Somewhere behind him Val heard whispers. Shhlip, shhlip, shhlip, came the familiar footsteps. “Does our little home meet your wildest expectations?” he heard the raspy voice ask.
“What home are you referring to?”
“The popular culture calls this place S-4. Silo Four is its true name. Hasn’t been used much in recent years and the doors are tucked far enough under the cliffs that they are not visible from above, so little is known about it. The Atomic Energy Commission built it to store nukes, but that was no longer feasible after the military took possession of Area 51. The military used it for various projects until those alien back-engineering stories surfaced. What a nightmare. It wasn’t worth the hassle to continue using this place.”
“There’s no point using it when you’ve got a subterranean base nearby.”
“Those are your words. Obviously those gravity anomaly maps we found with some of your provisions led you astray.”
“Are you telling me the maps are misleading?”
“I’m saying it doesn’t matter what those maps show because this silo is where we’d bring the politicians who insisted on knowing the truth.”
“You think it’s that easy to hide an entire base?”
“What base?” Owens said with a haughty demeanor. “You ditched the video with proof of your claim.”
Val took the raspy-voiced man’s statement as an indication they still didn’t know about the real Blake Hunter.
“Even if you got the okay to bring a tractor out here and dig, we’d stop you,” Owens said. “Actually, your own people would stop you when members of the excavation crew dropped from radiation exposure.”
“There’s no radioactivity in this valley.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make someone contract the sickness. After that, no politician would support investigating your hunches at the risk of death.”
“Those anomaly maps aren’t a hunch.”
“We’ll explain them as nuclear fissures. Not all underground blasts cave in and form craters.”
“There wasn’t any nuclear testing authorized at Area 51.”
“Are you familiar with Project Plowshare from your studies of this region?”
“Somewhat.”
“The project investigated applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes: mining, building shipping ports, moving mountains. We’ll blame the craters on testing associated with Plowshare. Records show the Nevada Test Site was used for Plowshare events that created underground cavities from nuclear detonations. So we admit to a few more detonations than were sanctioned. Plowshare existed long enough ago that we could blame the illicit detonations on dead intelligence agents. You couldn’t even punish anyone. We’d apologize, label Papoose as a nuclear wasteland, end of story for ten thousand years.”
Val didn’t care to enter a rhetorical battle with someone too cowardly to show his face. The conversation was moot if Blake escaped with the video. “So what happens to me?” he asked.
“I suppose once we find the gear we’ll send you home. Our friends in Washington will do the rest. That crusading congressman in San Diego will soon lose his political support and your operation will become extinct. The truth is, most politicians want to be reelected more than they want to stir trouble. And we’re trouble.”
“Sounds unlawful. If I remember my history, the biggest argument against forming the CIA was that such a power could be used against Americans, including politicians, and defeat our democratic way of life.”
“I never said I was CIA, but I understand your point. Let me just say, I am as patriotic about my duties as you are about yours. In fact, I’ve studied your background, and I like you, Hunter. We’re adversaries from an ideological standpoint. That’s the irony of the situation: we’re on the same side. Unfortunately that we the people discourse only means something in history class. In order for there to be history classes in the future, we need to keep a few things secret. I guess the balance in our conflict is power; whoever has the most power gets to call the shots. As it stands, that puts me in control,” Owens said as he increased a sedative drip on Val’s IV and watched him fade back to sleep.
Owens returned to an observation room where Kayla was seated and watching his exchange with their prisoner on a monitor. He knew the man was not Blake Hunter. Earlier that afternoon a crosscheck with California DMV records confirmed the prisoner they suspected was Blake, was someone else, another FBI operative. Owens hadn’t sorted out the details yet, but he now knew that Blake Hunter was still unaccounted for, as well as the Bio Suit and its data.
“They still haven’t spotted any vehicles near the perimeter that might be Hunter’s, and there’s no sign of any hikers,” Kayla informed him.
“He won’t be moving until dark. That suit gives him an advantage. We need to anticipate where he’s going.”
“They said they’ll concentrate the helicopters near the wildlife refuge tonight, as you instructed.”
Owens thought again about how he would conduct such surveillance in the desert. How he would sneak on the base. He would need a lot of portable gear. Protection from the elements. Close and direct access … the Nevada Test Site.
CHAPTER 50
The nightfall Blake thought would never arrive brought with it an increase in helicopter activity: the steel insects buzzed through the sky like giant mosquitoes looking for a heat source to attack. Black helicopters. No lights. Nothing to suggest where the crew focused their attention. They flew in side-by-side formations working back and forth across the valley like crop dusters, and Blake knew it was him they wanted to eradicate.
Before venturing from his lair, Blake double-checked the Bio Suit’s temperature display, making sure it was in synch with the air temperature and eliminating his heat signal.
He moved at a furious pace, his body aching, drained and weak, but he was motivated, knowing his journey was short. His body could rest later, behind the wheel of Val’s truck with a large cup of coffee to keep him awake as he drove home.
His trek turned steep almost immediately. Twice he lost his footing and fell. He could see the top of the desolate mountain though, and pushed himself to climb harder, often using his hands in synchronicity with his feet for stabilization as he scaled, crawled and pulled his way upward from Papoose Valley.
With Val’s ATV hidden less than a mile away, Blake had one more hill to conquer. As he neared the top, he heard another helicopter, faintly at first, and with the Bio Suit’s helmet acting as a buffer, it was harder to pinpoint the direction. As the sound increased, Blake realized the helicopter was in front of him, blocked from view by the mountain. He fell to his stomach, not on flat ground, but across a rock, his butt higher than his head, and froze with his neck kinked sideways, his eyeballs straining to look above. Like a soaring hawk searching for food, the helicopter flew into view, cresting the mountain and swooping downward along the contour of the mountainside, passing not more than a few stories over Blake. The sound was deafening and the rotor wash slapped his back.
As quickly as the chopper had appeared, it vanished into the distance. Close call. Blake reached the mountaintop and increased his pace, traveling much of the last mile downhill. The GPS guided his every step with its LED arrows on the head-up display pointing in any one of twelve compass positions to keep him on course. Val told him if he followed the course, he didn’t need to worry about perimeter cameras or motion sensors. Blake never broke pace, pumping his arms and legs, unaware of when he crossed the invisible line of demarcation between Air Force property and the Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site.