'We got the door,' one of the Bureau men said. 'One big plain padlock on it. You give the word, John, it's off.'
'Do it. And nothing personal, Miss Wagner, but while they're at this, we stay clear.' He took her arm gently and they walked back to the perimeter of the plateau and stood with Barnside. She glimpsed down. It was a good hundred feet to the farmhouse, the drop almost sheer from this angle. Her vision was back, all the way. The night was clear now, almost magical. It was hard to believe that there was so much pain, so much death enclosed in its soft, dark folds.
One of the Bureau men came up with a huge pair of cutters, attacked the metal fastening on the plain metal double door. It came away in an instant.
'Check for sensors,' Collins said. Two men raced to the door, flashlights weaving, instruments in their hands. 'Clear,' one said.
She pulled out the videophone and turned it on. 'Irwin?'
His face came up bright and pale on the. screen. 'You've done it?'
'We're going in now. We'll need your help understanding this thing.'
'No problem. It's just like firing up a generator or something.'
'I hope so.' Collins had left her, was by the door.
'Wait,' she yelled, and walked, half-shambled over to his side. 'I want to see.'
'Well, who am I to argue? Ben. Those double doors run outwards. You just open them up for us, huh? And then leave it at that. We take a good look inside before we take a step in there.'
'Sir.'
It was like opening Pandora's box, she thought. Like closing your eyes and waiting for someone to drop some present — good or bad — straight into your hands. The doors came back, groaning wildly in protest, a shrill noise in the night, and a small bell rang in her head: No oil?
The interior was black, opaque, impenetrable. 'Lights,' Collins said. Barnside walked up with a big field lamp, the sort they'd used around the farmhouse.
'Let me,' she said, and took it, parked it straight in front of the door, then hit the switch. She put the videophone on the floor, pointed the little camera on the top straight into the dome. 'You're getting this, Irwin?'
'What?' said a small, tinny voice from the speaker on the ground.
'This.'
Schulz's voice rang out uncertainly in the Nevada gloom. 'I can't see a damn thing, Helen.'
'No,' she said, staring at the vast, empty exterior. 'There isn't a damn thing. Nothing.'
No sound came from the little videophone. She picked it up, looked at the white, shocked face there. 'It's empty, Irwin. One desk with a PC on it. No transmission equipment. No scan system. No network. Nothing.'
John Collins swore quietly under his breath, saw what she was doing, saw she was moving too quickly for them. 'Hey. Don't go in there. Not yet.'
But she was through the door, staring at this complex structure from the inside, looking at this vast, vacant space, so perfect, so symmetrical. When she was three feet into the dome, the big flashlight behind her casting a giant shadow onto the crystalline pattern of the inner skin, the PC in the corner flashed once, came alive, the screen began to move.
'This whole thing,' she said to no one in particular, 'was just a blind. Martin Chalk and Vegas. They set us all up. The farm. Everything. Charley's not here. She never was here. It was all just a joke.'
With the sky about to fall down on the world, she realized.
The PC beeped and an image of the sun appeared at its centre. 'So where…?' she wondered, and the words wouldn't form in her head.
'Sensor triggered,' one of Collins's team said. 'We're sniffing something here, John. Maybe Semtex.'
'Shit,' Barnside said, and followed her into the dome, peering frantically around, scanning. It was at the apex. The place you looked last. A big brown suitcase suspended from the polygon at the peak of the dome.
'We're out of here,' Barnside yelled. 'Evacuate down the ridge. As fast as you can.' Collins was with him, inside the dome, tugging at Helen's arm. 'I'll deal with this,' Barnside said, and in one swift movement heaved her over his shoulder, turned, and started to run.
There was nothing in this outside world, she thought, nothing but the bobbing stars, the sound of frantic breathing, and this scrabbling, tumbling descent. Then the night turned to thunder, fire and smoke filled the air, and they were on the ground, coughing, choking, trying to clear the dust from their lungs.
Pain.
Something broken. Someone shouting. Barnside screaming, a long, loud animal howl. Then the sound of rotor blades in the sky, the bright, broad constant light falling from their underbellies.
Barnside's big, strong face came in front of her, looking concerned. 'I think I maybe broke your arm. When we fell.'
She tried to work out where she was, which way was up. 'It'll mend,' she mumbled automatically.
The physical world could stop you from thinking if you let it, she guessed. And thinking was really all that was left now. With her one good arm, she pulled the videophone out of her suit pocket, propped it up on the ground. 'Give me Lieberman,' she said swiftly, as Schulz came to the screen. In an instant he was there, looking troubled, older somehow.
'Michael,' she yelled. 'You knew this was going to happen.'
'I did?'
'Don't fuck me around!'
He looked lost, desolate. 'I'm sorry, I just told you what I knew — she's smart, smarter than us, in all probability.' Then he went quiet, let her get her head back. When he judged she was ready, he continued. 'I got around to some calculations on the receptor dish, based on the video we got from the satellite. I tried to figure out some position for the ground station from the way the dish was moving, where it was pointing. These are really rough, bear that in mind. But she can't be in Nevada. It has to be east of there. Way east, from what I could calculate of the angle of the dish.'
'Damn. You didn't tell us?'
He looked miserable, ashamed. 'I tried. But then I decided there's precious little point in standing in front of a charging elephant yelling at it to stop. Do you think it would have worked?'
She didn't speak.
'And,' he added, 'I could have been wrong. I was praying I was wrong, if you want to know.'
Finally, she said, 'Where is she? Where's Charley?'
'I don't know, Helen,' he said slowly. 'Really, I just don't know, and I can't calculate that with any degree of accuracy from the data we have. All I know is that it is a long way east of you, and probably somewhat north too. Maybe this side of the Atlantic even.'
'Then I guess she just won,' she sighed. 'We're an hour away from this thing going critical. I guess I just call the President now and tell him we're done here.'
'If you feel that's the right thing to do.'
'Give me an alternative.'
He was struggling with himself, she could see that. 'Yeah. I've been pushing an alternative at you all along. Why don't we stop looking where she tells us? And start thinking for ourselves?'
'Fine,' she said, and, for the first time, there was some sourness, some defeat in her voice. 'I'll tell that to the President.'
'Don't bother,' Lieberman said. 'I'll tell him myself, if you like.'
CHAPTER 56
Choices
Which he did. They set up a video conference on the system: Clarke at Nellis, Helen in pain on the ground at Cabin Springs, and Lieberman, Schulz, and Bennett, with Bevan watching over their shoulders and Mo Sinclair working the computer, at La Finca.
'Thanks, but I got people breathing down my neck trying to get me to sign executive orders on this one,' Clarke said grimly. 'If we really have no hope of stopping these people, I don't have much choice. From what I've seen of the damage before this thing peaks, maybe I ought to be doing that anyway, whether or not you people do have any luck.'