Marina had paused at a drawer. She sank onto a nearby chair and pulled what looked like a loosely-bound book from its depths. Gabe stepped closer to look over her shoulder.
It was an odd book—if you could call it a book; it was more like plastic pages tied together. About six by six inches, the pages had a dull, plastic sheen to them. But it wasn’t until Marina opened the book that he realized that it wasn’t going to be found in just any library.
The pages had writing on them; writing he didn’t recognize and couldn’t translate. Skaladeska language. It had to be. And the pages looked like the homemade paper arts-and-crafts types made using paper pulp and twine and fibers, but they were shiny, and looked laminated. Translucent. They looked like a textured shower curtain liner with writing on it.
He reached over Marina’s shoulder to touch the book. The ridges of swirling texture, like heavy linen, felt smooth and cool. It was dull cream color, definitely looking homemade … thick but translucent.
“Can you read it?” Gabe asked, watching the way she stared down at the page.
“It’s in Skaladeska.”
“Can you read it?”
She hesitated, closed the book. “Maybe. It might come back to me.” Then she pointed across the room. “I bet there’s another passageway over there.”
Gabe saw nothing but a blank wall. He looked back at her, but she’d risen, tucking the book under her arm, and moved toward the wall.
“I’m sure there’s a door here—if you help me, we can find it.” She was moving up and down and around, running her fingers all along the wall like some kind of expert at finding hidden doorways. It hadn’t slipped past him that she’d been vague about her ability to read the book. She certainly appeared to be reading it. Why would she lie?
In the end, it was a small hidden panel that tripped the switch. A door slid open, revealing a yawning tunnel of metal. Dim yellow recessed lights studded the ceiling in a line disappearing out of sight. Marina was already moving down the hallway, and Gabe didn’t bother to warn her about a potential hazard. But he did pull his Colt from its holster once again.
Although Gabe had fairly well guessed that the tunnel was heading toward Lake Superior, when it finally ended, a surprise awaited. Another door slid open, and he and Marina stepped into what could only be called a fish bowl. He and Marina being the fish.
All three sides of the chamber were made of glass, or some heavy duty plastic. The dark green waters of the depths of Lake Superior surged against the walls, covering them to the ceiling, and, as Gabe realized, likely well above the ceiling. They were in an underwater chamber.
An antechamber to some type of underwater craft that was missing.
-20-
July 8, 2007
Allentown, Pennsylvania
“What the hell is this?” Vince Bruger snapped, looking at a lump of black metal sitting on his desk. A long, metal rod crossed over a messy stack of files. Dirt clung to each end. A young woman dressed in blues, with a shiny badge and a name plate that read BURNETT, startled to her feet.
“All right, Dr. Everett. I should be at your house in less than an hour.” Walking in Bruger’s footsteps, Helen Darrow flipped her cell phone shut with a flick of her thumb as she entered the chief’s office. She glanced at wide-eyed Officer Burnett who looked like she’d just gotten out of the Academy. Yesterday. Maybe this morning.
“We found this approximately five miles from the epicenter of the earthquake,” Burnett explained. “Knew Agent Darrow was going to be here and figured she’d want to see it.”
“On my desk?”
Helen had to give the newbie credit. Even though Bruger looked like he wanted to jump down her throat, Burnett’s response came out smooth and steady. And loud enough to be heard.
Helen stepped toward the desk, her fingers tingling; a sure sign that something was about to give. The last time she’d had that powerful feeling, that singing, twitching in her fingertips, she’d apprehended Mad Melia, a nurse who liked to help her patients into their afterlife earlier than their maker intended, after nearly missing her hiding in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. A woman’s instinct, she had learned, was never to be ignored.
At last. Something.
Just the kind of thing she’d been hoping for.
After her conversation two days earlier with Dr. Everett, Helen had been convinced that he was right—the earthquakes were no quakes at all, but underground explosions. So she’d had to turn her team’s attention to finding out how they’d been caused.
She and Bruger poked at the box and the long rod. A small screen and two dials were the only break on the smooth metal surface of the box. No other markings or identification at first glance.
“This could be a drill of some kind. Like they use for oil.” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to have to leave for my meeting with Everett right now. I’ll have Mingo start looking at these in the mean time; but I’ll see if Everett will take a look and confirm whether they’d be used for this kind of operation.”
Bruger growled his agreement. The poor man looked like she felt: dead tired and stressed. But Helen at least had the advantage of makeup to hide her secrets.
Moments later she was off on the highway, heading northeast from Allentown over the state border into Jersey.
When she reached his home, Dr. Everett was pruning his rosebushes. Helen had only spoken to the man twice, but each time he’d managed to mention two topics unrelated to the geological discussion at hand: his wife Darlene, who obviously ran the roost, and his fifty-three rose bushes. And their fifty different hues. She wondered which ones were duplicates, but decided to keep that thought to herself.
