He blinked in surprise, obviously unused to being ordered about. Probably thought his rank here at the facility put him above such things. Life’s full of disappointments.
“They were…bitten.”
“Bitten? By what? An animal? An insect?”
Halverson snorted and then hid it with a cough.
Goldman shook his head. “No…they were bitten to death by the…um…terrorists.”
I stared at him, mouth open to snap at him to make a little more sense, but then the elevator reached the bottom with a clang, and Halverson drove us out into the complex. We passed through a massive airlock that would have put a dent in NASA’s budget. None of us said anything because all around us klaxons screamed and red emergency lights pulsed.
Halverson stamped on the brakes.
“Christ!” Goldman yelled.
“OUT!” I growled, but Top and Bunny were already out of the cart, their guns appearing in their hands as if by magic. I was right with them.
The floor, the walls, even the ceiling of the steel tunnel were splashed with bright red blood. Five bodies lay sprawled in ragdoll heaps. Arms and legs twisted into grotesque shapes, eyes wide with profound shock and everlasting terror.
The corridor ran a hundred yards straight forward, angling down deeper into the bowels of the mountain. Behind us the hall ran twenty yards and jagged left into a side hall. Bunny put his laser sight on the far wall near the turn. Top had his pointed ahead. I swept in a full circle.
“Clear!” Bunny said.
“Clear,” said Top.
“Jesus Christ!” said Goldman.
Halverson was saying something to himself. Maybe a prayer, but we couldn’t hear it beneath the noise of the klaxons.
Then the alarms died. Just like that.
So did the lights.
The silence was immediate and dreadful.
The darkness was absolute.
But it was not an empty darkness. There were sounds in it, and I knew that we were far from alone down there.
“Night vision,” I barked.
“On it,” Bunny said. He was the closest to the golf cart and I heard him rummaging in the bags. A moment later he said, “Green and go. Coming to you on your six.”
He moved through the darkness behind me and touched my shoulder, then pressed a helmet into my hands. I put on the tin pot, flipped down the night vision and flicked it on. The world went from absolute darkness to a surreal landscape of green, white and black.
“Top,” Bunny said, “coming to you.”
I held my ground and studied the hall. Nothing moved. Goldman cowered beside me. He folded himself into the smallest possible package and was tucked against the right front fender of the cart. Halverson was still behind the wheel. He had a Glock in his hand and the barrel was pointed at Top.
“Halverson,” I said evenly, not wanting to startle him. “Raise your barrel. Do it now.”
He did it, but there was a long moment of nervous indecision before he complied, so I swarmed up and took the gun away from him.
“Hey!” he complained. “Don’t—I need that!”
'You don't have night vision. Just sit tight and let us handle it.'
“I have a flashlight.” He began fumbling at his belt, but I batted his hand aside. “No. Stay here and be still. I’m going to place your weapon on the seat next to you. Do not pick it up until the lights come on.”
“But—”
“You’re a danger to me and mine,” I said, bending close. “Point a gun in the dark around me again and I’ll put a bullet in you. Do you believe me?”
“Y-yes.”
I patted his shoulder—to which he flinched—and moved away.
“What are you seeing, Top?”
He knelt by the wall, his pistol aimed wherever he looked. “Nothing seeing nothing, Cap’n.”
“Bunny?”
He was guarding our backs. “Dead people and shadows, boss. Look at the walls. Someone busted out the emergency lights.”
“Captain Ledger,” began Goldman, “what—?”
“Be quiet and be still,” I said.
We squatted in the dark and listened.
A sound.
Thin and scratchy, like fingernails on cardboard. Then a grunt of effort.
Top and I looked up at the same time, putting the red dots of our laser sights on the same part of the upper wall. There was a metal grille over an access port. The grille hung by a single screw and one corner of it was twisted and bent out of shape, the spikes of two screws hanging from the edges. The grille hadn’t been opened with a screwdriver, it had been torn out.
No. Pushed.
The scratching sound was coming from there, but as we listened it faded and was gone.
“It’s gone,” whispered Goldman.
I noticed that he said “it,” not “him” or “them.” I could tell from the way he stiffened that Top caught it, too.
But Bunny asked, “What’s gone? I mean…what the hell was that?”
The scientist turned toward Bunny’s voice. His green-hued face was a study in inner conflict. His eyes were wide and blind, but they were windows into his soul. I doubt I’ve ever seen anyone as genuinely or deeply terrified.
“They…they’re soldiers,” he said.
“Whose soldiers? We were told this was a potential terrorist infiltration.”
“God,” he said hollowly. “There are a dozen of them.”
I moved up to him and grabbed a fistful of his shirt.
“Stop screwing around, Doc, or so help me God—”
“Please,” he begged. “Please… We were trying to help. We were doing good work, important work. We were just trying to help the men in the field. But…but…”
And he began to cry.
We were screwed. Deeply, comprehensively and perhaps terminally screwed.
Something moved in the green gloom down the hall. It was big and it kept to the shadows behind a stack of packing crates. It made a weird chittering sound.
“Is that a radio?” Bunny whispered.
I shook my head, but I really didn’t know what it was.
“It’s them!” Goldman said and he loaded those two words with so much dread that I felt my flesh crawl.
“I got nothing down here,” said Bunny, who was still guarding behind us. “What are you seeing, boss?”
“Unknown. Top, watch the ceilings. I don’t like this worth a damn.”
The chittering sound came again, but this time it was behind us.
