Toxic Terrain. Don Pendleton
harmed his prisoners thus far simply because there had been no reason to do so, but on this visit he brought along a special toolkit. A civilized and fastidious man, Chen didn’t look forward to the unhygienic act of torturing a woman, but expediency required him to do whatever was necessary to gain the information he needed.
Chen’s driver turned off the road and stopped the vehicle. One of the two PLA regulars Chen had brought to assist him got out of the car, opened the gate and closed it again after the SUV had passed through the entrance. Chen would have preferred to install a modern electronic gate, but that would have attracted unwanted attention. Most people in the area used either a cattle grate dug into the road or else they used a primitive type of homemade gate. Though the gate may have been rustic, there was nothing antiquated about the electronic surveillance equipment that was hidden around the entire perimeter of the property. The main complex was too vast and sprawling to effectively monitor the perimeter using electronic methods, but that was not the case with the smaller ranch they’d purchased in the Killdeer Mountains. This facility was much more secure than the other operation.
They drove down the winding, seven-mile driveway that wound around the base of a massive butte and down into a deep ravine. The ravine opened up into a small triangular meadow surrounded on two sides by steep cliffs, and bordered on the third by a small creek. He couldn’t see them, but he knew Liang’s sharpshooters had every possible entrance and exit covered at all times.
His driver punched a button on a box clipped to his sun visor and an overhead door built into the side of an old barn rose open. When the driver had parked the SUV inside the barn, Chen got out and opened a creaky wooden door that apparently led into a storage area beneath the stairway that led up to the haymow. But instead of a storage area, he stepped into a metal lift that would take him down to the basement they had excavated deep beneath the barn. The basement contained the laboratory where much of Ag Con’s real work took place. It was also where they held the veterinarian and the extension agent.
Chen opened the cell door and woke the occupants, who both appeared to have been asleep on the cots that Chen’s men had provided. “I apologize for waking you,” he said, “but I need some information from Ms. Bowman.”
Grevoy started to rise from his cot, but Liang’s soldiers restrained him. “Please secure Mr. Grevoy,” Chen ordered. Liang’s soldiers produced plastic zip ties and bound Grevoy’s hands behind his back with brutal efficiency, then secured his feet to steel rings embedded in the concrete floor. The men then grabbed Pam Bowman and lifted her to her feet.
“Ms. Bowman, let me be perfectly clear. I need some information, and you will provide me with it. You will most likely resist, and I will be forced to extract it from you in a most uncivilized manner.” Chen put on a lab coat, placed a mask over his face and put on a pair of latex gloves. One of Liang’s soldiers handed a tool roll to Chen, who spread it out on the table and picked up what looked like a stainless-steel dental cleaning tool. “I assure you that I would prefer not to go to such lengths,” Chen said from behind his mask, “but make no mistake, I will go to any length if you force my hand. Now please tell me, if Ms. Kemp had fled your clinic and was seeking sanctuary, where would she go?”
“I have no idea where she’d go,” Bowman said.
“Of course, we both know you have some idea,” Chen said. “And of course you won’t betray her unless you are forced to do so. So you are going to make me work to ex tract that information.” He pulled out a pair of needle-nose pliers from the toolkit, along with a medical scalpel. “Since this might take a while, we might as well get started.”
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