Chapter Four

 

 

Burroughs returned the one-eyed man's harsh stare, then arced a small smile. Cawdor had made no overtly threatening move, nothing that would attract the attention of the men the major knew he had backing his play. "I came forward to this truce with the understanding that we could work something out," he said.

 

"Guess we didn't." Ryan was matter-of-fact in his appraisal of the situation. "Seems a shame somehow, what with all the trouble you went to."

 

Burroughs felt the heat of the sun against his neck. He knew Cawdor couldn't see through the dark lenses of his aviators. He peered past the one-eyed man, trying to see how many people were in the mouth of the installation and where they were positioned. A comm headset nestled in his ear and under his chin. It wasn't connected to a satellite relay the way it had been in the old days, but it tied him in with the tank crews.

 

Intel had reported that Ryan Cawdor was a man to be reckoned with. Burroughs knew that. He'd flagged the man's file himself.

 

"How far back in the installation have you been?" Burroughs asked.

 

Ryan shook his head. "The impression I get from you, standing here's done past the safety mark."

 

The man was right and Burroughs knew it. Besides the orders he'd been given all those years ago, there was also the need to keep Project Calypso secret for his own reasons. The major kept perfectly still. He'd been blooded in Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm and the Bosnian conflict. Even while trapped in the installation, awaiting a time when the rad count would drop to a tolerable level, he'd kept himself and his unit flexible and fit.

 

"How do you want to handle this?" Burroughs asked.

 

"I'll step back inside while you stand your ground there," Ryan replied. "Then you can move off."

 

"How do I know you won't simply shoot me down once you're inside?"

 

"I set up a deal, I generally stick to it. Mebbe I'm no man of honor, but I am a man of my word."

 

Everything Burroughs had heard about the man indicated the truth of those words. Still, it didn't ease what felt like a twisted knot of stainless-steel wool in the pit of his stomach. "You've been out here a long time," he said. "I was hoping we could perhaps help each other."

 

"Do what?"

 

"Rebuild."

 

Ryan's eye narrowed as if he hadn't heard right. "Rebuild what? This installation?"

 

"These are hard times, Mr. Cawdor. Hard times require hard men making hard decisions. This country still has enemies."

 

Ryan shook his head. "You aren't making any sense."

 

"There are a lot of people out here who need guidance," Burroughs said. "Haven't you ever wished for more than what this place has to offer?"

 

The suspicious glint in the man's single eye was unmistakable. "Sounds to me like you're all set up to carve a ville out for yourself and set yourself up as a baron. Mebbe you can do that, and mebbe it's for you. Me, I've had enough of politics to last me a lifetime and then some."

 

"More than a ville," Burroughs said. Maybe if he got Cawdor to understand, the man would be more willing to listen to reason. The unit didn't need Cawdor specifically. There were others who could be used, but having Cawdor would be a big step in the right direction. Some villes were remnants of cities, set up to barter and trade around specific areas. From what he'd seen and heard of them, the major knew they'd sprung from an old feudal way of society. "Those places are founded on strength and domination, and driven by visions of lust and greed. I can offer more."

 

"Then again," Ryan said, "considering the current situationmebbe not."

 

Burroughs felt the back of his neck burn, and not all the heat was coming from the sun. "You pull back inside the building, there's nowhere to go."

 

Ryan smiled mirthlessly. "Just because you give a man no place to go, doesn't mean he's going to go nowhere."

 

Burroughs steeled himself. There was no way he could simply let the man and his group walk away. "You know what a bluff is?"

 

A thin smile tugged at Ryan's lips. "Sure. Question is, are you running one? Or mebbe you figure I am? I've got no problem with shooting you down where you stand."

 

"I also notice you're standing in the middle of that door," Burroughs said. "You're probably hard to shoot around."

 

There was a tense silence, then a woman's voice called, "Ryan."

 

"Mildred," he acknowledged.

 

"He's going to need some convincing."

 

The radio squealed in Burroughs's ear, almost painful in its intensity.

 

"Major?" Kennedy asked over the headset.

