by Alex Archer
"And we know the labs still keep numerous facilities in the area," Annja said.
"Just so. This particular facility was greatly expanded during the fifties."
"The height of Cold War paranoia."
"It was decommissioned and abandoned in the sixties. Allegedly. While its location, even its existence, were not classified per se, they were, shall we say, never publicly announced," Godin said.
"Where would you find information like that?" she asked. "Who'd keep it online, I mean? Or would you have to kill me if you told me?"
He raised a brow at her. "You must be fatigued for your originality to slip so."
"Point taken."
"Various possibilities exist. For example, a former adversary, an erstwhile Warsaw Pact nation, say, seeking to tweak an old foe." He chuckled. "Or I could be mystifying again. Americans maintain databases of such facilities as well, mostly those concerned with monitoring either government profligacy or encroachment on civil liberties. But look here."
He leaned forward to click the forward button in her browser. The picture pulled back to a view of what looked like the same farmhouse, but from either higher up or at lower magnification. The building stood, she now saw, nestled by a creek between a forested ridge and a small, blotch-shaped hill. A semitrailer was visible on a dirt road on the far side of the ridge.
"Subtle," she said.
"It is hard, in this day, to avoid entirely the scrutiny of satellites."
He clicked through more pictures, all showing vehicles of various sizes near the apparently derelict structure. "These are simple archive images for our target location. If anyone attaches particular significance to them, it is not made evident by the service I purchased them from."
A new reason occurred to her for his caginess in doing his online work out of her sight. The satellite shots apparently came from some commercial site. He may not have wanted her witnessing the details of the transaction, even if entirely aboveboard. The account he used to pay, for example, could be something she had no need to know.
She straightened up, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. It was warm in the room – she always had trouble in motel rooms, finding a balance point between gooseflesh and sweat.
"So there's our target," she said with a sigh.
"It's a leading candidate," he said.
She moved up close and put a hand on his shoulder. "Where does that leave us?" she asked.
He looked up at her with a grin. "With a job excellently done."
"I know what happened last time I asked a question like this," she said, "but what now?"
"There are certain arrangements I must make," he told her. "Give me a day. Then we shall go together to reconnoiter this mysterious farmhouse."
"But what about the child? What might they be doing to him?"
"Nothing we shall be able to rescue him from if we rush in lacking adequate preparation."
"All right," she said.
Chapter 23
Through the binoculars, the dilapidated abandoned farmhouse looked like exactly that.
The vagaries of the New Mexico autumn had swept the snow almost clean off the landscape. Though the late morning was not exactly what Annja would call warm, the sun was bright, and that did the trick. Of the heavy snow that had fallen on the area two nights before, all that remained were a few drifted deposits in shaded areas, such as among the pines on the ridge from where Annja surveilled her objective.
High up in the air a dark shape drifted, wheeling against a sky like an endless well filled with blue. Whether it was an eagle or a red-tailed hawk, or some other large bird of prey, she couldn't tell. She'd never been good at identifying birds, although she enjoyed looking at them.
She turned her attention back to the farmhouse. Nothing had happened in the hour she'd been there. She had made a wide, careful circuit to reconnoiter after she arrived from parking her rented car among some trees about two miles away. She had seen no sign of any activity, nor any signs that some vast underground facility slumbered beneath the hill.
With a sigh she slung the binoculars around her neck, stood up and began walking toward the farmhouse two hundred yards away.
I'm going to feel like a fool if I ditched Robert for nothing, she thought.
The sun was warm on her face. Some big clouds hung over the mountains to the south, behind her, and also away in the northeast. Overhead the sky was clear but for some drifty cotton-ball cumulus. Little birds called to each other. As she walked down into the small valley between the forested ridge and the hill where the house stood, she passed through little clouds of near invisible midges that swarmed around her face.
The night before in the motel room, when Annja had agreed to wait a day for Godin to put his affairs in order, she had literally had her fingers crossed behind her back. She knew that was childish.
But she had known, even then, exactly what she had to do. She could not risk having his charmingly anachronistic gallantry interfere.
He had left her just before sunrise, slipping away with a quiet promise to return quickly. She had risen as soon as she was sure he was well away. She ate breakfast at a nearby Denny's, then drove north on I-25 paralleling the Rio Grande, grateful that the balloon fiesta had finally ended. The early-morning traffic heading north to day jobs in Santa Fe and Los Alamos was maddeningly slow enough.
She saw no point in trying to sneak around now. If this was an entrance to a supersecret installation of some sort, she guessed various undetectable sensors or surveillance devices would certainly have picked her up long ago. The most she could hope for was that they would take her for a casual hiker whose curiosity got the better of her sense of propriety.
The house did not look so badly decayed up close. It seemed structurally sound enough. The elevated porch was not sagging at top or bottom. Cosmetically it looked rough, with paint faded to shades of gray and peeling and the tin roof looking battered as if by hailstones. The windows were covered from the inside with plywood. The front door looked solid. And it was closed.
