No problem.
They had one wing left to secure. Inside the barracks, they'd find the survivors or the bodies, and it would be over. And what about the answers?
“Answers,” he said, and laughed.
The McCreedy woman was hell-bent on figuring out what caused the disappearances. Mason himself was curious, but only curious. The reason things went to shit weren't really his concern. He'd seen it a hundred times before in a hundred other places. Sometimes things just went bad. When they went killing bad, that's when Black Shadow went in. The answers, one way or another, never affected their objectives. As for the stuff growing underneath the platform, he'd let the techs figure it out, whenever they arrived. Hell, they could package it up and sell it at McDonald's for all he cared. Whatever made the client happy.
And so he let that tickle, that itch slip from his mind. He had more important things to worry about than answers.
Then, he looked over to Trenton and the McCreedy woman, and he remembered they did have one other unpleasant objective, one that came straight from the old lawyer. Truth be told, it didn't bother him that much. You take the money, you suck the dick. That was just the way of the world.
“Who's taking point, boss?” St. Croix asked.
“You and Vy. Calle and me follow. Jin Tae and Hal will cover us from the main deck. Got it?”
St. Croix nodded, flicking the safety off of his weapon with a large, hairy hand.
They moved slowly across the bridge, watching for any sign of movement. There was only one way over, but the building itself had two entrances. Mason and Melvin took one, Peter and Christian took the other. With a little luck, they'd clear the place and it'd be Miller Time inside of ten minutes.
Mason approached the door, a large metal seal with a crank valve. They were designed to be air tight, like doors on a submarine, not that it mattered. If it was locked, he had enough explosives to blast the whole damned wall apart.
It wasn't.
He turned the crank and then pushed inside. The hall beyond was dark, and he paused long enough to snap a mini flashlight under the barrel of his rifle. The light revealed a break room, just like the blueprints had said. It was trashed. Cabinets hung open, papers and garbage lined the floor. A coffee pot lay shattered in the corner. Mason stepped forward, his feet crunching on glass.
“Anyone here? We're search and rescue on behalf of Valley Oil corporate. If anyone's in here, show yourself.”
When he reached the first doorway, the smell hit him. He wasn't sure how many bodies lay in the hall, but he guessed about twenty, their figures strewn along the length of the passage.
“You seeing what I'm seeing, boss?”
Mason, surging with androgens moments before, felt only confusion. What was this? What the hell was this? A man in the corner had a thumb from another worker buried in his eye. The attacker had his skull split open, his brains leaking onto the floor. At Mason's feet, he saw a dead woman who had died with her mouth clamped on another man's neck. There were others, others much worse. These people — ordinary working people with jobs and responsibility — looked like they had literally torn each other apart.
Melvin walked over to one of the dead men. “Look at this.”
Squinting, Mason saw that there was something growing out of the man's nose and ears. They looked almost like small flowers.
“We in some shit, ain't we?” Melvin whispered.
A shape appeared from nowhere and ran across his field of view. Screaming, Mason fired. A white-hot burst thundered through the hall, ricocheting off of the metal. He stumbled backwards, slipping on blood. “Goddammit!” he yelled. “Secure that sector!”
Melvin was away before he blinked. Mason pushed himself to a squat, wiping his gloves on his pants. He was furious, his heart trip-hammering in his chest. He told himself that it was just nerves, but this was different. It was primal.
Answers, he thought again. Never did care. He laughed crazily, his voice echoing in the dark.
Then, he heard someone else. “North wing is secure. You in here, sir? We heard shots.”
It was St. Croix. He and Christian appeared from the rec room, looking troubled. A moment later, Melvin reappeared from another door at the end of the hall. “No sign of movement.”
“And the intruder?” Mason asked.
Melvin shook his head. “No sign of anyone.”
Mason felt cold. He was sure that he had seen someone. He was sure. The alternative — that he was cracking up in the dark — was unthinkable. “You secure the rest?”
“That's an affirmative,” St. Croix said. “Just stiffs. They're all done up.”
“Everyone?”
Vy nodded.
All three men stared at him, and all three had a look he didn't like. It was the kind of look you got when you were trapped in a building, surrounded by forces that outnumbered you four to one.
“Just what the hell happened here, boss?” Melvin asked.
Mason was about to open his mouth. He was about to tell them that their job wasn't to play detective. Their job wasn't to worry about how the dying started, when it started. Their job was to secure and contain. That's what they did. He figured that if he concentrated, he could even say it without laughing. That's when they heard a bang at the end of the hall.
Turning, Mason saw a heavy hinged door. A chair had been placed beneath the handle, and the door shook as someone tried to get out. A knife blade stuck out from beneath the floor crack, sweeping left and right. He held his breath, ready to squeeze the trigger and put down whoever or whatever lay on the other side.
Chapter 8: Sturm und Drang
1
Harald stood on the deck of The Adalgisa, watching Cape Town edge towards the horizon. The city rested between two mountains, sitting just beyond a shallow bay. It was the warm season here, and the mountains, covered in greenery, would have seemed majestic if it weren't for the garish orange buildings on the inward slopes. Their South African friends had proved reliable though, and that was something he hadn't anticipated. Within an hour of docking, their ship had been outfitted with fresh supplies. Every square of the vessel now had boxes of food and victuals. They even got a crate of rifles. The K98s came with horseshoe hoods clamped to their front iron sights, a prototype modification to reduce glare in the sun. It was a sure sign The Reich had plans for them.
Not all had gone smoothly, though. When Harald had ordered an immediate departure, he'd found himself butting heads with Heinrich again. That seemed to be happening more and more these past few weeks. “Twenty-four hours of shore leave,” that's what he demanded. Harald thought it was mostly for show, more of that “nobody tells my crew what to do” nonsense. He was so frustrated, he wanted to shoot the man. In the end, they reached a compromise: twelve hours of shore leave and no more. With the tip of Africa now fading into the night, Harald was glad it was over and they were back at sea.