Crash, watching from the end of the row of cabinets, waved him off. "Hold up, Mike, I've got an idea."
Murphy walked over to one of the broken chairs and picked it up, holding it by one leg. "Watch out." Crash raised the chair over his head and, averting his face, slammed it onto the concrete floor. The dry wood came apart at the joints, leaving Crash holding a good-sized stick that had been the chair leg. He nodded, satisfied. "That'll do."
"What's that for?" Anders asked from his perch.
"Something to push with. If we can push that thing a foot or so out the other end, I can help you lift it."
"Aha." Anders grinned, mischievous. "Is that some of that famous NASA problem solving at work?"
"Damn straight," Crash grinned back. "Okay, you just lift it off the ground, then let me push…"
"Got it." Anders twisted his neck, pressing his cheek flat against the wall again, as he reached as far down as he could, getting the firmest grip on the frame of the bulletin board as he could manage. He lifted it a few inches, then held it in position. "Urf… uh … howzzat?"
"Good… uhn…" Crash flattened himself against the wall, shoving the chair leg and most of his left arm behind the row of filing cabinets. "Okay… I got it… here we go…"
Working together, within a few moments the two men had the board positioned where Crash wanted it, extending some two feet past the right hand side of the cabinets; seconds later, it rested on the top of the cabinets, leaning against the wall. Anders leaped down, and they studied the contents of the bulletin board.
It was a world map; faded, at least a decade or more old, with a few coffee stains, and myriad pinholes. One large red pushpin still rested in the area designated, "Nevada Test Site." Other, smaller yellow pushpins stood in other places. Crash enumerated them silently: Colorado Springs, Colorado; Hanford, Washington; White Sands, New Mexico; Washington, D.C.; several locations in the Dakotas. Defense sites, he thought; that fits. Colorado Springs, that's Cheyenne Mountain and Schriever Air Force Base. Then his eye was drawn to the pins located outside the U.S.: La Palma, off the northwest coast of Africa; Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean; Wenlock, on the Cape York Peninsula of Australia; Nordvik, in northern Siberia, and still more Crash didn't recognize. Okay; corresponding sites, or potential sites, in other countries. There's that Aussie site Mike was talking about. Wow. This is huge.
"Damn," Anders remarked, making similar observations, "this whole thing is bigger than we thought."
"Looks like it," Crash had to agree. "I figure it's our sites, and then ‘their' sites."
"But, Crash," Anders noted, "some of these are allies. Australia sure isn't ‘the enemy.'"
"True." Crash pondered the map.
"What if… Crash, what if you were right and this really is the UN running the cover up?" Anders wondered.
"Well, I can see it," Crash admitted, still studying the map. "After all, it wouldn't be just the U.S. that'd be in danger from an extraterrestrial invasion."
Then Crash saw one more pushpin--one that didn't seem to correlate. He raised a thoughtful eyebrow.
"Death Valley…?" he murmured, mystified.
Chapter 17
"Wait a minute," Anders protested, as Crash searched every square inch of wall and floor with painstaking effort. "Where the hell did you get that idea?"
"Okay, look," Crash paused to explain. "There was a facility here, right?"
"We're standing in it, so I would assume so," Anders said, voice dry.
"It was the headquarters, judging by the red pushpin."
"Fair enough," Anders agreed.
"They aren't here now."
"No."
"Therefore, they went somewhere."
"Or maybe they just disbanded the program," Anders argued.
"With interstellar war on the way?" Crash posed skeptically. "Take another look at that ground track we found."
"Okay." Anders pulled the track from the folder and studied it.
"Look familiar? Think about the orbit your computer cranked out only a couple of days ago."
"Shit," Anders breathed, suddenly understanding. "Same ground track."
"Yeah. So I repeat, they went somewhere."
"All right. Go on."
"Based on that, and that," Crash indicated the ground track, then the bulletin board, "and what I know of insertion dynamics, I'm guessing they have GOT to have another base like this one in the middle of Death Valley, or damn close to it."
