Trade-Off

by Trade-Off (retail) (epub)

  ‘What’s the sequence?’ Hunter demanded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said the switches had to be made in a certain order. What is it?’

  Ketch pointed. ‘Simple. You start from the left hand side and wait for each light to change from green to red before you make the next one.’

  ‘Right, so we’ll do the same thing in reverse,’ Hunter said, reached past Ketch and snapped the right-hand side switch up, into the ‘off’ position. Instantly the red light turned to green, and Hunter felt an almost imperceptible vibration through the floor suddenly cease.

  ‘You can’t –’ Ketch began.

  ‘You just watch me,’ Hunter said, and flicked the second switch.

  A dull rumble echoed through the building as the steel shutters covering the ceiling of the processing room retracted. As soon as the second light glowed green, Hunter snapped up the third and final switch. Again they heard the dull rumbling sound and, looking up, Hunter saw the steel shutters ascending the inside of the walls of the processing room.

  ‘Seemed easy enough to me,’ Hunter remarked. ‘Now open the door.’

  Ketch looked from Hunter to Reilly, and reached into his trouser pocket for the door key. He found it, inserted it in the lock, turned it and pushed open the door.

  Hunter looked inside, and saw and heard and smelt the stuff of nightmares.

  His eyes took in the line of caskets, which followed a serpentine path around the room and terminated at the table in the centre. They were horizontal, apart from the one immediately adjacent to the processing table, which was tipped up at an angle of forty-five degrees. A single casket was standing upright on the left hand side of the room, but Hunter ignored it, because his attention was riveted by the thing on the table.

  The processing had stopped at the instant Hunter’s fingers had flicked the right-hand switch, but for the girl on the table it was too late – much too late. An arm powered by hydraulic rams was paused directly over her, two cutting wires attached to it. Her legs and arms had already gone, severed and dropped through a hatch at the end of the table to be mechanically wrapped and bagged. The electrically-powered cutters had just opened up her abdomen. The neck wire was in place over her throat, ready to slice through her cervical vertebrae. She was technically still alive, but no team of surgeons anywhere could do anything to save her.

  The floor around the table, out to a distance of some eight or ten feet, was covered in splashes of red, and the top of the table was swimming in blood. Spurts had even gone upwards, leaving scarlet slashes on the dissection machinery.

  From somewhere in the room came a sound like a distant wind – a thin, high-pitched keening – that rose and fell abruptly.

  ‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Reilly muttered, and out of the corner of his eye Hunter saw him cross himself.

  Hunter stepped forward to the side of the table and looked down. The girl’s mouth was open, but she’d stopped breathing, and Hunter had never seen so much pain in any human face. With some unimaginable final effort, her eyes flickered open and for the briefest of instants she looked straight at Hunter. His eyes filled with tears, and he helped her in the only way that anybody could. He put the muzzle of the pistol gently against her temple and pulled the trigger.

  Manassas, District of Columbia

  William McGrath had bought his house at Manassas, about twenty-five miles southwest of the centre of Washington D.C., when he’d reached the rank of Special Agent In Charge. He hadn’t been working at the Headquarters building then, but he’d told himself he’d be there within five years. It had taken him only three.

  Manassas was a good location for anyone working in Washington, and particularly at FBI Headquarters. It was pretty much midway between Dulles International to the north and Quantico to the south, and it was far enough out of the city to be fairly quiet, but close enough to allow him to reach Pennsylvania Avenue in about thirty minutes if he had to.

  McGrath was a night person, usually climbing into his bed no earlier than midnight, and often at one or two in the morning, but it had been a hard week and the strain of acting as Director was beginning to tell on him. At eleven thirty he kissed his wife, who was sitting in the living room engrossed in a period drama on the wide-screen TV, walked upstairs and took a shower. By eleven fifty he was in bed, and was asleep just after midnight.

