“I'm off to clean my gun. You better get back to your family before someone finds you here and beats your head in.”
Dominik thought this was good advice.
Chapter 7: Answers
1
Two catwalks led into the employee barracks at the northwest end of the platform. Melvin looked at the one that wasn't blown to shit and shook his head. “I don't like this.”
“What do you want to do?” Christian asked.
“Anything on the radio?”
“Just static.”
“Too much ground for just the two of us. You agree?”
His partner looked around, then nodded. “Yeah. I reckon.”
Melvin knew he should be moving, but he felt rooted. The place was so goddamned empty. The last time he remembered feeling this spooked was on his first tour in Kandahar. His unit had been ordered to clear a cave about three miles outside of the city. They didn't find any insurgents, but what they did find was a mass grave: seventeen bodies, mostly local men and teenage boys. Two of them were missing their heads. It was the first time most of the guys in his unit had seen a dead body. Melvin had seen plenty since, but it was the only time he remembered being scared. All those bodies, filed next to each other like old cigars in a cheap box — it made you feel small, like you could be snuffed on a whim. It's how he felt here, now. He felt alone. And he felt the odds of finding another of those mass graves was pretty good, only it would be over two hundred bodies this time instead of seventeen.
Christian pointed. “Hey. Look at this.”
“What is it?”
“We got a body.”
Speak of the devil.
Melvin prepared himself for the worst. When he got close, however, he saw that the thing in front of him didn't even look like a body. It was completely black from head to toe, slimed and overgrown with fungus. It was like the stuff from below deck had grown into him, through him. It gave him the goddamned creeps.
Christian prodded it with a gloved hand. “It's hot.”
“What do you mean, hot?”
“I mean hot.”
“Fever?”
“Don't know.”
Melvin shook his head. Shit was getting weirder by the minute. Dead bodies did not get warmer, even kids knew that. “Get your hand off that thing, man.”
Christian wiped the gunk on his pants. “What about that stuff over there? Looks like crude oil, don't it?”
It did. Ahead, Melvin could see the walls of the employee barracks, and it looked like they'd been splattered with oil.
The radio crackled, making both of them jump. “Anyone there… come in… still… anyone… report… there?” It was hard to make out.
“Sounds like that Trenton prick.”
Melvin nodded.
Christian pressed his earpiece to talk, but then, the static crackled so loudly that he had to take his hand away.
“I'm getting the fuck out of here,” Melvin said. “We're going to need more men.”
2
Kate was pacing, and she knew it. Her father had known something, and she'd spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out what. She still didn't know why he had chosen her, and why he hadn't shared whatever he had known with the intelligence community. Then a horrible thought struck her: what if he had? What if this whole goddamned mess was the result of some CIA experiment gone awry? What if they had murdered all of the witnesses to cover it up? But that was absurd. When she had been younger and her father had first taken office, she had berated him with every conspiracy theory she could think of. What about Roswell? Was there really a secret 9/11 plot? Did Oswald act alone? He was the second most powerful man in the country, and if anyone got a security brief on those types of things, it would be him. Maybe the idea that the Joint Chiefs would sit down their officials and tell them every dirty secret of U.S. intelligence was equally absurd — like they were indoctrinating them into some kind of cult — but Kate couldn't help herself. There were too many things she wanted to know. Old Stan McCreedy had waved her off each time except the last. That last time he had hugged her and chuckled. She had been thirty-one, but he sat her down like she was five, conferring one of life's great secrets. “The government is run by people, darling,” he said. “There are a lot of smart persons in the government. Very smart. But as a rule, people are not smart. In fact, they can be downright dumb. So when you hear that kind of rubbish, just remember that it would have had to be done by people.” It had been disappointing, but she never doubted that he was right. Now? Now she began to wonder. Her father had wanted her to find something by leaving those pictures. The growths beneath the platform were a part of it, but she didn't think they were the only part. Something happened here, was still happening.
“Is there anyone there?” AJ said. Kate looked up to see him over by the helicopter, shouting into the radio mic.
The pilot was sprinting towards him. “Get off that thing! What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“Come in, goddammit! We're still here. Can anyone give us a situation report? Anybody hear me out there?”
Hal reached the chopper and grabbed the other man, pushing him to the ground. “I told you the goddamned radio's acting up. Now quit.”
Dutch made a shove off gesture, then picked AJ up.
“I'm fine, I'm fine.” He looked at Kate. “I'm sick of being here. Just what the hell did you get us into?”
“I don't know, I—“
Behind them, Hal was strutting back over. He had one hand out and looked ready to shove the lot of them.
“AJ!” Kate shouted.
Then they heard the shots.
3
They came from the generator room.
Mason felt the air whoosh beside his head before he heard a sound. And then, the air exploded with a thousand firecrackers. Nicholas screamed and dropped to the ground, a piece of his ankle misting into the air.
“Get down!” Jin yelled. “Get the fuck down!”
Mason ducked behind a stack of metal pipes, pulling the kid to safety with him. He looked over the defilade and counted five. Five of them, at least. Two were in the security bunker, and another two stood on either side of the walls. Mason saw the last one lying prone by the stairs.
Another tracer whizzed by his head, and this time, he recognized the sound of M16s. Whoever they were, they were well-armed.
Jin fired back, and Mason joined him, ducking out from behind cover and picking shots. “Air support!” he screamed. “Get the goddamned helo in here!”
Jin pressed his earpiece, but a moment later, he ripped it out and threw it to the ground. “Nothing!”
Ahead, Mason saw two of the shapes move to the left and out of his field of view. “They're flanking. We got to move!”
“What about Nick?”
Mason looked down. “You're gonna have to play dead, kid.”
“Don't leave me!” he yelled. “Don't you dare!”
Mason kicked the boy's hand away. Some guys, they lost their heads when they got shot. If the kid would just shut up and lay still, he'd have a better chance, and he should know it. “Play dead. That's an order. We'll cover you from the wreckage back there.”
“No!”
A round clipped Jin in the shoulder, and the side of his jacket flicked red. The shock on his face wasn't pain; it had come from the wrong direction. There was someone they couldn't see. They were pinned now, men closing in on all sides. If they didn't do something, they would be toast.