“That will take care of whatever they’d loaded so far,” Sofia said.

Lance nodded. “Now, let’s hope your friend shows up.”

They had to wait quite a few minutes. Sofia got nervous that Vasily wouldn’t show. There was a lot of commotion everywhere as the soldiers tried to figure out what was going on.

Lance looked at her. “Is there another way in?”

“He’ll show. Just give him another minute.”

“This is our only window,” Lance said. “It won’t be long before they regroup.”

But then they heard the sliding metal of the loading bay opening.

Sofia was about to get up but Lance put his hand on her shoulder. They waited until the door was completely open and Vasily stepped out.

“Okay,” Lance said.

She got up and ran to him.

“Sofia,” Vasily said.

“What took you so long?”

He shook his head.

He took Lance and Sofia straight to the changing room so they could put on protective suits and masks.

“What’s the plan?” he said as they dressed.

“We’re going to burn it all down, Vasily.”

“All of it?”

“Every last test tube.”

“The servers too?”

Sofia nodded.

“Good,” Vasily said.

Sofia looked at him. Something wasn’t right.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“It’s nothing.”

“Vasily.”

He looked at her. “They killed Anna,” he said.

Anna was Vasily’s research assistant. Sofia suspected the relationship was more than just professional.

“Why?”

“She refused to show them the live samples.”

“She was brave,” Lance said. “She died fighting.”

“She died for nothing,” Vasily said. “They just got someone else to show them.”

“She didn’t die for nothing,” Sofia said. “We’ll make sure of that.”

Vasily nodded. Lance and Sofia finished suiting up and Vasily said, “We should start with the servers. The lab’s crawling with the new team from Moscow.”

“Do they know what they’re doing?” Sofia said.

“I hope so,” Vasily said. “If they fuck up, we’re going to have the mother of all outbreaks.”

“All right,” Lance said. “We’ll get the computers first. We can deal with the lab after.”

Vasily led the way down. He knew where the soldiers were and how to avoid them. They climbed a back staircase to the fifth floor and stopped outside the door.

“I haven’t been on this floor,” Vasily said. “I don’t know what we’ll find.”

Lance took the lead, opening the door slowly. It led to a corridor with vinyl flooring. There were labs on either side with observation windows and he could see they were deserted.

“What are these labs?” he whispered.

“They’re for isolating strains,” Sofia said. “But we don’t need to worry about them. The live strains are in the main lab.”

“All right,” Lance said, entering the corridor.

Sofia and Vasily stayed close behind.

“The servers are around the corner on the right,” Vasily said.