“You think this was them?” Clyde asked.
“Captain said they’re coming ashore,” Zach said. “We’re not to touch anything. Whoever did that’s sick,” he added.
“They are,” Tess said. “It’s just like we saw in the bunker in Canberra, like I saw in Broken Hill. It’s the work of the cartel’s assassins. Take a look around, Clyde. Don’t touch anything.”
“Understood,” he said.
“I don’t,” Zach said.
“This is a message,” Tess said. “So whom was it left for? The wooden walls are there to make a statement, but this place isn’t really built for a siege. Defence would come from its remoteness, but every luxury would have to be imported, and few could make up for the coal floating thick in the air. The sisters might have come here, but they didn’t live here. Sir Malcolm wasn’t lying. He was brought here, but because the sisters didn’t care if he reported the location, and we came looking. These three victims were left here as a message, and I think that message is intended for people like us.”
“Commish, over here!” Clyde called.
On a trestle table in the shade of the courtyard’s wall was a laptop plugged into a satellite dish transmitter, next to a very old-fashioned, solid stone, domed cake-stand.
“Power cable runs to a generator in that hut,” Clyde said, pointing to a room built into the walls of the palisade.
“What’s under—” Zach began, his hand reaching for the cake stand even as he spoke.
“Don’t!” Clyde said, even as Tess grabbed Zach’s arm.
“What?” the young man said.
“People who skin people alive are the kind who leave traps,” Tess said.
“Oh. Like a bomb or something,” Zach said. “I thought it was going to be someone’s head under there.”
“The termites aren’t interested,” Clyde said, pointing to the industrious column of insects marching from beneath the wood-fronted palisade to the trio of crucified corpses. “So whatever is under there isn’t something they’d call food. Step back,” he said. “Far side of the building. Out of the line of sight.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Tess asked.
“This is the work I’ve been doing for a decade,” Clyde said.
“Bomb disposal?” she asked.
“War zone clear-up, because no farmer ever asked for a battle to be fought in their field. Go on.”
Tess took Zach’s arm and pulled him around the corner.
“Clear!” Clyde called a scant few seconds later.
Beneath the pottery dome was a digital camcorder.
“It’s just a camera?” Zach said. “Is there a video?”
Clyde held up the memory card. “Yep. But I’m more interested in why the generator has another power-cable running towards the rear of the house.”
The back of the house had even larger doors than the front, with a clear route to a similarly large rear gate. A massive table suggested the owners might have dined outdoors, while a roofless cube-frame of concrete and steel might have once held an awning. Hanging from it now were three large pulleys, through which a rope had been threaded. From one end hung a hook and chain. The other was attached to an electric winch into which the generator’s power cable ran.
“Hold,” Clyde said, walking up to the door. His right hand on his gun, he ran his left around the ajar entrance. “Clear,” he said, and pulled the door open. “Do you see this tripwire? It’s been disconnected.”
“It’s a trap?” Tess asked.
“Think so,” Clyde said. “Wait here, let me take a look.”
“Winch, pulley, rope,” Tess said. “How long do you think that rope is, Zach? A hundred metres?”
“You’ll want to see this,” Clyde called, pushing the door open wide.
They entered a large hall, in which the furniture had been pushed apart and the rugs pulled back. To the left, through a door-less alcove, lay the kitchen with a restaurant-sized range, two double-wide refrigerators, and an industrial dishwasher. The cupboards above were flat-pack. So was the table, and the sofa and chairs in the sitting room at the front of the house. The paintings, rugs, and the empty flower vases were similarly European, though they imitated a Mediterranean style. She wasn’t sure what style the wainscoting was, except that it had been used as camouflage.
Clyde knelt next to where the cream-painted wood panelling had been removed from the wall.
“It’s C4,” Clyde said. “Did you see where the panelling had been removed in the other rooms?”
“I only went as far as the front doors,” Tess said. “The detonators have been removed, yes?”
