"She's armed!"
Nadal al-Hassan had almost reached them, his gun hidden at his side.
5:18 P.M.
Lake Magua
Marty shouted into his microphone, "We're in!"
"Go!" Peter cried.
Mercer Haldane stared into the camera, took a deep breath, and started to talk.
5:18 P.M.
Long Lake Village
On the platform, more secret service grabbed the president to hustle him away.
The giant screen above the milling crowd went dark for a second, and then Mercer Haldane appeared with his white, flowing hair and dignified face. He was standing in the secret laboratory. Behind him the four lab technicians held up giant blowups of the most damning printouts. Watching from below, the crowd fell into a surprised hush.
"My name is Mercer Haldane." His words boomed. Somehow Marty had managed to increase the volume. "Until last week, I was chairman and CEO of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals. I have news about the virus that all of you must listen to carefully. Your lives depend on it. A great evil has been perpetrated on all of us by Victor Tremont." Shocked by his words, everyone's attention was riveted, including the secret service. "Ten years ago, Victor inaugurated a monstrous secret plan. He called it the Hades Project, and he infected twelve soldiers in the Gulf War, six on each side of the conflict, with a unique and deadly virus he had found in the Peruvian jungle. Then he contaminated Blanchard's antibiotics with the live virus and shipped it across the world. This virus would lie dormant for---"
On the platform, the president had stopped to listen. Still closely surrounded by the watchful agents, he stared up at the mammoth screen, his eyes slowly blinking as he took in Mercer Haldane's story. All the dignitaries had focused on it, too. The great crowd stood in an eerie silence as Mercer Haldane pointed to record entries, to dates, to figures.
The audience began to murmur, softly at first like a distant tornado barely heard, and then louder and louder.
The secret service agents relaxed their holds on Jon and Randi.
On the giant screen, Haldane showed the list of officers and stockholders in the secret VAXHAM Corporation.
As a shudder of understanding and belief seemed to sweep over the throngs, the president barked an order. Secret service and FBI agents went to stand beside Nancy Petrelli, General Caspar, Ben Sloat, an angry General Salonen, and the four officers of VAXHAM.
The president scanned the audience. "Bring those two who were shouting. I want to see the records they were trying to show me."
Randi brushed away the FBI and secret service agents, jumped onto the platform, and handed her printouts to President Castilla. "Sir, you must arrest Victor Tremont at once, or he'll escape and transfer billions of dollars to his offshore accounts."
The president scanned the papers and barked an order. The secret service and FBI agents spread out, looking for Tremont.
The chief of detail ran up to the platform. "He's not here, Mr. President. Victor Tremont is gone!"
Randi searched all around, too. Her voice rose. "So is Jon!"
"Find them!" the president shouted.
5:36 P.M.
The hallways in the storage basement of the main building of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., were brightly lighted and filled with boxes, file cabinets, and discarded office furniture and equipment. Beneath that level was the sub-basement where the lights were dimmer. Here spread all the machines to heat, air-condition, supply, and operate the big two-story building. The equipment made a quiet hum.
Under that was yet a third level, unmarked. Seldom visited. It was dark, damp, and rived with narrow corridors. It was not silent. Running footsteps echoes from the walls as Victor Tremont and Nadal al-Hassan rushed along with the speed and certainty of those who knew where they were going. Each carried a weapon. They passed an ordinary steel door on the right. They did not stop but continued on to the wall at the very end. This wall was as smooth and unbroken as all the rest in the dank sub-sub-basement. Simply the end of the corridor, apparently.
Victor Tremont took a small black box from his suit-jacket pocket.
Nadal al-Hassan, his weapon ready, watched warily back along the side corridor.
Tremont pressed a button on the box. The entire wall slid heavily to the left, revealing a hidden vault door made of the strongest steel available when it had been built on Tremont's orders at the time he had Blanchard's operations moved to the Adirondack Wilderness. Tremont was shaking. He spun the combination lock, and the massive door rose a few millimeters up on pneumatic lifts and slowly swung open.
"Clever," Jon said