by James Barney
“Not exactly,” said Thelma. “The quarantine lasted about a month. Nobody went in or out of Thurmond during that entire time. When it was over, the government evacuated everyone from Thurmond and relocated them to temporary housing . . . I think somewhere near Charleston. I never personally saw any of those people again. But I heard from other folks that they was never really the same. They had all types of medical issues. Memory loss and night terrors and such. Government paid for their food and housing and health care, I guess for the rest of their lives. And, like I said, I never saw any of them again.”
“What about your father? Did he ever figure out where the five days had gone?”
Thelma shrugged. “It’s just like our clocks. The time just vanished somehow.”
Califano sat quietly for several seconds as his mind processed this bizarre information. Finally, he thanked Thelma for her time and told her she could go. A few minutes later, he put on his overcoat and began making his way to the exit. He smiled and nodded politely at Thelma as he passed by. Then he stopped just short of the door. “Uh, Ms. Scott.”
“Yes?”
“You mentioned there’s a way to walk to Thurmond from here?”
“Well, there used to be. There’s an old railroad line that goes straight over to Thurmond from here. It doesn’t go around Beury’s Ridge like the road does. It goes straight over the top. When the coal company was still operating, that’s how they got the coke from the furnaces to the coal depot in Thurmond. It’s all overgrown now, but back then—yeah, you could walk along the tracks. Probably about ten miles, I’d say. Hey, Frank!”
One of the old men in the booth suddenly looked up from his buckwheat pancakes. “Huh?”
“How long’s that old branch line to Thurmond? Ten miles, would you say?”
“Yeah, I reckon. Maybe a bit less. Why?”
“This fella wanted to know.” Thelma turned back to Califano. “You can still see part of the tracks out there.” She pointed toward the back of the restaurant. “Walk straight back into the woods until you reach the old coke ovens. Can’t miss ’em. Branch line runs right in front of the ovens.”
Califano thanked her and exited the restaurant. Outside, he made an immediate right turn on the sidewalk and then another right turn at the first corner. Then he made a beeline for the woods. He tapped the button for his transmitter as he walked. “Hey, guys, I’m all done in the diner,” he said.
A second later, he heard McCreary’s voice crackling in his ear: “Anything interesting?”
“Got a name,” Califano replied as he walked. “Dr. Reynolds at Princeton. Apparently Holzberg wanted to contact him. I’ll feed that into my database when I get a chance and let you know what I find.”
“Very good,” said McCreary.
“Also,” said Califano, “sounds like they were doing some strange stuff in Thurmond. Apparently something that messed up all the clocks around here . . . to this day.”
“Oh yeah?” said McCreary. “The locals told you that?”
“Mm-hmm. Thelma Scott says they evacuated and relocated the entire town of Thurmond back in ’59 after some sort of explosion.” Califano suddenly stopped at the tree line and searched for a path through the woods. He spotted one off to the left and started making his way toward it. As he walked, he pressed the transmit button again. “How about you guys? Anything interesting?”
Ana Thorne’s voice came on the line. “Nothing here. Still waiting for the sheriff.” She sounded annoyed.
McCreary’s voice came on a few seconds after that. “I’m suiting up right now. I’ll let you guys know what I find.”
Califano immediately stopped walking. Suiting up? He’d worked at DOE long enough to know what that meant. He tapped the transmit button. “Hey, Doc, I thought we needed more information before we could go down into the lab.”
There was a long pause before McCreary finally responded. “Keep the line clear, Michael.”
The coke ovens in Fire Creek were apparently a popular attraction among the “ghost tour” crowd, as evidenced by the well-worn footpath that led there. Califano followed that path several hundred yards into the woods until it gave way to a large clearing. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and took in the unusual sight that was now spread before him. The morning sun was filtering softly through the trees, illuminating thick pools of swirling fog that still hugged the ground in splotches. The coke ovens themselves were about thirty yards away, at the far edge of the clearing. And Thelma Scott had certainly been right. You couldn’t miss them.