“The trigger as well,” Clyde said. “There’s a tripwire rigged to the rear door, another at the front. That should have set off a timer. But it’s all been disconnected.”
Tess turned to Zach who was staring down into the hole taking up half of the rear hall.
The hole was three metres wide, two long, and had another pulley hanging above, attached to a steel pin. When the hole was covered with the floorboards and a rug, a chandelier would hang from the pin. That pulley was in the perfect position for a rope running through the doors and to the winch outside. Tess joined Zach by the hole’s edge.
“Shine your light down there, Zach,” she said. “About thirty metres deep, maybe a bit less.”
“The walls are mostly concrete,” Clyde said. “The C4 is positioned to level the property.”
“Bringing it down on top of this hatch,” Tess said. “A hatch which leads to a tunnel. The whole property is a front. We were supposed to see those bodies outside, then force our way in, trigger the bombs, and level the house, hiding this tunnel from view.”
“The stone cake stand would have kept the camera and memory card safe,” Clyde said.
“Are we going to watch whatever’s on the memory card?” Zach asked. “Or are we going down?”
“Clyde, what do you think?” Tess asked.
He shone his flashlight downwards. “There’s a ladder at the side. Looks like a cage-elevator at the bottom.” He stepped back, and shone his light up at the pulley and hook hanging from the ceiling. “No coal power station, so why set up at a coal mine? Has to be for the mining machinery, so they can excavate long tunnels.”
“It’s for their lab, isn’t it?” Zach said. “This is where they made the zoms! We’re going to look, right?”
“Sooner or later, I am,” Clyde said, picking up a length of rope. “I say now. I’ll belay down, check for bodies, or movement, or more traps.”
“We’ll pull you back up if there are,” Zach said.
“I’ll jump up that ladder if there are,” Clyde said. “Boss?”
“Sooner or later we’ve got to look, and I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible.”
Holding the rope, Clyde stepped into air, and began quickly descending.
“Yeah, nah, it’s not for me,” Zach said.
“What isn’t?” Tess asked.
“Soldiering,” Zach said.
“I’m with you there,” Tess said.
“Clear!” Clyde called up. “Safe to come down. It’s a staging post. Supplies gathered to be taken top-side.”
“I’m going down,” Tess said. “It’s up to you whether you want to wait here for the captain, Zach.”
“Wait here with the crucified bodies and the explosives?” Zach asked. “Yeah, nah, I’m going down. You want me to get a rope?”
“Rule-nine, stick with what you know,” Tess said. “So we’ll take the ladder. Hang on. Let me see your gear. Safety on. Lights on. And the camera. Might as well record everything.” She turned his cap back to front. “Eyes open. Ears, too. If you think you hear something, or see something, say so. Overly cautious has never been listed as a cause of death.”
Chapter 37 - Solar Panels Underground
Puerto Bolivar, Colombia
It took Tess and Zach longer to descend than it had for Clyde, giving the soldier time to finish surveying the antech
amber.
“Four metres by five,” Clyde said, when they reached the bottom. “Just over head-height tall, with a horizontal tunnel leading due west. That tunnel’s laid with railway tracks on the right-hand-side, and storage on the left. Two handcars over there, with a generator, rope, winch, and hook at the front of each. Anchor the other end of the rope, and the handcar becomes a crude train.”
Tess shone her light on the fuel gauge of the first handcar’s generator, then on the rubber tube wedged into the fuel-cap of the second. “No fuel,” she said.
“There are guns in these boxes,” Zach said.
“AKMs,” Clyde said. “Couple of hundred in those crates lining the side of the tunnel, but they’re unloaded and factory fresh.”
“No crates of ammo here,” Tess said, shining her light around the space, stopping the beam on the long tunnel leading west. “But you wouldn’t stockpile guns without the ammo. Those crates don’t have any factory markings.” Something beyond the rifle crates reflected the light. “What’s that?”