Anders listened, thinking. Something was nagging at the back of his mind as Crash spoke, something Anders had read recently that dovetailed into Crash's words. Suddenly a blinding light went off. "Oh, shit!"
"‘Oh, shit,' what?" Murphy wondered, staring at his friend, startled by his sudden vehemence.
"Remember the limerick in the bathroom?" Mike reminded. "The one from the topside, bean counter building?"
"Ooo, hell yeah," Crash remembered. "How'd that go again?"
Anders quoted, his voice low.
There once was a bird from the Lake,
Who hated all lizards and snakes.
To the Valley she'd move,
To get in the groove,
And left behind nothing but fakes.
"You don't suppose…" Anders wondered.
"Sure as hell sounds like it to me," Murphy noted. "They moved all the birds and the fly boys to Death Valley, and left behind nothing but fakes--decoys."
"But what the heck is the reference to lizards and snakes?" Anders wondered.
"No idea whatsoever," Crash shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe the guy just needed something to rhyme."
Anders pondered a moment, then shrugged. "Okay. So we have this to do all over again. Seems to me like we ought to figure out how to get out of here, and in there."
"That's exactly what I'm trying to do!" Crash exclaimed, exasperated. "Listen to what I'm saying, Mike. They moved."
"I know--I already agreed with you, remember?" Anders, irritated, matched Crash's tone.
"And you got all these UFO watchers on the mountain tops out there, watching." Crash gestured at the distant, unseen landscape.
"Yeah."
"So, did anybody see ‘em move?"
Anders looked blank. "No."
"Or they wouldn't still be watching," Crash pointed out. "So the Janet flights weren't the way they moved. There haven't been any other flights; that'd be a giveaway, too. So would a truck convoy."
Anders considered. "So that means they went…"
"Underground!" Crash cried in triumph. "So--"
"There has to be a tunnel here, somewhere!" Anders finished. "A freakin' big one, too."
"Yep."
"So what are we waiting for? Let's look!"
Crash stared in dumbfounded, annoyed amazement at the scientist, who was now searching walls and floor, as eager as a schoolboy.
* * * *
"Damn," Anders murmured in dejection, hours later. "Gotta be something we're missing."
Crash paused with a frustrated sigh. "Or maybe you were right, and they just shut the place down."
"No, Crash, your logic's too good. There's something right in front of our noses, and we just aren't seeing it. Stop and think."
"All right. ‘Bout what?"
"If you were moving this facility," Anders pondered aloud, "how would you do it?"
"Underground, like I said," Crash answered with a shrug.
"Yes, but how? What would you need?" Mike pressed.
"Uhhhhh…" Crash thought for long moments. "Forklifts would be nice…"
"Corridors are certainly big enough," Anders agreed. "And the crates and stuff we saw upstairs would sure be…" his voice tapered off as he glanced at Crash.
"Impossible to move otherwise," Crash finished, eyebrows climbing.
"But… the stairs," Anders protested. "There has to be an elevator for that."
A grin spread slowly across Crash's face as the light dawned. "I think you just figured out what's right under our noses, pal."
<
br /> "Huh?"
"The big doors. On every floor. In the same place on each floor, now that I think about it. Welded shut… for safety?… after they cleared each floor." Crash paced in excitement.
"Ooo. That's bad," Anders remarked with a frown.
"Why?"
"If all the doors are welded shut, we're up shit creek," Anders elaborated. "We've got nothing to break the welds with."
"Lemme think…" Crash was already on the move, and Anders hurried after him. "Left turn here." They cut down a side hall. "Maybe we won't have to, Mike," he answered his friend's last comment. "If the doors were really sealed to prevent somebody falling down the shaft by accident, then--"
"The bottom one will be open?" Anders finished for him.
"Hope so. Hang a right."
"Damn, you're good," Anders remarked, impressed with his friend, as the huge doors became visible at the end of the long, dim corridor.
Crash grinned with just a hint of smugness. "No big deal. They used to call me a carrier pigeon in the service, though, I gotta admit."