  The call from Nevada was taken by the Senior Duty Special Agent at Pennsylvania Avenue, and the caller had left him in no doubt that the Director – or Acting Director McGrath, to be pedantic – was to be informed immediately. The Special Agent called McGrath’s home number at Manassas, and at twenty-eight minutes to one McGrath was shaken from a deep sleep by his wife.

  Fifteen minutes later, he backed his Oldsmobile out of the garage and headed northeast towards Washington D.C. His mouth was dry and his hands were sweating, and it wasn’t just because he was going to have to wake up the President.

  Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

  As Hunter fired the Smith and Wesson, the keening sound stopped, and for the first time he realized that it was human in origin. He looked left, at the casket tipped at an angle with its lid removed, and stared into the terrified eyes of a dark-haired girl. She was naked, her arms, legs, head and torso held securely in place with some kind of straps, and she had obviously been forced by the angle of the casket to watch the dismemberment of the girl in front of her.

  Hunter looked up at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s all over.’

  But for a long moment, Hunter didn’t move. He just stood there beside the table, arms hanging limp at his sides, staring downwards at the wreck that had minutes earlier been a healthy young woman. Then he straightened up, transferred the Smith to his left hand, walked back to the main door and smashed his fist with all his strength into Ketch’s stomach.

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ Hunter shouted, as Ketch doubled up on the ground. ‘Evans told me about this, but I didn’t really believe him. What the fuck is going on here? What in the name of God is all this for, you contemptible piece of shit?’

  He launched a kick which caught Ketch in the ribs, and cracked two.

  ‘Easy,’ Reilly said, stretching out a hand. ‘He’s gotta be able to talk.’

  Hunter looked down at him, breathing hard. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re right, Dick. Just watch him, will you?’

  Hunter turned and walked back towards the table, but stopped beside the open casket containing the dark-haired girl. She was crying, great racking sobs that shook her entire body. Hunter took out Reilly’s switchblade, snapped it open and cut through the straps. As her arms were released, she reached up and clung to him with a strength that spoke eloquently of the nightmare she’d lived through.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Hunter said. ‘You’re safe now.’

  He lifted her effortlessly out of the casket and carried her over to the door, away from the smell of blood and death, and lowered her to her feet. He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness. She sobbed, and clung fiercely to him, but Hunter gently freed her arms, all the time whispering soft encouragement to her.

  Ketch still lay on the floor, gasping for breath. Hunter reached down and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Right,’ Hunter said. ‘We need answers, and we need them right now. Can this fucking machinery start again without somebody making those switches outside?’

  Ketch still couldn’t speak, but shook his head emphatically.

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. He walked outside, closed the door of the grey box and turned and removed the key which still protruded from the lock. Then he spun the combination lock wheel and walked back into the processing room.

  ‘I don’t want to stay in here a second longer than I have to,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’ve got to find out if Christy-Lee is here.’

  He turned again to Ketch and with a scything motion swept his feet from under him. Ketch crashed to the floor, and Hunter handed Reilly the silenced Smith and Wesson pistol.

&n
bsp; ‘If he tries to get up, shoot him,’ he said to Reilly. ‘Preferably in the leg.’

  ‘You got it,’ Reilly said, and Hunter walked away, down the line of caskets, undoing and lifting off the lids, and peering into each one in turn.

  * * *

  ‘Who is this, and how did you get this number?’

  The voice at the other end of the telephone line was crystal clear, and the exasperation in it was clearly evident.

  ‘My name doesn’t matter, because you won’t find it listed anywhere, but if you really must have it, it’s Templeton. I’m an employee of Roland Oliver, and I’m advising you formally that you have two intruders at Groom Lake, probably in the Rolver Systems’ building. My authority, I say again, is Omega Seventeen.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Omega Seventeen, or Roland Oliver,’ the young USAF lieutenant said. He was sitting at the Duty Officer’s desk in the security office adjacent to the Flight Operations Center building.

  ‘Maybe you haven’t,’ Templeton replied, ‘but you do know where the Rolver Systems’ building is, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s classified information,’ Lieutenant Keating snapped.

