Freefall

by Roderick Gordon

  “Most certainly not!” Dr. Burrows huffed indignantly. “Smells a little like swamp gas … like methane. There must have been a buildup of it in here.”

  “Sorry,” his son mumbled, throwing himself into an examination of the interior to mask his embarrassment. With its three-foot-thick walls, the concrete cabin had the same internal dimensions as the first building, but was windowless. The lights didn’t seem to be working, so Will used his lantern to explore it. Three sizeable engines were mounted in pits sunk into the floor, rainbow-crazed pools of fluid around their bases.

  “Generators?” Dr. Burrows said. “Yes. See the fuel lines going into them, and the electrical conduits and switching gear on the wall over there?”

  “Um … I think I’ve found what smells so bad,” Will announced from a corner of the cabin. His lantern revealed a thermos flask with a faded tartan pattern on it and, beside it, an open-topped plastic box, inside which was something black with rot.

  “Somebody forgot their lunch.” Dr. Burrows grinned.

  “It’s a bit more than that, Dad,” Will said as he peered into the box. “There’s a rat in here, too … and it’s been dead for a very long time.”

  “Probably got locked in and that’s all it had to eat,” Dr. Burrows suggested as they left the cabin to try the next building.

  In this one they found that the walls were lined with sturdy metal shelves, on which were a number of wooden crates. Dr. Burrows heaved at one of these, not anticipating just how heavy it would be, and he found he couldn’t support it once he slid it off the shelf. “Blast!” he yelled, jumping back, as it crashed to the floor and broke open. Assisted by Will, he lifted the pieces of crate aside to uncover something large, wrapped in oil-stained cloth, which ripped as they tugged at it.

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  “An outboard motor, I think,” Dr. Burrows said as he slid a finger over the marine screw. With the grease removed, the metal shone brightly. “Yes. And in top condition, too!” He turned to his son and grinned. “This is all incredible. Let’s see what else is here.” They both returned outside.

  Moving down the quayside, they reached the next building, but Dr. Burrows didn’t stop, jogging past it and several others along the way. He seemed to be in a tearing hurry, as if he’d spotted something just beyond them.

  Two substantial cylindrical tanks were set into the cavern wall, nearly a hundred feet high and with pipe work and taps at their bases. Dr. Burrows tried one of these, allowing a little of the fluid to gush out.

  “Gasoline,” Will said, immediately identifying the smell.

  Dr. Burrows was careful to turn the tap off. “And this one,” he pronounced as he rapped on the second tank with his knuckles and it gave a dull ring, “is diesel. For the generators, maybe.”

  “You can smell it?” Will asked, impressed.

  “No — see the big D painted on it? Follow me!” Dr. Burrows shouted. He was waving his arms frantically as words tumbled out of his mouth. Will hadn’t seen him quite so animated in many years. But as they began to jog along the quay again, Dr. Burrows became more coherent. “Whoever built this … it must have been a heck of an undertaking….”

  He paused next to a small crane bolted to the surface of the quay, its single arm reaching out over the water. Like everything else on the quayside, it was badly rusted, and a halo of gray-blue paint lay scattered around its base. “Yes … a jib crane … to winch raw materials shipped down here in the barges …,” Dr. Burrows burbled. “And, of course, an overhead gantry to move goods along the quay,” he said, pointing upward. Will turned and saw a chunky-looking rail affixed high above their heads. “Yes … but … all this … and they never completed it!” Dr. Burrows shouted breathlessly, throwing a hand at a partially constructed building as they passed it. “I wonder why?”

  Will spotted a rusted cement mixer, mounds of sand, and long-since-hardened bags of cement, their paper sacks in tatters around them. “Air filtration units, I’ll wager,” Dr. Burrows said as he flew past stacks of wooden crates on pallets. Some of the crates were so badly rotted that the corroded blocklike machines they’d contained had slid out, and sat in a heap on the platform. “For hydroelectric power …”

  “Yes?” Will panted, trying to keep up.

  “You need turbines and …”

  “Yes?” Will yelled, bursting to know more.

  Dr. Burrows stopped abruptly. “Hear that, Will?”