Anders laughed aloud. Crash hushed him.
"What?"
"We dunno what's on the other side." Crash gestured ahead.
"Aw, get real. You were loud as hell earlier, now you wanna be quiet. Besides, we don't even know if the damn things are open," Anders grumbled.
"Look again, Mike." Crash pointed.
There was a six inch wide gap between the two giant doors.
"We're in," Crash whispered with satisfaction.
* * * *
The room was huge, more of a cavern than a room, really, with native stone walls carved in situ out of the bedrock. A full quarter of the floor consisted of a hydraulic lift platform--the elevator for which they had been searching. Several football fields would have fit within the structure, and broken and abandoned heavy lift equipment lay scattered like the toys of a giant child. On the far side of the room, a large tunnel opened into darkness. Off to one side was a stone cairn, a white cross raised at one end. No signs of life were apparent. Anders pointed at the cross. The two men made their way to stand before the cairn, reverent.
"There's an inscription," Crash observed in a murmur.
Cpt. T. Ross "High Flight" Martin
Lost in the line of duty
Rest in peace, little brother
The ones you saved from falling will remember
"Looks like maybe they didn't start welding off the doors soon enough," Anders whispered.
"Yeah."
The two surveyed the room, wandering from item to item. "I guess you were right, Crash," Anders said. "Bunch of busted forklifts and stuff. Must have taken the lot of it out through that tunnel."
"Looks like it. Let's go see."
"Hm," Anders said as they approached the dark maw. "Rails. And a third rail, to boot."
"Makes sense," Crash admitted. "Load up a small subway train and truck it to the new site. Gotta be a ways off, if it's under Death Valley. Which means we have a hike." He sighed. "Let's get going."
"Hold the phone. I'm not walking a couple hundred miles," Anders protested, "and it won't do your friends any good if it takes us that long to get there. It's already been days and days."
"So?" Crash shrugged. "What choice have we got?"
"Let's see if some of this junk works. If any of it works, maybe we can gin up something to carry us."
"Aw, you gotta be kidding, Mike," Crash complained.
"Nope." Anders walked over to the nearest forklift, Crash on his heels, and surveyed it. "Huh. Petrol-powered."
"Okay. So?"
"So no petrol. No go."
Crash frowned and wandered back to the tunnel mouth.
After awhile, a dejected Anders joined him.
"Well?" Crash demanded.
"Let's start walking," Anders sighed.
* * * *
"It's dark in here," Anders whispered into the blackness.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Crash remarked dryly.
"Smart ass."
"Could be worse," Crash pointed out. "At least there are lights."
"Yeah--a quarter of a mile apart," Anders grumbled. "Which means we have to piss in the pitch dark to have privacy. And that means the third rail is probably still live, too. THAT'S so thrilling. I never know when I'm going to get that wonderful ‘pissing on an electric fence' sensation. And this lends a whole new meaning to taking a crap on the Underground."
"Yeah," Crash agreed. "I'm guessing the rail is how they get power to the emergency lighting in Area 51."
"But why would they need emergency lighting in Area 51?" Mike wondered. "There's nobody there."
Murphy shrugged. "Military regs, probably. Some rule someplace says they gotta have ‘em, so they have ‘em. Doesn't have to make sense."
"Okay, but that means we gotta try not to stumble over the damn thing in the dark."
"You're gettin' old, Mike," Crash teased. "Complainin' about everything."
"Dammit, Crash!" Anders burst out, his internal reservations proving too much to hold inside. "It wasn't like I was prepared to hike several hundred miles. In the dark. On rationed food and water, at that. We've been at this for a day and a half already."
"Aw, Mike," Crash offered, trying to comfort his friend, "you're doing great. You're in good shape, and you're doing fine. What's wrong, Mike? What brought this on?"
Anders sighed with resignation. "I'm beginning to realize I'm a liability, I guess."
"No, you're not," Murphy protested. "You're anything but. A--you helped me put the pieces together, and supplied a couple of the big pieces, to boot. B--you helped me get here. C--hell, I probably wouldn't still be alive without your help."
