Blind Eye; Silent Waters; Janus Effect

by Jan Coffey

  Mark reached for his phone. It was vibrating at his belt. It was Harvey.

  “We just had a sketch faxed to us from DOE,” the agent said.

  “What have you got?” Mark asked, moving away from the others.

  “There’s another facility. It’s a nuclear lab. Underground. It butts up against the WIPP facility, but DOE’s documents show the facility was shut down back in the 90s.”

  “Where is it? How do I get in there?” Mark asked.

  “If you come back here, we are putting a team together now. I mentioned that the facility is supposedly shut down. Technically, it’s still a government facility. We don’t need a search warrant.”

  “How do I get there from here?” Mark asked, impatient.

  “You won’t find any street signs out there. Get behind the wheel and I’ll have one of my men here direct you to it via GPS.”

  CHAPTER 77

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility

  Marion had the first four test containers working, though each was at a different stage of the procedure. She couldn’t get another one started, though, until the first came out of the oven.

  She glanced at her watch. Two hours, forty minutes.

  Sweat beaded on her brow. Her skin was crawling, and a feeling of pins and needles had spread across her shoulders and back. Lack of food, drink, and sleep meant nothing. Fear was driving her. Her gaze kept darting uncontrollably to the door.

  By now the attackers had to have realized something had happened to their partner.

  This was her first chance to take a step away from the samples. She removed the gloves and went to the computer to read the email she received.

  Her heart kicked. She stared at the email in disbelief. It was from Mark’s cell phone number.

  I’m in Roswell, NM. I know where WIPP is. But where are you exactly?

  She was going to type the little information that she knew. She didn’t know how complicated it was to get through the Test Drift to reach where she was. She had to tell him that there was another elevator shaft. A different entrance.

  But what about the killers. He’d run right into them.

  Before she could type anything, there was the sound of another email. This one was from Mark, too.

  I found where the lab is. I’m coming.

  Marion wanted to jump up and down in joy. This wasn’t a figment of her imagination. He was really coming.

  Her fingers started flying on the keyboard. “There are at least two armed people at the top. Here to kill me. Everyone else dead. One killer below badly injured.” She looked at the watch. “Only two hours nine minutes left til disaster.”

  The lights on the door lock keypad lit up. They were here.

  She pressed the send button.

  CHAPTER 78

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility Ground Level

  “The building looks deserted,” Mark said into the phone. The headlights from his car shone on the two-story building. He was parked in an opening in the fence where, at some point, the entrance to the facility must had been.

  “Are you sure?” the agent on the phone asked him. “The drawings in front of me pinpoint the entrance of the lab as right you’re sitting.”

  There was a click on his phone. “Wait a minute. I’m getting a call or a message. I have to check this. I’ll call you back.”

  Mark ended the call. He had a text message. It was from the same email address Marion had contacted him from before. He read the text.

  “She’s here.” He murmured, immediately turning off the headlights of the car. He called back the agent.

  “We have the right place.” Mark told him exactly what the message read. “I don’t know what two hours and nine minutes means, but it doesn’t sound good. I’m going in.”

  “Wait for back up. It should be less than ten minutes before the first team reaches you.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Mark ended the call and got out of the car. Drawing the FBI standard-issue Glock 9mm from its holster, he started running toward the building.

  He didn’t know what the chances were that they hadn’t seen his headlights. There was nothing he could do about that now.

  What was left of the driveway, circled around the structure to the back. Trying to stay low, he followed the path until he reached the back corner of the building. Peering around the corner, he saw the SUV parked by the line of garage doors. The doors were closed. Mark looked around. The only way to get into the building seemed to be through one of those garage doors. The building looked like a fortress…and the gates were up.

  He decided he had to find a way to draw them out. His options were limited. He ran toward the car. There was no one inside and the doors were locked. He saw the red blinking light on the dash.

  “Thank God for security,” he whispered under his breath.

  He slammed the driver’s window with the butt of the pistol and backed quickly away as the SUV’s lights started flashing and the alarms blaring.

  CHAPTER 79

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility

  They were either having trouble with the door code…or they were worried that she might be armed.

  Torn between continuing with the cementation process or standing by the door with her axe in hand, Marion finally laid the axe down on the table she’d moved in front of the door. She had to keep going.

  The first container was now through the cycle. Marion had to keep moving all the rest through the steps and start the process on the fifth one.

  She put the protective gloves back on and went to work. Her gaze never wavered too far from the door, though. They were out there, but they were hesitating. She’d moved a heavy cabinet and a table in front of the door, but she knew that wouldn’t hold them for long…if at all.

  She had the first in the series out of the oven when there was a loud bang against the door. She put the sample down and ran toward the door as the second bang moved everything an inch. The door was unlocked.

