by Nick Thacker
Chapter 31
THIS WAS EASILY THE MOST challenging experience of his life. As a 39-year-old man, Dr. Sanjay Pavan’s professional life had mostly been filled with research, teaching, writing, and lecturing. His “adventures,” taking place between residencies and teaching semesters, were certainly exotic and worldly enough that his peers described him as “very active” in the field. He’d traveled more than the typical marine scientist, even well-known biologists, who were known for how much they traveled.
But this was different. Never before had he been involved in a criminal investigation, and never before had the stakes been this high.
His wildest assignments prior to this had him exploring an underwater cave, climbing an Antarctic glacier, and hopping around tropical Caribbean islands. Still, all were officially sanctioned by reputable research organizations and staffed by professionals. He was compensated well, often a year’s salary up front, and another stipend upon returning with completed objectives. Even the most harrowing experience he’d ever had paled in comparison to this.
He remembered it well. They were examining sea floor vents in a tectonically-active region on the Ring of Fire, somewhere off the coast of Japan. It was an uncharacteristically shallow area, so they were wearing scuba gear for maneuverability. A thermal vent opened suddenly below him, and the lower portion of his left leg was scorched by the boiling water and steam that erupted from the fissure.
Everyone else in the group was fine, and his leg was treated and healed well. When he told the story at conferences and lectures, he would often pull up his pant leg and reveal the burn scars—each time to the delight of the audience.
Dr. Pavan was a humble man, born in Sri Lanka and raised in New York City. He had four younger brothers and a sister, and his parents worked for minimum wage to make ends meet. He graduated from New York University magna cum laude and was accepted into the best marine biology program in the United States, but soon became interested in archeology, eventually transferring his focus. Somehow, his humble and charismatic personality—no doubt helped by his good looks—won him a distinguished spot on a scientific vessel at age twenty-six, the youngest professional scientist onboard. He traveled the world for two years on the ship, joining in discovering forty new species of marine plant life, thirty-eight new species of saltwater animals, and defining and classifying previously undocumented rock structures in the Mariana Trench.
When he returned, industry publications ran stories on the findings, using his face and name as the poster child for the tour’s massive success. He found himself on Good Morning America, explaining in lay terms what his role was with the scientists, and was even interviewed on The Tonight Show. He continued his reign of popular marine science with a book on marine archeology, which was respected as a scientific exposé on underwater archeological systems and as an easy-to-understand introduction to the world of ocean sciences.
His popularity and fame grew, but Dr. Pavan was still an academic. He was constantly reading, writing, and lecturing, and he loved his students as much as he loved the subject matter.
When he was asked by Daniel Carter to be an ambassador to the United Kingdom for a “short, exploratory trip to an ocean research station,” he jumped at the chance. He had no idea what he’d gotten himself into.
As he followed along behind Jen and the others through the cave systems, he almost laughed out loud at their predicament. They were trying to find something—but no one knew what—in a research station built five miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, and were trying to escape a crack team of Russian soldiers.
Oh, and they had a psychotic group of scientists trying to scratch their eyes out.
If anything qualified as out of his league, this was it.
He thought back to Lindsay Richards. It was truly unfortunate, what had happened. The woman was early in her career, but no doubt had potential in the field of oceanography. Dr. Pavan had only spoken with her a few times on the submarine ride and found her to be self-centered to the point of being abrasive, but she was nice nonetheless.
But he had no idea what would cause the other scientists to scratch her to death. It didn’t make any sense. The scratches were random and chaotic, and obviously deep enough to draw blood. It was like she had been attacked by animals. He pondered the situation more as the path ahead tilted up and began ascending slightly, heading toward the lower station levels.
Scratch.
He heard a noise from behind him. Close, but still far enough away that he couldn’t place what side of the tunnel it had come from.
He turned, shining his flashlight down the tube of rock. Nothing.
He frowned, then turned again and kept following Jen. She’d picked up her pace, most likely trying to catch up to Erik and the soldiers ahead of her. He started to quicken his own step, but stopped.
He sniffed.
He thought he could smell something in the air. Faint, but definitely something.
It grew stronger. Was it—
It smelled like the cavern where they found the group of scientists, and he knew immediately what that meant.
Scratch.
He heard the noise again and whipped around. He didn’t speak, but he stepped downward a foot or two.
The smell retreated slightly—or was he just growing used to it now? He listened intently for the sound, but couldn’t hear a thing.
He waited five seconds, then turned again. He stepped forward, shining his flashlight up the path.
Jen was nowhere to be found. He listened for their footsteps, but couldn’t hear any. The rock must act as a sound dampener, he thought. He started jogging, but stopped a hundred feet later when he came to a fork in the tunnel.
Did they go this way? He thought, then pushed the question away. Of course they did. This is the only way they could have gone.
But which path did they follow?
He was about to call out for them and follow when the sound came again.
Scratch.
Chapter 32
MARK AWOKE, AND HIS BODY reacted instinctively. His involuntary mind was now in control; his eyes remained shut, allowing his other four senses to quickly assess any danger. He felt by his sides and sniffed. He was lying down on a stiff mattress, the age-old springs pushing into his lower back. The mattress was situated on a cold metal bed frame, and his hands felt the rough edges of the bolts holding it together.
He couldn’t hear anything. Actually, that was the strangest of what his senses picked up. Usually the human ear could perceive even the slightest of sounds, given that a certain calm and focus was attained. Most civilians had no concept of true silence, given that the vast majority of them were constantly surrounded by and bombarded with the noise of daily life.
But Mark couldn’t hear a thing. He opened his eyes. They burned, immediately startled by the white brightness of the room he was in. He shifted, testing to see if he was restrained in any way.
He wasn’t.
He tried sitting up but found that his mind swirled, slowly reacting to the voluntarily demands he placed on it.
He must have been drugged.
Without moving, he looked around. The room was bare, stark even, with just the bed and a chair in the corner. Mark tried fidgeting to work out whatever chemicals remained in his system, but found his physical movements sluggish and delayed.
After a minute, he stood. His strength was diminished, but he was able to maintain an upright pose for a long enough time that he felt comfortable. He continued to analyze his setting.
Assess.
Analyze.
Abstract.
Achieve.
He walked to the corner of the room and looked around. It was perfectly square by his estimate, about fifteen feet on each side, lit by cheap fluorescent lighting in two spots. The ceiling was concrete, and a horizontal metal pipe ran along one wall that intersected with an identical vertical one. The vertical pipe descended along one wall and ended behind a small water fount
ain. Below that, on the floor of the room, was a small round hole.
Three of the walls were concrete, matching the low ceiling. The fourth, opposite the bed, was glass, and he had to look carefully to see the outline of a door cut into it. He approached it and pushed. It was secured, and even by using his full weight, he couldn’t get it to budge. A small divot on the opposite side of the door seemed to imply that some particular person could, in fact, open it using a fingerprint or handprint.
It was a jail cell. Clean, pristine even, but a cell nonetheless.
Assess the situation.
Mark’s mind raced. He was in a holding cell. For what reason? How long had he been here? Would someone come to check on him? He knew they would. Whoever had taken him had wanted him alive.
Analyze your surroundings. He knew every feature of the room. There wasn’t much to see. It didn’t take but a few seconds of looking around to know that the bed—bolted into the floor and adjacent wall—and the water fountain were the only features to be found. And he didn’t need to ponder for long what the hole in the floor was meant for.
But why is there a holding cell inside of a research station? he wondered. He sat down on the bed again, trying to piece it all together. Whoever worked here, Bingham and the others, didn’t build this. This must have been planned from the beginning; from long before any of them were hired.
Abstract a plan. He wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. He needed information, so that implied that he wait it out and see what happened. But he also wasn’t alone. Jen and his son were relying on him to find them and figure this all out.
But he had no idea where they were, and whoever put him here was most likely better acquainted with the locale. For now, he’d stay put.
Achieve the objective. He needed information, and he needed it fast. Escape options were reduced to just about one option—remain here until someone came along, then try to persuade them to let him out. But he didn’t need to wait around.
Mark stood and walked to the door. He tried to peer up and down the hall, but couldn’t see far enough.
He shouted. “Hey! Anyone out there?”
The sound reverberated abruptly through the small concrete and glass room. His voice was weak. He had been drugged. He repeated the call and found strength returning to his lungs and body.
He waited. A minute passed, and he yelled a final time. No one came, but he remained standing in front of the glass wall.
The faint sound of clicking heels reached his ears, and when he looked to the right, he was surprised to see a woman approaching him from only a few yards away. This room must be well soundproofed, he thought.
“Hi, Mr. Adams,” the woman said, in a lilting and upbeat tone. “Sorry. This is quite a trek for us, but we heard you yelling through the closed-circuit system.”
Mark was amazed. He hadn’t seen anything that clued him into there being a one- or two-way radio system in the room. But somehow they’d heard him. He didn’t let her see his confusion.
“It’s okay, Mark—hope you don’t mind if I skip the formalities—that’s a pretty fancy room you’re in. Seems rather unassuming, I admit, but it’s not devoid of its surprises.”
“Who are you?” he asked through the glass.
The woman on the other side heard him perfectly. “I work here. Analyst, actually. Boring stuff, but hey—we don’t get visitors often.”
Mark frowned.
“Right,” she said. “Sorry. We picked you up earlier out by the silos, and my boss wanted to make sure everything was kosher. Couldn’t have you getting all antsy on us, you know?”
Mark couldn’t believe his ears. “What the hell do you want?” he said, crossing his arms.
“It’s okay, Mark, there’s nothing to worry about. We just don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. That’s why you’re in here. I want to ask you some questions.”
The young woman waited, but Mark’s expression remained stoic and constant.
“Okay, well, ah…First, what’s your—sorry. I guess I already know your name.”
Mark stared.
“Right. So, Mark, where do you work?”
“I’m a computer security technician.”
“Technician?”
“Technician,” he said again.
“What exactly does a computer security technician do?”
“Technical stuff. On computers.”
The woman paused, looking back at Mark. “Listen, Mark, I want to help you. I really do. But I need something in return.”
“Yeah?” Mark said. “What’s that?” He knew the answer, but he need to keep the woman talking.
“I need cooperation. I need to get these questions answered. They’re really just a formality.”
“If there just a formality, why can’t we skip ahead to the good stuff?”
The woman on the other side of the glass flinched, but quickly recovered. “Sorry, these are my orders. Can I count on you?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Great. So what exactly do you do?” she asked.
“I told you. Technical stuff. Computer programming, database stuff. What do you want from me?”
The change of subject didn’t phase the woman. “I see. And how long have you been doing, uh, ‘computer stuff?’”
“Twelve years.” It was a lie, and he could tell the woman knew it. Her eyes flicked—the briefest of moments—down to a small piece of paper she was carrying, but then returned to his.
“Twelve years. I see. And do you have any children?”
Checkmate. The question, otherwise unrelated, was posed specifically because his only child, Reese, was twelve years old. He was dealing with a smart woman.
“I do. One. A boy, also twelve.”
“Right. Thanks, Mark. Also—”
“No. My turn. What am I doing here?” he asked, a little too abruptly.
The woman answered in stride. “We’re holding you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For the time being.”
“Why?”
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you uncomfortable?”
Mark was slightly taken aback by the question. The details of his interrogator suddenly rushed to the forefront of his mind. She’s gorgeous, he found himself thinking. Long, blond hair. Tall and skinny, but not too much. Before he got lost in his train of thought, he answered. “No. I’m perfectly comfortable. I’d like to know what’s going on here, though,” he said.
“I understand. All in good time. First, can you tell me specifically what you were working on—the last thing you were working on—at your job?”
“I can’t.”
“And why is that?” The woman flicked her head to the side, causing her hair to fall gracefully down to her shoulders.
“Because, it’s, uh, a private account,” Mark said.
“Did you do any defense contracting in the past year?”
The question startled him. It was unrelated to the last. Had they finally dropped the small talk?
“Listen, I—”
“Sylvia,” she said.
“Right. Sylvia, you know I can’t—”
“Mark, did you do any work for a company called Nouvelle Terre?”
He swallowed. Did she really just out herself that easily? he wondered. What game is she playing?
He answered. “Yes.”
She looked at him, staring through the glass, but didn’t ask a follow-up question.
“Yes, I did. We had a contract with them, but it was terminated. We tried to reinstate, but it was denied.”
She arched her eyebrows.
He wouldn’t give in, so she stared harder through the glass.
“Sylvia, come on. It was just a contract…”
She didn’t move.
He realized this was the end of the negotiations. Silent, he stepped back a few paces and stood in front of the bed. If she’s going to play hardball…
Her eyes pierced his and waited a few seconds, t
hen she turned on her heel and began walking away.
“That’s fine, Mark. If you want to play it this way, I’ll let Reese know.”
“What?!” Mark yelled. “You have Reese?”
She stopped. He yelled again. “Sylvia—stop! Do you have my son?”
He caught the faintest of smiles appear on the side of her face. She turned, walked back, and stared into the room. “Mark, I need you to be honest with me, understand?”
He nodded his head.
“Deadly honest.”
Again, he nodded his head, a tear forming at the side of his eye.
“What do you know about Nouvelle Terre?”
Chapter 33
SYLVIA ETIENNE-GREY’S HEELS CLACKED down the hall leading to her boss’s office. The whitewashed walls seemed to close in around her, and she couldn’t help but shiver. The sterile lights threw brightness into every crack and corner, but her skin crawled as she made her way through the halls.
A right turn into a deserted hallway with nothing but a janitorial closet, then a left, and she was in the so-called executive suite.
She laughed silently. There was a single occupied office in this hallway—Jeremiah Austin’s. The hall itself seemed slightly darker than the others, though she wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion or not. None of the halls had natural light, so a single burnt-out fluorescent bulb could change the brightness level in an almost subconscious way.
Austin’s office was really just a large closet with a desk and a few shelves along the wall. He’d stocked the shelves with the bare essentials: a few textbooks on biology and chemistry, a collection of National Geographic and other magazine editions featuring articles written by Austin, and a record player.
Sylvia knocked once, then entered. They were the only two working at this hour, but she knew her boss appreciated his privacy. She turned the handle, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Austin didn’t look up from his MacBook Pro, so she entered and stood just in front of his desk. She glanced around the office again, taking it all in.
The office, while lacking in traditional decor, was covered in plants. Austin had plants ranging from small desktop varieties like the dionaea muscipula—venus flytrap—to larger potted trees and flowering bushes. The plants surrounded her, blocking out sound and absorbing the air in the room. It felt stuffy and stifling in the room, and the humidity had risen to an almost unbearable level.