The coke ovens were part of an enormous brick structure, about twelve feet high and more than two hundred feet long, that stretched deep into the woods. Each of the beehivelike ovens was built directly into the face of this brick structure, creating a long row of semicircular openings, each about six feet in diameter, with a two-foot column between them. This gave the masonry structure a Romanesque appearance, like a crumbling, vine-covered aqueduct that had somehow been transplanted from Tuscany into the West Virginia wilderness.
Califano made his way to the first of the semicircular ovens and poked his head inside. In the dark shadows, he could see that it was shaped like an igloo, with curved brick walls that converged at the top, leaving a small, circular opening, which he guessed was a chimney. Turning away from the ovens, he scanned the forest floor until he spotted the remnants of the train tracks that Thelma Scott had mentioned. The rusty rails were barely visible beneath a tangle of vegetation and forest debris. With some effort, he made his way to the tracks until he was standing directly between the rails. He peered eastward into the forest, in the direction of Thurmond, and observed that the tracks quickly disappeared into the vegetation.
Califano checked his watch; it was just shy of 10:30 A.M. He stood there for a long time, thinking about what Ana had told him earlier this morning: don’t take any chances. She was right, of course. In fact, he already felt like he was in over his head.
But that had never stopped him before.
With a deep breath, Califano began walking eastward along the tracks, and he was soon deep in the woods.
17
BEURY MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA
Bill McCreary could barely see out of the face mask they’d put over his eyes, nose, and mouth. In frustration, he ripped it off his beefy face for the third time. “It keeps fogging up,” he complained.
The radiological control technician at the guard station was apologetic, but firm. “I’m sorry, sir. But you’ve got to wear that mask at all times beyond this point. No exceptions. Try breathing through your nose. That should cut down on the fogging.”
“Jesus,” McCreary muttered under his breath. “In all the years you’ve been here, have you ever detected radiation levels above background?”
“No, sir. Not down here. But we don’t usually go up to the entrance where you’re going. That’s a highly restricted area with special radiological controls. In fact, I’m surprised you even got clearance to go up there. I mean . . . everything checks out, so you are clear to go. It’s just . . . well, you have to have the proper protective gear if you want to go up there. So if you’ll please bear with me . . .”
McCreary waved away the man’s assistance. “I’ll do it.” He slipped the face mask over his broad face once again and tightened the four rubber straps.
“Ready?” asked the technician.
McCreary nodded that he was. He was suited from head to toe in yellow coveralls, cotton gloves, rubber booties over his shoes, a cotton hood, and now the face mask. With his large frame and oversize physique, he looked like a bright yellow Sasquatch.
The technician quickly donned his own face mask, and the two men climbed into an olive drab Polaris Ranger—a two-seat all-terrain vehicle with the Department of Energy seal on the hood. Once they were both buckled in tightly, the technician gunned the ATV, and they began their three-mile ascent to the entrance of the abandoned Thurmond National Laboratory.
The trip took about twenty-fi
ve minutes and was bone-rattlingly bumpy at points. This road doesn’t get much use, McCreary figured. They stopped twice to clear fallen tree limbs and once more to open the final security gate, a heavily padlocked section of barbed-wire fence about one hundred yards from the lab entrance. A large red-and-white sign on the gate read:
WARNING: HIGH RADIATION AREA
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED
The technician opened the metal gate and returned to the ATV. “Okay, sir,” he shouted through his mask. “Beyond this point is a twenty-minute exposure area. You stay longer than that and you’ll exceed your maximum quarterly radiation dosage, which is a violation of federal law. I’ll wait right here for you. There’s a fifteen-minute alarm on your dosimeter. When that goes off, you’ve got five minutes to come back. If you’re not back here at the end of that, my orders require that I sound the RADCON alarm.” He locked eyes with McCreary through their visors. “Please don’t make me do that, sir.”
McCreary nodded.
“Do you know how to operate your radiation monitor?”
