“Load here. Ditto. If the water level rose fifteen feet on Chinnereth, it would flood that cabin.”
Cole sat and thought for a long moment.
“Maybe they dumped a huge amount of rubble in here,” said Mingo. “That would raise the level. But that wouldn’t explain why it went back down.”
“No roads where they could dump the rubble,” said Benny.
“While we’re complaining about what they don’t have here,” said Load. “I don’t remember seeing any power lines running away from this dam.”
“No, there were power lines,” said Benny.
“And a power station? Lots of transformers? Where?”
“No. Nothing like that,” said Benny. “But definitely power lines. No, wait. They ran along Highway 12. But I never saw them link up with the dams. Sorry.”
“This was officially a hydroelectic project,” said Cole. “There are turbines in the dams.”
“So maybe they use the power right here,” said Cat. “In their vast system of underground factories and training facilities.”
“Cat and I are going back up to the observation tower to check whether there’s any kind of vent up there for an underground system.”
They all switched off their transmitters. It was harder going uphill. But not slower. That’s what all the stairstepping and rock climbing were for.
Now Cole knew what to look for, he climbed a tree well back from the cleared perimeter and scanned for some kind of pipe or vent hidden in the tall grass.
Bingo. There were about two dozen small pipes, sticking up only a few inches above the ground before they bent over to keep water from coming in. At ground level you couldn’t see them for the grass.
Cole pointed his soundcatcher toward them and was able to pick up a difference between the pipes and the surrounding area. They were connected to something that was actively producing noise.
He climbed back down the tree and backed away from the cleared area, heading down the Chinnereth slope this time. Cat was soon near him, though they did not talk and remained fifty feet apart as they made their way down the slope.
Near the cleared edge of the woods, but not close enough to be seen, they stopped and Cole approached Cat. Across the water, the cabin sat on its little island. It had a chimney, which might very well contain vents for more underground structures.
It might also contain something else. An entrance.
“I think I’m going for a swim,” said Cole.
“I was having the same thought,” said Cat.
Cole switched on his transmitter. “We’re on the west shore of Chinnereth, just west of the cabin. Cat and I are going to swim across to see if there’s an entrance there.”
“Water’s gonna be cold, abun,” said Babe. “You two gonna have little tiny dicks when you get there.”
“Least I’ll still have one,” said Cat.
“We won’t go for another half hour,” said Cole. “Drew and Babe, bring the SMAW down near the waterline in case we need some backup. Load and Arty, you get to Chinnereth shoreline nearest to the cabin. Benny and Mingo, you can’t get here in time to be useful. So go north, get to Highway 12, but stay in infra range. If we confirm that this is the place, get to where you can make contact with Torrent so he can send in a strike force.”
“I don’t know what you just figured out,” said Babe.
“That’s because you’re in public relations,” said Mingo, “and I’m an engineer.”
“Thought that meant you drove trains,” said Babe.
“There are standpipes in the tall grass under the observation tower,” said Cole. “There’s machinery operating underground.”
“And the water,” said Mingo. “Only place where it could go is from one lake into the other. Anything else would be too obvious. They must pump it out of Chinnereth, uphill, into Genesseret, using all that electricity they’ve stored up. Genesseret rises, Chinnereth falls. Exposing their doorway. They go in or out, whatever, and when they’re done, they seal the watertight entrance and let the water flood back downhill to fill it back up. Genesseret drops back to normal, Chinnereth rises.”
“You can’t know that,” said Babe.
“No other possibility,” said Mingo. “Word, man.”
“The ultimate moat,” said Drew.
“That’s a lot of water to move,” said Babe.
“The federal government paid for the whole thing,” said Benny. “Your tax dollars at work.”
“So why are you going out to the island?” asked Arty.
“We’re almost sure,” said Cole. “But are we sure enough to call in a strike force yet?”
“They got to have a back door,” said Mingo. “Can’t drain the lake every time somebody’s got to go outside to smoke.”
“Boat,” said Cat.
They switched their transmitters off.
A small motorboat was coming up the lake from the area of the dam. Heading for them or for the island? Had their chatter been detected? Even if they couldn’t decode the scrambled signal, they’d know somebody was there.
But the boat pulled up to the little dock on the island.
And waited.
And waited. The driver of the boat didn’t seem particularly alert. Like a cabdriver waiting for a fare.
The door of the cabin opened. Four men came out.
“Is any of them Verus?” asked Cole.
Cat looked through his binoculars. “No,” he said. “You recognize any of them?”
Cole took the binoculars. The men wore suits. He thought he might have seen one of them on television. The news, probably, since he didn’t look like an actor. But he didn’t remember who or when.
The men got into the boat and it pulled away from the dock. The boat headed on down the lake.
Cole took off his pack. He quickly inflated the floats on it and attached his weapons and boots to the top. The floats were widely spaced enough for it to be stable, at least on smooth water. Top-heavy, but it wouldn’t tip. He attached the towline to it and shrugged on the harness. Cat was doing the same.
“Never much call to use these in Afghanistan or Sudan,” Cat said.
