by Will Hill
“I thought as much,” said Jamie. “What about you, Kate?”
“ISAT,” she said. “Paul sent me a message telling me we’re restarting this afternoon. Although he didn’t mention the bomb in his quarters, unsurprisingly. So it’s going to be a long day. What about you?”
“I’ve got to go and have a conversation I really don’t want to have,” said Jamie.
“With who?” asked Matt.
“One of my rookies,” said Jamie. “John Morton.”
“I heard you brought your squad back early,” said Kate. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” said Jamie. “He missed a shot when we were taking out our first target, then started talking about vampires, how they aren’t right, how what we did wasn’t right. I asked Holmwood to bench him, but he wouldn’t go for it. I got him to authorize a psych evaluation, though, so now I have to go and tell Morton. Which should be fun.”
“I bet,” said Kate.
“Speaking of fun,” he said, smiling broadly, “you’re in for a treat this afternoon. You and Major Turner.”
Kate frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Jamie.
33
PLAYING WITH FIRE
Lincoln County, Nevada, USA
Yesterday
Larissa knocked on the door of Tim Albertsson’s quarters and waited for the special operator to appear.
She had slept well, surprisingly—tiredness had apparently overwhelmed the unease that had filled her in the aftermath of Tim’s attempt to kiss her. She had looked at her body in the mirror after getting out of the shower, seen the round patch of new skin on her stomach that was paler than the rest, and forgiven herself for the exhaustion she had felt in the gym. She sometimes forgot that her body regularly endured extremes that would kill a regular human being; to her, they had come to seem bizarrely normal.
There was no response to her knock and no sounds of movement from within Tim’s room, so she gave up. Her console displayed no orders, and there were no training sessions scheduled for the day, so she had intended to clear the air with Tim, then round up the others and enjoy a few hours of well-earned time off. She tapped a message into her console as she walked along the corridor of Level 3, asking her friends where they were. As she waited for the elevator, the first reply beeped onto her screen.
Morning, gorgeous. In San Diego till early afternoon checking out the new SEAL intake. Kara and Danny here, too. Be good without me. Tim
Larissa winced as she read it.
On one hand, the tone of the message was no different than the dozens of others Tim had sent her, suggesting he was not annoyed with her, as she had feared he might be. On the other, the message was so blatantly flirtatious that she was instantly furious with herself for having taken so long to understand the situation.
I have to talk to him when he gets back, she thought. As soon as he gets back.
Her console beeped again, and she thumbed the screen. Two more messages appeared, one above the other.
In Intelligence training. Might see you later. Aaron
Still in Colorado. Leaving soon, God willing. Kelly
Larissa smiled, and slipped the console back into its loop on her belt.
Kelly had been part of the response team dispatched to Colorado to deal with the aftermath of the Supermax breakout. She had been due to come home the previous day, but her orders had been changed at the last minute. She hadn’t been able to tell them why—everything to do with the prison break was Zero Hour restricted, a classification that all the supernatural Departments of the world had adopted—but her demeanor had suggested that it was not something she was relishing.
Larissa sent a group message telling them to look after themselves, then stepped into the elevator and pressed the button marked 0. A minute later she stepped into the wide, semicircular hangar and looked out across the long-dry expanse of Papoose Lake. It was barely eight thirty in the morning, but the temperature outside was already in the high nineties and rising. By lunchtime it would be well into three figures, the sun beating down with such ferocity that it would burn regular skin within minutes. Her own vulnerable flesh would erupt in an inferno of purple fire if a single ray of the bright desert light touched it.
The shade extended a yard or two beyond the edge of the hangar; its shimmering edge marked the border of her habitable world. She stared at it, painfully aware of the limitations that had been imposed upon her. She had made peace with her condition, had even managed to find ways to enjoy certain aspects of it, but the rational part of her still ultimately viewed it as a curse, a prison cell that followed her wherever she went. Her vampire side, the part of her that she increasingly thought of as almost a different person, cared little about such things, was interested only in blood and violence. She tried not to spend too much time thinking about it, and was grateful for the thought that suddenly arrived in her head, lifting her heart and brightening her mood.
I’ve got a day off. For the first time in what feels like forever, there’s absolutely nothing I’m supposed to be doing.
The realization washed over her like cool water. She knew there was a good chance that orders would appear on her console later in the day, but she would deal with them if and when they arrived. As of right now, she was free. And as she stared at the burning white salt of Papoose Lake, she realized there was something she wanted to do.
Ten minutes later she was back in her quarters, logging in to the NS9 network. She had been given access the day she arrived, a gesture she had taken as a somewhat surprising show of trust, even allowing for the new spirit of togetherness among the supernatural Departments. She had expected to find her access limited, the way a guest user is restricted to certain areas of a system, but had been pleased to find the entire NS9 network open to her. She had barely used it, as her time had been spent largely either in the training rooms or with her friends. But she was using it now, to search for any information on the prisoner in the cell, the prisoner whose existence was not officially acknowledged.
