They hadn’t forgotten the man they’d left behind. They just surrendered to the heady elation of having survived despite shitty odds. Exhaustion, fear, and blood loss took their toll. They were left helpless to their own animal physiology. There was plenty of time for guilt and recrimination later if they could still feel those things. For now, there was no room for anything but joy.
They were the baddest motherfuckers in the valley and, damn, it felt good.
Caroline stood and returned her big brother’s hug. The tears came. The harder she cried, the harder she held him to her, as if afraid he might vanish and she would open her eyes to find herself back in that horrible cave.
Six showers later her skin still felt gritty even though she had scrubbed her skin red. Her hair was still stiff though most of the lime had been washed away. For a fleeting instant, she considered shaving her head.
Morris met her as she exited her bathroom wrapped in a thick robe. Her brother sat on the edge of her bunk and held out a cold bottle of Fiji and a paper cup filled with capsules and tablets.
“You need to take these,” he said.
“Mo…” she moaned and shooed him from the bunk so she could lie back, propped on pillows.
“It’s your own protocol, Carrie,” he said and handed her the cup. “Antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics, minerals, vitamins, and a strong laxative.”
“Ick,” she said, then popped the pills and sipped water.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“You worry too much,” she said and washed down pills.
“Actually, I knew I lost you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Mo?”
He told his sister of finding the cave and, with Parviz’s and Quebat’s help, uncovering a skull that was undeniably hers—a skull with a bullet-sized hole in it.
She shivered and took a long pull of Fiji. “I’m just too damned tired to get my brain around that right now,” she said and laid back. The pill cup was empty.
“It could be a confirmation of string theory,” Morris said. “If we could publish about it. Which we can’t.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t explore it further. I can already think of some simple experiments.” She allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for a few seconds.
“Yeah. It does mean that, Carrie. They’re shutting us down,” he said.
“Who? What did you say?” She sat up. “They’re coming tomorrow. Some corporate hard case named Martin. He says Sir Neal wants us gone. I nearly fried the system getting it powered up this last time to get you all back here before the deadline.”
“This work is mine. Yours. They can’t just take it.”
“Same old story, Sis.” He frowned. “Our work. Their money. We signed agreements. We were both so fixated on seeing your theories realized that—”
“We’ll build our own Tube,” she insisted. “I already have ideas for improvements, ways to make it work more efficiently.”
“Well, unless you’re holding a winning lottery ticket…”
“Where are my clothes?” she asked emphatically and pointed at a trash bag tied shut by the door of her room. “There! Tear that open.”
She stood over Morris as he worked at untying the bag. Caroline grabbed the bag, pried her fingers through the plastic, and ripped it open to dump the stinking mess on the floor. She dug through the sweat-soaked and bloodstained t-shirt and came up with the necklace Old Mother had put around her neck back in that forgotten time.
She held the necklace of black claws up to Morris, and he recoiled at the musky odor of it.
“See that?” she held between her fingers a dull yellow bead set on the necklace thong between the claws.
“That looks like gold,” he said and removed his glasses to squint at it.
“How far back in that cave did you dig, bro?” A broad grin wrinkled her nose.
Men trotted out to meet the helo as it landed. They were big men. Their suits were expertly tailored but could not hide their nature. These were soldiers and moved with the assured confidence of men used to standing their ground when others fled for cover.
“They’ve vacated, sir,” the tallest of them said as Gus Martin stepped from the copter. He changed to cross-trainers on the ride from Vegas. The last trip out here had ruined the custom loafers he bought in Parma last winter.
“Really, Bohrs?” Martin said in mild surprise. “I thought they might stay behind and make me listen to more of their wretched pleading.”
“There are a few unexpected items we found in our initial inventory,” Bohrs said and walked beside Martin down to the compound with a pair of Martin’s aides following behind.
“I hope there’s nothing that will complicate our deal with the Chinese,” Martin said. “They’re coming tomorrow for an inspection of the property and a brief demonstration.”
“There was a considerable amount of spent brass on the floor in the main building,” Bohrs said. “And some minimal damage to the structure, but the mechanism appears to be intact.”
“Brass?”
“Ammunition shell casings, sir. Lots of them. And quite a bit of blood evidence, which led us to the grave.”
“Grave.” Martin felt a migraine building behind his eyes.
“A mass grave with multiple bodies,” Bohrs said. “They used a backhoe. We partially uncovered the remains.”
They reached the compound area and the three black Suburbans that had brought the Gallant security men there that morning. No other vehicles were here, but there were broad, deep tire tracks in the sand.
“A semi-tractor trailer, sir,” Bohrs said as Martin stopped to look at the fresh ruts that led away from the huts down to the service road.
“They didn’t have a truck the last time I was here,” Martin said.
“We think they used it haul the reactor away,” Bohrs said.
Martin turned to the reactor hut and noticed for the first time the ten-foot-wide hole roughly cut through its steel outer wall. He snapped