  “Yes!” Will said, catching the rumbling sound.

  “Fast-flowing water!” Dr. Burrows shouted as he began to run again. They came to the end of the quay and went under a reinforced arch at the mouth of the harbor.

  Before them was a channel at least a hundred feet wide, down which swept a rapidly speeding river. Bulkhead lights were dotted around so that everything in the area was visible to them.

  Will looked to their left, where the river was flowing and where Dr. Burrows’s eyes had come to rest. At an angle, and nearly spanning the full width of the channel, was a metal grille in a sturdily built housing. There was a great deal of froth and flotsam trapped against the grille, but no suggestion as to what lay behind it other than a constant humming noise. It was loud enough to be heard over the roaring water.

  “Voilà! The turbines!” Dr. Burrows yelled, nodding energetically. The river was throwing up a considerable amount of spray, and he fell silent while he took off his glasses to wipe them.

  Will swung in the opposite direction, then took a few steps along the gangway as he tried to see where the river was flowing from. But the lights didn’t extend very far up the channel and the darkness beyond was impenetrable. “What’s all this for?” he asked, shouting to make himself heard. “Who built it, Dad?”

  “Don’t worry about that for the moment,” Dr. Burrows snapped. “Can’t you see what we’ve got here?”

  “What?” Will demanded, frowning in his confusion.

  “If, and it’s a big if, we can find an intact vessel — something that floats — and we can get an outboard motor to work,” Dr. Burrows said, turning to look upstream, his hands on his hips, “we’re in business.”

  Will just stared at the rushing water. He’d all but given up trying to understand what his father was rattling on about.

  “Well …,” Dr. Burrows shouted, as he swiveled to face his son, “you do want to go home, don’t you?”

  21

  “I THOUGHT you might be here,” Mrs. Burrows said as she came across Ben Wilbrahams in his usual place, at one of the reading desks in the Highfield library.

  “Yes, too many distractions at home,” he replied. “I see your ankle’s better.”

  Nodding, Mrs. Burrows handed Ben Wilbrahams a shopping bag, which he took but didn’t open, looking at her inquiringly. “The other night,” she said, “when you were telling me about all the strange incidents in Highfield, you asked me about Roger and what I thought he’d been up to. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t exactly forthcoming.”

  “About what?” Ben Wilbrahams asked, testing the weight of the bag in his hands.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’ve decided you should know everything. In that bag is my husband’s journal. It covers the days just before he went off, and I’d like you to —”

  Hearing a hiss, she stopped abruptly. She wheeled around to see an old man in a shirt that was too big for him, and a correspondingly massive bow tie. He was shaking his head disapprovingly. Putting his finger to his lips, he hissed again, like an asthmatic turtle.

  Mrs. Burrows took the chair next to Ben Wilbrahams. “Go on — take a look,” she urged him.

  He opened the bag and took out the journal and read it all the way through, then and there, as Mrs. Burrows watched him.

  “Fascinating stuff,” he said as he closed the covers.

  “You know … when I stepped out in front of your car, I believe —” The old man across the way hissed at her again as she was talking, but she studiously ignored him. “— I believe a c
ouple of those pallid men — or men-in-hats, as Roger also referred to them — were after me.”

  “You’re sure?” Ben Wilbrahams asked.

  “Pretty sure — I got a good look at them. But couldn’t you use that incident and what’s in this journal as material for one of your TV programs?”

  Ben Wilbrahams rubbed his temples thoughtfully.

  “Look, Celia, it’s one thing to dredge up oddball newspaper reports from years ago, but I’d be pushing it if I were to include anything about you — or these things your husband’s written,” he said, holding up the journal. “And he’s the subject of an ongoing police investigation, so I also might land myself in hot water if I make any unsubstantiated claims.” Ben Wilbrahams was thoughtful for a few moments as he considered the label on the front of the journal. “But I’d still like to hang on to this, chew it over. OK?”

  “Of course. And now I’ve got to get to work — they’re short-handed this afternoon.” Mrs. Burrows rose from her chair and, as she was passing the old man, she leaned over and snatched hold of the pencil he was using. She snapped it in two, the loud crack! filling the library, then dropped the pieces in his lap.

  “‘Shhhh’ yourself!’” she said, and promptly left. “The cheek of it!” the old man complained loudly, as Ben Wilbrahams hid his smirk behind his book.

  Will and his father investigated every inch of the harbor. In another of the squat sheds they found a fiberglass launch in a wall rack, which looked to be serviceable.

  “So, maybe we can get this show on the road,” Dr. Burrows proclaimed, rubbing his hands together. He was whistling madly as they strolled down the length of the quay to return to the building with the switching panel in it. Once inside, they both glanced at the flickering needle on the main dial before they made their way to the large door at the end of the room.

  Dr. Burrows considered it for a moment. “I’d hazard a guess that this is a blast door.”

  “A blast door?” Will repeated. “Wh —?”

  “Let’s just see what’s inside, shall we?” Dr. Burrows interrupted him.

  “Fine,” Will said a little tetchily, throwing his father a look. “Is it my turn to open it, then?” he asked as he took hold of the wheel-like mechanism.

  “Be my guest,” Dr. Burrows replied, touching the uppermost of the three massive hinges. He watched as his son spun the wheel around and around, until it clunked and Will found it wouldn’t go any farther.

  “Heavy,” Will observed as he yanked on the large door, which wouldn’t shift even the smallest degree.

  “Blast door,” Dr. Burrows said again, as if he was teasing his son. “I’ll give you a hand.”

  They pulled together and it slowly began to open, issuing a low groan. A whoosh of air escaped, as if the pressure inside was higher.

  The two Burrowses nodded at each other and stepped inside. The first surprise was that a passageway stretched before them, its curved roof about fifty feet high.

  “A tube tunnel?” Will murmured.

  It was lined with what appeared to be superheavy oblong iron plates, each one bolted to the next, and with something like black tar sealing the gaps between them. A row of continuous lights hung down its center, fully illuminating the passage; and to either side of the lights was a variety of cables and pipes, the thickest of which had offshoots that ended in grilles, where fresh air seemed to be coming in. Will could feel the down draft on his sweat-covered face as he stood below one of them. And considering that the massive door must have been airtight, the atmosphere didn’t seem the least bit stale to him.

  “Linoleum,” Dr. Burrows said as he took a few steps on the gray and shiny floor. “And look … There’s hardly any dust in the place at all.” He had gone a little way down the passage when he stopped, then glanced over his shoulder at his son. “If you think about it, we’re now moving beyond the edge of the cavern wall.” He turned and held up his hands, his palms outward, to indicate where he thought the wall should be. “So, while the cavern outside may be a natural feature, I’d say that this passage has been hollowed into the bedrock itself.”

  “Yeah,” Will said, “but I wonder what’s in these.” Down one side of the passage were a series of small cabins with metal doors. Dr. Burrows and Will explored the first of these. The walls were painted with a dark gray gloss up to waist height, above which the remainder of the walls and the ceiling were a dirty ivory color, but the cabin was completely empty.

  They backed out of it and into the passage again.

  “Radio Operator,” Will said, reading the stenciled letters on the door of the next cabin down. As they opened it, they discovered a chart on the back of the door, with several months mapped out in a grid and names allotted to specific hours within each day. Neither Will nor his father made any comment as they entered the room itself. It was approximately twice the size of the first cabin, with a bench that was covered with all manner of electronic equipment against the longest wall. Dark gray metal boxes with numerous dials trailed wires down below the bench, where they were bound together into a thick snake of cables that fed into a duct in the floor.

  “What are those?” Will asked, pointing at the intricate glass bulbs that protruded from the tops of some of the boxes.

  “Radio valves. It’s pre-transistor technology,” Dr. Burrows said. “And to complete the picture, here’s a microphone,” he added, pushing aside one of a pair of metal-framed canvas chairs so he could pick up the chunky black object at the front of the bench. He weighed it in his hand, then reached for a pair of headphones that lay beside it. Will opened a loose-leaf binder on the bench and flicked through the laminated pages, upon which were matrices of numbers and letters. “Maybe they’re codes?” Dr. Burrows suggested.