McCreary nodded that he did.
The technician held up the portable radiation detector that was attached to McCreary’s coveralls with a lanyard. It was a yellow handheld unit with several buttons and a small digital screen. “It’s set to detect gamma and beta radiation,” he said. “You’ll get audio clicks and a digital readout in milliroentgens per hour. You can change the scale by pushing this button and toggle to counts per minute by pressing this one.” He pointed to the two corresponding buttons. “You’ve got a two-way radio in this pocket.” He patted his left breast pocket. “And a flashlight in this pocket.” He patted the other pocket. “Any questions?”
McCreary shook his head.
“Okay, then. Good luck, sir.”
With that, McCreary lumbered in his radiation suit through the security gate and made his way toward the only structure in sight: a rectangular, bunkerlike building constructed entirely of exposed concrete, with a flat concrete roof, no windows, and a single gray metal door. Attached to one side of the building was a square, windowless tower—also constructed of exposed concrete—that looked to be about thirty feet high. McCreary had a pretty good idea what that was. The radiation monitor began clicking a few times per second as he got closer to the building. He glanced down at the digital display, which indicated less than 0.1 milliroentgen per hour. Nothing to worry about.
He stopped a few feet from the entrance and read the sign that was hanging crookedly beside the door. In faded letters, it read: THURMOND NATIONAL LABORATORY. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He approached the heavy steel door and tugged gently on its handle. To his surprise, the door began to open. It squeaked loudly at first as the rusty hinges got their first workout in decades. Then the door suddenly fell off the hinges and crashed to the cement sidewalk with a resounding clank!
McCreary jumped back to avoid the heavy door. When the commotion subsided, he entered the building cautiously and switched on his flashlight. The radiation monitor was clicking more rapidly now. He glanced down through his foggy visor and saw that it was spiking at about 1.5 milliroentgens per hour. Approximately one hundred times background, but still nothing to worry about.
The building was entirely bare inside except for an L-shaped metal security desk that was bolted to the floor and a large, metal, boothlike structure behind the desk, which was centered within a framework of heavy steel beams that rose high into the enclosed, three-story tower above.
McCreary shined the beam of his flashlight all around the interior of the building, especially the desk area. Nothing. No logbooks, no name tags, no security manuals, no remnants of any human activity whatsoever. As expected. This place had been well sanitized many years ago.
McCreary now trained his flashlight on the tall metal structure behind the desk. It looked like an oversize phone booth—about seven feet tall with a five-by-five-foot base and a gray metal door in the front. The scaffolding above the structure was draped with steel cables, and there were several large spools attached to what appeared to be hydraulic motors. McCreary recognized this equipment as the lifting mechanism for a mine elevator.
He approached the elevator and noted that his radiation detector was now clicking much more rapidly. As he neared the elevator door, the detector began clicking so rapidly that he had to change the scale by two orders of magnitude. Even then, the clicks were so close together that they sounded like a single, steady tone. He checked the digital readout with his flashlight: 250 milliroentgens per hour. An elevated exposure rate, to be sure. Although not a twenty-minute zone, he thought. At this exposure rate, it would take six hours before he exceeded his quarterly limit.
With a gloved hand, McCreary attempted to open the gray steel door that provided entrance to the elevator. It was a bifold design, similar to a bus door, with a sturdy steel handle near the hinge and a narrow rectangular window on each side. He pulled gently on the handle. Nothing. He pulled harder, and the door still did not budge. Finally, with all his strength, he yanked hard on the door handle. The door creaked slightly at the hinge but refused to open. It was definitely stuck.
Pressing his Plexiglas visor against one of the two windows in the elevator door, McCreary attempted to see inside, shining his flashlight through the other window to illuminate the space. But, with his foggy visor and the glare of the flashlight on the glass, it was difficult to see much of anything. All he could make out was a tangle of cables and something lumpy on the floor. Frustrated, he gave the door handle another hard tug, but, once again, it did not budge.
