Proof of genetic experiments.
'Let's look in some more rooms."
"Or let's not," Loren posed. 'Ms is crazy coming here in the first place. We're going to get caught. We already know the navy or army or some military agency is engaged in a secret project. So let's just go."
'You go, then. Go back to the campsite and wait for Lieutenant Trent. I'll only be another few minutes."
Loren scowled. "Shit. Come on, I'll go with you."
They left the room and went into the next. More screens on more tables, and old shelves filled with cases almost like tackle boxes.
"More of that code," Loren said when he looked at a screen.
"It must be their research data after being encrypted."
The screen was filled the same dots and dashes they'd seen on the cameras and the key.
The first line on the screen read:
"I wish I could take a picture of this," Nora said. "Or print it out."
Loren looked around. "I don't see a printer hooked up to any of this gear."
She pointed. "Look and see what's on those shelves. I'll check this closet."
A rusted door narrower than the others stood in the corner. I was wrong it's not a closet, she thought when she opened it. It was another room, illumined by more of the small round lightbulbs. Hanging along the wall were several black rubberized suits with hoods, and widely visored gas masks. From pegs on the opposite wall dangled narrow black belts, and connected to the belts were fabric pockets containing tools.
The tools, too, were black. Nora slipped one out. What the hell is this? A ruler? The tool extended via a slide mechanism, but for the life of her she didn't know what it might be used for.
These narrow doors must connect all the rooms, she gathered when she opened another door like the one she'd used to enter here. She was looking into the first room they'd searched, with all the surveillance monitors.
"Nora," Loren whispered. "I think I hit pay dirt."
She went back out. Loren had taken down one of the cases and opened it. It reminded her of the bloodsample cases that doctors' offices sent to labs. When the case had been opened, racks popped up on either side. The racks contained what she could only guess were-
"Specimen tubes," Loren said, holding one up. "They're square instead of round, but it's obvious that's what these are. Check it out."
Nora took the tube. Floating in a fluid that looked like light mouthwash was a spotted ovum identical to those they'd seen all over the island.
"Here's another one."
The next tube contained a half-inch-long worm.
"There's your proof," Loren said, "so let's go."
Nora looked at more tubes, which all contained either pristine examples of ova or worms. Are they alive? she wondered. Preserved? Are they prototypes? Ultimately, it didn't matter.
And Loren was correct: Here was proof of what she'd come here to find out. A military test in the field. A worm that's obviously a cross-species, the product of either a mutation process or a genetic splice…
And humans are what they're testing it on.
Loren put the case back, then squeezed her arm. "How can I put it more eloquently, Nora? We have to get the fuck out of here."
"All right, all right…"
He practically dragged her out of the room. The door remained opened at the end of the hall, light pouring in. Nora peeked in the first room as they brushed by; then she tugged back at him.
"Wait a second-"
"Damn it, Nora!" he whispered. "We're going to get caught in here!"
"I don't think anyone's here right now," she said.
"Then where are they?"
"Outside. Look at that…"
She was pointing to the security monitors in the first room. Loren edged in behind her, seeing what she meant. "That's one of them," he said.
On one of the higher screens, a man was kneelinga man in a gas mask and decon suit. He was kneeling at a large slab of concrete.
'fhat's the RTG, isn't it?" Loren noticed.
"It sure is." A chill went up her back. "We were just there a few minutes ago."
"And look, there's two more of them-"
Yet another screen briefly showed two more masked and hooded men moving down a trail.
"Three of them total," Nora counted.
"Plus the one I shot…"
Both of them looked back at the RTG screen, and the mysterious figure kneeling before it. A gloved hand produced a small black box and rested it on the slab. Then he opened the box and withdrew a black disk that looked like a hockey puck.
"What the hell is he doing?" Loren asked.
"That disk," Nora said. "What's that rod he just pulled out of it?"
They both stared. The man extracted a short rod from the disk; from the end of the disk, he seemed to remove a cap.
Then he pushed the rod against the slab's cement face. A moment later, the disk had been mounted onto the concrete.
"The rod must be some kind of stand," Nora said. "And… shit. I've got a bad vibe about this."
Loren looked right at her. "Me too. Nora, why do I have a funny feeling that black thing is a bomb?"
"I… don't know…" She was thinking the exact same thing. "It's not big enough to be a bomb is it?"
"A piece of C-4 the size of a hockey puck? It could probably break that concrete slab in half."
"And then the pressure from the explosion might split the fuel-source casing."
"Instant dirty nuke. Shit, Nora. If that really is what he's doing…-…"
"It would look like a terrorist operation," she realized. "The radioactive dust from an explosion like that would contaminate the entire island."
"And anyone or anything on it would die from radiation sickness in a matter of days."
This is madness, she thought, still staring at the screen.
Then the man in the gas mask got up and walked away, leaving the disk propped up on the slab.
"We're out of here,' Loren insisted, but just when they would turn to leave, a security monitor in the corner began to blink.
"What's happening now!" Nora exclaimed.
It was the screen showing the north beach. The panel's frame was suddenly bordered by a blinking red line.
The camera showed the water beyond the beach…
"That's where the trench is," Loren murmured.
"And where their sub is…'
They stared fixedly at the screen.
Nora supposed she could guess what was about to happen even before it did. In a few moments the water beyond the beach began to stir.
"Holy shit," Nora muttered.
"Uh, yeah," Loren agreed with her, because they both saw it very clearly.
The sub was surfacing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
(I)
There he is, Trent thought.
The clearing.
Then another thought: What if he's not dead?
The man whom Loren had shot lay utterly still, gloved hands outstretched, legs and booted feet sprawled. The visor of his gas mask was tinted; Trent couldn't see through it.
Probably the latest generation decon gear, he thought of the flat-black finish. He knelt and touched it-the material felt like sheer polyester. Trent tried to pull off a glove but then saw that it was fastened somehow, perhaps snaps on the inside.
He was about to pull off the mask but something dark caught his eye.
A dark gray patch over the left breast. In the U.S. Army, that's where a troop's name tag would be sewn.
But this tag bore no name, only this, in black marks against the gray:
That shit again…
Trent fished around in the man's pockets, eventually pulled out a plasticized card.
The card read:
He felt creeped out. How could that stuff be a code? he wondered.
Next, he tried to pull down the hood. He needed to get inside the suit, for the ID tags that would, by regulation, have to be around his neck.