Anders shook his head. "Yeah, but--"
"It's all right, Mike," Crash soothed. "We'll make it."
"Well--ooph."
"What?" Crash stopped dead in alarm, staring at the dark. "Mike?"
"Ooo…" The sound was a groan.
"Mike?!"
"Hang… hang on… a minute," Anders panted, in obvious pain. "Damn. That was hard, whatever the hell it was."
"Run into something?"
"‘Whatever gave you that idea?'" Anders mimicked. "Yeah. Don't know what, though. But my right shin and hip are not happy about it. I'm gonna have some lovely marks tomorrow."
Crash heard a brushing sound, and realized Anders was gingerly feeling the object, attempting to determine what it was.
"Hallelujah!" Anders cried.
"What?!"
"I think… Crash, come here… go slow…"
"Keep talking." Murphy put out his hands, groping toward Anders' voice in the blackness.
"Right here… Crash, I think it's one of those railway hand cars…" Anders heard a sort of mushy thud.
"Umph… found it." Crash explored the cold metal with his hands. "Uhh… I think you're right."
Together they examined the object, mostly by feel: The nearest tunnel light was over five hundred feet away.
"Well, looks like Somebody Upstairs heard you, Mike."
"I'll take it," Anders exulted.
"Hold on, star man, pumping one of these things isn't easy, either," Crash pointed out.
"No, but once we get it going, we can take turns."
"True," Crash grinned. "Okay, climb up."
They scrambled up, and with much effort, grunts, and groans, got the lever moving. The car lurched.
"Whoa--wrong way," Crash observed.
"Woop, shift gears," Anders answered.
"How?"
"Um… we got a problem."
"Meaning?"
"How DO we shift gears?"
"Hmmm…" Crash pondered, dredging through his memories. "In the old Westerns, there was a lever on the side…"
Crash heard a scuffling sound, then suddenly Anders cried, "Whu… wa… WO-AHH!" followed by a thud.
"Mike?!" Crash tensed in worry, staring into the darkness.
"Ow."
"What happened?"
/>
"I found the lever." Pause. "I also found the edge of the car."
"You hurt?"
"Well, my gluteus maximus is highly offended, but other than that, no." Anders sighed. "I'm gonna be every shade of the spectrum tomorrow, at this rate."
Crash exhaled in relief, as Anders clumsily scrabbled his way back onto the car in the dark.
"Umph… urf," Anders grunted, wrestling with the recalcitrant lever. At last he just sat down and kicked at the thing. "Uf… urf… There!"
"Faster to walk," Crash muttered under his breath. "Helluva lot easier."
"I heard that."
"Well, grab the handle and let's get going."
* * * *
As they approached the next light in the tunnel, a box on the hand car caught Crash's eye.
"Hey, Mike, ease off pumping."
"What's up?"
"I think this thing is powered."
* * * *
They brought the car to a stop under the light, and investigated. Sure enough, the hand car had a small control panel, and appeared to be electric, running off the third rail. But when they turned the key, nothing happened.
"Here," Anders said, pulling out his multi-tool, "let's get inside."
With a little effort, they soon had the side of the console removed. "There," Anders pointed. "Broken wire."
"Mm," Crash murmured. He rummaged in their pilfered rucksack, and brought forth a spiral bound notepad. Moments later, he painstaking spliced a piece of the copper-core wire into the circuit. "Okay, Mike, crank it."
A soft hum arose beneath them, and they grinned at each other. Crash grabbed the throttle on the panel, and eased it forward. The car began to move.
"Hey-hey!" Anders grinned as they gained speed. "Told you it'd be easier! We're home free!"
"Unless," Crash pointed out, "the rails are busted."
* * * *
They were. Fortunately, the break was in a lighted area, and it was short. The men eased the car across the break, walking alongside in case of a derailment. The transition was rough, and the car stuck once. Crash played with the throttle, and the car lurched forward, then smoothed out. Crash nodded, satisfied.
Burnout: The Mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 Page 24
