The ear mikes they used had an option for voice-activated transmission-vox-for use in one-on-one communications, but the procedure for the Newark site forbade its use. Too many people talking at once just created confusion. “Am I on vox?” Jake asked himself, but the words fell dead inside his suit.
Then he heard “Test, te-” The speaker abruptly shut up. Jake saw number four-Carlos Ortega-snaking his arm out of his sleeve to access the radio holster on his belt.
“Who was that?” Foley barked. “Who didn’t follow procedure?”
Jake quickly waved Carlos off. No sense answering a question like that. “Um, Ops? We got it taken care of. Everyone’s off vox now. We’re proceeding with the entry.”
“I want to know who it was!”
Everybody looked at Jake, who grabbed his crotch and extended a gloved bird. He motioned to the lock and Parker went back to work.
Jake marveled yet again at the total isolation the moon suits provided against the real world. There was Parker, not ten feet away, rattling metal against metal, yet the operation produced virtually no sound. The only reality for Jake was the weight of his gear, the fluttering sensation in his stomach, and the heat. God, the heat. With his arms dangling at his sides, he could already feel the accumulated puddles of sweat at his fingertips.
Finally, Parker’s head nodded triumphantly, and he stood, displaying the lock as a trophy. “Okay,” Jake announced on the air. “The lock’s off. We’re making entry now.”
Drew was back on the mike now. “Okay, Entry. Here’s hoping for an empty room.”
Yeah, right.
Jake thought for a moment that this must be what it’s like to open an ancient mummy’s tomb: walking into the unknown, unaware of whatever curses might be awaiting you. Parker pulled hard to get the door to move, but once started, it moved easily, propelled by its own momentum. A sharp blade of light cut across the inky blackness of the magazine’s interior. So much for an empty room, Jake mumbled. The place looked like somebody’s attic, stacked with a million boxes of varying types, sizes, and construction. Generally speaking, the contents of wooden boxes were considered scarier than their counterparts wrapped in cardboard, but there were so many of each that such distinctions brought little comfort.
“Well, Ops, so much for a short-term contract. This place is packed.”
“Okay, Entry. Keep us informed.”
No one moved until the two industrial hygienists said it was safe to do so. In this business, the patient man was the one who lived long enough to retire. People pretended not to care about all the safety shit during the lectures, but not one of the Silverados inside Magazine B-2740 questioned for a moment that a mistake might put them in an early grave.
“I show zeros across the board,” Parker announced.
“Me, too,” said Adam Pomeroy, Parker’s counterpart on Team Bravo.
“Tallyho,” Jake said. Only Carolyn could hear the hesitation in his voice, and she looked over to him one more time. He looked away.
The seam of light died quickly as they stepped deeper into the concrete cavern. Curiously, the blackness seemed most opaque right at the line separating light from dark.
“Entry One to Operations, we’re inside.”
“Okay, Entry One. Any first impressions?”
The place was huge, extending far beyond the range of their hand lights, and it looked as full as it could possibly be. The wooden box that had spooked the EPA guy sat right where it was supposed to be, just inside the doors, near the center-virtually the first spot to be illuminated when the blast doors opened. U.S. Army-Danger Poison, it read, just above the telltale skull-and-crossbones symbol. Then, immediately below, Chemical Agent- Mustard Gas.
But that was just the beginning. Beyond that one container, stretching on in all directions, was shelf after shelf of God knows what. Assuming that wooden containers with stenciled writing meant military hardware, and assuming that military hardware meant things that made craters, then this place was one huge bomb. Then there were the fifty-five-gallon storage drums, and the cardboard boxes, and the glass jars… It just went on and on and on.
Jake palmed his mike button. “First impressions? Yeah. We underbid this contract by about a million dollars.”
“Two million,” Carolyn added. In the darkness, everyone became faceless in the moon suits, but still, she knew her husband was smiling.
With Parker leading the way, Jake’s Alpha team moved deeper into the shadows, and with each step, their world became progressively smaller, limited only to that which could be touched by the beams of their hand lights. The shelves stretched high toward the concrete ceiling, and on initial inspection, everything looked the same; every angle identical to the other. Jake found himself continually glancing back toward the shimmering white wall of sunlight behind them. As long as he could see the light, he told himself, he wouldn’t get lost. That visual anchor, though, was shrinking in size and getting further away by the second.
“Talk to me, Parker,” Jake said.
“Still zeros. Shouldn’t you guys be doing something more productive than following me?”
It was a good point; in fact, it was the operational plan. The I.H. s bore the task of assessing the chemical hazards of the facility, and that required them to traverse the whole place, corner-to-corner. Jake and Carolyn and the other technicians should have already started writing down their inventory. Somehow, though, the sheer scale of the project drew them deeper into the magazine.
“Hey, guys, we’ve got something here.” It was Adam Pomeroy, and his voice was shaky.
Jake pivoted all the way around, 360 degrees, but he couldn’t see a thing. “Where are you? What have you got?”
Adam waved his hand light over his head, and Jake caught a glimpse through the shelving. He had no idea that they’d become so far separated. “I’m right here,” Adam said. “And I found a skeleton.”
“Come again?” Jake said incredulously. “Did you say skeleton?” He walked as he spoke, trying to wind his way through the maze of crap.
“You got it,” Adam confirmed.
“Keep waving that light so I can find you.”
“I see him,” Carolyn said, leading the way toward the front of the magazine.
Jake put his hand on her shoulder, bringing her to a stop. He thought he heard something odd. A popping noise. Backfires maybe, from the breathing air compressor? Shit, that couldn’t be good news. “Do you hear that?” he asked on the air to anyone who wanted to answer.
“Almost sounds like gunfire,” said somebody from Bravo.
Jake looked over in their direction. Damned if it doesn’t.
In a microsecond, their world erupted into brilliant white light. Jake felt a pulse of wind and instantly became disoriented. There was a sense of flying through the air and then the reality of impacting something hard. There should have been noise, and there should have been pain, but there was neither. Only searing heat as something caught fire over where Bravo used to be. Thoroughly disoriented, he couldn’t tell if he was lying on the floor, or if he’d been thrown against a wall. Up and down had no meaning in all the confusion.
A second flash rocked the inside of the magazine, and this time the noise was deafening. Yellow flames joined the white for just an instant, before the heavy black smoke enveloped everything and the heat became invisible.
He had to get out. This was the nightmare; the scenario that could never happen. In that instant, he knew that he was dead.
“Jake!”
He whirled to his right, expecting to see Carolyn, but found himself greeted by more blackness.
“Jake! Where are you!”
His earpiece! Christ, she could be anywhere, but her voice would always be inches away. He found the transmit button and mashed it. “Jesus, what was that?”
“Thank God, Jake. Where are you?”
“I don’t have a clue. Where are you?”
A third grenade screamed over Jake’s head, missing him by inches as it sought and found the right rear
