Chapter 6
“Then what?” demanded Sutherland, voice fading in and out in John’s cellphone.
“Down the ladder, into a tunnel like the first one,” John said. Greg, Zahava, and Bob sat behind him in the small diner, sipping coffee. “The tunnel was indirectly lit, power source unknown.
“Past a sealed door—same alloy as the ladder—about a half-mile farther. Another quarter mile and we came to a light-activated entrance like the one Langston’s crew sealed. We found ourselves on the weather side of Goose Hill, just above the breakwater. Bob marked the spot with his walking stick. We followed the beach several miles to South Dunsmore—a delight on a cold night with the tide running high. We’re now feasting on greaseburgers in the aptly named Clam Shack.”
“Langston thinks you’re still down there?”
“Why not?”
“Incredible.” Sutherland paused, collecting his thoughts. “I’ll be down with a team tomorrow morning. I’ll have FBI Liaison with me and a pocketful of John Doe warrants. Meet me at Otis Air National Guard Base at oh-six-hundred. Lay low till then.”
John relayed the news to the others over a cold cheeseburger.
“I’d like a good look at that site before then,” Bob said between mouthfuls of wonderfully fresh blueberry pie and black coffee. “Once the CIA gets in there, all the data will be tucked away in secret archives for centuries.”
“We could walk back down the beach,” suggested Greg.
“I want to see what’s behind that sealed door,” Zahava said.
“I second that.” John rose, throwing a few bills on the table. “I don’t relish facing the cold wind and spray, though,” he admitted, sliding from the booth.
“The wind offa the wahda, as they say hereabouts,” said Bob. “Salubrious—builds character,” said McShane, gulping down his coffee.
“I have enough character,” grumbled John.
“Indeed.” With a pleasant “Thank you” to the waitress and a generous tip, Bob followed his friends into the chill night.
Taking a chance that Tuckman was still in, Sutherland dialed his office. Despite the hour, the Director was there, answering his own phone. Bill quickly sketched the day’s events at Goose Hill, concluding, “I’d like to take a team down there tomorrow morning, sir. It would include FBI CIC Liaison, so we’d be on firm legal ground.”
“Do that, Bill,” said Tuckman. “But make sure that any arrests are made by the Bureau. I’m due before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence next month.” It was budget time. “If this excursion comes back to haunt us, we may both be counting yaks in the Himalayas as grade nothings. Well, you’d be. I’ll retire. Are we clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Good luck. Call me from the Cape.”
Phoning the duty watch officer, Sutherland put out calls for his team with instructions to meet him at Andrews Air Force Base by midnight.
“This is the classic mysterious tunnel from our childhood fantasies.” Bob’s voice echoed down the passageway. They were approaching the door they’d passed during their escape. A diffuse golden glow bathed the corridor.
“The lights seem to come on whenever anyone enters,” said John.
“Then there’s a functioning power source,” Zahava said. “But how could any piece of equipment operate through all the centuries this place’s been abandoned?”
“Note the walls,” said McShane, running his hand along the surface. “Rock, but with the texture of glass and not a chisel mark, no sign of power tools. Our technology’s not there yet.”
“It will be when we translate particle beam theory into engineering.” Greg spoke for the first time since the beach. “This is Star Wars stuff—applied atomics.” Gone was the laid-back, mint-julep-and-magnolia accent.
They stood before the door, an oval slab of metal flush with the wall. Greg flashed his light expectantly at the usual place. Nothing. “Ideas?” he asked, flicking off his torch.
“There’s something here,” said John. “May I?” Canting the beam, barely grazing the space just above the door, he brought out the hieroglyphics, invisible in the corridor light. “Can you read that, Bob?”
“Yes, but I don’t see how it helps. It says, ‘Tell who you are and why you come.’“
They stood mute for a moment, then John exclaimed, “Tolkien? He said loudly, “John Harrison and a party of three. We’re exploring this installation, which we believe abandoned.”
“‘Speak ‘friend’ and enter,’” Greg recalled softly as the door disappeared. A refined voice filled the corridor. “Then please come in.”
Hesitantly, John leading, they stepped down into a high-ceilinged room no larger than the altar chamber. The door closed silently behind them.
Several compact consoles occupied the half of the room nearest the door, their control panels flickering to life. “Please go to the empty area fronting the equipment,” directed the voice.
“Who are you?” Zahava demanded, unslinging the Uzi. She spat an Arabic curse as the gun vanished. A high-pitched whine filled the room, rising to mind-searing intensity. Futilely clapping their hands over their ears, they dropped to the floor, writhing in agony, eyes bulging, screaming unheard into the merciless pitch.
Abruptly, the killing noise stopped.
“When you have recovered,” the voice repeated, “please go to the area in front of the equipment.” Helping each other, they stumbled forward, obeying.
“Thank you.”
They were gone. The room was empty. The lights dimmed out as the centuries resumed their undisturbed passage.
Boarding the sleek private jet, Sutherland exchanged nods with his three team members: Marsh and Johnson were CIA; Tim Flannigan, nose buried in a sports magazine, was FBI Liaison and the only one with arrest authority.
Going to brief the pilot, Sutherland spotted an unfamiliar man sitting away from the others. Something about him tugged at his memory—thin, almost ascetic features, high forehead, thinning blond hair. Looks like a Jesuit, he thought.
