by David Cline
Wood grimaced when the cave shrunk again so a train could barely fit through. It meant no place to hide if one came barreling their way again. His eyes darted around looking for any abnormality.
Behind him, Wilkins scoured the ground. After a minute, he let out a hushed exclamation and they both turned around to see him holding a 4-foot piece of scrap metal. One end had been flattened to the width of a piece of stock paper.
“That could work,” Wood said.
They placed the flat end beneath the nearest spike and pressed down on the high side. With the leverage and a few twists, the spike popped out.
Wood held it in his hand. It was about six inches long and felt heavy. There was some discoloration where the grey metal had begun to oxidize. Not as bad as it could have been. It looked like a stalky bayonet.
They pried up three more and stepped back to catch their breath.
“Most standard tracks are 132 pounds per yard,” Wilkins said. “Heavy suckers.”
“We just need to move each end slightly,” Amara said.
The three of them knelt and together managed to push the track out of line by about four inches. They did the same thing to all four sides and then examined their work.
“I think we are about to see something epic,” Amara said.
Wilkins pointed the scrap metal back the way they had come. “These tracks theoretically cross into Chile under the Andes. If we get into hot water and need to pick a direction, I say we head this way.”
Wood nodded. “Escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.”
“If they pursue us on a train, the crash will clog the whole tunnel.”
“Sounds good to me,” Wood agreed. “Let’s just hope a train hasn’t already derailed when we come back this way, blocking our way out.”
They pressed on following the tracks. The cave would expand into larger caverns every so often before narrowing again. Whatever machine had been used to widen sections of the tunnel to allow the train to pass had left distinct grooves in the rock. The collection of shapes reminded Wood of the wave in the northern section of Coyote Buttes in southern Utah.
A unique shape caught Wood’s eye and he stopped raising a hand. It was another circular metallic plate bolted to the side of the cave at about chest level. A bright red light emitted from the center. “This little sucker made us last time,” Wood said. “You think it’s a motion detector or a laser that trips the alarm when the line is broken like in garage doors?”
Wilkins squinted at the opposite wall. “I think it’s the latter which means we should be able to duck under it.”
Amara pointed. “It’s just ahead. You can see where the light brightens from the overhead fluorescents.”
“About time,” Wilkins said. He handed Amara a luger. “Each magazine only has eight shots. Make them count.”
They ducked low under the laser. No alarm tripped. Wood let out a long breath he had been holding.
The noise of industrial activity drifted toward them as they approached the threshold. When they reached the end, Wood peaked his head around for a quick look then rejoined Wilkins and Amara a few feet back in the shadows.
“It’s quite the sight,” Wood reported. “It looks like a two-story office building built right into the cave. Think Swiss Family Robinson underground. There are a few forklifts at work moving crates around, but the space looks relatively empty.”
“Someone’s birthday?” Wilkins guessed. “Maybe eating cake in an office?”
“Or looking for us,” Amara whispered. Her hand shook slightly. A combination of the adrenaline and cold temperatures.
“The space is big,” Wood said. “About the size of a Wal Mart. I would guess the server room we are looking for is on the second floor. Which means we need to find a way up.”
“Incognito,” Wilkins added. “Any ideas?”
“I saw an abandoned forklift nearby with a wooden crate on a pallet. I could commandeer and rotate it, so the crate is out of view. You two jump in and we drive to the stairs, elevator, or wherever we find to ascend to the second story. If they catch me, just lay low inside the crate and wait for the opportune time to make an escape.”
Wilkins snorted. “I would much rather burst out guns blazing.”
Wood shrugged. “Do whatever you want to do.”
He crept back to the edge again and glanced around the corner. Two forklifts were busy moving heavy equipment a few hundred feet away. Two men in white lab coats and hardhats engaged in animated discussion disappeared into a room on the far side. Wood darted to the nearby forklift and jumped inside the cab. He started the machine and swiveled the front around, closing the gap toward the tunnel entrance.
Wilkins and Amara emerged and fought to open the top of the wooden crate. Wood looked at the rearview mirror to monitor the activity behind him. Everything seemed normal. So far so good. Wilkins disappeared back inside the tunnel before emerging with the same bit of scrap metal they had used to pry up the spikes from the train rails. He jammed the flat side under the lid and pressed his weight down. The lid popped up and the two of them squeezed themselves inside, replacing the lid over them.
Wood spun the wheel around and looked for a way to reach the second floor. The construction was straight out of a science fiction novel. Large stalagmites hung from the ceiling adorning the space like chandeliers. Every 50 feet, an enormous arch stretched from one side of the cavern to the other to add support and help prevent cave-ins. The second floor wrapped around one side like a balcony at a concert hall. Wood saw a few figures moving up there. He wondered how much of it had been there originally when the Nazis had first arrived. How much custom work had they done to carve out such a beautiful place?
Thick pillars supported the balcony. Wood guessed the bottom floor was used primarily for storage and industrial work while the upstairs was used for administrative work. Where did all these people sleep? Where did they prepare food?
He crossed the open space making sure to give the other forklifts a wide berth. The workers did not seem to notice them. As he approached the far side, large rooms through arched doorways began to appear beneath the balcony. Small signs were mounted above each entrance, but they were all written in German.