“Agent Darrow! It’s a pleasure to see you again.” He put the clippers down and gestured to a round table and a set of wicker chairs under a tilted umbrella. The fragrance of rose was in the air; not surprising because the bushes created a half-circle of pink, magenta, yellow, and crimson around the patio.
“Dr. Everett. Thank you for meeting with me. I had originally intended to talk with you in more detail about your experience in Nevada, as you’d mentioned it; but now I have even more specific questions. And something to show you.”
“Please. Ask away. Darlene will be bringing some lemonade and iced tea—she was peering out the window when you drove up.”
It was almost too quaint, too cute, Helen thought. The half-retired geology professor and his love of gardening, and the bustling, grandmotherly wife who would bring them lemonade, iced tea, and, if the cliché rang through, a plate of cookies. She was hoping for oatmeal raisin.
But before she had the chance to tell Dr. Everett what they’d found, the screen door slammed and a tall, slender, gorgeous woman of no more than forty hurried down the steps. No grandmotherly type here.
“Hi, you must be Agent Darrow. I’ve got something to drink for you, but I can’t stay and chat because I’ve got to run to the store. I just ran out of blue paint!” The youngish woman, only a few years older than Helen, had pale dots of blue all over her hands and bare legs. She dropped the tray quickly, and none-too gently on the table in front of them, planted a kiss on her husband’s bare forehead, and hurried off, keys jangling.
“What was that?” Helen couldn’t help but say, reaching for a glass filled with ice. Lemonade and iced tea, combined, was one of her weaknesses.
Dr. Everett laughed. “She never stops. She was one of my students, way back when, and … well, you can imagine the problems we had, especially twenty years ago! Anyway, Agent Darrow, I know you must be very busy. Please, tell me what you’ve found.”
“Well, you’d told me that in order to create an underground explosion, somehow the explosive needed to be put under the area.”
He was nodding as he gulped half a glass of lemonade. When he took the glass away from his mouth, he said, “Yes, and that was the problem. Any equipment that could be used to dig under the ground, or drill, as we would say, would be so large as to be noticeable. In fact, we ofte
n use directional drilling when digging for oil, and those rigs are even larger. Let me explain directional drilling.
“There’s a bit on the end of a long string of pipe that drills the hole. Once they reach the desired depth, the drillers use pressure to direct the angle of the hole horizontally. So they drill down, and then over to the location they need to be.
“But as I told you on the phone, these are large machines and the rigs certainly couldn’t be carted into an area and used without being noticed.”
Helen’s hopes fell. The metal rod they’d found couldn’t have been used for something so heavy-duty. “So these machines can drill at an angle, underground. And they could drill deep. How far away from the site could they be?”
“Definitely, they can drill deep. And with present technology, the bottom hole location could be several hundred feet, or even up to a couple of miles, away from the surface location. But what have you found?”
“I thought we might have found the drill, but it’s very small.”
“Excellent!”
“It’s very small, though. Very small. It’s only six inches in diameter. And eight feet long.” She waited. Was her theory possible?
“That’s too small. A drill of that size couldn’t … well, I should not say couldn’t, should I? I suppose it’s conceivable … .if the material was right. But … .”
“This is the best part. We think it was remotely controlled by someone on the surface. Set into the ground to dig, and directionally controlled as it burrowed into the ground, miles away, to where the explosive detonated. We have a box that could be the controller.”
“Incredible. Impossibly incredible! Could I see it? I would love to see it and examine it.”
“Yes. I’d like your opinion as to whether my theory is plausible, and whether the equipment we found is capable of digging down through the earth’s crust at that distance.”
Everett had drained a second glass of lemonade, and now he muffled a gentle belch. “Excuse me.” He rubbed his hands gleefully. “When can we go? But, wait … .the size of the explosives. In order to create an earthquake of that magnitude, it would have to be a very powerful explosive. Based on what occurred in Nevada, the explosive would have to be huge.”
“Yes, indeed. That’s the next phase. We think we know how they got it down there; but how they made the explosives so powerful … we’ll need to investigate. Is there anyway we could get to the explosion site, there underground, to see what actually happened?”
“I don’t think so, my dear. If any caves or caverns exist at that depth, which I doubt, they would have been destroyed by the explosion.
“And there is one other consideration.” Dr. Everett’s face settled in to serious lines. “There would have to be very loud noises during the drilling. People would hear it. We’d see it. Unless … well, perhaps if the drill is small enough to do what we think it did, perhaps … perhaps they had a way to drill without causing loud noises. If this is the case, then whoever did this is far advanced in directional drilling.”
Just then Helen’s cell phone buzzed against her thigh. She snapped it off its holder and checked the number. “Excuse me, Dr. Everett. This is my boss and I need to take it.” She opened the phone. “Darrow here.”
