Tom surfaced next to him. His eyes wide with wonder. “Well, what do you make of that?”
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“Follow me,” Sam said, releasing air from his buoyancy control device so he could dive again.
“Where are you going?” Tom replied. “I thought we needed to make it to the area beneath the surface of the Island?”
“We do. This won’t take long.”
Sam quickly swam to the side of the nuclear submarine. He placed a small circular device on the side of its hull and then turned the main chamber, causing it to create a vacuum and stick to the submarine’s hull like it had been welded there. He turned and swam along the beach, before surfacing again.
Tom followed him. “What was that for?”
“A homing beacon. The Secretary of Defense said she’d be most obliged if we were able to make sure we didn’t lose her submarine again once we found it.” Sam removed his face mask and his fins. “The last thing any of us wants is to beat Cassidy only to have him, and the rest of his scientist buddies escape on their stolen sub. We’d spend the next twenty years trying to find him again.”
Sam reached the edge of the beach and quickly moved to a set of palm trees next to a tunnel. It provided the most amount of concealment available. There were several tunnels. He removed his diving equipment and stripped out of his dry suit. Sam thoroughly dried his MP5, removed the bolt and pulled the trigger. The firing mechanism activated with a click. Confident it would work if needed he reassembled the weapon and zipped up his dive boots again.
He stared at the six new tunnels leading out from the beach since his map had been drawn and then up at Tom who’d already reassembled his own weapon. “Any preference which tunnel we’re going to take?”
“Nah, you choose,” Tom replied, locking the magazine in place. “What did the map say?”
Sam grinned. Of course the map had changed since his government was in possession of the Island. “It said there was just one tunnel from the beach.”
“Right. Let’s take the biggest one. Goes to figure if they were moving nuclear weapons and large rockets, they would need more room to do so.”
Sam nodded. “That’s as good a theory as any.”
Sam entered the tunnel first. It led upwards in a constant twenty degree pitch. It made sense given that everything inside the Island would need to be above the beach in order to remain dry. The tunnel was made from porous stone. Lights had been intermittently imbedded into the ceiling, but otherwise the island seemed entirely natural.
After climbing approximately twenty-five feet in elevation the tunnel opened to a medium sized room, with several large computers. No one was inside, but it was clearly a main hub for the everyday workings of the Island.
Sam looked at the first computer screen. It displayed the remote video surveillance from the beach. He quickly scanned the monitors looking for attackers.
“Tom, where would you place security if you had any?” Sam asked.
“Here,” Tom replied without hesitation. “This looks like it’s the main entrance to the Island. Looking at your old map, all intruders would have to pass through this point before reaching the inner levels of the Island.”
“Exactly. So where are they?”
Tom studied the area. Most of the monitors showed views from security cameras. On the far left a computer showed the current position of all their resources. It included the location of three other de-Havilland Tiger Moths, five snow-caterpillars, and the Benjamin Franklin Class nuclear submarine in its dock. He shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Me, too,” Sam said. And he didn’t like feeling confused during any raid. He wouldn’t have been too keen to have been met by an army of mercenaries, but it would have at least made more sense.
Sam put his hand on the third computer monitor, which was running a screen saver. The touchscreen opened to the digital image of an analogue clock. The clock only had one arm and it was moving in a counterclockwise direction, as though someone was trying to turn back time.
He was about to dismiss the image and continue searching for any clue that suggested where they should go, when he noticed there weren’t twelve numbers left on the face of the clock. Instead there were only five.
Five hours or five minutes?
The clock ticked backwards and the number of markers left were just four. It was working five minute intervals and had four intervals remaining.
Tom looked at the process and the number zero where the twelve would ordinarily be. “Twenty minutes on the clock.”
“Until what?” Sam asked.
“Given Robert Cassidy already has the subatomic particles he needs to complete the project, I think this clock is telling us we’ve got twenty minutes to find him and stop him, or get real used to living without electricity.”
Chapter Eighty
Sam found a map of the security cameras on the main computer. It showed a missile silo built into a large room closest to the surface of the Island. The Thor Rocket itself stretched sixty-five feet from her fin to the nose cone, extending from the lowest level through to a section just below the surface of the Island. There was no way to reach the base of the rocket in time because it had been secured by watertight doors. The only option left was to reach the upper end of the rocket, where the main ignition computers were stored.
He checked the fastest route before he and Tom started running through the series of tunnels and hatches until they reached it. Neither gave any thought or concern about defenders. Most, by the looks of things, had already left. Without electricity, the Island was going to be nothing more than a very cold, inhospitable and deserted environment. Obviously, Robert Cassidy had thought that much through and instructed many of his followers to leave before the world truly changes.
He would have liked to know where they had been moved to, but Sam had other priorities. In the back of his mind, he recalled Veyron explaining to him that the Antarctic Solace had its diesel engines and lighting all retrofitted to run without electricity. Robert Cassidy must have been planning on using it for their escape. The question was, now that Robert no longer was in control of the Antarctic Solace — where did he plan to go?
Sam turned the final corner and raised his right hand with a clenched fist, giving the silent message for stop. He heard voices. He recognized Alexis’s but the other one he’d never heard before. It was deep and erudite, like the owner had once lectured. By the sounds of things he was still lecturing.
“Alexis,” the stranger said. “You have done a great thing today. You should be proud of what you’ve helped me achieve. Without you, none of this could have been possible.”
Sam guessed he was listening to Robert Cassidy. Even the Secretary of Defense agreed he was a supremely intelligent man.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Alexis said. “I’m going to be responsible for destroying nearly every major scientific breakthrough since 1752 when Benjamin Franklin decided to prove the existence of electrical current by famously flying a kite with a copper key during a thunderstorm! Do you really believe the world would have been better off if Thomas Edison decided candle light would suffice?”
Sam felt sick. The contents of his last meal rumbled in his bowels and his throat ached. What could Cassidy have possibly done to convince her to sacrifice the world? He didn’t have time to wait and listen. He switched his Heckler and Koch MP5 from safety to full automatic and stepped inside.