She slowed, frowning. "What if this isn't an abandoned farmhouse?" she asked herself aloud. If she went traipsing into somebody's home she was going to feel bad about it, not to mention the fact that folks hereabouts tended to keep guns near to hand. Also there was the little matter of the law calling it "breaking and entering."
From somewhere behind her she heard the sound of a baby crying.
Every muscle wound itself taut. Her pulse began to boom like Japanese drums in her ears. She stopped just feet shy of the porch and looked around.
She saw nothing. Just the placid meadows swooping with deceptive gentleness between the rises, tall, tan tufts of grass nodding in the breeze, pools of tiny white-and-pale-lavender wildflowers nodding in the sun, defiant as the bugs of the early onset, and rapid retreat, of winter. A larger insect, a horsefly perhaps, buzzed by her cheek.
The crying sound came from the same direction as before. It raised the short hairs on her arm and at her nape. She looked that way. Nothing.
The sound rose in volume and came from several directions at once. The unseen source seemed to be getting closer.
In a leap Annja was on the porch. The doorknob was dull, as if stained from hand grease and weather. It turned beneath her hand. The door opened into dim coolness that smelled of dust and mold as the blood-freezing cries rose to a crescendo behind her.
She spun and slammed the door shut. Inside was a surprisingly bright yellow lock plate with a dead-bolt toggle, visible in light slanting in over the tops of the plywood plates in the windows. She locked the door with a convulsive twist.
She stood for a moment, panting, trying to force herself to breathe regularly through flared nostrils, not through her mouth. The horrid cries had stopped. She did not think the door or walls were enough to keep the sound out.
She turned then. She stood in a short foyer with doors opening to either side into small rooms filled so far as she could see only with darkness. Ahead
was deeper darkness. To her left a stairway mounted, likewise into black.
She took a red steel flashlight from her light backpack and turned it on. Its beam was narrow but intense. It gave her absurdly disproportionate comfort.
Get ahold of yourself! she admonished herself fiercely. She was tempted but did not summon the sword. It would only get in the way exploring the darkened house.
Annja rummaged in her pack again and brought out her Glock. Holding the compact flashlight in her mouth, she pulled the handgun's black slide back enough to see the confirming silver glint of a cartridge inside. The Triton high-velocity 135-grain hollowpoint bullets had proved themselves among the world's very most effective defensive rounds against human attackers.
She hoped not to have to test them on monsters.
Her training had not included handling flashlight and firearm together. Not feeling confident about using the crossed-wrist brace Godin had employed, she held the gun at arm's length before her. With her left hand she held the light out away from her hips. She knew the biggest consideration in using the two in concert was to keep her flashlight hand from straying into her own line of fire.
She moved forward, knees flexed, shuffling so as not to cross her legs or compromise her balance. She passed through the open doorway ahead of her. She found herself in a large room, longer before her than wide, with more black rectangles of doors on the three sides. She guessed it might have been a dining room.
She listened intently. She could hear nothing but the random creaking and low booming of wind of any old house in such a setting. She thought that she smelled less dust than she should if the place were truly derelict. She should be raising choking clouds of it no matter how carefully she walked.
Advancing into the room's center she felt a strange sense of dislocation ripple through her. She swayed, put hands out to her sides to steady herself. Have I been missing that much sleep? she wondered.
Something big dropped right behind her. It thumped loudly on the hardwood floorboards.
She spun, pointing the Glock. A blow struck it from her hand. A blue-white beam of light lanced directly into her dark-adjusted eyes, dazzling her.
Boots thumped all around her. She saw black forms looming with round, distorted skulls and weird, protuberant eyes. More blinding light beams converged upon her as if pinning her like an insect to a board.
"On your belly! Down-down-down!" a harsh masculine voice barked. In the glare she saw that the forms surrounding her, distorted as they were, were men in helmets, and masks and armor, all the shade of midnight. Their lights were clamped beneath the fat barrels of their assault rifles.
The flashlight was torqued from her hand as she went to her knees to obey. She was allowed to lower herself under her own power before knees descended on her shoulders to clamp her to the floorboards. The floor smelled of old wood and ancient varnish. Her arms were twisted behind her, not cruelly but without concern for her comfort. She felt plastic ties being fastened about her wrists. Then she was frisked with impersonal efficiency.
Captured! The word tolled like a bell in her brain. With a sick stirring in her stomach she recalled the fate of the previous sword bearer.
****
Annja was frog-marched down fifty yards of glass-walled tunnel with the occasional closed steel door to either side. She was escorted into an elevator. That they went down was all she could tell. She was marched in to face the rear, and hands on her arms prevented her turning to see any level indicators. She had no clue as to how far underground they'd descended.
She felt a slight jar beneath her feet as the door hissed open. She was marched backward and lifted bodily when she experimentally let her feet falter. She was deposited in another corridor identical to the one somewhere above. As the elevator door slid shut she was urged along at a brisk if by no means uncomfortable clip. Though no one spoke – and their faces were turned into weird, insectile shapes by their goggles and masks – their body language suggested that if she did not keep up they'd be more than happy to drag her.
She wasn't in immediate fear for her life. She knew if they wanted her dead, she'd already be there. That they took this much trouble with her meant that she was safe. For the moment.