  But Will was more interested in an old television monitor mounted on the wall to their left. He tried its various switches, but nothing happened. “What does that mean?” Will asked, noticing the word ROTOR printed on a map beside the screen. The map outlined the British Isles, over which scores of overlapping circles had been superimposed.

  Dr. Burrows shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell with me. Maybe it’s an acronym?”

  “No … I bet you the letters stand for something,” Will suggested, missing the fleeting smile on his father’s face. “Look! Telephones!” Will exclaimed as he spotted the red and black telephones mounted on the opposite wall, next to an old switchboard with a tangle of leads dangling from it. “Should we try to ring someone?” he proposed.

  “Don’t waste your time — I doubt they’ve worked in years,” Dr. Burrows said. “Come along,” he laughed, waving Will out of the room.

  The next cabin had the same dimensions, but was an Aladdin’s cave of military equipment.

  “An armory!” Dr. Burrows said as soon as he stepped inside. All the wall space was taken up with rough wooden racks. He bent to peer at a stubby weapon on the one closest to him. It was obscured by thick gobs of dirty grease, but this did nothing to impede Dr. Burrows. “It’s a Sten gun,” he decreed as he took it from the rack. “A submachine gun first issued to British troops in the nineteen forties. They were made in Enfield and were known as the Plumber’s Nightmare. You can see why. Ugly-looking thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, really ugly,” Will said, but his voice was full of wonder.

  The rest of the room was crammed with military equipment, either neatly slotted into the racks or in metal crates stacked high against the walls. Each crate was stenciled with numbers and letters, and occasionally with the name of what was inside them.

  Will busied himself by throwing open the lids to some of the crates. The first revealed more guns, entwined with heavily greased sacking, side by side with bundles of magazines for the weapons. He unwound the sacking from one of the weapons and passed it to his father.

  “Another Sten gun. They’re all in mint condition,” Dr. Burrows said, wiping the grease from the barrel with his sleeve to reveal the perfect sheen of the bluing on the weapon. “Good as ne
w.”

  “We could help ourselves to a couple,” Will proposed.

  “I think not,” Dr. Burrows said, giving his son a stern look as he returned the Sten to him. “Put it back exactly where you found it.”

  The next crate revealed similarly preserved handguns stamped with BROWNING, and many oil-soaked cardboard boxes of rounds and spare magazines. “Browning Hi-Powers,” Dr. Burrows said, peering at the handguns. “Follows — they’re from the same era as the Stens.”

  “Two-Inch Mortars,” Will read, staring at the largest crates in the corner of the room. He moved along to a pile of boxes. Many were narrow and contained ammunition, but then he came to some squat crates. Upon opening the lid of one of these and removing a layer of sacking laid on the top, he found row upon row of hand grenades. He whistled in amazement, and was just reaching in to pick one up when his father stopped him.

  “Don’t, Will,” Dr. Burrows cautioned. “Better not mess around with those.”

  “Huh?” Will frowned.

  “I know it’s dry in here, but explosives can become unstable over time. And we don’t know who all this belongs to, although it certainly looks like they just left it here.”

  “But who? And why?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Dr. Burrows replied, “but there’s enough in here to start a small war.” He rubbed his forehead, leaving streaks of black grease across it in the process. “See the little symbol spray-painted on all the crates — the arrow with the line above it?”

  Will nodded.

  “That means these belonged to the Ministry of Defense … or the army, so this might have been a government installation, or it might have been something else altogether.”

  Will shrugged. “What, like Dr. Evil’s secret lair?”

  Dr. Burrows shook his head as if his son was being ridiculous. “No. Anarchists … the far right … or the far left … what have you.” He frowned. “But whoever it was, all this looks pretty official to me. They’ve gone to a huge amount of effort and expense.” He blew through his lips in an exaggerated way. “I mean … just the construction of a hydroelectric plant at this depth in the earth is an incredible feat of engineering, all on its own. And everything I’ve seen — the whole installation — was built to last. I’d put my money on it being …”