“He’s trying to figure out who the devil we are,” Elliot said. “He’s never seen us or the Explorer, and this isn’t the sort of place where there’s a lot of new or unexpected traffic.”
Inside the hut, the guard plucked a telephone handset from the wall.
As Elliot started to open his door, Tina saw something that made her grab his arm. “Wait! The phone doesn’t work.”
The guard slammed the receiver down. He got to his feet, took a coat from the back of his chair, slipped into it, zippered up, and came out of the shack. He was carrying a submachine gun.
From elsewhere in the night, Danny opened the gate.
The guard stopped halfway to the Explorer and turned toward the gate when he saw it moving, unable to believe his eyes.
Elliot rammed his foot down hard on the accelerator, and the Explorer shot forward.
The guard swung the submachine gun into firing position as they swept past him.
Tina raised her hands in an involuntary and totally useless attempt to ward off the bullets.
But there were no bullets.
No torn metal. No shattered glass. No blood or pain.
They didn’t even hear gunfire.
The Explorer roared across the straightaway and careened up the slope beyond, through the tendrils of steam that rose from the black pavement.
Still no gunfire.
As they swung into another curve, Elliot wrestled with the wheel, and Tina was acutely aware that a great dark void lay beyond the shoulder of the road. Elliot held the vehicle on the pavement as they rounded the bend, and then they were out of the guard’s line of fire. For two hundred yards ahead, until the road curved once more, nothing threatening was in sight.
The Explorer dropped back to a safer speed.
Elliot said, “Did Danny do all of that?”
“He must have.”
“He jinxed the guard’s phone, opened the gate, and jammed the submachine gun. What
As they ascended into the night, snow began to fall hard and fast in sheets of fine, dry flakes.
After a minute of thought Tina said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what he is anymore. I don’t know what’s happened to him, and I don’t understand what he’s become.”
This was an unsettling thought. She began to wonder exactly what sort of little boy they were going to find at the top of the mountain.
Chapter Thirty-Five
With glossy photographs of Christina Evans and Elliot Stryker, George Alexander’s men circulated through the hotels in downtown Reno, talking with desk clerks, bellmen, and other employees. At four-thirty they obtained a strong, positive identification from a maid at Harrah’s.
In room 918 the Network operatives discovered a cheap suitcase, dirty clothes, toothbrushes, various toiletry items — and eleven maps in a leatherette case, which Elliot and Tina, in their haste and weariness, evidently had overlooked.
Alexander was informed of the discovery at 5:05. By 5:40 everything that Stryker and the woman had left in the hotel room was brought to Alexander’s office.
When he discovered the nature of the maps, when he realized that one of them was missing, and when he discovered that the missing map was the one Stryker would need in order to find the Project Pandora labs, Alexander felt his face flush with anger and chagrin. “The
Kurt Hensen was standing in front of Alexander’s desk, picking through the junk that had been brought over from the hotel. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ve gone into the mountains. They’re going to try to get into the laboratory,” Alexander said. “Someone, some damn turncoat on Project Pandora, must have revealed enough about its location for them to find it with just a little help. They went out and bought
Alexander was enraged by the cool methodicalness that the purchase of the maps seemed to represent. Who were these two people? Why weren’t they hiding in a dark corner somewhere? Why weren’t they scared witless? Christina Evans was only an ordinary woman. An ex-showgirl! Alexander refused to believe that a showgirl could be of more than average intelligence. And although Stryker had done some heavy military service, that had been ages ago. Where were they getting their strength, their nerve, their endurance? It seemed as if they must have some advantage of which Alexander was not aware. That had to be it. They had to have some advantage he didn’t know about. What could it be? What was their edge?
Hensen picked up one of the maps and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t see any reason to get too worked up about it. Even if they locate the main gate, they can’t get any farther than that. There are thousands of acres behind the fence, and the lab is right smack in the middle. They can’t get close to it, let alone inside.”
Alexander suddenly realized what their edge was, what kept them going, and he sat up straight in his chair. “They can get inside easily enough if they have a friend in there.”
“What?”
“That’s it!” Alexander got to his feet. “Not only did someone on Project Pandora tell this Evans woman about her son. That same traitorous bastard is also up there in the labs right this minute, ready to open the gates and doors to them. Some bastard stabbed us in the back. He’s going to help the bitch get her son out of there!”
Alexander dialed the number of the military security office at the Sierra lab. It neither rang nor returned a busy signal; the line hissed emptily. He hung up and tried again, with the same result.
He quickly dialed the lab director’s office. Dr. Tamaguchi. No ringing. No busy signal. Just the same, unsettling hiss.
“Something’s happened up there,” Alexander said as he slammed the handset into the cradle. “The phones are out.”
“Supposed to be a new storm moving in,” Hensen said. “It’s probably already snowing in the mountains. Maybe the lines—”
“Use your head, Kurt. Their lines are underground. And they have a cellular backup. No storm can knock out all communications. Get hold of Jack Morgan and tell him to get the chopper ready. We’ll meet him at the airport as soon as we can get there.”
“He’ll need half an hour anyway,” Hensen said.
“Not a minute more than that.”
“He might not want to go. The weather’s bad up there.”
“I don’t care if it’s hailing iron basketballs,” Alexander said. “We’re going up there in the chopper. There isn’t time to drive, no time at all. I’m sure of that. Something’s gone wrong. Something’s happening at the labs right now.”
Hensen frowned. “But trying to take the chopper in there at night… in the middle of the storm…”
“Morgan’s the best.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“If Morgan wants to take it easy,” Alexander said, “then he should be flying one of the aerial rides at Disneyland.”
“But it seems suicidal—”
“And if
Hensen’s face colored. “I’ll call Morgan,” he said.
“Yes. You do that.”
