The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [15]
Stokes shrugged and contemplated the situation for five seconds before responding. ‘The cave being discovered like this … well, it can only be considered divinely inspired, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I understand you’re upset,’ Stokes said.
‘Damn right I’m upset.’
‘Let me get us drinks. Then we’ll talk about this, figure things out. Scotch?’ Another of Roselli’s Achilles heels.
In Pavlovian fashion, Roselli licked his lips. Then he sighed and ran his fingers through the divot. ‘That’d be good.’
‘Neat?’
Looking wounded, Roselli nodded.
‘All right.’ Stokes patted him on the back. ‘It’ll be okay. I promise. Be back in a minute.’
Stokes pivoted on his good foot and made his way outside.
Roselli turned back to the centre of the room and stared at the veiled display case. The loose ends of the silky cover billowed against air pumping in from overhead vents. Or maybe something beneath it was stirring. Curiosity got the best of him and he stepped cautiously towards it. Cringing, he reached out and began to lift the cover. But the sudden sound of the door closing made him jump in fright. His eyes snapped to the door.
‘Stokes?’
The door’s locking mechanism turned over with a clunk.
‘Stokes!’
On the other side of the door, Stokes punched a code into the keypad mounted on the doorframe and activated the hermetic seal. Roselli’s screams barely permeated the dense walls. But soon, all would be silent.
6
Roselli’s fists throbbed as he pounded on the door again, leaving splotches of perspiration on the cold metal. Helpless anger blinded him to the futility of escaping the vault.
He’d tried unsuccessfully to access the sealed shelving units containing the bronze tools, thinking he might somehow be able to use an axe or chisel to pry open the door lock. With every fixture in the room bolted to the floor, and no loose implement to use as a striker, however, he’d resorted to using his fists on the glass. That effort, too, proved a waste of time and energy. Even if he’d been able to get to the tools, he knew that the primitive bronze would be too flimsy to have any effect on the formidable security door.
So he’d been reduced to what amounted to a child’s tantrum.
The ceiling vents steadily hummed. Instead of the climate control system scrubbing away contaminants, however, it was now sucking oxygen out from the room. The air reeked of ozone.
Finally, he turned and put his back against the door in defeat, slid down to the Berber carpet. He loosened his necktie, unbuttoned the shirt collar. Scanning the room again, he cursed the fact that there were no windows or secondary doors. Even the air ducts, he’d observed, seemed too tight for a mouse, let alone a 205-pound middle-aged man.
Each laboured breath became more shallow, more painful. It felt as if he was being slowly strangled by invisible hands. The grim reality quickly settled over him: there’d be no escape. This vault was to be his tomb. Ironically, what angered him now was that the cunning preacher had not made good on delivering the Scotch. All those years watching each other’s back in the most inhospitable war zones on the planet, and it came down to this. ‘If you’re going to kill me, a little civility would have been nice,’ he grumbled.
He wondered where Stokes would dump his body: at home, where his wife would assume high cholesterol and runaway blood pressure had finally gotten the best of him? At his office, where his secretary would grumble that he’d finally succeeded in working himself to death? Or in a Caesar’s Palace hotel room, where one might think his mounting gambling losses and excessive boozing had finally taken their toll?
‘Devious bastard,’ he said in a thin, wheezy voice.
His starved lungs made his chest heave up and down. His senses were beginning to feel foggy.
Perhaps this was a fitting end for what he’d done to assist Stokes these past years - to enable his ambitious plan for world domination, Armageddon, or whatever moniker might be ascribed to the delusional end game. Would justice ever find Stokes for what he’d done? If there