A cloud of dust billowed out. There was a rattle of debris falling from the impact site on the wall they'd started by drilling a quarter-inch hole, then sent a fiber-optic scope through with the delicacy of doctors conducting keyhole cardiac bypass surgery. The black plastic-coated hose had snaked around, bringing grainy gray images to the monitor screen on the console like images from a long-sealed Egyptian royal tomb. The dust lay heavy in the lockup room, as if it hadn't been visited for months or years. Something indistinct and bulky, probably a large oil tank, hulked a couple of feet beyond the hole, blocking the line of sight to the door to the lockup. The caretaker had kicked up a fuss when she'd told him they were going to punch through the wall from the other side-after unceremoniously ejecting the occupants' property-until she'd shown him her FBI card and the warrant the FEMA Sixth Circuit court had signed in their emergency in camera session. (Which the court had granted in a shot, the moment the bench saw the gamma ray spike the roving search truck had registered as it quartered the city, looking for a sleeping horror.) Then he'd clammed up and gone into his cubicle to phone the landlord.
"I think we're gonna need that jack," called one of the cops with the ram. His colleagues laid the heavy metal shaft down while two more cops in orange high-visibility jackets and respirators moved to shovel the rubble aside. "Should be through in a couple more minutes."
Judith glanced at Rich, who grinned humorlessly. "This is your last chance to lake a hike," she suggested.
"Naah." Rich glanced down. He was fidgeting with his phone, as if it was a lucky charm. "Let's face it, I wouldn't get far enough to clear the blast zone, would I?"
Judith suppressed a smile: "That's true." Go on, whistle in the dark. She shivered involuntarily. The guys with the haltering ram didn't know what they were here for: all they knew was that the woman from the FBI headquarters staff wanted into the storage room, and wanted in bad. She'd done the old stony stare and dropped an elliptical hint about Mideast terrorists and fertilizer bombs, enough to keep them on their toes but not enough to make them phone their families and tell them to leave town now. But Rich knew what they were looking for, and so did Bob, who was suiting up in the NIRT truck in the back parking lot along with the rest of his team, and Eric Smith, back in Maryland in a meeting room in Crypto City. "You could always step outside for a last cigarette."
"I'm trying to give up. Last cigarettes, that is." Rich shuffled from foot to foot as two of the cops grunted and manhandled a construction site jack into place beside the blue chalk X on the wall, where it was buckling ominously outwards.
"Okay, one more try," called one of the cops-Sergeant McSweeny, Herz thought-as the ram team picked up their pole and began to work up their momentum.
BAM. This time there was a clatter of rubble falling as overstressed bricks gave way. The dust cleared and she saw there was a hole in the wall where the ram had struck, an opening into the heart of darkness. The battering ram team shuffled backwards out of the way of the two guys with shovels, who now hefted sledgehammers and went to work on the edges of the hole, widening it. "There's your new doorway," said one of the ram crew, wincing and rubbing his upper arm: "kinda short on brass fittings and hinges, but we can do you a deal on gravel for your yard."
"Ri- ight," drawled Rich. Judith glared at him, keeping her face frozen. That's right, I'm a woman in black from a secret government agency, she thought. I've got no sense of humor and you better not get in my way. Even i f the black outfit was a wind cheater with a big FBI logo, and a pair of 501s.
The cop recoiled slightly. "Hey, what's up with you guys?"
"You have no need to know." Judith relented slightly. "Seriously. You won't read about this In the newspapers, but you've done a good job here today." She winced slightly as another sledgehammer blow spalled chips off the edge of the hole in the wall. Which was growing now, to the point where a greased anorexic supermodel might be able to wriggle through. A large slab of wall fell inward, doubling the size of the hole. "Ah, showtime. If you guys could get the jack into position and then clear the area I think we will take it from here." If only Mike Fleming was about. This is his fault, she thought venomously.
Ten minutes later the big orange jack was screwed light against the top of the opening, keeping the cinder blocks above the hole from collapsing. The SWAT team was outside in the parking lot, packing their kit up and shooting random wild-assed guesses about what the hell it was they'd been called in to do, and why: Judith glanced at the wristwatch-shaped gadget strapped to her left wrist and nodded. It was still clean, showing background count of about thirty becquerels per second. A tad high for suburban Boston, but nothing that couldn't be accounted for by the fly ash mixed into the cinder blocks. The idea of wearing a Geiger counter like a wristwatch still gave her the cold shudders when she thought about it, but that wasn't so often these days, not after three weeks of it- and besides, it was better than the alternative.
A big gray truck was backing in to the lot tail-first. Rich waved directions to the driver, as if he needed them: the truck halted with a chuff of air brakes, live feet short of the open door to the small warehouse unit. The tailgate rattled up to reveal a scene right out of The X-Files -half a dozen men and women in bright orange inflatable space suits with oxygen tanks and black rubber gloves, wheeling carts loaded with laboratory instruments. They queued up in front of the tail lift. "Is the area clear?" Judith's earpieces crackled.
She glanced around. "Witnesses out." The SWAT team was already rolling up the highway a quarter of a mile away. They were far enough away that if things went really badly they might even survive.
"Okay, we're coming in." That was Dr. Lucius Rand, tall and thin, graying at the temples, seconded to the Family Trade Organization from his parent organization. Just like Judith, like Mike Fleming, like everyone else in FTO- only in his case, the parent organization was Pantex. He was in his late fifties. Rumor had it he'd studied at Ted Taylor's knee; Edward Teller had supervised his Ph.D. The tailgate lift ground into operation, space-suited figures descending to planet Earth.
"We haven't checked for booby traps yet," she warned.
"Well, what are you wailing for?" Rand sounded impatient.
Judith nodded to Rich as she pulled on a pair of disposable plastic shoe protectors: "Let's go inside."
The hole in the wall was about two feet wide and three feet high, a jagged gash. She switched on her torch-a tiny pocket LED lantern, more powerful than a big cop-style Maglite-and swept the floor. There were no wires. Good. She ducked through the hole, coughing slightly. Her Geiger watch still ticked over normally. Better. She stood up and looked around.
The room was maybe twenty feet long and eight feet wide, with a ten-foot ceiling. Naked unpainted cinder block walls, a galvanized tin ceiling, and a concrete floor completed the scene. There was a big rolling door at one end and dust everywhere. But what caught her attention was the sheer size of the cylinder that, standing on concrete blocks, dominated the room. "Sweet baby Jesus," she whispered. It was at least ten feet long, and had to be a good four feet in diameter. There was barely room to walk around the behemoth. She shone her torch along the cylinder, expecting to see-"what the hell?" "Herz, report! What have you seen?" "It's a cylinder," she said slowly. "About ten, twelve feet long, four, five feet in diameter. Supported on concrete blocks. One end is rounded; there's some kind of collar about three feet from the other end and four vanes sticking out, sort of like the fins on 'a bomb..." She trailed off. Like the fins on a bomb, she thought, dazed. Jesus, this can't be here! She shook herself and continued, "there's some kind of equipment trolley near the back end, and some wires going into the, the back of the bomb." She glanced down at her watch. The second hand was spinning round. It was a logarithmic counter, and it had jumped from tens of becquerels per second to tens of thousands as she crossed the threshold. Gamma emission from secondary activation isotopes created by neutron absorption, she heard the lecture replay in her mind's eye; Geiger counters can't detect neutrons until the flux is way too high for safety, but over lime a neutron source will tend to activate surrounding materials. "I'm reading secondaries. I think we've got a hot one. I'm coming out now." A quick sweep across the screen door in front of the gadget's nose revealed no telltale trip wires. "No sign of booby traps."