by Nick Thacker
Mark’s voice was cut short by a piercing scream. The sound reverberated through the cave, echoing around each corner.
Jen shot up into a sitting position. She heard stirring next to her; a sleeping body was jostled by the noise. From somewhere in front of her, she heard a whisper, and then a sharp yell.
“What was that?”
The sound of Carter’s voice. Before she could react, she felt a hand—Mark’s—reach out to hers and pull her up.
“Come on, that was one of us!”
A light exploded on; one of the gun-mounted flashlights the soldiers were carrying. Jen’s eyes screamed in pain, and she squeezed them open and shut to adjust her vision.
Another light came on, and the cavern was bathed in an orange glow. Jen looked up to see the soldiers scrambling toward the path, following in the direction of the scream. Dr. Pavan and Erik looked like they’d been woken up from a hangover; their eyes bloodshot and sleep-deprived.
“Come on, Jen. Follow Carter down there.” She felt a slight nudge on her lower back, firm but gentle. “We’re sticking together, and they’ve got the firepower.”
She recognized Mark’s voice, but his attitude was different. It was controlling, confident.
As she stumbled forward to follow Dr. Pavan, she caught a glance at her husband. Mark’s eyes were set straight forward, focused on the path. His expression revealed nothing, no emotion whatsoever.
She’d never seen him like this.
What had changed? Was it because of Reese?
Jen didn’t have time to wonder. Suddenly Mark was in front of her, pulling her behind him. She shook off her delirium and followed the man into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. Orange light from the soldiers in front of them guided their way, but it was all she could do to keep pace.
Carter stopped abruptly.
Jen and the others nearly bumped into the soldier as they all spilled into a large, looming cavern.
The room they were in dwarfed the cave they’d slept in earlier. It was easily twice the size, both walls recessed about thirty feet from the opening they were standing in. The ceiling reached twenty feet over their heads, creating the feeling that they were in a large cellar. Jen approached the backs of the other team members, trying to squeeze her way into a better view.
She was immediately sorry that she did.
In front of them, sprawled out on the cavern floor, was Dr. Richard’s body. It was stretched and splayed out on the stone like it had fallen from the ceiling, and her arms and legs were twisted into an awkward pose.
Jen gasped, and Mark cursed behind her.
“W—what happened here?” she heard herself ask.
No one responded.
Carter stepped forward farther into the room, trying to get a better view. Jen watched him scrutinize the scene, examining every detail. She couldn’t see Lindsay’s face—it was turned the other direction—but she could tell she was dead.
“Come here. Check this out,” Carter said.
The others gathered around Lindsay’s body, and Jen could soon see why they were summoned. Lindsay’s clothes were torn in places, the shreds of garment pulled in different directions.
“There are scratches on her skin,” Carter said, “four parallel lines.”
Jen saw what he was talking about. In the places where Lindsay’s clothes had been shredded—her stomach, right shoulder, and left leg, mostly—Jen could see rows of lines running the length of her body. They didn’t seem deep, but there were a lot of them, and there was blood pooling in each track.. The scratches were layered on top of one another, as if she’d been scratched from many different directions at once from many different sources.
“Ugh. Look at her neck,” Nelson said. They all looked toward Lindsay’s head. It was broken, a telltale bump protruding from just below her skull on the left side of the woman’s neck.
“Hmm. Looks like that’s how she died. These scratches are pretty bad, but she shouldn’t have succumbed to them alone.” It was Carter’s voice again, but this time it was softer. It was still intense, but it seemed somewhat clinical, as if the man was simply theorizing about an excavated corpse, not examining a deceased member of their team.
Jen couldn’t speak. The numbness that had consumed her earlier was back again, and this time it seized her vocal cords as well. She stared at the lifeless body, not feeling anything. She was scared, but her mind wouldn’t let her feel the fear. She wanted answers.
Mark’s hand covered his mouth, but he was also silent. Carter and the other soldiers inspected the body for clues, but came up short. “Looks like she was attacked. More than one, I’d suspect, but who knows by what. She must have struggled—that’s probably when she screamed—and then they broke her neck.”
“Or she fell,” Saunders added.
“From what though?” Carter asked.
“No idea. Maybe she tripped?”
They looked again at the body, trying to make sense of things. After a minute, Carter looked up at the team. “You all okay?”
Nods all around. Dr. Pavan, Jen saw, was pale—noticeably so even in the orange light. She turned to Erik, Lindsay’s assistant, and saw that the young man was in shock.
She nodded for Carter’s satisfaction, but made her way to Erik’s side. The man stared down at his boss’ body with an empty, limp gaze. “She was tough, but nice,” he said. “Took care of us—the research assistants—but I didn’t know her very well.”
Jen realized it was the first time she’d heard the guy speak. His voice was heavily accented with an Eastern-European lilt. His eyes suddenly looked younger, as if he was Lindsay’s son.
“We need to move. Guns up, quick. No idea what happened here, but we can’t stay.” Carter’s tone was back; strong and in charge. Saunders, Nelson, and Mason each snapped to attention, their guns drawn and ready.
Jen shuddered again as they left the scene. She thought back to the ransom note left in her apartment.