As he approached, the stranger glanced up, recognition in his cool gray eyes. A hand fell on Bill’s shoulder, and he turned away from those eyes.
“Director Tuchman!” No mistaking the elegant features and silver hair.
“None other,” the CIA Director said with a smile.
“What are you doing here, sir?” Sutherland asked, sensing deviousness on a large scale.
“All in good time, Bill. Let me introduce our guest.”
The stranger rose, stepping into the aisle. “Deputy Director Bill Sutherland, may I present Colonel Andréyev Ivanovich Bakunin—André—of the Second Chief Directorate of the—”
“FSB, formerly the KGB,” said Sutherland coldly. “The man responsible for the destruction of our Polish network and the deaths of ten good—”
“Operatives,” the Russian interrupted. “They did their job. We did ours.” His accent was cosmopolitan.
“Sir,” Sutherland said angrily, turning to Tuckman. “I protest the presence of a Russian officer—”
“Enough, Bill. It’s over.”
“It’ll never be over for some widows and orphans,” said Sutherland, white-faced.
The Director reached past Bakunin, picking up a handset. “Jensen,” he said to the pilot, “let’s roll. Call me when we’re ten minutes from Otis. Strap in, gentlemen.” The engines whined higher. “We’ll have a mission briefing once we’re airborne.”
A few minutes later, when all were seated around the conference pit to the plane’s rear, sipping coffee, Tuckman began, glancing occasionally at his notes. “In 1944, on the south coast of France, a German raiding party swept into a cave. They believed the cave to be a Resistance staging area. Too late, they discovered their mistake.”
“Something unpleasant happen to them, sir?” asked Yazanaga, the team’s technical specialist.
“Wiped out. By particle beam weapons.” He said it casually, taking a croissant from the coffee table.
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“Sir,” said Marsh into the uneasy silence, “particle beams were science fiction back then—mostly still are.” He glanced uneasily at the expressionless Russian. An analyst of Soviet military technology, Frank Marsh knew of the long-term Russian research in laser and particle beams.
“Colonel Bakunin,” said Tuckman, deferring to the Russian.
The FSB officer cleared his throat. “I’m authorized to tell you that the radiation traces remaining in that cave and at the other sites are very similar to the residue from our own particle beam testing.”
Well, thought Bill. Whatever the hell’s going on must have scared the Russians down to their toenails for that to come out.
Before he could ask what other sites, Tuckman continued. “Some years after the World War II, an ex-German officer sold us a map, a very odd map captured by a mortally wounded Abwehr officer during that raid. It sketched the world as we knew it, except for the Antarctic, which was shown without its ice covering. The accuracy of that was only confirmed in the late 1950’s by satellite photogrammetry. The map’s lettering was in a language or code NSA’s been unable to crack. It was impregnated into a thin, pliable, highly durable polymer that continues to defy analysis.
“Also on the map, scattered over the globe, are two hundred and fifty-eight red X’s, usually along the coast or well inland. One of the marks is on the south coast of France. Proceeding logically, we began the task of finding the other sites. As the French site was underground, we assumed the others would be. We thought we’d gotten lucky after a few months—a cave in Oregon. But like the French site, whatever had been there was destroyed. Just fused lumps of metal congealed on the floor. A small place, really, just a few tunnels hollowed out of bedrock, a cleverly concealed entrance. Analysis of the metal showed the presence of unknown alloys.”
“Were there any known metals?” asked Flannigan.
“Traces of beryllium,” said the Director. He paused, sipping his coffee. “Operations were stepped up. The Soviets got their map the same time we did. It was a copy, sold them by the same ex-SS officer.”
“There’s no such thing as an ex-SS,” said Bakunin.
“The Russians—then the Soviets—didn’t begin looking until shortly after we found another site in Montana and lost our team—also to particle beam fire. Shortly after that, the Russians quickly found a site near Batumi, on the Black Sea. They lost their team, too. Everyone was very pissed.
“That was ten years ago. Since then there’s been close cooperation between General Branovsky of the FSB and myself. As we first thought it a foreign intelligence matter, I was given the assignment, initially reporting to the then-Director. Currently, I report to the President’s National Security Advisor, José Montanoya. Colonel Bakunin was in Washington to discuss progress with me when your call came, Bill. And here we are. Floor’s now open for discussion, gentlemen.”
His men looked to him, waiting. Sutherland voiced it for all of them. “You’re talking about an . . . outside force, sir, aren’t you? Something with a technology way ahead of ours. Something or someone keenly interested in finding those sites and preventing us from finding them?”
“Little green gremlins,” said the Director. “That’s what President MacDonald calls them. Lord knows, he may be right.”
“If our people have been killed, why aren’t we going in hot and heavy?” Bill asked.
“Attracts attention, Bill. And we’ve no protection against little green gremlins with blasters.”
“There was a movie some years ago, The Andromeda Strain. Everyone see it?” asked Tuchman. Sutherland was surprised when Bakunin nodded with the rest. “Something lethal and alien falls from the skies, the team sent in for it was considered expendable. And were expended. We’re expendable, gentlemen. But that’s always gone with the territory, hasn’t it?” He poured more coffee.
It was a while before anything but the steady throbbing of the engines broke the silence.