The size of the men's backs, already wedge shaped from weight-room bulk if not steroids, were exaggerated by the flexible armor they obviously wore beneath their black uniforms. On every back was a panel that announced in big reflective white letters, Federal Agent. It was, she thought, indicative of arrogance. It announced to all mere civilians, including lesser law enforcers such as state and local cops, that these men could act as they wished, with impunity, and bulldoze through any resistance, while conveying no actual information about their identities or that of the entity they worked for.
She also knew enough to realize that the nicety of legalism meant the words federal agent did not imply they were direct employees of any agency of the United States government. The words could refer to private contractors, as well. Although being driven along by them somewhere through the bowels of the Earth she couldn't see what difference it might conceivably make. They had the whip hand over her. What else mattered?
They led her to another steel door indistinguishable from the rest. Without any action on their part that she could see the door slid open as they reached it. Most fell out in the corridor as the two immediately behind her shoulders once more grasped her upper arms and steered her firmly inside.
The room was congruously paneled in glossy brown wood. Two walls were plastered baseboard to ceiling with pictures of a man whose crisply tailored suits, even with padded shoulders, could not conceal the slightness of his frame, which was in turn emphasized by the relative largeness of his head. He had thinning, slicked-back, light-colored hair and narrow features dominated by large eyeglasses. He was meeting rich and powerful men and the odd woman. The current President, the past President, the likely next one, senators and congressmen and movie stars and powerful business people smiled all around.
The man himself was standing and moving around a huge mahogany desk. In his dark-blue suit he looked even weedier and frailer than in the pictures, and his blue eyes were surrounded by bruise-colored bags behind his eyeglasses, as if he hadn't slept in days. But his smile was as large and patently phony as in his photos.
"Ah, Ms. Creed," he said. His voice was a bit high-pitched, but beautifully modulated, as if a great tenor had taught him to sing his words. "Believe me when I say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. You prove yourself a most resourceful young woman."
He held out his hand.
"Stand down!" snapped the man who stood to the side of the landing-strip desk. He was a big, redfaced man in desert-camouflage battledress without decoration or rank markings she could see. He had a peculiar sort of Mohawk strip of somewhat unruly straw-colored hair on top of his head, an affectation meant, she supposed, to make him resemble a World War II paratrooper. In spite of the middle-aged paunch pushing the front of his mottled-brown-and-gray blouse out over a Ripstop belt, he showed an impressive rack of shoulder and chest. He was obviously fit and muscular even if not as trim as he could be.
Annja could not help wondering, If he's into speed, how does he maintain that much gut?
Her escorts released Annja's biceps. "Cut her loose," the big soldier-for-hire ordered. She heard a snap behind her, felt the plastic restraints drop from her wrists. Each began to tingle as long interrupted blood flow resumed.
She flexed her hands while resolutely looking into the eyes of the man in the dark suit and ignoring his proffered hand.
He smiled regretfully and withdrew it. "Ah. I suppose not. And who can blame you. Well. I am Dr. Oliver Hanratty, director of this facility. The large, authoritative gentleman in the uniform is our chief of security, Colonel Jack Thompson. And here – " he half turned to nod to an older man pushing his bulk up from a chair to Annja's right " – is our distinguished chief scientist, Dr. Nils Bergstrom."
Annja nodded
curtly. She'd allowed herself to look at Bergstrom, as if accepting the introduction, then looked back at Hanratty as quickly as she could without being obvious.
She did not want to risk betraying herself by letting her eyes linger too long on Bergstrom.
She'd already spotted retired professor and current monster hunter Dr. Raywood Cogswell.
Chapter 24
"It's all bullshit, Creed," Thompson said in a voice like a nail gun. She doubted he could bring himself to say anything that didn't sound like a command. "We're not glad to see you and we don't respect your resourcefulness and determination. A damned pain in the ass is all you are."
Hanratty's eyelids fluttered behind his lenses. His lips twisted in a weak, moist smile. "Now, now, Ms. Creed. Please don't take our Colonel Thompson too seriously. He seems to feel a certain bluster befits his position."
"Bluster, my ass. Why the hell didn't you back off after all the warnings you got?"
"Warnings?" she asked.
"That parking lot at UNM?" he said. "Mexico City? The Philippines? That hippie art gallery in Albuquerque? Your little artist friend. Did those slip your alleged mind?"
"They seemed more like assassination attempts to me," she said coolly. She thought it important to show him his bluster could not intimidate her.
"Didn't it ever penetrate that thick head that if you were pissing people off that bad, it might be a good idea to jump back?" Thompson raged.
"Now, now," Hanratty said mildly, fluttering a pale, well-manicured hand at his security chief on his way back to the desk. "There's no call to take such a tone with our guest."
Glaring, his face even redder than it had been when she first walked in, Mad Jack subsided with the good grace of a junkyard dog who'd had his leash yanked hard. It did not escape Annja's notice that Hanratty had refrained from yanking the lead until after Thompson got to establish his bad cop credentials.
Hanratty smiled. "Would you care to sit down, Ms. Creed?" he asked, indicating a chair across from his desk.