Four days.
It had already been two.
22
“Okay, here’s what we’ve got.” Ken Dawson spread out the papers, stacks of them, on the large table in Larson’s study.
Dawson was continually amazed at the living situation of his older counterpart. He’d known the older detective long enough—and was close enough to him—to have visited the apartment in Washington, D.C. numerous times. The place was almost bare: necessary furniture and appliances were found in their proper corners, but the decorations were stark. No pictures hung from the walls, and no curtains covered his windows. What surprised Dawson, however, was what Larson spent on the things he did want in his apartment.
The man’s two prized pieces, a leather armchair and an oversized mahogany table, were the only two things of value in the whole place. They both sat in the man’s study, constantly collecting dust. Their luxurious look and expensive, handcrafted feel was even more out of place due to the lack of care Larson seemed to take in everything else. His carpet, old and worn, ran throughout the entire apartment—even the kitchen and bathroom—and it jutted up against brownish walls that perfectly matched the carpet.
The apartment was a disgusting blob of brown that seemed to consume whoever walked in, though Dawson did like the effect after hours of late-night research. It became almost comforting, floating through the large, empty rooms, whose floors, walls, and ceilings were indiscernible from one another.
“Give me the breakdown. Anything new?” Larson asked. He shuffled through a stack of papers that had slipped out of a manila folder on the edge of the broad table.
“Nope, not yet. I’m still looking over the Three Mile Island meltdown, just in case. I think we’re pretty much at an impasse with this stuff.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s dig through it again. Start at the beginning.”
“Right.” Dawson took a deep breath, reached for one of the stacks of papers and folders, and opened the first. “Nouvelle Terre’s initial project records began with ‘biosphere proje
ctions’—general overviews of predictions regarding microcosmic biospheres. They expanded to include sociological programs—” he passed his hand over another stack of folders, “and even dipped into the humanities.”
“They were studying nuclear waste at Three Mile Island?” Larson asked.
“Yes. They had a few test sites set up back when they were ‘above ground.’ But a year later—1980, I think—they wiped everything clean. Up and left.”
“Where’d they go?”
“No idea. It doesn’t say in public records, and most of the documentation I can find seems to imply they disbanded. Whatever the case, they did a great job of staying under the radar. The next time they popped up—ten years later—it wasn’t ‘they,’ but just a key team member here or there, all working on separate, unrelated projects around the world.”
“And Jeremiah Austin? He pop up anywhere?”
Dawson moved to grab another folder from the top of one of the smaller stacks. “Not really. Brief mentions in academic papers, one journal entry from Elias Storm, that’s it.”
Dawson scratched his head. Larson still hadn’t let on why he wanted Dawson to keep repeating the same stuff, over and over again. They’d been through it almost five times in the past two hours. It was getting late, and—
“Elias Storm mentions Austin once, but he doesn’t ever mention his own brother,” Larson said.
“He doesn’t. Not in this journal. Maybe there were others?”
“Maybe. But think about that. If he had contact with Mitchell, he’d probably mention it in his own personal writings. If he didn’t, don’t you think he’d wonder why?”
“And write about it?”
“…And write about it. I think he would have said something to that effect, like he was wondering or concerned or something. But he didn’t. Not even so much as an acknowledgement, here, at least, that he had a brother.”
“Because they had a falling out,” Dawson said.
“No. Because Elias knew what his brother—and Austin—was working on. He knew what was at stake. We don’t, but he did. And Nouvelle Terre figured out that he did, and they killed him for it.”
Larson frowned, then spoke again. “I think our friend Vertrund knows too. I think he’s staying ahead of us on purpose. He needs me to figure something out, but he can’t tell me.”
“This thing isn’t about energy, is it? You said so yourself. Nouvelle Terre was never interested in energy. They’re still not, are they?”
“They are, but only to get what they want. It’s a means, not an end. If Vertrund’s one step ahead of us, Jeremiah Austin is one step ahead of him.”
“How do you know that? We don’t even know where he is. Shit, I don’t even know what the guy looks like!”
Larson shuffled through some old newspaper clippings as he spoke. “Vertrund was playing us, but he was playing us well. He knew I’d understand this better than anyone, but he didn’t want to let on that he did.”
He found what he was looking for and pulled it out of the pile. “Vertrund needed me to know who we’re dealing with, but he couldn’t let on to his superiors that I’m in on it. He couldn’t let them know, without putting himself at risk, that I’m closer to this than they’d like.”
Dawson was thoroughly confused now. He stared at Larson, not sure what to expect. The older man held up the clipping, and Dawson could see that it was starting to yellow on the edges.
“This was taken in 1969,” Larson said as he began unfolding the document. He held it out to him.
Dawson reached for it and had to choke back a laugh. “That’s—that’s the president.” It was, but it was a young president—long before he’d even considered a run for political office. He had to be in his early twenties, judging by the thick crop of dirty blond hair that sat disheveled on his head. His characteristic grin—toppled down on one side, giving him a mischievous and nonchalant look—extended wide across his face. Dawson took in the picture and recognized the man immediately, but stopped when he saw the other figure in the picture.
