U.S. Army, that's where a troop's name tag would be sewn.

  But this tag bore no name, only this, in black marks against the gray:

  That shit again .. .

  Trent fished around in the man's pockets, eventually pulled out a plasticized card.

  The card read:

  He felt creeped out. How could that stuff be a code? he wondered.

  Next, he tried to pull down the hood. He needed to get inside the suit, for the ID tags that would, by regulation, have to be around his neck.

  Damn it!

  The hood wouldn't detach from the mask. Was the entire suit integrated, a step-in?

  Trent stood up, grabbed the lip under the mask's chin, then yanked upward.

  The mask pulled off after several tugs.

  Trent stared.

  He doubted what his eyes were showing him at first. Was it a disease? Something from the worm?

  The open-eyed face stared up at him.

  Trent could see red arteries and blue veins webbed across the man's face. And he could see the skull beneath the flesh, because ...

  The flesh was transparent as glass.

  Hands shaking-and his mentality breaking upTrent yanked open the jumpsuit's front, popping unseen snaps down the middle.

  More clear, jellylike flesh, embedded with blood vessels, nerves, and the rib cage.

  A lower glance to the abdomen showed more transparent flesh encasing obvious digestive organs.

  Trent simply stood there looking down, a reasonable response. He tried to conceive the inconceivable, and eventually he acknowledged what lay before his eyes:

  This guy's not in the navy. He's a fucking alien-

  A final squint showed him what he'd been looking for all along. A small, rectangular plate on a cord around the figure's neck.

  Trent leaned over and looked.

  -:, the plate read.

  His mind churned as he continued to stare. Then the next thing he knew, an impulse caused him to dash out of the clearing and hide.

  Why?

  He'd heard footsteps thrashing through the woods.

  Trent prayed it was Nora and Loren ... but he knew that would not be the case.