Larissa had talked to an operator from the NS9 Security Division at the bar in the bowling alley that sat on the other side of the mountain and had asked him about the prisoner outright. The man’s eyes had widened before he quickly denied the existence of any such prisoner. Larissa had persisted, applying a combination of her English accent and several deep glasses of rye whiskey to the increasingly helpless operator. She reassured him, as she moved her stool so that her leg rested against his, that she didn’t expect him to tell her who the prisoner was. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. All she wanted to know was the date the prisoner had arrived at Dreamland. Anyone could have told her that. No one would ever know it had been him. Eventually, the operator had given in. She had thanked him, kissed him on the cheek, and left him staring at his glass with a look of profound confusion on his face.
Larissa opened the security logs and entered the date the operator had given her. The prisoner had to have arrived at the base somehow and had likely not been expected, given the general alarm that Kelly had told her had sounded briefly on the day in question. She was hopeful that the records of the unscheduled arrival might still exist.
The system returned the results for a Wednesday fourteen weeks earlier. There were two main columns, for arrivals and departures to and from the base, each containing a list of entries. Most appeared in both columns; these were squads departing on operations and returning home when they were done. There were several entries in the departures column that had no counterpart in arrivals; these, Larissa assumed, were operators being sent on longer-term missions, such as the one that Kelly was currently on in Colorado. She was sure that if she checked the subsequent days, the listings would eventually reappear in the arrivals column.
On the day she was interested in there were only two entri
es in the arrivals column without counterpart departures. One looked the same as almost all the rest: a string of operator identification numbers, an operational reference, and the access code and entry vector used by a vehicle entering the restricted airspace around Dreamland. This was most likely a returning mission that had departed on a previous day. The other entry, however, was quite different.
Where there should have been at least one ID number, there was merely an empty space. Where the operational reference should have been was also blank, and instead of an entry vector, the term “GATE 1” had been entered into the record. The access code that had been recorded was also different, unlike those recorded in every other entry for that day.
That’s him, she thought, excitedly. Whoever he is, that’s him. That’s when he arrived.
Larissa wrote down the access code on a scrap of paper, closed the logs, and opened the security roster schedule. This was a large spreadsheet, listing every guard point and security position across the entirety of the Dreamland site. It was a vast document, as it applied not just to NS9, but also to the air force detachments at Groom Lake and throughout the entire White Sands Missile Range. There were more than a hundred entry points listed, ranging from traditional barriers and guardhouses to underground sentry posts that watched over the subterranean installations where the truly unpleasant work was being done: chemical and biological weapons, low-yield nuclear research, next-generation fission weapons, all of it in direct breach of dozens of international treaties, all of it carrying on far beyond the range of even the most sophisticated satellite.
She was looking for the rota for Gate 1, the guard post and barrier that controlled access from the long road that led west from Highway 375 and was referred to by Area 51 conspiracy fans as the Front Gate. It was on government land, hidden from the public beyond signs that warned the curious not to go any further.
He came in there? wondered Larissa. By road? That’s weird.
She found the right column and scrolled down until she reached the date she was looking for. On duty at the Front Gate that day had been an air force Senior Airman named Lee Ashworth. Larissa closed the spreadsheet and entered Ashworth’s name into the personnel directory. It returned his file immediately. She scanned quickly down to the key line of information: Senior Airman Ashworth’s current posting.
Please don’t let him have moved. Please.
POSTING: Edwards AFB Detachment 559. GOLD SQUADRON. Groom Lake.
Larissa looked at the man’s photo, memorized his face, and logged out of the network. A minute later she was standing at the end of the Level 3 corridor, floating impatiently up and down as she waited for the elevator to arrive.
She got out on Level 1 and walked quickly down its main corridor. Her destination lay at the opposite end of the base, beyond a heavy metal door.
* * *
Tim Albertsson had shown her the tunnel on her second day in the desert.
He had been ordered by General Allen to show her around and let her get a feel for the place. The functional stuff had taken barely half a day: the dining hall, the gym, her quarters, the briefing rooms, and the hangar. With the official tour concluded, Tim had shown her what he called “the fun stuff”: the weapons ranges, the creepy, long-abandoned research labs sealed away on the lower levels, and the tunnel.
It was more than half a mile long, running directly beneath the mountain range that separated Groom Lake from Papoose Lake, and emerged inside the complex of buildings the outside world referred to as Area 51. It was part of a wide network of tunnels, covered walkways, and canopies that had been installed to shield the installation’s men and women from the increasingly advanced eyes of the spy satellites that orbited overhead, and it now served a purpose that its designers would likely never have envisaged: allowing Larissa to move around the vast majority of the two bases in broad daylight.