“This is you?” he asked Larson. Again, the image was of a much younger picture, but the features gave the man away—distinct, rigid jawline and a short-cropped military cut above a dark-skinned, fit body.
“It is. I knew him—briefly. It was a summer vacation home my parents took us to each year. The president—Harry, then—lived across the lake. We struck up a friendship fishing and swimming, and going out to town on the weekends. This picture was taken after some movie star rolled through. We went to see them, and there was a newspaper that caught us in the background. The picture wasn’t used for much, just a biography when Harold made it to the White House, and I wasn’t ever named as his sidekick.”
Dawson was appalled. “You know President Mathers?”
“Knew. That’s not the point. I didn’t know him well, anyway. But he had a friend—a cousin, actually—an older boy who’d come down every now and again. A few times that summer. I never met him, but I saw him once. Harold said he was at college, but came out there to get away from it all.”
Dawson closed his eyes. “Who was he?”
“A cousin, like I said. Distant—almost not even relevant. But he was smart, and Harold was smart, so I guess they hit it off. Harold really looked up to him. Jeremiah. Jeremiah Austin. Saw him once, then he was gone. But Harold raved about him constantly after that. Said he was ‘going places,’ that he was the ‘smartest kid he knew’ and such.”
Dawson cringed. “You’re telling me the President of the United States and Jeremiah Austin are cousins?”
“Afraid so, Ken. That’s what we’re here for, though. To figure this thing out and stop whatever it is Austin’s trying to do. The president needs it to be done so he can sweep it under the rug and not have a political—and personal—mess on his hands, and Vertrund needs us to do it because if anyone else finds out—”
Dawson understood. He nodded, and stood from the table. “It’s late, Craig. Get some sleep. I’ll be back tomorrow, after I get done at the office.” He glanced at the two empty highball glasses that had collected condensation rings around their sides. “I’ll bring the fuel.”
23
“We need to head up; get to that geothermal station on the main level,” Carter said.
The group was back in the tunnels, having left the cavern—and Lindsay’s body—behind. Carter knew it was the right decision. It was, after all, the original plan.
They’d been attacked by an overt force, and now by an unforeseen one. Was it the same one? Were they being toyed with one team member at a time?
Carter tried to imagine the woman’s final thoughts. He wasn’t much for sentimental reminiscing; he just wanted to gain insight into her untimely death. It was brutal, that was certain. But was it purposeful?
Were they not alone in these caves? Maybe there was something tracking them. Maybe there was something about this place that none of the previous inhabitants—none of the builders even—knew about.
He was getting ahead of himself. As a trained military officer, he was strategic-minded. When his subordinates thought through current situations, Carter thought three steps ahead. This mission was no different. He’d been thinking strategically since they’d disembarked.
He’d thought of the big questions.
Would they find whatever it was they were looking for?
Would they be able to retrieve Jen’s son?
Would they be able to stop whatever it was Nouvelle Terre was planning?
But he also thought through each of their situations in terms of cause and effect breakdowns. If they did A, would the enemy do B? And what if they didn’t? What were the alternatives? What were the pros and cons of each move?
He thought through these situations with the resolve needed by an officer of his command, but he also knew it made him cold, impersonal rather than charismatic, calculating rather than empathetic.
But he didn’t care.
He wasn’t good at what he d
id because his units liked him; he was good because he got the job done.
This was no different. It was a job, one that had defined objectives and specific deliverables, and he’d die before he gave up on them. He had nothing else in this life to lose, so he’d do what was required. A sharp stab of pain lanced through his body, but he just as quickly pressed it back down. He’d been told these psychological exertions were precursors to a more chronic form of PTSD, but he wouldn’t let something like that get in the way of his line of duty. He’d been down that road before.
Their current situation was unfortunate, but not mission-critical. They’d lost a member of their team, but it was a C-team member, at best. Dr. Richards, he knew, was here as a secondary backup to Dr. Pavan.
A backup to the backup.
If Jen couldn’t figure out what Nouvelle Terre wanted and deliver it, Dr. Sanjay Pavan—by all accounts an equally accomplished scientist—would. They’d move heaven and earth to get the job done because Nouvelle Terre had done their job extremely well.
They’d created an incentive for Jen that was impossible to ignore.
Jen spoke up from behind him as he walked. He’d almost forgotten he’d delivered an instruction.
“Carter,” she said. “I disagree. I think we need to stay here.”
Carter slowed, but he didn’t stop moving.
“We should at least try to figure out what attacked Lindsay, right? I mean, it’s still out here somewhere.”
He paused, trying to formulate a response.
“If we get to the upper levels and this—whatever it is—follows us there, we’ve got two problems.”
Carter finally stopped walking. He turned to Jen and the others. “Yes, but only one of those problems will attack us. We need to get a jump on finding what Nouvelle Terre’s looking for.”
“But—”
Carter saw Jen’s husband frown at her, silently pleading with her to stop arguing. She hesitated, but then resumed her stubborn reasoning.
“Listen, Carter… Sergeant Carter…we’ve got to figure out what attacked Lindsay, and that’s going to be here. This cave system isn’t large, remember? We should be able to—”