 

"Stand down," Burroughs ordered. "Not a damn move until I give the order."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

Burroughs watched Ryan, expecting the big man to be the one to make the first move. Instead, an impact slammed into his right thigh, followed immediately by the sharp report of a pistol. He'd been struck with enough force that at first he'd thought he'd been shot. Pain spread up and down his thigh. Out of reflex, turning on his left heel and bringing his right leg back to present a profile target, he reached for the .45 in the counter terrorist drop holster. Only the gun wasn't there.

 

Already in motion, Ryan threw himself back into the opening.

 

More bullets plucked at Burroughs's clothing, snapping through the sharp crease of his shoulder seam and whispering past his face, ripping through the loose folds of his shirt collar and making it stand out. None of them ever found the Kevlar body armor he wore. Whoever was shooting at him didn't mean him any harm. Yet.

 

Burroughs went to ground and hit the button activating the communications link. "Fire," he roared. "Hit the front of that building now." He drew the other .45 from its shoulder rig as the sound of heavy machine gun fire ripped across the stillness of the desert. A cold numbness had settled into his leg. A quick glance showed him that the thigh holster had been neatly sheared away and hung upside down by the lower thigh strap. The markswoman had been a damn fine shot.

 

He turned his attention to the front of the building as bullets chipped the stone outer surface and whined from the layers of steel underneath.

 

"Kennedy," Burroughs called over the radio.

 

"Sir."

 

"The inside team?"

 

"Their communications are breaking up, sir," the man replied. "Best we can figure out, they've been shut off in the old Project Calypso area."

 

There were only two ways out of the structure. Over the years trapped inside, Burroughs had made certain of that. If the other team had been shut off in the project area, that way was closed. And Ryan Cawdor couldn't hope to hold the other one, even if he'd had the water and supplies and could tolerate the rad intensity still baked into the terrain.

 

Burroughs crawled to the crest of a dune and fisted his pistol more tightly and shifted the sand so he could lie prone. He sighted along the barrel and waited for his shot with a patience that had been perfected over decades.

 

 

 

KRYSTY FROZE against the wall behind her. The Samp;W Model 640 .38 pistol was in her hand, loose and ready. Air moved against her face, and she turned and moved slowly in the direction it came from.

 

Unable to see in the complete darkness, she felt with her gift, probing what lay ahead of her. Something. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but it had an alien feel to it. And it bore the cool, serrated touch of death.

 

Machinery hummed, low and almost indistinct, from a few yards away. It was an amorphous presence that held an unfocused promise of threat.

 

The hum deepened, then something clattered overhead. Krysty aimed the pistol in the dark, not doubting that it was pointed directly at the source of the noise. She reached out to the side with her free hand, leaning out from the wall she was using as her guide. Her fingertips brushed against the rough, rusty surface of the opposite wall. There was nothing in front of her or behind her.

 

A glimmer of light ignited inside a rounded hull almost three feet above Krysty's head. The movement that accompanied it was stiff, filled with off-kilter vibration. She squeezed her pistol's trigger as rapidly as she could. Six rounds spanged off metal with long, loud screams that left blazing comets of sparks in their wake.

 

At the same time her extra senses sent a quiver through Krysty that triggered an immediate reaction. In response she threw herself forward. Her arms covered her head before she landed, protecting her face and skull from whatever might be covering the ground. Instantly she rolled to one side and put her back to the wall. As she craned her head up to take in the blazing pyre that remained of the sentry drone, she broke open the .38 pistol and shook the empty brass free. In only a matter of seconds, she refilled the chambers and snapped the cylinder closed.

 

The drone was a spherical shape almost a foot and a half in diameter. Twin tracks only a couple inches apart threaded across the center of the tunnel, hanging from occasional braces from the ceiling. The drone hung from one track like a dead crow with one foot latched around a power line. The fire fed on the circuitry inside the mechanical sentry. A pall of gray blue smoke whipped against the ceiling, then began to drop toward the bottom of the tunnel.

 

Knowing the illumination from the fire wasn't going to last long, Krysty pushed herself to her feet. The tracks hanging from the ceiling were powered, and the power had to be coming from somewhere.

