Free The Hades Factor by Robert Ludlum; Gayle Lynds Page B

third floor, the Glock in his hand, he stepped off warily. The corridor echoed to his footfalls like the empty rooms of an ancient tomb. When he reached her door, he listened again. He heard nothing from inside. He turned the key, the quiet tumblers clicking in his mind loud as explosions.

Silently he pulled open the door and dropped flat to the carpeting inside.

The apartment was dark. Nothing stirred. His hand felt a film of dust covering the side table near the door.

He stood and glided through the shadowy living room to the short corridor that led to the two bedrooms. Both were empty, the beds made, and unused. The kitchen showed no sign that anyone had eaten a meal or prepared even a cup of coffee. The sink was dry. The refrigerator was silent, turned off weeks ago.

She had not been here.

Feeling numb, Smith walked like a robot back into the living room. He turned on lights. He inspected for signs of an attack, an injury, even a search.

Nothing. The condo was as clean and undisturbed as an exhibit in a museum.

If they had killed or kidnapped her, it had not been here.

She was not at the lab. She was not at the house in Thurmont. She was not here. And he had no indications that anything had happened to her at any of those places.

He needed help, and he knew it.

The first step was to call the base and alert them to her disappearance. Then the police. FBI. He grabbed the portable telephone to dial Detrick.

His hand froze midair. Outside in the corridor, footsteps echoed along the walls.

He switched off the lights and set the phone on the table. He dropped to one knee behind the couch, the Glock in his hand trained on the door.

Someone advanced haltingly toward Sophia's condo, bumping into walls, progressing in fits and starts. A drunk staggering home?

The steps stopped with a hard thump against Sophia's door. There was ragged breathing. A key probed for the lock.

He tensed. The door swung open as if flung.

In the shaft of light, Sophia swayed. Her clothes were torn and stained as if she had been crawling in a gutter.

Smith leaped forward. “Sophia!”

She staggered in, and he caught her before she collapsed. She gasped, battled for breath. Her face burned with fever.

Her black eyes stared up at him, tried to smile. “You're . . . back, darling. Where . . . where were you?”

“I'm so sorry, Soph. I had an extra day, I wanted...”

Her hand reached up to interrupt him. Her voice sounded delirious. “...lab ...at the lab ...someone ...hit ...”

She fell back in his arms, unconscious. Her skin was pasty. Two bright fevered spots glowed on her cheeks. Her beautiful face was pinched with pain. She was terribly ill. What had happened to her? This was not just simple exhaustion.

“Soph? Soph! Oh my God, Soph?”

There was no response. She was limp, unconscious.

Shaken and terrified, he fell back on his medical training. He was a doctor. He knew what to do. He laid her on the couch, grabbed the portable phone, and dialed 911 as he checked her pulse and breathing. The pulse was weak and rapid. She breathed in labored gasps. She burned. The symptoms of acute respiratory distress plus fever.

He yelled into the phone, “Acute respiratory distress. Dr. Jonathan Smith, dammit. Get here. Now!”

__________

The unmarked van was almost invisible beneath the tree on the street outside Sophia Russell's apartment. Above, a weak streetlight hardly pierced the night, giving the van's inhabitants exactly what they wanted--- darkness and camouflage. From the interior gloom, Bill Griffin watched the paramedic van, its beacons flashing blue and red, in front of the three-story condo building that blazed with light across the street.

Nadal al-Hassan's hatchet face spoke from the driver's seat, “Dr. Russell should not have been able to leave her laboratory alone. She should never have reached this far.”

“But she did both.” Griffin's round face was neutral. In the darkness, his brown, mid-length hair was