He glanced around and then stepped off the forklift. He pretended to be adjusting or inspecting the cargo inside the crate and opened the lid slightly.
“We there?” Wilkins asked. His pupils dilated to pinpoints when the harsh overhead lights penetrated the crate.
“Almost. Amara, what’s the German word for stairs?”
Amara tilted her head. “Treppe, I think.”
“Thanks.” He shut the lid and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Treppe,” he repeated to himself as continued forward. At least the German alphabet originated from Latin. It would have been an impossible task if he were looking for an Asian symbol.
He spotted the word treppe over the second archway to the far right and made a beeline for it. There was not much equipment scattered in this area of the cavern. He hoped the lone forklift would not rouse any suspicion.
Wood’s heart stopped when a voice blared over an intercom system. He thought they were done for. After a few moments went by with his heart in his throat, Wood guessed it was a scheduled announcement in rapid German. He had no idea what was said but did not think it had anything to do with them. He allowed himself to breathe and saw stars momentarily in both eyes.
He parked directly below the balcony so nobody above could see them. He hurried down and lifted the lid again. “Time to move.”
Chapter 35
Amara and Wilkins jumped silently out of the wooden crate and joined Wood under the arch. The staircase had been painstakingly carved out of the rock. The workmanship was crude but impressive. The emphasis had been efficiency and not pretentiousness.
The ascent was narrow. With each step Wood slowed and listened for movement above them. They
all had a luger in hand. Wood felt like they were part of a SWAT team executing a raid. When his eyes crested the top, the corridor was clear.
He motioned for them to hurry behind him and they lined up against the wall outside the arch leading into the first room. When Wood did not hear anything coming from inside, he spun around and entered with his gun outstretched. Wilkins followed him spinning the other way.
Makeshift tables and chairs cluttered the floor. A couple stainless steel refrigerators hummed softly against the far wall. Next to them, two microwaves sat motionless on a wooden table. A large reservoir of drinking water hung suspended from the ceiling.
“Just another day at the office,” Wilkins whispered. He walked to one of the refrigerators and opened the door.
“Anything good?” Amara asked.
“Sandwiches and Tupperware full of fruit and veggies. Looks like your common breakroom.” He reached in and bit into an apple. “Crispy.”
Wood peeked out the door to ensure the corridor was still empty. He knew it was only a matter of time before their first confrontation. The beeps of a forklift backing up echoed up toward them.
They darted out onto the balcony and lined up outside the second room. The air coming from inside felt warm against Wood’s face.
Wood spun with his luger pointed and immediately ducked behind shelving units stretching from the floor to the ceiling. The air buzzed with electronics. Fans whirred as they cooled motherboards and other important hardware.
Wood heard voices on the far end of the room. He peeked a head around and tried to judge distance. The racks of computer equipment looked like narrow isles at a library. Every four feet, metal shelves packed with hardware stretched to the ceiling.
Wood motioned for Amara to watch the doorway and silently followed Wilkins. They crept down an isle jumbled with whirring machines. Yellow, blue, and red cables dangled everywhere like vines. Sometimes they clustered together in big knots. Danville would have had a heart attack.
The conversation ahead of them sounded like it was between two people. Wood could not understand the words, but the mood seemed relaxed.
Wilkins stopped inches from the end of the isle and peeked around the corner. He put the luger down gently and began to sign to Wood. There were two unarmed men approximately ten feet away. Computer or database scientists by the look of them. They were not soldiers. Best course of action would be to rush and detain.
They both crouched like runners at the start of the 100-meter sprint. Wood’s heart raced. He hoped they didn’t have a panic button like tellers at a bank. The entire wasp’s nest would swarm down on them.
Wilkins gave the signal and they rounded the corner like linebackers blitzing the quarterback.
The two men sat casually in office chairs chitchatting. One looked slightly older with greying hair and large round glasses. The other was younger with black greasy hair slicked back. Their heads swiveled around in unison when Wood and Wilkins materialized in their peripheral vision.
When Wilkins closed the gap to less than five feet, he left the ground completely and dove straight into the younger man. They toppled backwards and crashed into a shelf full of graphic cards which began to rain down on them like hail.
The older man spun around and was reaching for the keyboard when Wood arrived at a full sprint. Wood reached for him over the back of the chair grasping anything he could. A few fingers from his right hand entered the man’s mouth and he hooked them into his cheek like a fish. His left hand clinched the man’s hair and with all his strength, Wood rotated his hips and swung his arms. The wheels of the chair came off the ground for an instant as the man was hurled backward crashing into metal shelving.
Wood spun around to face him and was surprised to see how fast the old man recovered and stood. The hatred that burned in the man’s eyes was hot enough to start a fire. Wood seized the keyboard in both hands and swung it like the bases were loaded. When it contacted the man’s face, it broke in half and showered them both in keys. The man fell and rolled away from Wood clutching the right side of his face. Wood walked toward him and waited for him to stop writhing on the ground. When the man looked up, Wood’s heel met the bridge of his nose and slammed his head against the rocky ground.
