“Where’s the vial?” Lance said. “You tell us where it is or I’ll…”.

“You’ll what?” Davidov said. “Pluck my eyeballs out? You already said that.”

“I’ll do it,” Lance said.

“Go ahead.”

“Lance,” Laurel cried. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Listen to the bitch,” Davidov said and Lance leaned forward and smacked him across the mouth with the butt of his gun.

“You’re going to tell me where that vial is right now,” Lance said.

They heard voices back out in the main corridor and Lance shoved the barrel of his gun into Davidov’s mouth to stop him from calling for help.

“Go watch the hallway,” he said to Laurel.

She went and Lance turned to Davidov, jamming the gun so far down his throat the old man gagged.

“Tell me where the vial is or I’m going to take you with us.”

“You’ll never get me out of here alive,” Davidov said.

“Then I’ll take your corpse.”

Davidov smiled at him. “Anything happens to me, and that virus will be all over the planet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It will be all over the globe within twenty-four hours. A pandora’s box you’ll never be able to control.”

Laurel appeared at the door. “Lance, we’ve got to get out of here.”

Lance pressed the gun against Davidov’s forehead. “You better start talking sense, right now.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Davidov said.

Lance knew he was out of time. “If you don’t tell me, you die.”

Davidov just kept giving him that same, evil grin. “I die,” he said. “Everyone dies. That’s what a dead hand is.”

“Well, let’s put that to the test,” Lance said, putting his gun to Davidov’s head.

“Go ahead,” Davidov said. “But you pull that trigger, and the virus is everywhere. Global. You’re smart enough to know what that means.”

“Lance,” Laurel called from the anteroom, “we’ve got company.”

“We’re not leaving without this asshole,” Lance said.

“Anything happens to me,” Davidov said again, “and you’ll have unleashed a plague of biblical proportions.”

77

Lance dragged Davidov to his feet, slammed him against the wall, and pulled him into the anteroom.

“How do we look, Laurel?”

“Six soldiers,” she said. “They’re calling for back up. They’ll be surrounding the building.”

“All right, let’s go.”

“Out there?”

“We’ve got this prick as a shield.”

“What?” Davidov said.

“Not so smug now, are you?”

“Where do you think you’re taking me?”

“You’re our ticket out of here, asshole.”

“You’re crazy. You take me out of here, they’ll shoot me.”

“I can live with that,” Lance said.

“But I already told you, anything happens to me, the virus goes global.”

“Well then, I guess we better hope your men understand that.”