Zach darted forward before either Tess or Clyde could stop him. “It’s a bike!” he said. “They brought bicycles down here. I guess after they ran out of fuel for the handcars. Nice bikes, too. Brand-new, they look.”
“Let me take point,” Clyde said, skipping ahead of him. “Ten bikes. Brand-new.”
“Ten?” Tess said, following them both. “And more crates beyond. We’ll take a brief look, then head back to the surface.”
“Safety on, Zach, but stay next to the Commish,” Clyde said. “Be ready to run back to the ladder.”
“I don’t think any zoms are down here,” Tess said, shining her light on the loot stashed on the left-hand-side of the tunnel.
“Maybe it’s Zach’s influence,” Clyde said. “Maybe it’s Mick Dodson’s, but I’m reminded of every horror movie I’ve ever seen. This tunnel must have another entrance.”
“No horror movie has solar panels,” Zach said. “They’re still in the box. More solar panels here. Hang on… yeah. Like, twenty boxes. For camping, I guess, from the picture. For a family holiday in a camper van. Cool.”
“You could buy those in a store,” Tess said. “Same with the bikes.”
“Not the AKs,” Clyde said.
“Should I take some photos for evidence?” Zach asked.
“I’m recording video,” Tess said. “That’ll do for now.”
“Are you recording sound too?” Zach asked. “You should have said.”
“Insulated cables,” Clyde said. “More ahead. I think they’re heavy-duty electrical transmission lines.”
“Keep going,” Tess said.
“Boxes of walkie-talkies,” Zach said. “Bet you could buy those in a shop, too.”
“Or online,” Tess said.
Next were empty water barrels. Then three more compact generators, five crates of emergency blankets, ten crates of industrial laundry detergent, and five of luxury hand soap. A stack of portable stoves, ten microwaves, still in their boxes, five beer-fridges, and ten portable camping toilets.
“Canoes,” Clyde said. “Three self-assembly canoes.”
“This is totally weird,” Zach said.
“Tunnel widens ahead,” Clyde said. “Another antechamber. It’s… it’s not a lab.”
The chamber was ten metres by eight, with wooden props regularly spaced two metres apart, supporting a wood-plank ceiling. The tunnel, and tracks, curved almost ninety degrees, and continued nearly due south.
“They excavated this chamber so they could make that turning,” Tess said, shining her light at the wooden ceiling, looking for a hatch. “They wanted the exit beneath that mansion, and must have misjudged their digging. The mansion must have been built first. Interesting.”
“Maybe it’s a bunker,” Clyde said.
“It’s a treasure cave!” Zach declared, making a beeline for the furthest corner. “There’s a fridge. A lot of beer inside. Just beer. No food. There is a microwave, and canned food. Chilli. Lots of it.”
“Is the beer cold?” Tess asked.
“Nah,” Zach said. “Do you want one?”
“Never when on duty,” Tess said. “Check inside the microwave, and nearby for hot food, and for any half-finished bottles. Anything to indicate someone was here within the last day or so.”
Her torch settled on the sofa, heaped with blankets, but with only one pillow. Facing the sofa, propped on the fridge, was a small TV and DVD player. A cable ran from that, and from the fridge and microwave, to a silent generator.
“Is the generator petrol or diesel?” Tess asked, picking her way around the waist-high maze of boxes and crates.
“It’s petrol,” Zach said.
“Same as the portable generators we saw further up the tunnel,” Tess said. “Diesel would be brought in for the ships. Petrol wouldn’t be a priority.”
“So why buy petrol generators?” Zach asked.
“They didn’t think it through,” Tess said. “They didn’t know what they needed, so bought whatever they could think of, which could be sent to wherever the coal-ships sailed to, or those small planes flew from. There’s an air of desperation in this stash. Too much for one person. Not enough for a group.”
“You mean like they had a credit card and went online to buy everything they could?” Zach said.
“Exactly that,” Tess said. “So perhaps these supplies weren’t laid in by the sisters, but by whoever was guarding this place for them. Bought after this guard was told precisely what was about to happen to the world.”
