He ran to the anteroom of the demil building, but unlike the one next door, this front door had no window. He listened. Trucks, several of them. Large doors opening, the sounds of several people out there. A radio. A car door, maybe two. The clump of heavy boots and the scrape of equipment being moved.
He tried the door leading into the assembly warehouse, but it was locked. He swore out loud, realizing that he needed the operator’s key ring to open it After Bud’s demise, they had had to generate some spare keys, but they were now all in the security control room. He couldn’t go out the front door, and there was no fire door in the rear. He was trapped in the demil room.
If they came in here, how in the world would he explain what he was doing? And there was sure as hell no place to hide.
He looked around frantically as the noise level outside grew. There were definitely several people out there, making vaguely familiar noises.
Then he focused on the batwing doors through which material came from the feed-assembly building into mis building. He remembered the night Lambry had gone through those doors, how he had been unable to pull them open from the other side. But that was because they opened only one way, into (his side. From here he could open them!
He moved quickly to the conveyor belt and climbed up onto it. Hunkering down on all fours, he went into the safety cage and reached the two flap doors. There was a full inch of space between them, enough to get his fingers through. He pulled and they moved, but just barely. The hinges were obviously spring-loaded, but something else was holding them. He felt around in the darkness to see if there was a release of some kind, but there was only a line of small metal tabs on the edge of the conveyor belt. Then he understood: The tabs on the moving belt probably hit a detent button in the door assembly, which would allow them to open. He tried to move the belt, but that was impossible.
He had to get out of here. Whoever that was out there, they could find him in any building except this one.
He crawled back out onto the floor and ran to the control console. He hit the master power button, then found the controls for the belt. He couldn’t start up the Monster; that would make much too much noise. But he could energize the belt. He hesitated for an instant, then pushed the button to activate the belt. The belt began to move with a distant hum of large electric motors back in the feed assembly building. Hurry, he told himself, they’ll hear that in a minute. He ran back over to the belt and climbed on, crawling in the opposite direction of the belt’s travel. Behind him the feed aperture of the Monster, motionless steel teeth poised, waited in silence.
He crawled to the doors, and, sure enough, they were partially ajar.
They would probably open fully when the first article hit them from the other side. He reached for the doors and pulled them open; he was about to go through when he remembered the console would still be energized.
He swore, then slipped his belt off and tied one of the doors back against the safety cage. He turned around to crawl back out, but his pants began to fall down. He let go of the cage long enough to grab his pants, but not before the right cuff caught underneath the belt on something. He swore again and pulled, but the damn thing was stuck hard, and not only stuck; each succeeding roller was tightening the pants against his ankle. And he was moving.
He looked up, aghast. He was caught on the belt and being taken straight into the feed aperture of the Monster. The demil machine wasn’t running, of course, but those steel band-saw blades were right there, waiting to strain him into baby food. He fought hard not to panic, feeling each succeeding roller bumping his knees as he pulled against the fabric of his trousers. The grip around his ankle was getting very tight, and he was losing all sensation of feeling in his right foot.
Wait, he told himself. Just wait. The cuff will be released when it gets to the last roller. There were only five more rollers, then four, then three. He twisted his body around to jump off the belt at the last instant, then pulled as hard as he could when his foot bumped over the last roller, just one foot in front of the row of band-saw blades. But instead of coming loose, his foot was twisted savagely under the belt as it descended beneath the rollers and headed back toward the flap doors.
His body tumbled off the belt and he hung momentarily upside down, his right leg trapped up in the roller assemblies, his left leg frantically scrabbling for traction on the polished linoleum floor. For a terrifying instant, he thought he was going to be pulled back into the rollers, but then suddenly he was free, sprawling out onto the floor with a grunt. I He stood up, windmilling his arms because of the pain in his ankle. The noises from outside were getting louder. He had to shut off the belt and get the hell out of there. Pulling up his trousers, he limped awkwardly across the floor to the console and quickly shut it down. Then he hopped back across the floor, crawled up on the now stilled conveyor belt, and, banging his knees across every one of the rollers, reached the flap doors. He pushed his body through into the next building, then reached back through the opening to retrieve his belt. But then he stopped.
Would the damned doors slam shut and trap his hand? He let go of the belt and pulled himself through the safety cage into the feed-assembly warehouse and got down off the belt. He looked around and saw a stack of the plastic material trays in which small demil items were placed before being put on the belt. He grabbed one and climbed back into the safety cage, wedged the tray where the doors ought to meet when they closed, and released his belt. Sure as hell, the steel doors snapped shut, nearly trapping his hand as they squashed the flimsy tray. He pulled hard on the edge of the bowed tray and it popped out, propelled by the edges of the doors.
He scuttled back out of the safety cage, his heart pounding, and limped like a wounded crab to the front door of the feed assembly warehouse, discarding the bent tray in a trash bin. He took a look out onto the tarmac area. It was the Army again, only there were four big trucks this time, and a lot more people. A hell of a lot more people. Two of the trucks had big generators going, and there were some portable light stands blazing out on the tarmac.
Gotta get out of here, he thought, but not this way. The good news was that this warehouse had a back entrance. He got his clothes back hi order as he lurched toward the back of the warehouse. The even better news was that he was safely out of the demil building. He tried not to think about being trapped on that conveyor belt, pinned like a bug by that wholly uncaring web of industrial machinery. Almost like Lambry, only conscious, he reminded himself.
He got to the back door and stopped. There was an alleyway behind this row of warehouses, big enough for forklifts but not for trucks, and then a high chain-link fence beyond that. Once into that alley, he could go either way around the back of the whole complex and get back to his truck. He checked the door. It was a fire door, with a horizontal handle allowing someone to get out but not back in. He checked to see that it was not alarmed, then pushed the handle, opened the door, and entered the dark alley.
Once outside, he could hear all the noise from the other side of the building, which was good because it had probably masked the sound of the conveyor belt starting up. He went right, limping a little as he hugged the back wall of the warehouse. When he got to the end of the building, he peeked around the edge, toward the tarmac. Two huge figures dressed out in what looked like space suits were looking right back at him from about six feet away. One of them crooked his gloved hand at Carson.
Dave Stafford banged his left elbow on the steering wheel when he was startled awake by something. He rubbed his elbow on his thigh, then rubbed his eyes as he tried to figure out what had awakened him. He looked at his watch, realizing as he did so that there were some very bright lights on behind the admin building, in what had to be the tarmac area. He looked at his watch again: two-thirty in the morning. He could hear the sound of portable generators running, and there were also lights on in the admin building, across the tracks from where he was parked. As he stared into the lighted windows, he saw two figures in I full chemical warfare protection gear come out of one office and enter another.