tear it down with my bare hands. “That’s the tunnel link between this annex and the main bunker.”
“Easy, Greg…”
I clenched my fists as my stomach muscles spasmed like they were trying to rip out through my skin. “They’re in there. They’re inside. ..”
“That can’t be right. We’ve talked to Phoenix. We’ve seen the bunker crew. This place is secure; it’s like a fortress; hornets can’t be-”
I backed away from the door, shaking my head, perspiration running down my face, my heart pounding. “They’re here…” My voice came in a rasp. “They’re here… I don’t know how… but they’re here. ..”
Her eyes were frightened, huge-looking. “Greg, come away from the doors… no, right away.” She pulled me back. “Let me see your hand; you’ve cut it.”
“No. I’m going to find out what’s happening here.”
I yanked the sheet of paper from my pocket. Scanning it, I compared the words on the doors to the numbers I’d copied down. “Sick Bay. Boardroom… they don’t seem important. What’s this one?” I looked at a steel door. “Quartermaster store. There should be fire-arms in there.”
“I’ll feel more confident with a gun in my hand.”
Michaela suddenly became businesslike. “Tell me the code.”
“Four-seven-nine-nine.”
“Got it.” She tapped the number into the keypad. The electronic lock buzzed, then clicked. Michaela pushed the door. It opened easily. A light flickered on inside. “Oh, hell.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Empty. Someone cleaned it out.”
I glanced into the storeroom. Bare shelves. Empty racks that must have once held rifles. “There were guns here,” I said. “But Phoenix’s people didn’t want guests helping themselves. Try the next one.” To do this I had to pass the big double doors with my blood smeared across COMM-ROUTE. Instantly the Twitch came back to me. God, yes, those sons of bitches were in there. But how did you get through those twin doors? No keypad, so no electronic lock. No handles. It must be locked from the other side.
“Greg… Greg? Are you sure you want to do this?”
I looked at Michaela, my stomach muscles jumping.
“Greg, you don’t look well.”
You look crazy. That’s what she wanted to say. I knew my nostrils were flared. I was panting. My eyes would be blazing like the fires of hell. But then, this was a bad one. I could believe there were a thousand hornets lined up there, waiting to burst in and pound us to bloody hamburger meat.
I took a deep breath to try to steady my racing heart, but, hell, nothing would stop the muscles in my stomach writhing like a bunch of snakes. “There’s nothing written against the next numbers,” I said. Jesus, I felt surprised at how calm I sounded. “Try all of them.”
“OK. First one.”
“Six-seven-three-one.”
She tapped the number into the keypad beside the door marked BACKUP OPS. She waited for a moment. No buzz. No click.
“Next,” she said.
“Four-four-one-one.”
She punched in the code. Nothing.
“OK. Next.”
“Eight-seven-three-o.”
Buzz. Click.
“Bull’s-eye, we’re in.” She pushed open the door. Inside, the room had the feel of a dark cavern.
“Take it easy,” I said. “I don’t know if we’ve got company in here.” I leaned in, feeling the inside wall for a light switch. My fingers located a plastic pad. I pushed it. Instantly, fluorescence came with a fluttering brilliance. “Looks as if we’ve struck the jackpot.”
Michaela stepped in, her eyes wide with awe. “Just look at this place. Look at all the equipment! It’s like a TV newsroom.”
Good description. The room was maybe thirty-by-forty feet. In two rows, one behind the other, were workstations complete with keyboards and monitors, while filling just about the entire end wall was a vast booster screen. At the side of it were a bank of electronic clocks.
I glanced at my watch. “They’re showing the time coast to coast.”
“This must be the backup command center in case the one in the main bunker gets knocked out.”
“If this is a duplicate of what’s in the main building, then we could do all the stuff that Phoenix does, accessing other bunkers.”
“I guess.” Now thoughtful, she ran her fingers along the desktop, drawing furrows in the dust. “If we knew how to work it.”
“Try.”
“Greg? I don’t know where to begin.”
“You had a computer at home, didn’t you? You used one at college?”
“Sure, but-”
“Then the principle must be the same.” I pressed a button on one of the computer terminals. Nothing happened. “Huh. Maybe there’s some central control you need to switch on first. A circuit breaker or-”
“Greg.” I felt her hand on my arm. “Look at the big screen. Something’s happening.”
The booster screen that filled the wall had developed a snowstorm. A second later that flickered out, to be replaced by a color bar test pattern with the words HIT ANY KEY through the center. Michaela reached forward, her slender finger running beneath the computer monitor. She rotated a control beneath it and the screen brightened, to reveal a screen identical to the one plastered across the wall.
“Hit any key,” I said. “Here goes.” I tapped a key at random on the keyboard.
“Better make it fast,” Michaela said. “Somewhere I’m sure the alarm bells are ringing.”
“OK, five minutes, then we’re out of here. What now?”
“Wait, it looks to be booting up.”
“Here.” I pulled up a swivel chair. “You’re going to be better at this than me.”
She shot me a grim smile. “Thanks for your confidence… uh, that doesn’t look good.”
I read the words on the screen. “ ‘Enter password.’ ”
“Any ideas?”
“Is there a way to bypass it?”
“Sure there is, only I haven’t a clue how to begin.” She looked at the now bloodstained paper in my hand where my wound had leaked onto it. “Anything on there?”
I scanned the note. Straightaway my eyes went to the meaningless phrase that had been heavily underscored beside the word: MEMORIZE! I murmured, “Thank the Lord for our forgetful friend. Type in maple eagle green.”
She did so, slender fingers racing across the keys. God, she was good.
But: “ ‘Incorrect password.’ Try again?” She sighed. “It looks like a dead end. We should get out of here before-”
“No… it’s me. I’m a blockhead. I didn’t give it to you properly. In lower case type maple dash eagle dash green.”
“OK. Enter.” She pressed the key. We both stared at the screen, as if waiting for marvelous things. What came next might not have been marvelous, but it was something. The huge booster screen suddenly filled with lists of words.
“We’ve got menus,” she said. “What they mean, God knows.”
I scanned them, reading at random. “Inventory. Fuel stock. Quartermaster regime. Comms mail. Comms voice. Comms vid. Archive. Personnel Register. Personnel Directory.” I shook my head. “It’s not looking very helpful, is it?”
“Not a great deal. The computer’s inviting us to choose whether we want to e-mail people or communicate by voice or, I guess, by video conferencing system. Yup, look up on the wall.”
