“Yes, sir.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Perez let a few seconds pass, then said, “We are at a critical juncture in the plan. It is up to you to see that it goes smoothly. If you are not up to the task, you will be replaced.” From the looks in their eyes, he didn’t need to ask this time if they understood. “If there’s nothing else…?” He waited, but no one said anything. “Very well. Back to work.”
Claudia punched the button cutting off the monitors. She glanced at the clock on her computer screen and smiled. “You’re getting better at this. Still have six minutes before group fifteen.”
“What areas are in that one?”
She turned back to her screen, but didn’t answer right away.
“Claudia?” he asked.
She looked up. “Sorry. We received a call from Sims a few minutes ago. If you’d like, I could get him on the line.”
“Yes, do it.”
Sims and his associates had become Perez’s special projects team, handling the delicate matters the majority of Project Eden’s membership didn’t need to know about. Sims’s latest task was one Perez had been putting off for over a week. It was a simple reconnaissance job, one he was sure would turn out to be a complete waste of time. Still, he couldn’t afford to leave it unchecked, so he had finally sent out Sims.
Several seconds passed before the bottom center monitor filled with Sims’s hard-edged face, surrounded by dancing snowflakes.
“Principal Director,” Sims said.
“Report, Mr. Sims.”
“Yes, sir. We arrived at the Montana location about two hours ago.”
“Was there anyone left alive?”
“Sir, we didn’t find anyone. Dead or alive.”
That was definitely not what Perez had expected. “No one?”
The camera twisted away from Sims, but other than snow and darkness, Perez could make out nothing.
“The main building, the one that burned down during our attack, is that direction,” Sims said. The camera swung a few degrees to the left. “The smaller building was over there.”
“I’m familiar with the layout, Mr. Sims. I assume there is something new you’re trying to tell me?”
“Sir, we made a thorough search of the wreckage. No one was in either building when they burned down.”
“So they were already gone when you attacked? Didn’t your team kill one of their men then?”
“Yes, sir. About a half mile from here. He was the only one seen that day. But, to answer your other question, I don’t think they were gone.” The camera swung in a one-eighty before tilting down. A pile of dirt and snow and pine needles sat next to a hole in the ground, and propped open in the hole was a hatch. “They had an underground facility. Pretty damn extensive, too. Lots of offices, storerooms, barracks.” He paused. “It’s also equipped with an indoor shooting range and medical facilities. Both high end.”
Again, not what Perez expected. Perhaps he’d been underestimating the people who had been there. In his mind, they were no more than a gnat that posed no real threat to the Project. That was undoubtedly still true, but the sophistication of the facility Sims described was troubling. “And you found no one inside, either?”
The camera turned back to Sims’s face. “No, sir.”
“What about computers? Anything that might have information on it?”
“Unfortunately, the few computers left were thoroughly destroyed. If there were any other records, we didn’t locate them.” He looked away from the camera, scanning around. “I can tell you one thing, this place was not cheap.”
“Any sign of where they went?”
“The snow didn’t start falling until maybe an hour before we arrived. We found some indentations where tire tracks and boot prints had been, so I don’t think they’ve been gone for long.”
“They drove out?”
“I believe so. Yesterday at most.”
A gnat could be annoying, but ultimately it couldn’t hurt you. Chances were these people knew they were defeated, and were only trying to find someplace to stay safe as the dust settled.
“You think you can find them?” he asked.
Sims grimaced. “Possibly, but it won’t be easy. Have to do it by instruments until the storm clears. If you’d like, we can give it a shot.”
“All right. For a little while, but I don’t want to waste too much effort on this, so if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, call it off.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll get right on it.”
“Report in if you find anything,” Perez said, then signaled Claudia that he was finished.
As she disconnected the call, she said, “Group fifteen is standing by.”
Perez filled his glass with water from a pitcher, and took a sip. When he set the glass back down, he nodded and said, “Ready.”
Sims climbed aboard the helicopter and pulled the door shut.
“Treetops,” he said to the pilot. “Follow the road we spotted earlier, out to the highway. The rest of you keep an eye out for tracks. Any questions?”
“No, sir,” they said in unison.
A cloud of white swirled up around them as the rotors increased their speed and the aircraft lifted off the ground. When they rose to a point approximately twenty feet higher than the tallest tree, the pilot took them south and then east.
Whoever had built the road the helicopter was following had been very smart. Only the bare minimum of trees had been cleared to create the path. In many spots, the branches from both sides intertwined with each other for stretches of twenty, thirty — one time over one hundred — feet, making it impossible to see the road at all. The storm wasn’t helping, either, as snow flew past them in waves of near solid sheets, momentarily obscuring the view.
When they finally reached the strip of open land where the road met highway, Sims keyed his mic and told the pilot, “Set us down near the intersection.”
“Looks like it might be a little deep,” the pilot replied.
“I’ve seen you land in worse.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it.”
The pilot slowly lowered them over the road. By the time the skids came to rest, the top of the snow was only a few inches below the lip of the door.
“We won’t be long,” Sims said.
After exiting the aircraft, he and his men spread out to quickly cover more area.
“Sir!” Altman, one of Sims’s men, yelled.
Sims twisted around, and spotted Altman fifty feet down the smaller road that led back into the woods. By the time he reached him, Altman had crouched down and was pointing at the ground.
“Tire tracks, sir,” Altman said. “At least two sets.”
Sims moved in low next to him. Running down the road were several wide depressions. They hadn’t filled because of the partial tree cover.
“How old, do you think?” Sims asked.
Altman, Sims’s best tracker, studied the marks. “Twelve hours, give or take.”
Twelve hours. Depending on what the weather had been when the vehicles came through, they could be as much as six or seven hundred miles away. They probably hadn’t made it quite that far, but even three hundred would be a lot.
Altman rose to his feet, but stayed bent at the waist as he followed the tracks toward the highway. Sims walked right behind him. With each step the depressions became shallower and shallower, until Sims could no longer differentiate the tracks from the surrounding ground. Altman, though, was able to follow them nearly all the way to the intersection.
He finally stopped and straightened up. “It looks like they turned south.”