“There’s a dunny here,” Zach said, pulling aside the sheets hanging in the furthest corner.
“A portable toilet. A sofa brought from upstairs,” Tess said. “A microwave, a fridge. One pillow. One sofa. One person.”
“But why hang sheets in front of the loo if there’s no one else to see?” Zach asked.
“Standards and routine,” Clyde said, bending to open a crate. “Important to maintain both when you’re living like this.”
“Okay, fine, sure,” Zach said. “But there’s a mansion upstairs. Why not live there?”
“With those bodies outside, would you want to live up there?” Clyde asked. “There’s enough food for a year here as long as you didn’t mind eating chilli. Here’s a box of first-aid kits. Contains twelve. Box has been opened. One kit’s been used for dressings and sutures.”
“Zoms,” Zach said.
“Since when do zombies bandage themselves up?” Clyde asked.
“Nah, I mean someone was bitten, and stuck on a bandage before they turned,” Zach said, aiming his light towards the other tunnel.
“No wrappers, no waste,” Clyde said. “That was dumped somewhere else. Toilet would have been emptied there, too.”
“I bet that tunnel, ultimately, links with the coal mine,” Tess said. “Looks to be a bit wider, and just as full of stashed supplies. A coal mine is a dry, stable temperature environment, making it a better place to store things than above ground in a desert.”
“But the petrol generator was bought by someone who didn’t get to order what fuel was brought in,” Zach said. “So was this all bought by the tunnel-guard?”
“Canoes,” Tess said. “He bought canoes. You know what that tells me? No one ever audited what he bought. After the tunnels were dug, and the crates of rifles were brought down, there was a lot of unfilled space. He asked his bosses, the sisters, if he could fill it with things he thought would be useful, and he went overboard. But no one checked. No one stopped him. No one more important than him looked. Or cared.”
“It’s not just rifles,” Clyde said, having stopped next to a stack of military transport-cases next to a pillar-prop.
“What’s that?” Zach asked. “Strewth, that’s a bazooka.”
“It’s a Swedish-made AT4,” Clyde said. “A single-use, anti-tank missile. Do not press the trigger,” he added as Zach picked it up.
“Six crates?” Tess asked, shining her light on the ground. “They w
ere moved here recently. So the main supply, the important supplies, must all be further down that other tunnel. AKMs with no factory markings, and Swedish anti-tank missiles.”
“Whose tanks were they going to blow up?” Zach asked, raising the AT4 to his shoulder.
“That thing has a range of five kilometres,” Clyde said. “You could take out a building, or a ship, if you knew how to aim. You could definitely take out this mine, so keep your finger away from the trigger.”
“Why Swedish?” Tess asked. She shone her light around the boxes until the beam fell on the railway tracks. With the beam, she followed the rails into the tunnel, just far enough to catch the edge of a moving shadow.
“Hello!” she called. “Hola!”
A woman stepped out from behind the stacked boxes just inside the second tunnel. The boxes were wooden, similar in style and size to the AKM crates near the tunnel exit, and stacked to head-height, providing a perfect spot for eavesdropping on the conversation.
“My name’s Tess Qwong, from Australia,” she said. “Who are you?”
“La cura,” the woman said, bringing her hand up fast. Something flew from it, too fast for Tess to see, thumping and rolling across the loose-packed dirt.
“Grenade!” Clyde yelled, and dove on top of the thrown explosive.
Tess reached for her slung rifle even as she dropped to a kneeling crouch, but she’d only raised the weapon to forty degrees before the detonation.
The mine quaked. Dirt rained from between the wooden roof panels. Dust fountained from the tunnel while rock pattered from the ceiling.
“Zach?” Tess asked. “You okay?”
“Sorry, boss,” Zach said.
She turned towards him, and saw his face covered in blood and dust.
“Zach! Are you hit?”
“It’s not my blood,” he said.
She turned towards Clyde, except he was standing up, gun levelled towards the second tunnel.
Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 31
