“Well, well, if it isn’t the illustrious Mr. Hatfield.”
Jack turned to find Special Agent Carl Forsyth approaching him from the courtyard-the agent who had tried very hard to humiliate him at that FBI press conference several days ago.
Forsyth gestured to the courtyard behind him. “The President’s this way, Jack. Aren’t you headed in the wrong direction?”
Jack hesitated. “Bathroom break.”
Forsyth smiled. “Come on now, hotshot, we both know that isn’t true. You know what I think? I think you’re here to stir up trouble.”
Forsyth’s smile faded as two more special agents stepped up behind him, reaching into their jackets.
They didn’t look like they were there for the wine.
38
Even with the map it took Doc Matson a while to find the entry point.
Doc’s friend had only been able to give them a vague location and a couple of signposts. He’d told Doc that the real expert on the bunker was a woman named Tally Griffin, but she’d been out with a new boyfriend the last couple days and no one had seen or heard from her.
That didn’t sound good to Doc. A hunch told him the bad guys had found out about Tally, used her to get in, and didn’t want anyone to know.
So Doc did his best, using what little information he had, to lead Abernathy and Goldman down the cliff toward the water, and around an outcropping of rocks. The full moon helped, but finding the precise tree with the precise grouping of stones had not been easy, and Doc cursed the thought that this entire half-baked enterprise might be derailed by a tree that some piss-sniffing dog could find.
Now that he had time to think, he was probably crazy doing this in the first place. They all were. But Doc and Tony Antiniori went back a long way, and if you couldn’t count on your friends when your back was against the wall, who could you rely on? Besides, it had been a while since Doc had gotten an adrenaline shot like the last twenty- four hours, and a guy his age needed as much excitement as he could find.
They were a ragtag crew, the three of them, no question about it, and Doc kinda felt as if he were a refugee from some Sylvester Stallone movie. Only this was real life, and if they were right about what was going on in those tunnels they wouldn’t be facing Hollywood special effects but real, honest-to-God Muslim fanatics, with real, honest-to-God firepower.
But Doc had lived a long, fruitful life and had fought many wars in the defense of his country. If today was the day he finally gave his life for that cause, so be it. His only real family was Tony and these two guys, so he couldn’t think of better company to do it in.
After further exploration they found the tree with the three stones in front of it. The largest stone had already been moved, and there, under the beam of Doc’s Mini Maglite, was a crevice in the ground that left no doubt that they’d found what they were looking for.
Time to get to it.
They had decided to travel light for easy maneuverability, so they each carried only handguns-Abernathy with his SIG 9 mil, Goldman sporting a Smith amp; Wesson. 45, and Doc carrying his usual Beretta 92FS Semi-Auto 9mm.
Doc shimmied in through the crevice first, taking a short drop into the darkness and landing on a cement floor. He stood there for a moment, listening for any sounds, but the place was as silent as a tomb. Flashing his light toward the opening, he waited as Abernathy and Goldman shimmied through and dropped, then shone his beam toward the rebar ladder that led down a shaft to their right.
Goldman took the lead this time, hopping onto the ladder and working his way down, and a moment later they were all standing in one of the massive corridors that Doc had called home as a naive, eager eighteen-year- old, for the first six months of his military career. Except for a smattering of graffiti the place hadn’t changed much. He could remember the personnel moving through here as carrier cars moved along on the overhead rails carrying equipment barged to the shore. All these years later he still knew exactly where he was.
“This way,” he said to the others.
Using their Mini Maglites sparingly, they worked their way up the tunnel and turned right, moving into another tunnel, which opened out into a space on the left that Doc remembered had once been a bunkhouse. It was one of several that had been integrated into the place. His own assigned bunk had been closer to the Golden Gate Bridge side of the tunnel, which was where he spent most of his duty hours as well.
Doc was about to continue on when he caught a glimpse of something in his flashlight beam. Swinging it back into the bunkhouse again, he froze as dread chilled his spine.
“Holy crap,” Abernathy murmured directly behind him.
They moved quickly to a figure lying prone on the cement floor, a blond, life-sized Raggedy Ann, a flannel shirt tossed carelessly over her naked body, looking as if she’d been discarded like a used tissue.
Her face was mottled with bruises. There were black-and-blue marks under her ears.
Doc felt for a pulse and got exactly what he was expecting-nothing. He also had a pretty good idea who this was. He told the others it was probably Tally Griffin, the bunker expert.
This thing was suddenly more real than it had ever been. He activated his ear com and said, “Tony, Jack, do you read me?”
All he got was static.
“Tony?”
More static.
“Damn,” he said to the others. “Coms aren’t working down here. The walls must be interfering with the frequency.”
“Screw it,” Abernathy said, his voice tight with anger. “Let’s find the bastards who did this.”
Tony Antiniori heard the last strains of “Hail to the Chief” being played as he worked his way down the corridor to the room where he’d seen the white-coated server with the laundry cart disappear earlier.
He’d waited several minutes for Jack. Obviously something was holding him up, and with the music signaling the arrival of the President, Tony didn’t have time to wait anymore.
Just as he reached the room he heard voices and several of the white coats came around the corner. He held his hand to his ear, as if he had a cell phone, and pretended to talk into it. The men walked by chattering to one another, eyeing Tony indifferently as they passed. He waited until they were gone then moved to the door and checked the knob.
Unlocked.
Taking one last glance around he slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and flicked on the light. It was a large square room with several canvas laundry carts inside, and shelves along one wall stacked with napkins, tablecloths, towels, and other linens. On the far wall, behind one of the laundry carts, was the chute Karras had told them about. It was nothing more than a square hole in the wall with plastic flaps in front of it.
He studied it warily and activated his com line. “Hey, Karras, I’m in the linen room. You sure I won’t break my neck going down this thing?”
“No guarantees,” Karras said. “Hell, my grandpa broke his neck stepping into the bathtub.”
“You callin’ me ‘grandpa’?” The kid didn’t know him well enough to be talking to him like this.
“No offense,” Karras said, “but those older bones of yours might be fragile.”
“Yeah?” Tony fumed. “Remind me to kick your fat behind next time I see you. Then we’ll talk about bones.”
That shut the kid up, but he thought he heard Max laughing under her breath.
Pushing back the flaps, he checked the chute more closely. The angle wasn’t too severe, so he figured the speed of his trajectory would be manageable. Hell, he couldn’t count the number of free falls he’d done at twenty- five thousand feet, so this should be a piece of cake-assuming there was something down there to buffer his