  Marion looked around her for anything she could use as a weapon—anything that she could use to slow them down. She’d have a hard time swinging that axe more than once.

  The torch caught her eye. The portable rig was there for welding containers in certain test set-ups. She’d learned to use it in a lab two summers ago, but she never thought she’d be using it for this. She discarded the gloves, turned on the gas at the tank, and unrolled the torch’s rubber hoses. Quickly, she moved with the torch and striker to the side of the door.

  Marion jumped at the next smash to the door. This time everything moved a couple of inches. She spotted the man’s hand slip through the crack. He was trying to wedge his arm in for leverage.

  She fired up the torch and leaned over the table.

  He screamed in pain, yanking his arm and hands out.

  Marion slammed her body up against the table and shoved the door shut.

  The sound of the machine gun outside startled her, but the door only vibrated with the shower of bullets. Nothing came through.

  “Steel and lead layers, you bastards,” she murmured.

  She didn’t know how long she could keep them out. She could only slow them down. At least, she was giving them reason to think.

  She glanced down at the watch again.

  One hour and thirty-five minutes left.

  She couldn’t wait. Marion put the gloves on and went back to her emergency assembly line.

  CHAPTER 80

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility; Ground Level

  As the garage door opened, Mark pressed himself flat against the building.

  Taking the butt of Mark’s revolver to the back of the head, the man crumpled against the vehicle and slid to the ground.

  Mark swept the pistol around, peering into the open bay of the building. The place looked empty. Keeping one eye on the open door, Mark patted down the unconscious man. He found a well-used HK pistol inside the man’s jacket and put it in his own empty shoulder holster. That was the only weapon the man was
carrying. No wallet or ID, but he took the keys to the SUV and tossed them away into the darkness.

  Leaving him on the ground, Mark moved inside the building.

  The garage doors opened onto what looked to be a large shipping area. Other than stacks of folded cardboard boxes in a dumpster against one wall, there was nothing else there. Straight ahead, he saw an elevator set in a cinderblock island in the center of the building. A lit, glassed in office sat next to it and a set of stairs went up one side of the structure.

  Moving across the open space, he could see the stairs led to a door on a small landing a flight up. The elevator machinery, Mark decided. A steel ladder continued to a door to the roof. Access to the crane.

  Mark ran quickly to the empty glass office and slipped in. To his right, there was a line of computers and screens. The area was set up as surveillance office. There were images on the screen. He moved closer. One view showed what looked like the feet of a corpse. His gaze swept grimly across the other screens. Dead bodies scattered in a number of rooms, were visible on few. Several screens were not functioning. Movement in one of them caught his attention. Two men were using a rolling table to try to shove open a door. They were both armed.

  “Marion,” he whispered. That was where she had to be.

  He ran to the elevator doors. On the way here, the agent had told him that the lab was more than two thousand feet below the surface.

  His finger hovered over the elevator button. If he pressed it, he might alert the two armed intruders. They…or another member of their group…could be waiting for him at the bottom.

  He forced open the elevator door. A gaping hole greeted him. He looked at the cables disappearing into the darkness below.

  Leaning into the shaft, he looked up. Above him, half the space was open to the crane on the roof. He could see the hook in the dim light. The other half of the space was taken up by the platform holding the huge elevator wheel and the electric motor that turned it. The cables, looped around the wheel, would begin to move as soon as the elevator started its ascent. If he was on the way down and someone started coming up, he was in trouble.

  On the side of the shaft, a ladder ran down into the darkness. It would take him too long to climb down that ladder.

  Mark made up his mind.

  Going back into the surveillance room, he looked at the screen where he’d seen the men. One of them was crouched in the corner holding his hand and arm. The other was staring at the door, an Uzi in his hand.

  In the corner of the room, a box of old maintenance tools sat, half hidden under a greasy tarp. Yanking the tarp away, Mark found a pair of gloves. Digging deeper, he found something he could use. Pulling the chain wrench from the box, he slipped his pistol into his belt, donned the gloves, and went back to the open elevator door.

  It was going to be a long way to the bottom, but this was his best chance.

  Wrapping the chain wrench around the elevator cable, Mark ratcheted it until it was nearly tight. It would need to work like a brake. He just hoped it was strong enough to hold his weight.

  Holding the handle of the wrench in one hand, he grabbed the cable with the other and swung out into the open space. His legs wrapped around the cable and he began to slide.

  By the time he had descended what he thought must be half way, the muscles in his arms and back were screaming. The chain wrench helped Mark control his downward speed to some extent, but the friction on his other gloved hand and on his legs still burned right through the protective covering.

  But Marion was at the bottom, he told himself.

