First of all, they were wheeled along an even, smooth stretch of tarmac, which Adams assumed had to be the runway. He could hear other vehicles as welclass="underline" two more planes taxiing in different directions, one of which had a strange, almost electronic vacuum-like engine noise that he had never heard before; a small utility vehicle, 4x4, probably some sort of military jeep; a larger truck, further away in the distance; and then another truck, passing by just a few feet away, the deep rumble of its diesel engines covering up all other noise as it thundered past.
Then suddenly they were inside, and Adams struggled to hear anything except the dull, monotonous roll of the chair wheels, and the sharp crack of the booted feet of their escorts, echoing off what he took to be a concrete floor, and down a long, empty corridor.
And then they turned right, and were immediately assailed by a bombardment of savage noise, like that of an industrial complex at full production — electric saws eating their way through sheet metal, acetylene torches doing welding work, the grinding of heavy machinery, and voices, all with the same scientific, professional tones.
Four more turns later, they stopped dead, waited for twenty seconds, and then moved forwards again, just six feet. Adams heard some doors close behind them, and sensed they were in a very confined space. He guessed it must be an elevator, and this was confirmed just seconds later as he felt the drop in his stomach and intestines once more, but much more intensely than on the aeroplane. This elevator was terribly fast, and Adams feared that he would be sick, the gag making him choke on his own vomit.
But he kept it down, and then marvelled at how long the fast descent was taking — five seconds, ten, fifteen, twenty — and he could only wonder how far down in the bowels of the earth they now were. He knew it took forty-five seconds to get from the lobby of the Empire State Building to the eightieth floor, and almost choked again as he realized the extent of the base’s secret facilities.
Before he could consider it further, they were being rolled out again, down another long, empty, concrete corridor, until he heard the opening of a metal door. They were wheeled through into a room, and the sound of the wheels indicated the floor was metal too.
Then he felt the hands on the back of his wheelchair relax, and pull away; he heard the boots retreat, back out into the concrete corridor outside.
And then the door closed, trapping him and Lynn in the mysterious metal room, hundreds of feet below the surface of the earth.
Adams could sense Lynn was in the room with him, and took comfort from the fact that she was still near, although he was at the same time terrified for her safety. But at least he knew where she was; he could only imagine how he would feel if she had been wheeled off to some other part of the complex.
They were left alone for a long time, and Adams put it down to an attempt to wear them down, to make them lose all sense of time and place. His mental tracking of their route, and his current counting of the seconds of their wait helped him retain his faculties, however, and he could only hope that Lynn was doing the same thing.
His tracking of the time took him to just under fifteen thousand seconds, or just over four hours, before the door opened again.
He heard two sets of feet enter the room, one booted, one in leather-soled shoes. The lights were turned on, and Adams could feel the intense glare even through his blindfold. He knew what was coming next.
Seconds later, a strong hand ripped the blindfold from his eyes, and Adams knew the plan was to momentarily blind them, to weaken them further. But Adams had screwed his eyes tight shut the moment he had felt the hand reach forwards for the blindfold, and although the glare of the halogen spotlights in the ceiling above them threatened to burn through his eyelids, at least the shock to his retinas was somewhat subdued.
He gradually opened his eyes, and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of Flynn Eldridge grinning at him sadistically. ‘I trust you had a good journey,’ Eldridge dead-panned.
Adams ignored him, instead looking over to Lynn, glad to see she had also shut her eyes when her blindfold had been removed. As she opened them, he gave a reassuring smile, trying to offer her comfort and hope with his eyes.
Turning back to Eldridge, Adams could see, over the man’s muscular shoulder, a debonair, suited man of advancing years whom he immediately recognized as Stephen Jacobs. Adams was impressed. So the big man himself had come down for the interrogation.
Adams watched as Jacobs approached them, appraising them as a biologist might examine a newly discovered life form. ‘So here we are, my friends,’ he said finally, his tone deep and smooth. ‘You and I all know that you are not going to leave this facility alive. You are going to die, make no mistake about that.’ He smiled. ‘How you die, though, that might make a big difference to you.’
Jacobs gestured at Eldridge, who moved forward and removed first Adams’ gag, and then Lynn’s. No sooner was Lynn’s off than she spat at the man, straight in his face, a look of pure hatred on her own.
‘Oh, come now, Dr Edwards,’ Jacobs said to Lynn as Eldridge wiped the saliva off his cheek, ‘it isn’t his fault. Not really. He was, after all, merely following orders.’
‘Your orders?’ Lynn shot back resentfully.
‘As it happens, yes,’ Jacobs replied, his confidence unshakeable. ‘And now I have ordered our experts to interrogate you using any and every available means at their disposal, until we find out exactly what you know and who else you have told.’
‘We’ve already found Baranelli,’ Eldridge told them with a hint of pleasure. ‘It didn’t take much for him to squeal like a piggy. Luckily, he hadn’t had time to tell anyone else. He is dead now, of course.’
Both Lynn and Adams tried to launch forward out of their chairs, to get to Eldridge; both would have dearly loved to choke him to death with their bare hands. But their bonds were too tight, and the violent movements barely caused the chairs to rock slightly.
‘It probably doesn’t matter any more anyway,’ Jacobs said, ignoring the attempted attack by the two captives. ‘Things have progressed too far to worry about what might happen if the word gets out now. But it just doesn’t do to leave things hanging, so to speak. You are both loose ends, and have to be tied up. There is too much riding on this to let any mistakes occur now.’
‘If we’re going to die anyway, why not tell us what it’s all about?’ Adams said. If he was going to die, he wanted to know why, at least.
Jacobs looked at Eldridge, who shook his head, and then looked back at Adams and Lynn. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm in you knowing now, is there?’
Ignoring Eldridge’s disapproving look, he pulled up a plastic-topped stool and sat down, smiling at Lynn and Adams, clearly pleased with himself and what he had accomplished. If he couldn’t gloat at least a little, what was the point of it all?
‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?’ he said with a smile.
16
For Jacobs, it was nice to be finally telling the tale in its entirety, or at least the part he had direct, first-hand knowledge of.
He had spent most of his life under a double persona, one side existing only in his mind, dealing with intimate knowledge of things most people could never even dream of. It had altered his personality somewhat, until he sometimes wondered who he really was. And now his life was set to change again, and he once more wondered about his place in all of it.