“Nice to get a chance to test out all the equipment,” said Cole.
“Glad you’re so white,” said Cat. “Easier target on the water.”
Cole just grinned at him.
Then he moved swiftly down the slope and into the water. It was cold, but he didn’t hesitate. His body went into that momentary shock and he trembled a little, but as soon as he had laid the miniraft of his pack down on the water, he immersed himself and began swimming in long, steady strokes, dragging the pack behind him. He broke water as gently as possible. But if someone was watching, there’s no way he wouldn’t be visible on the calm surface of the water.
Having their main entrance hidden under water explained why they didn’t have a lot of patrols. Patrols would be seen. Encounters with civilians would leave memories.
Of course, so would letting a civilian see the lakes drain. It was so easy to get here. Hikers might do it at any time.
Easy? Not so easy. They had moved very cautiously. They had made little noise and made sure to stay out of sight. Maybe regular hikers were detected, and either they didn’t drain the lake until they had passed or they’d send somebody out dressed in a ranger uniform to send them on their way.
It was so cold. He could feel his body reacting to it, struggling to stay warm. But they were most of the way to the island now. Not much longer. He glanced around to see Cat was only a little bit behind him.
Cat pointed toward the island and started swimming faster.
The island was rising.
Which meant the water level was falling.
Just a little way below the waterline, the island stopped being a hill. It was a thick pillar, solid concrete. Of course. There wouldn’t be an island here. They had built it.
The dock was now hanging in midair; the pillars of the dock were actually resting on steel beams
jutting out from the concrete wall of the island. Under the dock, there was a ladder rising up to the level of the beams. From there, it looked easy enough to get to the short wooden swimmer’s ladder.
What was going to be hard was climbing that ladder without being seen.
Cole and Cat got to the base of the ladder at about the same time. The water was still sinking. But it wasn’t getting warmer.
“Can’t stay in this,” said Cat.
“Can’t climb,” said Cole. “They’ll see us.”
Back on the shore they had come from, only about a hundred yards closer to the dam, a heavy concrete wall was being revealed. Huge steel doors looked like they could withstand the water pressure just fine. But once the water sank low enough, and those doors opened, anybody coming out of them would have a clear shot at anybody climbing the ladder.
Cole clung to the ladder with his legs as he worked the pack back onto his shoulders. It was hard—his fingers were numb and he was shivering. Cat was having the same amount of trouble.
“Just leave the packs?” asked Cat, shivering.
“We’ll want our weapons if we make it up top.”
“Big if,” said Cat.
In answer, Cole started to climb. It was hard to keep his grip. And cold numb wet bare feet weren’t as stable to climb with as well-fitting boots. But he had to keep moving. Maybe he could still get to the top before the doors opened.
Cat was keeping up with him, nice steady progress up the ladder.
The big steel door started opening. A couple of men in rebel body armor came out and scanned the area. It didn’t take them two seconds to see Cole and Cat, and another two seconds to start shooting.
They missed.
“Their marksman training not as good as our marksman training,” said Cat.
“Fine with me,” said Cole.
A bullet came much closer.
“Getting the range now,” said Cat.
“I’m nearly there.”
Cole noticed the whooshing sound behind him and to the right. A moment later, the entrance of the tunnel erupted in flames.
“Good shot with the SMAW,” said Cat.
“Inappropriate weapon,” said Cole. “Rifles would have been enough.”
“Either way, I think we lost our element of surprise, abun.”
Cole knew that Drew and Babe would be moving the SMAW to a different position now.
“Wish I knew what was waiting for us at the top of this ladder.”
Rifle fire from directly behind them didn’t result in any bullets striking near them. It was sniper work—ping. Wait. Ping. That would be Load and Arty, firing past them at someone on top of the island.
And now there was returning gunfire from directly above them, shooting out across the water.
“I just hope Drew and Babe don’t try to use a mortar,” said Cole. “I don’t want them to blow up that cabin.”
“Don’t stop to put on your infra, abun.”
“Wasn’t going to.”
They were now on the steel beams that supported the dock. But there was gunfire coming from inside the huge doors again, and from men fanning out along the shoreline. Correctly, Load and Arty were only shooting at targets on top of the island, so that Cole and Cat would have a chance to get up and onto the surface without getting their heads blown off the moment they raised them above the level of the dock.
Cole got out his handgun and swung out to climb the swimmer’s ladder.
“Such a baby,” said Cat. He clambered directly onto the dock from the other side.
There were two bodies—in ranger uniforms, not armor—lying on the ground. But Cole was aware—from the sound, from motion—that there were others inside the cabin now, and a pair who had moved off into the brush beside the cabin. He flattened himself on the ground. He was immediately aware of every rise and dip in the surface and arranged his body to present the hardest possible target, even as he looked into the brush and found a target. A flurry of motion told him that he had at least come close.
He crept over to the nearest body and used that slight cover while he got his pack off. It would be like a howdah on an elephant to carry that around with him during this. He pulled his rifle off the pack. This was sniper work now.