She reached the heavy door and ran her ID card over the panel beside it. Electromagnetic locks disengaged, and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Larissa stepped through, pulled it shut behind her, then rose into the air and accelerated. She shot forward with a speed that would have been dizzying to any watching human eyes; one moment she was motionless in the air, the next she was a streak of black and glowing red. The half mile of tunnel passed below and around her in less than five seconds. She slid gracefully to a halt in front of a door that was the mirror of the one she had just come through, unlocked it with her ID card, and emerged into a circular holding area made of flat, gleaming metal.
“Remain still,” ordered an electronic voice.
Larissa did as she was told. In the walls and ceiling, machines were scanning her identification chip, taking photos, and logging the time of her entry.
“Proceed,” said the voice, after a short pause. She fought back the ridiculous urge to say thank you and walked through the door that had slid open in front of her.
It led her into Groom Lake Central Control, a large, round room full of radar monitoring equipment, seismic readouts, and screen after screen of satellite imagery. One of the duty officers looked up and nodded as she entered—the staff of Central Control had become quite used to her arriving this way. She nodded back, and asked the woman where she might find Gold Squadron.
“Building B12,” replied the duty officer. “Do you know where that is?”
“I’ll find it,” she replied.
* * *
B12 was a low, rectangular building near the center of the complex, and posed no access problems for Larissa; the route to its door was entirely covered by a wide central canopy, shielding her from the blazing late morning sun. Gold Squadron occupied a wide arrangement of open-plan desks and a row of offices that ran along the back wall of the building. There was a hum of activity as Larissa pushed open the door, a steady stream of radio chatter and the steady beeping of a number of radar screens. She walked up to the nearest desk and said hello to the woman sitting behind it.
“Oh, hi,” replied the woman. For a second, she seemed startled, then extended her hand. “You’re Larissa, aren’t you? I’m Carla Monroe.”
She shook the hand and nodded. “Larissa Kinley,” she said.
“Good to meet you,” said Carla. “Can I help you with something? I don’t mean to be rude, but we’re pretty swamped right now. We’re live testing today.”
“What are you flying?” asked Larissa.
“F-71 prototypes,” replied Carla. “We’re opening them up to fifty percent, so everyone’s a bit on edge.”
“How fast is fifty percent?”
“About Mach 5.3.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“In that case,” said Larissa, smiling broadly, “I won’t take up any more of your time. I’m looking for Senior Airman Ashworth.”
“Second office on the left at the back,” said Monroe, pointing toward a wooden door near the far end of the room. “He’s our Air Force Test Center liaison, so I wouldn’t disturb him unless it’s urgent. He gets a bit short-tempered when we’re live.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Larissa. She gave Carla Monroe a final smile and set off across the long room. When she reached the door, she knocked sharply on it and pushed it open; she didn’t want to give the senior airman the option of refusing to answer.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded a loud voice before she had even closed the door behind her. Lee Ashworth was sitting behind his desk beneath a narrow window. He was a slender man in his midtwenties with a shock of unruly black hair, a flushed face, and eyes that seemed full of instant dislike. He looked, in her opinion, like a man who was extremely stressed.
“I’m Larissa Kinley,” she replied. “NS9.”
“Is that supposed to impress me?” snorted Ashworth.
“No,” said Larissa. “You asked, so I told you.”
Ashworth eyed her for a second or two, then grunt
ed. “What do you want, Kinley?” he asked. “We’re in the middle of a live flight test, and my shift ends in exactly two hundred and four minutes, so you’ll forgive me if I’m not in the mood to chat.”
“This won’t take long, I promise. I just wanted to ask you about the man that came through Gate 1 on January twenty-second. As soon as you tell me who he was, I’ll be on my way.”
Ashworth’s eyes widened, and the red in his cheeks deepened alarmingly. “How do you know about him?” he asked.
“I don’t,” replied Larissa. “That’s why I want you to tell me.”
“Is this some kind of joke? Do you know what they’ll do to me if they find out I talked about that?”
“They won’t find out,” said Larissa. “I’m not trying to cause trouble, I just need to know who he is. I think he might be important.”
“I don’t know who he is,” said Ashworth. “That’s the truth.”
“I believe you,” said Larissa. “I just want you to tell me what you do know. I’ll find out the rest myself.”
“Maybe you will,” said Ashworth. “But you won’t get any help from me. Now get the hell out of my office.”
Larissa didn’t move. She merely stared at the senior airman, allowing an uncomfortable atmosphere to steadily build. Ashworth’s desk was neat, almost obsessively so; the files and folders and sheets of paper were equally spaced, their edges perfectly aligned. The only concession to anything personal was a photograph of a pretty blonde woman with her arms around two grinning children.
“All right,” she said, eventually. “We’ll talk soon.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” said Ashworth.
She gave him her best smile, then turned and left the small office.
Getting closer, she thought, as she left building B12. I’m on to you, whoever the hell you are.