  Close to the bottom, his grip on the cable was getting weaker and he felt himself starting to slip faster. Leaning more heavily on the handle of the wrench, he realized he was not more than twenty feet away from his destination and coming down too fast. Ten feet above the roof of the elevator, Mark put all his weight on the handle. The chain snapped. Clutching desperately for the cable, he tried to slow himself, but he couldn’t. The pulley apparatus was just beneath him when he let go, and he hit the roof hard.

  Even as the loud bang of his landing reverberated in the shaft, Mark shook off his gloves and drew his pistol from his belt. He stayed on one knee on top of the elevator for a long moment, flexing his hands and listening for any sound in the elevator or outside the shaft. Nothing.

  It took him only a moment to find the emergency access door on the top of the elevator. Pulling it open, he ducked his head through the opening. Seeing no one, he quickly dropped down into the elevator and moved through the open doors into the research lab.

  The putrid smell of the body in the open area hit him like a slab of bad meat. In front of a hallway leading into the facility, the body of a man in gray overalls lay face down in a pool of blood. Moving to him, Mark started to check for a pulse, but stopped. The bullet wound in the man’s temple told him all he needed to know.

  Mark looked around him, deciding which direction he should go.

  And then, the sound of gunfire sent him quickly down the hallway in front of him.

  CHAPTER 81

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility

  One hour, fifteen minutes.

  All nine containers were out of the test fixture. Two had gone completely through the cementation steps. Another one was ready to come out.

  There were repeated blows against the door. Marion tried to shut out all other sound and focus on what she had to do. Minutes ticked by and she continued to work steadily.

  She knew the time left was under an hour now, but she didn’t want to look at her watch.

  Suddenly, the wall just above her head exploded, showering splintered fragments of concrete around her. She looked up at the hole in the wall and then back at the door. The bullet had missed her head by two inches.

  “Close,” she snapped. One of the men had an entire arm inside the door. In his hand, he was waving a gun.

  She threw the gloves aside and grabbed the torch again.

  “I’m trying to save your miserable life—your children’s lives,” she screamed, not knowing where this energy was coming from.

  The man squeezed the side of his head in and fired another shot that clipped the sleeve of her shirt. Not giving ground, her eyes focused on the torch as she lit it. Marion saw his eyes widen and she rushed toward the door. Instead of firing again, he backed away.

  Marion didn’t slow up, hitting the table again with her hip and driving the cabinet hard against the door, shutting it. Extinguishing the torch, she dropped it on the floor and moved back to the samples.

  The third one was ready to come out of the oven. Using the overhead lift, she carefully took it out and began to move the others along in the process.

  Suddenly, there was another shot fired. She glanced over as three more shots were fired in rapid succession. They were outside the door.

  “Mark?” she asked under her breath.

  Marion looked down at her watch. She had only fifty-six minutes left. She had to finish pouring the cement into the last container and get it at least to curing stage before the time ran out.

  She needed to focus on what had to be done.

  The sound of more gunfire outside drew her attention. It sounded like it was further away, in another part of the facility.

  Marion kept working.

  Suddenly, there was more gunfire, somewhere nearby again…and then nothing. It was this silence that almost killed her.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Marion?”

  It was Mark’s voice. Her heart began to race. She was pulling another container from the oven.

  “Marion, are you all right?”

  “Mark! I’m here! I’m fine,” she cried out. “Don’t come in. I need to finish sealing these containers. Forty-nine minutes…that’s all I have left. Please…go up…wait for me…up there…”

  “No,” he called through the door. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”

  He came for her. He was waiting for her.

  With tears o
f relief and happiness streaming down her face, Marion turned and went back to her work.

  CHAPTER 82

  Nuclear Fusion Test Facility

  Mark Shaw was a seasoned cop. He’d been to war. He’d seen death in every form. But nothing he’d ever seen or experienced matched up with what Marion had lived through in the past five days down here. The bodies of her fellow scientists were scattered throughout the facility, every one of them bloated and decomposing. The stench was horrific.

  The three others that were not in such an advanced stage were equally dead, nonetheless, two by his hand.

  A phone rang in the Control Room, and he answered it. It was Special Agent Harvey and Botello. He told them briefly what had happened and what they were to face down here. He also told them that Marion was apparently continuing to work on stopping some kind of radioactive leakage.

  Harvey told him that they’d already contacted the NRC and the DOE. They were bringing in emergency teams from Los Alamos, but a team from Roswell was on its way.

  Mark sent the elevator up and went back to his place by the door of the lab where Marion was working.

  He looked at his watch. He’d been keeping track of the time since the text message he’d received from Marion. She had less than two minutes left.

  He leaned against the wall across from the door. He had a million things that he wanted to tell her. He glanced down at his watch again, wondering vaguely if he was going to have the opportunity.

  “One minute,” he whispered, looking up at the door again.

  The muffled sound of furniture scraping across the floor came to him.

  He stood up straight.

  The door opened slightly. “I can’t do this. I can’t move them.”