Trap door
If your soldiers can’t fight at least as well as the enemy’s soldiers, it doesn’t matter how good a commander you are. Training is the foundation of everything.
The two dead bodies had been disguised as park rangers. The guys they were facing now wore body armor.
Whatever training the rebel troops might have had, it wasn’t at Army Ranger level. They relied too much on their armor. It made them feel invulnerable. So they constantly revealed themselves. And they shot carelessly—too quickly, without stability. They also didn’t learn from their own bad shots. They’d overshoot the first time, and on the next shot they’d do it again.
Even undertrained soldiers can kill you with a lucky shot, though. Cole had no intention of dying because he had contempt for his enemy.
Their pistols were mostly for noise and show. The rebels dodged the bullets—they didn’t trust their armor enough to overcome their reflex to flinch.
Cole reached up and detached the M-24 sniper rifle from his pack. It fired a heavier round than the pistol—that’s why he brought it. Testing had shown that at fairly close range, it penetrated the rebels’ body armor at certain key points. Like the faceplate.
Two shots. Two rebels down.
“Good work,” said Cat. “Now it’s time for Minimi.”
Cole fired into the cabin window, shattering glass, as Cat scrambled up the slope and got into position against the cabin wall, just beside the window. It was an obvious time to toss a grenade into the cabin, but they both knew they couldn’t risk damaging whatever mechanism concealed or locked the passage down into the tunnels. So Cat reached down and pulled up a lump of turf and tossed it through the window as if it were a grenade. It would take the guys inside a split second to realize it wasn’t an explosive device. During the split second, Cat raked the inside with automatic fire from his Minimi.
They both reached the door of the cabin at the same time. It was open. They came in low, Cole first, and found three rebel soldiers, two dead, one trivially wounded in the left arm.
“I surrender!” the wounded guy said.
“How are we supposed to take you captive?” said Cole.
Cat walked over to the guy.
Terrified, the rebel said, “I’m an American, you can’t kill me.”
“Tell it to the cops you guys killed in New York,” said Cole. “And the apartment building doorman.”
“You guys are all murderers!” shouted the rebel. “You love to kill!”
Cat reached down and broke the guy’s right arm.
The guy screamed, staring at his arm. When he could speak, he groaned, “I’m an American!”
“American with a broken arm,” said Cat.
“He might be left-handed,” said Cole.
Cat broke the other arm. The guy screamed again. “Threat neutralized,” said Cat.
“Torturers,” the rebel gasped.
“Look, you said not to kill you,” said Cole. “Which do you want, pain or dead?”
Cole gave the guy a dose of morphine. “I think he wants us to surrender to him,” said Cat.
The cabin didn’t have any obvious elevator doors. Hardly a surprise. Nor was there any visible trap door in the wooden floor, or inything that looked like a passageway inside the fireplace.
“You’ll never find the entrance,” said the rebel.
“Kick his arm,” said Cat. “He’ll tell us.”
“Torturers!” shouted the rebel.
Cat picked up the clod of dirt and grass that Cat had tossed inside as a fake grenade. He pushed it into the rebel’s mouth. The rebel sputtered, spat. But he wasn’t talking.
Then, using his sniper rifle, Cole shot downward into the floor. Methodically he crossed the ro
om, shooting straight down. Obviously there was concrete under the wood. Right across the room, no change. He moved over closer to the fireplace, put a new magazine in his M-24, and started firing downward again. Concrete. Concrete. Steel.
The steel section lined up with the fireplace. Cole could now see that the wooden floor extended under the stone of the hearth.
“It slides under the fireplace,” said Cole. Stepping out a couple of paces, Cole could see how the floor planks, while they didn’t all end in a straight line, had a slightly wider separation from the abutting boards.
“No doubt they’ve turned off whatever switch runs this from up here,” said Cole.
“Think there’s a way to open it by hand?” said Cat.
“Probably. From below.”
Cole thought about how the trap door worked. It slid under the fireplace. The hearth wasn’t deep enough to hold the entire trap door. So there had to be a projection on the outside of the house to hold the rest of the trap door.
“Going out back,” said Cole.
“I’ll stay here and make sure nobody comes upstairs.”
Cole went outside. On the way around the cabin, he couldn’t resist going near enough to the edge to look over.
There were mechs and hoverbikes coming out of the big doors now and swarming up into the woods. Cole knew that if Arty and Load could get back around the eastern arm of the lake to the cache, they’d be fine—they had weapons designed to counter both vehicles. Machines weren’t so good in the deep woods anyway. And seeing how the footsoldiers—only about twenty of them—fanned out, they were clearly not trained at all for rough-country combat.
Urban warfare, that’s what these guys were ready for. The other guys would be fine. And the more rebels they kept busy out here, the better it would be for Cole and Cat.
If they could even get down inside.
This was too much like a frontal assault. Two guys, and even if they got through the trap door, what would they do, ride the elevator and get blasted when they hit bottom? Or go down the stairs, where a flamethrower or a grenade could kill them before they had a chance to get off a shot?
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