A guttural groan from a nearby isle broke the eerie silence. Wood feared the worst as he hurried around the corner. Wilkins squirmed on his back in debilitating pain. A gash in his forehead oozed blood that ran down his cheeks. The man he had fought was lying behind him facedown. The neck looked unnaturally angled.
Wood found a microfiber cloth by the computer monitor and knelt next to Wilkins. He wiped the blood off his face. The wound looked superficial. Nothing too serious.
Wilkins chuckled through gritted teeth. The gap in his mouth looked particularly ghastly with the missing front teeth. A sound like a hollow whistle emitted from his mouth with every breath. He looked into Wood’s eyes. “With the adrenaline surging, I forgot how broken I already was.” He grimaced. “Why didn’t we just shoot them?” He closed his eyes. “I had the fight easily won until I got hit by a truck.”
Wood surveyed the room. Besides the hum of electronics, everything was still quiet. He could not see her, but Amara should still be close keeping watch at the entrance. “Our luck has been unseasonably good. Let’s just find where to plug this flash drive in and get out of here.”
“Right behind you old buddy,” Wilkins wheezed, with no intention of moving whatsoever.
Wood got both hands in Wilkins’ armpits and gently lifted him to his feet like a stiff plank.
Wilkins face unraveled into a grin. “I feel way better when vertical.” He patted himself down as though to ensure everything was still where it belonged.
Wood was nervous there could be internal bleeding but decided not to mention it. “It’s all those broken ribs jostling around in your abdomen. Go cover the door with Amara. I will take care of this.”
Wilkins saluted and limped slowly away down the aisle. Wood turned and faced the computer station the two men had been sitting at. The monitors on the desk had HDMI cables running out the back and through the rock. If the server room was through the cave wall, this might have been for nothing.
He hurried down one of the aisles and looked for any access point into the network. A jumble of ethernet cables stretched out like spaghetti in all directions. Stacks of servers seemed to go on forever. He stopped to examine them. They were different than any he had seen before. Tiny LED lights blinked sporadically. Instructions with symbols in a language he did not understand had been taped below each one. There was no port to plug in a flash drive, so he moved on.
Rectangular grey boxes whirred. Digital displays showed continually changing numbers. Wood wondered how much of Odessa’s operations were run from this room. Their interests covered the globe and extended into almost every sector. Amara was probably right when she had said Danville could do more with ten minutes inside their network then he and Wilkins could accomplish in a lifetime of chasing shadows around the planet.
He returned to the station and moved the monitors. The HDMI cables disappeared into perfectly round holes slightly larger than the cables themselves. If the wall were thin enough, maybe he could break through to the other side. He grabbed a metal paperweight and hit the spot lightly. Solid as a rock.
Sweat began to accumulate on his brow. Time was a commodity they did not have. Any moment they could be under siege inside this underground tomb with only one exit.
Wood elevated his eyes and inspected the ceiling. Bright 4-foot lighting panels were suspended along every aisle by slender black wires.
A thick clump of bundled ethernet cables caught his eye and he followed it until it disappeared into the ceiling. He squinted past the harsh lights but could not see anything. He sized up the shelves and guessed they could support his weight. He quickly climbed until his head poked above the light panels. He saw that a four-foot-wide grate that was painted the same color as the surrounding rock extende
d the entire length of the room.
With a gentle nudge, he pushed upward with a palm and a panel gave way revealing a crawlspace. A myriad of different colored cables ran underneath an aluminum catwalk out of view.
He heard his name being called so he lowered himself gingerly onto the top shelf. Amara was looking up at him.
“We are about to have company,” she whispered. Her easy demeanor had been replaced with panic. “They are mobilizing downstairs. We need to know right now whether to turn this room into the Alamo.”
Wood ducked down and saw Wilkins at the entrance, back pressed against the wall with lugers in both hands.
“I think I found a way out,” Wood said. “Both of you get up here double time.”
Amara raced back toward Wilkins who joined her at the base of the shelves a moment later. Wood hoisted himself through the panel and onto the catwalk. Amara was by his side a moment later with eyes as wide as an owl. Wood watched Wilkins struggle to climb and grasped his forearm when he was within reach. Amara helped settle him on the narrow catwalk while Wood replaced the panel snuggly into the ceiling.
A moment later loud voices erupted below them as a group of men stormed into the room with assault rifles pointed. The paneling was constructed from a metal mesh allowing them to watch from above. Wood was surprised by the quantity of personnel. There must have been at least twenty. They all had matching grey uniforms and ugly haircuts.
It only took a few seconds for one of the soldiers to discover the two bodies of their comrades crumpled on the floor. Goosebumps spread across Wood’s damp skin when a stocky man directly below them screamed orders. Wood did not have to speak German to understand the bloodlust this group had for them. Wilkins was right about going down fighting. If they were caught alive again, Wood knew they would all meet a gruesome and tortuous end.
They watched the soldiers lap the room a few times. Wood was superstitious about being able to sense someone staring at you, so he looked away. A sudden cry outside the room was heard and all the soldiers stampeded out the door as suddenly as they had entered. Someone must have found something in the next room.
