“No need to shoot again,” Jack said with a voice that had lost all pretense of buoyancy. Raising his hands to chest height, he backed up, forcing Laurie, who was between him and Yuri, into the storeroom. Jack stepped in as well.

“Move back from the door,” Yuri commanded.

Jack and Laurie did as they were told and pressed against the concrete wall. The blood had drained from both their faces, and they appeared as pale as the whitewash covering the cement.

Yuri came forward and closed the door. He fastened the hasp and locked the padlock, then stepped back and looked at the door. He’d designed it to keep people out, but he guessed it would work just as well to keep people in.

“Shouldn’t we discuss this?” Jack called through the door.

“Absolutely,” Yuri said. “Otherwise you couldn’t help me.”

“You’ll have to explain,” Jack said. “But we’re much better listeners and far more helpful when we don’t have to yell through a door.”

“You’re not coming out, probably for several days,” Yuri said. “So make yourself comfortable. There’s distilled water on the shelf, and I apologize for the lack of a toilet.”

“We appreciate your concern,” Jack said. “But I can assure you, we’d be far happier upstairs. We promise to behave ourselves.”

“Be quiet and listen!” Yuri said. He looked at his watch. It was going to eleven. “The first thing I want to say is that in a few minutes the People’s Aryan Army is going to be here. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Indeed,” Jack said.

“Then I assume you know they want you dead,” Yuri said. “In fact, I’m surprised you are not dead, since I know they set out to kill you this afternoon. If they find out you are here, they will come down and shoot you for certain. I would prefer you stay alive.”

“Well, at least we agree on something,” Jack said.

“They are very crazy and selfish people,” Yuri said.

“I got that impression,” Jack said.

“And they have a lot of guns and they like to use them.”

“That was apparent as well.”

“So my advice when you hear them is to be silent,” Yuri said. “Does that make sense to you?”

“I suppose,” Jack said. “But what was this talk about helping you?”

“Tomorrow morning the People’s Aryan Army and myself are scheduled to release bioweapons in Manhattan,” Yuri said. “This is not an idle threat. I have produced many pounds of potent, weaponized anthrax right here in this laboratory. I assume you doctors guessed that this was a laboratory.”

“We had a sneaking suspicion,” Jack admitted. “Especially since this looks like we’re in a microbiological storeroom at the moment.”