  ‘So sue me. Look, all you have to do is log this call, get a squad together and drive down to the Rolver Systems’ building, ring the bell and demand to see Roger Ketch. If he opens the door and chews you out for disturbing him, that’s fine. If he doesn’t, then you’d better check your weapons, because you’re going to have a real fire-fight on your hands.’

  Keating was silent for a moment. He had heard of Roger Ketch, and didn’t particularly relish the thought of crossing him.

  ‘OK,’ he said finally, ‘I’ll look into it. Give me your number.’

  FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  McGrath made it to Pennsylvania Avenue in a little under twenty minutes, a time he would previously have thought impossible. He ignored the ‘no parking’ signs and simply left the Oldsmobile with two wheels on the pavement, then ran into the building. He paused in the foyer only long enough to tell the uniformed guards that it was his car, and that it had better still be there when he came out again.

  He walked across to the elevators, waited impatiently for the doors to open, and then pressed the button for the seventh floor. He walked down the corridor to the Director’s office, pushed open the door and went straight to the wall safe. Once the door opened, he reached inside and pulled out the Omega Procedures file, sliced through the binding tapes and seals with a pocket knife, then sat down at the desk and opened the file at the beginning.

  Six minutes later he lifted his telephone handset and dialled a long-distance number. He listened to the ringing tone for nearly three minutes, then replaced the handset. Then he dialled a local number that was answered immediately.

  Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

  Keating still wasn’t certain if the call he’d received was for real. It wasn’t unheard of for other guys who worked the security details to occasionally make spoof calls, but they were usually fairly obvious. And this call had originated from a mobile phone using one of the Las Vegas cells – the call tracing software had made that clear enough – not from some empty office at Groom Lake, which was normally the case when somebody was trying to get a rise out of a colleague.

  He sat at the desk for a few minutes, weighing his options then, decision made, stood up and walked out into the squad room.

  ‘You six men,’ he called out to a group in the far corner hunched over a game of poker. ‘Mount up. We have a report of possible intruders.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ the sergeant muttered, ‘like that’s possible out here.’ But he stood up with the other five and followed Keating out of the room.

  In the armoury, they strapped on bullet-proof Kevlar jackets and buckled on sidearm belts, then seized AR-15 assault rifles. Outside the building, a light grey USAF van stood waiting. Five of the men climbed in the back. The lieutenant took the front passenger seat, and the sergeant drove.

  ‘Where to? Sir.’ The last word was clearly something of an afterthought.

  ‘The Rolver Systems’ compound. That’s down by the –’

  ‘It’s OK, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘I know where it is.’

  * * *

  Hunter found Christy-Lee Kaufmann in a casket on the far side of the room, still deeply unconscious and breathing the nitrous oxide/oxygen mixture. Hunter slipped the four catches, tossed the lid away from him, and listened for a few seconds to the sound of her breathing. Then he quickly removed the lids from all the remaining caskets before returning to Christy-Lee’s. He cut the fabric straps and reached inside for her.

  Christy-Lee was a dead weight in his arms, but still seemed to be breathing easily enough. Hunter gently kissed her unresponsive lips, then carried her across the room and stopped by the door. Without a word, Reilly put the Smith and Wesson on the floor, well out of reach of Ketch, who still lay squirming, took off his jacket and wrapped it around Christy-Lee’s shoulders.

  ‘Thanks, Dick,’ Hunter said. ‘Now let’s get out of here,’ he added, then stopped suddenly, listening.

  ‘Yeah,’ Reilly said. ‘I heard it too. A thumpin’ sound. Comin’ from somewhere over there,’ and he pointed to the left hand side wall of the processing room.

  Hunter looked where Reilly was pointing, then with an exclamation he gently lowered Christy-Lee to the floor and walked over to the upright casket. He undid the catches, pulled the lid away and sliced through the straps. Doctor Evans almost tumbled out, fully conscious, but babbling, foam flecking his lips and chin.

  ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God,’ he muttered, making no attempt to cover his nakedness and clinging to Hunter’s arm with all his strength. Hunter took him by the shoulders and shook him, then slapped him across the face.

  ‘Evans,’ Hunter said. ‘Doctor Evans. You’re safe. Listen to me.’

  In a few seconds, reason seemed to return to the doctor, and he quieted down and obediently followed Hunter across the room to the main door.

  ‘I’ll bring Ketch,’ Reilly said.

  ‘Thanks, Dick.’

  Hunter picked up Christy-Lee again, and motioned to Evans and the dark-haired girl to follow him. Behind him, Reilly kicked Ketch to his feet, then closed and locked the processing room door.

  A strange procession, Hunter thought, as they made their way up the stairs to Ketch’s office. Two naked girls, one unconscious, a naked man, a man with a couple of broken ribs, and another with a bullet wound across his chest. Dear God, he thought, I’m the fittest one here.

  In the office, Hunter lay Christy-Lee down on the camp bed, then rummaged around in Ketch’s cupboards and found a small store of clothing, presumably used by Ketch when he couldn’t leave the base for long periods. Hunter pulled out two pairs of old jeans and a pair of what looked like running shorts. He tossed the shorts to Evans, and passed one pair of jeans to the dark girl.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, speaking for the first time since Hunter had lifted her out of the casket. She turned her back and pulled the jeans on. They were several sizes too big for her, but did the job.

  ‘Could you help me?’ Hunter asked, gesturing at Christy-Lee.

  ‘Leave her to me,’ the girl replied, took the second pair of jeans and walked across to the camp bed.

  At that moment Ketch appeared at the door, Reilly two paces behind him. Ketch was gasping for air and clutching his stomach with both hands.

  ‘Sit him down there,’ Hunter said, pointing at a hard upright chair, ‘and tie him to it.’

  Reilly nodded, pushed Ketch into the chair and lashed his arms and ankles to the wooden frame with plastic cable ties. When he’d finished, Ketch sat slumped, his head on his chest, still having difficulty breathing.

  Hunter looked around the room and nodded his satisfaction. Christy-Lee was lying on the camp bed, the jeans done up loosely around her waist and her torso covered with Reilly’s light-weight jacket. The d
ark-haired girl was similarly attired and sitting beside her on the corner of the camp bed, holding her hand. Evans was standing in the corner leaning against the closed door, just wearing the shorts which covered little of his lanky frame.

  Reilly walked behind Ketch’s desk and sat down in the leather office chair with a sigh of relief. Hunter picked up a second hard chair, reversed it, and sat directly in front of Ketch. He picked up the Smith and Wesson, moved the end of the silencer under Ketch’s chin and forced his head upwards. ‘Some answers, Ketch,’ Hunter said.

  Ketch leaned back slightly, though the effort clearly caused him pain, and glanced swiftly around the room. His eyes widened as he recognized Evans, but he looked with puzzlement at the two girls on the camp bed.

  ‘Yes,’ Hunter said, ‘it’s probably time for some introductions. Doctor Evans you already know, I believe. I’m Hunter, and the man behind your desk is Reilly – we’re the two men your goons have been trying unsuccessfully to kill for the past week.’ He paused and looked inquiringly at the dark-haired girl.

  She tried a smile that didn’t work, then spoke softly, a quaver in her voice. ‘My name’s Toni Welsh,’ she said. ‘I live in Spokane, and I’ve no idea where I am or what I’m doing here.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hunter said reassuringly. ‘We’ll explain it all later.’

  ‘And the other girl?’ Ketch gasped out the words.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘Let me introduce Miss Christy-Lee Kaufmann, FBI Special Agent and my partner in all senses of the word. She’s the reason we’re here.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Ketch said, after a pause, his voice hoarse and strained. ‘You mean you haven’t come about the aliens?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunday