The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  “ ‘Here’ as in the rear section? No.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It carved a tunnel through the wall over there. If you mean somewhere in the bunker? Maybe.”

  “Any idea where?”

  Stoney shook his head. “None whatsoever. But I think we should look for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we should know where it is.” He pointed to the tunnel through the wall behind the console. “If it can do that to ferroconcrete, imagine what it can do to a person.”

  Rick didn’t want to imagine it—unless that person was Greve. He’d decided to kill Greve before the sick fuck had murdered Iggy. Now he wished for a way to kill him twice.

  He was feeling a little crazy, and the Klaxon was only exacerbating it. He felt like he was in a giant submarine that had been hit by a depth charge.

  “Any way to shut off that racket?”

  Stoney nodded. “Not while we’re in lockdown mode. Got to enter the override code in the computer.”

  “Well, do it. Please. Wait, did you say ‘lockdown’? Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “Yep. No one in and no one out of the bunker.”

  “The elevator?”

  “Its power gets cut. Won’t budge till the override code is entered.”

  “Well, enter it.”

  “The only one who has it down here is Greve.”

  “Only Greve? What if he’s not here?”

  “The response team from Dix will have it. They can enter it upstairs when they arrive. If they come.”

  “If?”

  Stoney shrugged. “Maintenance here hasn’t exactly been a priority for DoD. The system dates from 1947. I’ve been here thirty-plus years and I don’t ever remember it being tested. Never a drill—not once. So Fort Dix may have no idea we’ve got ourselves a breach emergency.”

  Okay. Greve just got a brief reprieve from his kill-on-sight sentence. Very brief. Just long enough to enter that code.

  Rick walked away, searching for the Klaxon. He found a cylinder with a flared end mounted on the wall above the entry door. He pulled a chair over, located the wires leading to the cylinder, and yanked them free.

  It shut off, leaving the rear compartment in blessed relative silence—relative because another Klaxon was honking away out in the hall, but the heavy door muffled it.

  The red light continued to flash, but that didn’t bother him. Now he could think.

  “This override code,” he said, returning to Stoney. “It can be entered only upstairs and into this console?”

  “You got it.”

  Well, good. That meant Greve would have to return here sooner or later. All they had to do was wait for him. But one thing bothered him …

  “I know DoD doesn’t have to follow local building codes, but I can’t believe they built this place with only one way in or out.”

  “They didn’t. There’s an emergency exit—or at least I’m told there is.”

  Rick didn’t like the latter half of that. “Told there is? You mean you don’t know?”

  “Well, I was told it existed, so I’m sure it does. Supposedly there’s a shaft to a surface hatch, and if I remember correctly—it’s been a while now—the entrance is in the conference room. But I can’t say I recall ever seeing it.”

  “Never seen it? You’ve been here, what, decades, and you’ve never seen it?”

  Stoney shook his head. “Not that I recall. But then again, I was never looking for it. And if I did see it, I just plain don’t remember. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Wouldn’t it have some signage directing you there in case of emergency?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you. But as I said, I’ve never seen it. The bunker’s interior’s been repainted and remodeled a few times over the years, so maybe it got covered over.”

  “I don’t believe this …” He shook his head. “We’ve got to find it.”

  “What for? Won’t matter if we do. The emergency exit would be included in a breach lockdown. I mean, the whole idea of the lockdown is to seal the place off so that nothing inside can get outside.”

  “I appreciate that, but we need to find it anyway. Maybe the system here is so old it’s forgotten about the emergency exit and didn’t lock it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But either way, we can’t let the Anomaly out.”

  “Why not?”

  Stoney pointed to the hole in the wall. “Do you see what it did over there? We’ve got to find that thing before it gets out in the world.”

  “I do see what it did over there and what I see tells me that we can’t stop it from getting out into the world if it wants to. It tells me that thing can go pretty much anywhere it damn well pleases.”

  “Be that as it may,” Stoney said, giving him an appraising look. “You gonna help me?”

  “Help you what?”

  “Find the Anomaly.”

  “And what do we do when we find it?”

  That gave Stoney pause. “I … I don’t rightly know …”

  “Damn right, you don’t. So let’s find that emergency exit.”

  “We can hunt for both at once.”

  Rick could only shake his head. Stoney was hopeless.

  “The exit … if you don’t remember seeing it in the conference room”—he gestured abound the research area—“could it possibly be in here?”

  Stoney shook his head. “No way. I know every inch. It’s the one area that’s never been renovated—couldn’t let any workers see the Anomaly. Don’t waste your time here—no exit and no Anomaly. They’re both elsewhere.”

  The Anomaly … Rick looked again at the hole in the wall behind the console. It sat maybe seven feet off the floor.

  Just out of curiosity … “Maybe we should start with that wall.”

  Grabbing the chair he’d used before, he dragged it over, stepped up, and peeked through the hole. The Anomaly had bored-drilled-melted-whatever a soccer-ball-width tunnel with sides as smooth as glass through the six inches of the wall into the adjoining room.

  Rick recognized the room—he’d surprised the security guy named Woolley there and shot him up with some of the stuff that had been meant for him. But Woolley was nowhere in sight. Must have come out of it.

  “That’s room eleven,” Stoney said. “The monitoring room. They can keep watch on pretty much everything that goes on in here—except the Anomaly. Those guys don’t have clearance to know about it.”

  “Empty now,” Rick said.

  He looked across the monitoring room at the far wall where he saw another mini-tunnel.

  “Went straight through eleven and into twelve,” he told Stoney. “Wonder where it stopped.”

  “I’m wondering if it stopped. We need to go look. It might bore through the Earth and keep on going.”

  Fine with me, Rick thought as he hopped off the chair.

  “Tell you the truth, I’m just as happy not knowing where it is.”

  Stoney jutted his chin toward where Moe still knelt by Iggy. “Unless Greve’s plans changed, I’m guessing that a few more like that poor girl might be locked away down here. They could be in trouble.”

  The nadaný—Annie and Ellis! With everything that had happened, they’d slipped off his radar.

  “Yeah. They damn well could.”

  He hurried over to Moe and gently pulled her to her feet. She seemed to have composed herself some.

  “You okay?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I don’t know why this has hit me so hard. I mean, I just met her today.”

  Rick didn’t know the answer for sure, but maybe it went something like: Maybe if you hadn’t fucked with her brain she’d be alive and safe back in Brooklyn right now instead of lying stone dead in a puddle of her own blood, and so you’re feeling guilty as all hell, but he toned it down. He wanted her help.

  “You feel responsible in some way.”

  “I do, I do.”

  “Then help Stoney and me find Annie and E
llis before something happens to them too.”

  “You mean … leave Iggy?”

  “She’s not going to miss you.” Moe flinched and Rick reminded himself to go easy here. “And sooner or later Greve is gonna come back. You say he tried to kill you once. I’m not leaving you alone so he can finish the job.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it, but can we at least … cover her?”

  Stoney hurried over to his console and returned with a lab coat. He arranged it to cover Iggy’s head and most of her torso.

  Rick turned Moe away from Iggy so that she was looking straight at him.

  “Listen: Stoney says this place was built with an emergency exit. Know anything about that?”

  She shook her head. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. I’ve only been in and out as a visitor. Never had a proper orientation. I’ll bet Greve knows but—”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll be doing our best to avoid Greve.” He turned to Stoney. “Let’s start looking for the others. We’ll go room by room and—”

  “I know where they are,” Moe said. “Or at least where they were.”

  “Great. That’ll help.” He knew where Annie used to be, but Greve might have stashed her in another room. “Stoney wants to find the Anomaly as well.”

  “Can’t help you there,” she said. “Not even sure I want to.”

  Amen, sister.

  “Greve’s out there,” she added.

  “I know.”

  “With a gun.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, Rick thought. He appreciated how she was scared and still in shock after witnessing Iggy’s cold-blooded murder, and how she didn’t want to go through that door, but he wasn’t leaving her here alone.

  “I know that too. But we’ve still got to round up Annie and Ellis and get them out of here. So let’s get started.”

  26

  Greve stood in the middle of the flashing, honking hallway and tried to control his shaking.

  He’d never killed someone before. Sure, his actions had led to people dying, but he’d never directly snuffed out a life until today—until just a moment ago.

  He lifted his free hand and watched the tremor. Not fear. Adrenaline.

  He’d intended to kill the four of them—everyone who had heard what he’d said. He could still see their shocked expressions, the revulsion in their eyes when he’d blurted out the truth.

  He still didn’t understand how it had happened. He hadn’t thought of Cheryl in decades. They never spoke, let alone saw each other. She could be dead for all he knew.

  And yet when that rotten, sneaky, stinking bitch LaVelle had asked her question, Cheryl had popped into his mind from out of nowhere, traveling nonstop from deep in his subconscious to the tip of his tongue and, before he was aware of what was happening, out into the world.

  I fucked my younger sister half a dozen times …

  If words were physical objects he would have snatched them out of the air and crammed them back into his mouth. But the damage was done. They’d all heard.

  Which meant they couldn’t be allowed to live. They all had to die. Every one of them.

  That had been his intention in returning. He’d worked it all out. The girl first, because she was the most dangerous, the most unpredictable, and no one knew the extent of her powers. He’d rehearsed every move he intended to make in there.

  With the girl out of the way, he’d immediately remove Hayden, the second most dangerous person in the room, shoot him down like the dog he was. After that he could dispose of LaVelle and Stonington in no particular order, virtually at his leisure. They’d have no way to resist.

  But the Anomaly had ruined his plans. First off, it had changed its shape. In all his years in and out of the bunker, Greve had never seen it shrink into such a compact sphere. That had thrown him off balance. Just a little. Not enough to alter his plans.

  Just before he grabbed the girl, he’d marked where Hayden was standing—directly in front of the Anomaly, staring at it. As soon as he’d put the two slugs through the girl’s brain, he took aim at Hayden and fired.

  But Hayden had moved. He was ducking the Anomaly as it flew through the hole it had made in the chamber’s glass. The gunfire seemed to have an effect on it. Or was it the death of the girl? Whichever, it swerved in midair and streaked straight toward him and LaVelle.

  At that moment he was convinced it was after him, so he turned and ran.

  But of course, it wasn’t. A glance over his shoulder as he reached the door showed it swerving again and heading back the other way. But for how long? Greve wasn’t taking any chances. He kept going and didn’t stop until he was halfway down the hall.

  The Anomaly was free. He found the idea terrifying. The only reason this bunker remained operational was because the Pentagon didn’t know what to do with the Anomaly, and so they’d kept it locked away.

  He remembered Hayden’s contemptuous smirk.

  You only think you have it contained. It can leave any time it wants. It’s been sitting there waiting for a signal or a trigger …

  Greve had brushed him off. What did Hayden know? What could he know? And yet …

  … waiting for a signal or a trigger …

  Had Greve provided that trigger?

  Too late to worry about that now, whatever the truth. He had to worry about his next step. Did he dare go back?

  He had to go back. He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing the truth. If—

  Voices down the hall grabbed his attention. He guessed who they were so he moved toward them.

  He found the guard who’d brought the invisible girl back to him—Jon—and two others who looked somewhat worse for wear after their doses of the sedative. They were pacing the room in an attempt to walk it off. One wore a security coverall while the other wore street clothes.

  “Keep moving,” Jon was saying. He snapped to attention when he saw Greve. “Yessir!”

  The other two stopped and faced him.

  “There’s trouble in the research section.”

  Jon looked worried. “Is that the reason for the lockdown? Is there danger?”

  “Not to worry about anything toxic. The problem is perfectly human: The one who injected these two is running amok there and cannot be allowed to leave that area.”

  Jon waved at the others. “They’re not a hundred percent yet.”

  “With three against one, that should not matter.”

  “Three against one?” Jon said. “You won’t be with us?”

  The impertinence of the man. “I have an urgent matter pertaining to the lockdown that cannot wait. And let’s not forget that you’re armed and he isn’t.”

  Greve waited for Jon to mention hearing gunfire, but he didn’t. The research area was supposedly soundproofed, but you never knew.

  “Yessir. What do you want us to do?”

  “Very simple: You set up guard outside the research area and do not let him or anyone else leave. That includes Doctor LaVelle and Doctor Stonington. All three must be confined to the research area until help arrives from Fort Dix. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yessir.” He looked relieved that he’d be required only to contain people, not physically subdue them.

  “Get to it then.”

  As Jon mustered his troops, Greve slipped out and headed for the emergency exit. He needed to know if he could escape the bunker. The direction of his future actions down here would be determined by the answer. Now that he’d had time to think about it, he wasn’t about to commit mass murder before assuring himself of some means of escape afterward.

  27

  They had Harv safely zip-tied to one of the Quonset hut’s side supports where he couldn’t reach anything.

  “Can one of you get us a GPS reading?” Laura said to her companions as she pulled out her phone and found Stahlman’s number. He answered on the second ring.

  “We found them,” she said.

  “Where the hell are you? What’s the idea of running of
f alone without telling anybody where you went?”

  She wasn’t going to argue with him because he was one hundred percent right.

  “Didn’t you hear me? We found them.”

  She nodded her thanks as Marie handed her a slip of paper with the coordinates.

  “Yes. And I’m delighted to hear that. Is everyone okay? Rick included?”

  Thanks for asking about Rick, she thought. She was glad to know she wasn’t the only one who cared.

  “I haven’t seen them yet.”

  “I thought you said you found them.”

  “I mean I know where they are. I’m practically on top of them.”

  “Where are you?”

  She read him Marie’s coordinates.

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “The back end of Lakehurst Naval Air Station.”

  “What? The Hindenburg place?”

  “That’s it. I’m sure there’s a very long and very interesting story behind all this, but I don’t know it yet.”

  “None of that matters right now. Call the state cops and let them take it from here.”

  “Supposedly a contingent of soldiers is on its way from Fort Dix as we speak.”

  “If the abductions are military, they may not be on your side.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. This was a Pentagon operation, after all.

  “Maybe not, but what are they going to do—shoot us?”

  “Okay, never mind. After your disappearing act tonight, I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “Hey!” That hurt.

  “You’re acting reckless so I’m going to do it for you.” His voice became muffled as he said, “Luis, call the Jersey State Police and the Lakehurst Police and the Ocean County sheriff’s office and tell them there’s a major emergency—abducted people—at these coordinates.”

  Maybe all those chefs stirring this pot could work to her advantage. Imagine the jurisdictional disputes.

  “Okay, Laura. You just stay put and wait for help to arrive.”

  “Aye-aye, sir!” she said and ended the call.

  She wasn’t waiting for anyone.

  “Find any flashlights?” she said.

  “Got three that work,” Tanisha said.

  “All right. Let’s go. Cyrus, you want to lead?”