“Helen. New development on the AvaChem case: Barbara Melton was just found dead at her home in Baltimore.”
“Dead? How?”
“The local authorities have started the investigation, but since you’re handling the earthquake case, I believe you should be called in on it as well.” He rattled off the address of the home in Baltimore.
“Do they know anything?” Helen asked as she rummaged for a pen to jot down the information. “Can you give that addy to me again?” The pen didn’t work; and Helen cursed her distaste for technology. A PDA stylus never ran out of ink. “One more time, please,” she said, finally getting a pen that worked.
He obliged, then continued. “She was found dead on the floor in her home and the autopsy was performed early this morning. The local authorities didn’t realize they had to notify us until the results came in; then I guess they figured out that you might need to know since you’re on a related case.” Sarcasm wove through his words.
“Well?”
“Best as they can tell, it was some kind of poison; but they haven’t been able to identify it. But here’s the weirdest thing. After, or as part of her death, she was injected with a chemical.”
“What?” Helen frowned, her brows knitting together in a way that did not bode well for keeping her forehead wrinkle-free.
“They found a chemical composition in her veins. She was injected with one of her own poisonous chemicals.”
-21-
July 8, 2007
Siberia
Lev was too old to feel such biting anger. It wearied him, depressed him.
He already felt his age in the deepest marrow of his bones, in the brooding aches and pains that accompanied every breath. The slightest movement of his fingers, or the basic act of blinking his eyes—eyes clouded so that he could hardly see from them anyway—caused ripples of discomfort. The lashes that should have protected his vision had long since fallen out, so the dust and particles in the air gritted his dry eyeballs, grinding into them as he blinked.
He was eighty-nine years old. Perhaps it was to be expected.
He was more than ready to die, but the fury of betrayal simmered deep inside, fueling his ebbing energy.
Roman might be his son, but Lev was still Gaia’s Chosen. And Roman still answered to him.
Lev’s life had been long, full of purpose, and successful, by his measure. He had few regrets; some, true, but they were few. Yes, they were painful, but they were few. He hadn’t many things to finish before he left this world, and returned to the ground, from which he’d come. What did the Christian Bible say? “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust … .”
He ached for that moment of dust even while he knew his time separate from the Earth was not finished, and would not be until Roman was fully prepared to lead.
Or if not him, then Varden.
There was no hope for Viktor.
There was no other hope, for the line of the Aleksandrovs had ended with Lev’s twin sons.
The pages of an ancient tome crinkled under his hands while the soft pads of his fingers brushed over sacred words. He turned his attention back to the faded, angular scratchings of archaic Greek.
“As Gaia lives, She breathes. As She breathes, She creates life: in every living creature, in every struggling plant, in every solid rock as One in Her.”
He’d read those words many times over his life; and his father before him, and his father before him. They’d never meant more to him than they did now.
The time had come.
Yesterday, he’d ventured out of the compound for the first time in months, now that the fierce winter had subsided, and his joints did not ache so much. He needed to visit and draw in the clean air. To breathe of Gaia and calm the ache of anger.
Air. Blessed air.
Grass. Sky. Trees.
Gaia … she was beautiful.
Lev had not gone far, true; for to do so, he would need to clamber up from the small courtyard carved on the side of the mountain. But this was enough for an old man, who’d spent too many days lying on his bed and remembering the beauty of the Earth.
The crisp air bit at his face. He stood, breathed deeply, and was filled with the beauty of the moment. Grey-green grass straggled about, tufting in clumps amid the stony ground. Four pines marked the edge of the steppe there on the edge of the mountain.
Four pines: one for each of Gaia’s elements. Mineral, animal, vegetable, water. The four elements that melded and meshed and threaded together to create the Earth herself: a living, breathing One.
From here, Lev had seen the greenish outlines of smaller mountains; hills, really; studded with more pines, and other trees; and the far grey sharpness of true mountains, jutting in the distance. Below the
steppe, the dark grey waters of the river below, tussling Roman’s small boat against its moorings. And far to the northeast, where the river dumped into the fog-frosted steel blue waters of Kara Sea. His world.
A world that became more threatened each day.
The air dirtied. The glaciers melting because of holes in the atmosphere. The earth stuffed with chemicals and unnatural waste. The trees sliced from their roots, and grasses and brush and earth torn up and tossed about.
He had not seen it himself, not in person. He’d never ventured beyond the mountains as his sons had; he’d never wanted to or needed to. But the images, film footage—those he’d seen. The rape of the land, the natural resources scraped and mined and sucked from Earth. Devastation. Waste. Death.
Here, they were far from the destruction. Near the top of the world, in the barren, cold mountains of Siberia, the destruction of the rest of the world did not touch them. Lev had believed they were far enough away that it would never touch them.
Colleen Gleason Page 13
