“I saw them in the lobby. No rooms available.”
“Right. So here’s what I’m thinking. Tessa’s things are all back at your brother’s house; everyone’s been cooped up here all day. Amber’s been acting a little, I don’t know… something’s on her mind. I told her I wasn’t upset about last night, that I really wasn’t, but she seems rattled being here. I was anticipating that you’d want to go out to the ELF site tomorrow and… well, from here it’s a haul but-”
“From Sean’s house it’s a lot closer.”
“Yes. You and I could head out first thing in the morning. I talked to Sean, and he has cross-country skis we could borrow-if that would work with your ankle. Maybe if we taped it really well?”
Last night I’d downplayed to her how badly my ankle was bothering me. Honestly, I couldn’t even imagine cross-country skiing on it, but I buried that thought for the moment. Lien-hua was right about one thing: the location of the Moonbeam really was working against us. It hadn’t been a bad choice when we were investigating the Pickron residence and the site of the snowmobile’s disappearance on Tomahawk Lake, but now the focus of the investigation was shifting toward the ELF site and the area surrounding Elk Ridge and the Schoenberg Inn.
If Natasha and Jake stayed at the Moonbeam while Lien-hua and I went to Sean’s place, it would give us a strategic, two-pronged approach for searching the region both for the Eco-Tech people that Alexei had told me about and for Kayla Tatum and Donnie Pickron, who, as far as we knew, might both still be alive somewhere.
“That might not be a bad idea,” I said. “We should all be able to cram inside the cruiser.”
“Amber’s car is here too.”
“Okay.”
Lien-hua went to tell the desk clerk that two rooms had just become available-mine and Amber’s-and I went to touch base with Jake and then grab my things.
67
Solstice peered into the sedan. She envisioned something from a Get Smart or a James Bond movie, with a seat that would flip backward and then shoot the driver through a chute that led to a secret high-tech military base.
It wasn’t quite like that.
Not quite.
“All right,” Solstice said to Donnie. “You’re on.”
“I don’t have my keycard,” he said. “I’ve been telling you that-”
“There’s an override. Right before the retinal scan.” She told him the access code she’d gotten from Chekov, that he’d gotten from Rear Admiral Colberg. “Type it in.”
“How did you…?”
“We have your wife and daughter,” she said irritably, “and we will not hesitate to kill them if we need to. Now get us into the base.”
Still in handcuffs, Donnie climbed into the driver’s seat and flipped down the windshield sun shade. A key dropped into his lap, and, though the car was on cement blocks, he slipped it into the ignition. When he turned the key, rather than the engine starting, the radio flipped around in the console, revealing a numbered keypad. He typed in the code, and the car’s trunk clicked open.
Solstice studied the concrete. “Where is it?”
Donnie pointed to one of the uniform rectangles formed by the cracks near the front of the car.
“We go in two groups,” she called. “Eclipse, Tempest, Cyclone, you’re with me. Squall too. Tempest, bring Donnie over when he’s done.”
The crack that outlined the rectangle was nearly a centimeter wide. Solstice had been a little worried about the width, but it looked big enough to allow the web router’s relay line to pass through. She was prepared to deal with things either way, but it would make everything a lot simpler, of course, if her team could remain online the whole time while they were in the base. She tested her weight on the section of concrete. It felt as solid and ungiving as the rest of the floor.
While she waited for the people she’d just called to gather, Donnie, guarded by Tempest, went to the car’s trunk, rooted around beneath the carpet until he came out with another key, then returned to the driver’s seat. When he inserted this one into the ignition, a small light came on in the lower corner of the dashboard, and he stared into it while a small laser scanner swept across his retinas.
Cyclone connected the comm line to one of the legs of the workbench, then unreeled it and brought the remaining coil of wire to the concrete slab beside the car.
When the retinal scan was down, Solstice heard the deep grinding sound of giant gears crunching against each other.
Slowly, the slab began to lower.
The initial incursion team packed in around her on the platform.
Tempest grabbed the keys and manhandled Donnie onto the platform, which was beginning its methodical, controlled descent through the maintenance building’s floor.
As the slab lowered, rough cement walls appeared on each side of them, with one wall showing the reticulated steel track that supported whatever beam or cantilever rested beneath their concrete platform.
When Solstice tipped her light down the narrow slit between the edge of the slab and the shaft walls, she saw only uninterrupted darkness stretching into the earth.
The communication relay line trailed above them, snaking up through the opening. Squall, the slim man who’d counted the money that Chekov had brought to the meeting yesterday, watched it nervously. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get cut when the opening closes.”
“It won’t get cut,” Cyclone assured him.
Solstice wasn’t quite so sure.
After they’d descended about fifteen feet, she shone her light up and saw another concrete puncheon, identical in size to the one on which they stood, and supported on long, sturdy hydraulic arms, unfold from the side of the shaft and rise to cover the opening. The comm relay line was pressed to the side, but threaded comfortably through the crack between the second concrete barrier and the rest of the maintenance building’s floor.
It appeared to be fine.
Cyclone checked her equipment. “Good to go.”
“All right,” Solstice said. “There’ll be at least one Master-at-Arms waiting for us in the entry bay.” She spoke rapidly, restating what she’d briefed them about earlier in the day. “The others should be down on the command level. But be ready. There’s a small arms locker in the crew quarters, and it’s possible the warfare information officers will be armed as well. And don’t forget about the MA who’s off-duty.”
As they descended, Eclipse and Tempest readied their AR-15s. Everyone else pulled out Tasers or sidearms. Solstice unholstered her FN Five-SeveN single-action autoloading pistol-fifty-meter range, twenty-round magazine firing a 5.7x28 mm cartridge. A nice little package.
“Remember, I want them alive, if at all possible.”
Cyclone recalibrated the portable tactical radio frequency jammer so that whoever they might encounter on the top level of the base would not be able to communicate with the other sentries throughout the facility.
They were now about fifty feet down, just over halfway.
A few moments later, a sliver of light emerged in the narrow space between one side of the slab and the wall. Solstice already knew that the other three walls would remain closed off, just like in a real elevator.
The thin strip of light grew brighter as they neared the bottom of the shaft.
“Donnie, you don’t say a word,” she warned. “We’ll do the talking.”
As they finally edged past the end of the shaft, light spread around them, and the cavernous room on the top level of the base came into view.
Solstice called out, “Set down your weapons, we have Lieutenant Commander Pickron!”
“Run!” Donnie yelled suddenly. “Get the-”
Solstice swung her sidearm violently at him, a harsh pistol-whip to the side of the head. He dropped to the concrete like a spent cartridge.
A sole Master-at-Arms stood twenty feet away with his sidearm drawn, a look of shock on his face. “Put down your weapons!” he yelled unconvincingly.
The slab settled onto the ground.