 

She went forward, ducking under the tangle of flaming wires that hung from the security drone. The tunnel ran almost straight, but on a decline that she could feel in her sense of balance and in the way her feet turned as she walked.

 

The fire in the security drone went out with a collection of little hisses. But before it did, she spotted the oval door at the end of the tunnel.

 

Krysty had to pass through the last few yards without any light, working from memory. She reached out with her hand, seeking the door. It took six more measured steps to find it.

 

The metal was rough under the layer of foul ooze. An oily gloss covered everything but the sharpest edges. She felt around until she located the latch, which was recessed into the door. Holding the .38 pistol at the ready, she shoved the door inward. A gentle illumination spilled over her. The fire-retardant ooze crested over the lip at the bottom of the sealed door and glopped into the room.

 

Without saying a word, Krysty stepped across the threshold, keeping herself in profile to make a smaller target. Her senses gave her an uncertain feeling that no one else was in the room.

 

Computer mainframes lined the walls around her, red, amber, white, green and orange lights flickering against their surfaces. A steady hum permeated the room, then blowers activated, making the area sound more hollow than it had only a moment ago.

 

Krysty got the impression that the operation hadn't been a large one, but it had flexed plenty of cybernetic muscle, judging from the hardware she could see. She crossed the room to the nearest workstation and sat, placing the pistol on the desktop beside her.

 

She recognized the monitoring system from the numerous screens it had available. All of them were linked to a keyboard. "Okay," she told herself, "the drone had power, and the fire systems, and there's light in here. There's got to be power at this level."

 

She sat tensely on the edge of the swivel chair after hitting the power button she found on the edge of the keyboard. Around her she heard the sharp crackle and chug of the mainframes coming online, then the intake of internal fans even over the hiss of the vents and air system.

 

There were eight screens before her, glassed-over ebony that only hinted at any kind of depth. Whoever had designed the room had gone to lengths to keep it hidden from the rest of the installation. It stood to reason that whoever used it would also want access to whatever else was available in the complex.

 

With a rapid string of liquid pops, five of the screens flared to life. The other three remained blank, shot through with occasional bursts of static. The most centrally located screen, slightly smaller than the others, held a menu in lime green letters skating across black velvet Security Camera Uplink.

 

Numbers followed, as well as brief listings of where the cameras were. View three was an exterior view, tied in through the Maintenance Program, according to the menu. Krysty was disappointed as she looked up at the dark screen in front of her, marked View Three. Evidently the exterior cameras were the first to go during the attack in 2001.

 

She checked the menu again, finding a listing for Checkpoints, Interior. Another glance at the screens before her and she found View Two still operable. Though Mildred had the most knowledge of computers, she had taught Krysty the basics. She tagged the keyboard and brought up another menu in the lower right of the second screen, transparent so it didn't wipe out any of the details.

 

The screen darkened and filled with the cavernous vault of one of the other tunnel shafts. She didn't know where it was or what it showed. The menu on the screen listed five other possible views. Elevator bars allowed her to scan even more. She worked her way through them. Most of them opened up only onto dead screens. There'd been considerable damage done inside the complex, either by the bombing, the systems collapsing or intentional changes in the programming. Lines ran across some screens "Seized by outside source."

 

"Sacrificed to prevent disclosure of this unit."

 

On the next selection, though, she found Ryan. He was dodging back inside the entrance they'd come through, with Jak, Mildred and J.B. surrounding him, covering his retreat. Bullets chopped into the sides of the entrance.

 

Ryan went into a rolling dive on one shoulder, hurrying out of the killzone afforded through the entrance. Through it, Krysty saw the war buggy perched on the sand, the tires churning as the driver threw his vehicle into gear.

 

Then the entrance came apart in a terrific explosion that seemed even more horrendous because no sound came through the speakers. Dust and flying debris obscured the camera's view, and a heartbeat later took it out completely.

 

A thin, irregular line of yellow-and-black static pulsed across the screen, followed almost immediately by red letters that said, "Unit off-line."