McCreary checked the timer on his radiation monitor. Six minutes left. Crap. Using his flashlight, he quickly scanned the tower section of the building for something that might be useful, although he had no idea what that might be. After nearly half a minute of searching, he finally spotted something. He made his way quickly to the rear wall of the tower and pried an old fire extinguisher out of its rusty bracket. It popped out with relative ease.
Working quickly, McCreary brought the fire extinguisher to the elevator door, felt its weight in his hands for a moment, then prepared to smash it into one of the glass windows. Just before he did, however, his dosimeter alarmed loudly, adding a shrill overtone to the steady clicking of his radiation detector. Seconds later, he heard the technician’s voice crackling over the radio. “Five minutes, sir.”
McCreary hesitated just a moment, then proceeded with his plan. He smashed the bottom of the fire extinguisher into the narrow glass window of the elevator door . . . and was amazed when it did not break. Shatterproof glass. Redoubling his effort, he again slammed the extinguisher into the glass window. This time, the glass fractured in several places but stayed stubbornly in place. Undeterred, McCreary repeated this process several more times until, finally, his effort was rewarded with a hollow puncturing sound. He’d broken a hole in the glass. With two additional blows, he managed to enlarge the hole enough to get his arm through.
McCreary quickly put the extinguisher down and glanced at the timer on his dosimeter: three minutes left. Wasting no time, he thrust his flashlight through the broken glass and pressed his visor into the opening. With the interior of the elevator shaft now well illuminated, he could finally see inside.
It took several seconds to figure out what he was looking at. Then he realized what it was.
It was a giant blob of concrete.
Just then, the radio crackled to life. “Sir, you’ve got to get out now. Or I have to sound the RADCON alarm.”
Perplexed, McCreary took one last look at the large blob of concrete in the elevator shaft. In one corner, he noticed a cubelike metal box with a yellow-and-magenta trefoil symbol on it. He immediately recognized this as a controlled radiation source. But why would there be a controlled radiation source up here?
The radio crackled loudly: “Sir, you need to leave right now!”
McCreary quickly retreated from the building and waved to the
technician beyond the fence as he exited through the doorway. Two minutes later, he was through the gate.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” asked the technician as he closed and padlocked the gate behind them.
“Actually, no,” said McCreary, shaking his head and breathing heavily. “Is there any other way to get down into the lab?”
The technician looked confused. “No, sir. The lab is sealed shut. You can’t get down there at all. I figured you knew that.”
McCreary’s earpiece suddenly activated and Ana Thorne’s voice came on the line. “Hey, I just got an update on Holzberg’s burial site in Germany.”
McCreary tapped the transmit button beneath his protective clothing. “Go ahead,” he said, still breathing heavily.
“Empty. As we suspected.”
McCreary was not surprised by this news, but the confirmation that Holzberg’s grave was empty still left him baffled. He tapped the transmit button again. “I just checked the entrance to the lab.” He paused to catch his breath. “The elevator shaft is sealed with concrete. Solid concrete. And the radiation is not coming from below. It’s coming from a controlled source on the surface.”
“That’s . . . surprising,” said Ana. She paused for a moment. “So there must be some other way in and out.”
“Agreed,” said McCreary. “But where?”
Five miles away, Mike Califano listened to this conversation with considerable interest. It proved two things he’d suspected since late last night. First, both McCreary and Thorne apparently believed that Dr. Holzberg had emerged forty-eight hours ago from the lab—a lab that was decommissioned and sealed shut in 1959. Which meant they believed, as he now did, that Holzberg had somehow been transported through time. Like a boomerang. Califano hadn’t wanted to be the first to bring up this theory because it sounded . . . well, crazy. But now that it was out in the open . . .
The second thing this conversation confirmed was something Califano already knew: there was a second entrance to the lab. In fact, at this very moment, he was looking directly at it. Califano tapped the transmit button on his radio. “Hey, guys. I think I know where that second entrance is.”
