by Scott Baker
His job was to locate and relay information back to his commander on the ground. Beyond that, he had no idea what this mission was about, except that his commander had said it had come directly from the President.
CHAPTER 57
It was freezing, and both men were starving. Shaun muttered to David that ‘everything would be all right’ as the computer engineer lay bundled beside him. The militants had kept them bound overnight. They had been held in separate tents for no apparent reason, before being woken today, beaten a little more, blindfolded and thrown back in the truck. David whimpered from the pain of his bruised body bouncing on the truck’s metal tray. The militants had not spoken a word of English, and Shaun wondered if they had simply seen two Westerners who might be worth a ransom. Not that Shaun thought anyone would pay much for him. He supposed by now that Lauren’s father was frantic, and probably blamed him for her disappearance, and he would be right.
It was his fault, after all; he had let her come when he knew he should have taken the trip to England alone. He cursed himself again, but then felt that strange sense of calm he had experienced after reading the diary.
He had let Masonville High School know that he was taking leave, so they would not be overly concerned. Other than that, who would miss him? Certainly no one with enough money to pay any sort of ransom.
David, he suspected, was in a similar boat. The man had been in hiding for two years, and had been extremely careful about making contact with anyone. Shaun doubted that anyone would have noticed his absence.
They had been travelling for about an hour when Shaun heard sudden yells and felt the truck stop abruptly. Shaun heard the men jump down from the back of the truck amid gunfire. Then, more gunfire, and then an earth-shattering explosion as something very close to them blew sky high – possibly the gun jeep that he knew was travelling with them. Screams, guns and the impact of bullets. None hitting the vehicle holding Shaun and David, but close. There was a firefight going on around them, and they were helpless, lying bound and blindfolded in the middle of it.
‘What’s happening?’ Shaun heard David say through gurgled breath.
‘I don’t know. Turn to face away from me.’ He heard the big man wriggle and roll in front of him.
‘Okay, I’m going to move my face down to your hands. Do you think you can take off my blindfold?’ Shaun asked.
‘Yeah. I’ll try,’ David answered.
He moved his head down to David’s hands, running his face down his friend’s back in an effort to guide his movements. David’s stubby fingers fidgeted with the material, and soon the cloth came free. The move opened the cut on Shaun’s scalp once again, unsticking the cloth from the spot where the dried blood had held it in place.
Shaun growled.
‘Sorry! Okay? Can you see anything?’
Shaun looked about. They were alone in the back of a utility vehicle, a metal tray covered by canvas on a frame. Out behind them the road stretched back, winding away around a bend. The mountains were harsh and cold. The first hints of snow were lining pockets and drifts along the side of the road. Then all at once his view was blocked by three men in uniforms. US military uniforms.
‘Well, fellas, I think it’s time you got out of bed for the day, don’t you?’
Shaun was stunned. He had never been happier to see a man with a gun.
‘US Marines,’ the bald man who sat in the front seat said a short while later. He wore large reflective glasses and blue camouflage fatigues. Shaun and David sat in the rear of the personnel carrier with two other soldiers who looked straight ahead without a word.
‘It seems you are very important, gentlemen,’ the man continued in what Shaun guessed was a Texan accent.
‘I still don’t understand,’ he said. ‘How did you know where we were, and what do US Marines want with us, and who were those men?’ The stream of questions flowed out, his mind still reeling from what had happened.
‘To be honest, son, I really can’t tell you much. What I can tell you is that the President himself diverted an entire unit of military personnel to rescue you from your assailants. He gave us all the information and orders directly. I can’t tell you just how unheard of that is. He also told us where to find the body of that journalist.’
Shaun was silent for a moment thinking about Craig Schwartz. He could not help feeling that the man had been used as a pawn in some sick game. He forced himself to refocus on the present.
‘Okay, let’s get this clear. The President of the United States sent a division of US Marines to rescue us. Are you sure you got the right guys? Not that I’m complaining, but I’m fairly sure I’ve never been invited to the White House. I didn’t think he kept that close an eye on things.’
The bald man turned.
‘He doesn’t. You are Shaun Strickland. Your friend here is David Black, and the dead man is CNN journalist Craig Schwartz.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Okay, I’m going to ignore the fact that the President knows who I am for a second. Where are we?’
‘You’re just over the Afghanistan–Pakistan border heading west to an undisclosed location. You have passed through the Khyber Pass and are now in the Afghan mountains, probably the most lawless place on earth at the moment.’
‘And how did you know where we were?’
‘We were given information about the general area and then our recon scouts found you. It’s what we do, son.’
‘Okay …’ Shaun realised that this man, who had identified himself as Captain Allan Johnston, would only respond to direct questions, and if he wanted to get the information he needed he had to ask the right questions and in the right way.
‘Why are we important to the President?’ he asked slowly.
‘I don’t know, son. Not my department.’
‘Who were those—’
‘Did you get my briefcase?’ David cut in. ‘Did anyone get my briefcase?’
Captain Johnston smiled.
‘I was told you’d ask about that. Someone has been sent to retrieve the item. We are expecting to receive some reports within the next few minutes. I have to tell you, though, that car was shot up pretty bad. No guarantees it wasn’t looted.’
David looked both relieved and worried all at once.
‘As for who your friends back there were, well, they were Pathans, but we don’t know much beyond that. There are militant groups within the tribe, as well as mercenaries who act for the Taliban. We don’t know any more than you do as to why they grabbed you.’
‘Okay. Okay …’ Shaun looked straight ahead. He felt down to his empty stomach. The diary was still tucked safely into his belt. It had become so much a part of him that he hardly noticed it anymore. ‘Tell me this, then: what were your orders? Where are you taking us?’
‘My orders, son? My orders are to take you to a certain spot in the mountains and leave you there.’
‘What?’ Shaun thought he had misheard. ‘Leave us there? In the middle of the mountains? You’re not taking us to your base? To a hospital?’
‘No, son. No hospital, no base. In fact, we’ll be there in about ten minutes,’ he said as their vehicle turned off the track onto an even less defined path. Shaun’s sense of relief quickly vanished.
‘You can’t just leave us here!’
‘I’m sorry, I have my orders, son. That’s what the President instructed.’
Shaun started to panic. He looked at David, whose face was bruised, his right eye swollen.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ he said to Captain Johnston.
‘That’s not my area.’
‘Not your area?’ Shaun screamed. He made to lean forward but the Marine at his side grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back into his seat. He could not believe it. This was not a rescue. He spent the remaining minutes in seething silence until the all-terrain vehicle pulled to a stop.
‘Looks like this is where you get off,’ Captain Johnston said, turning. With
out a word, one of the other men slid the door open.
‘No,’ Shaun said defiantly.
‘I’m afraid no is not an option for you, Mr Strickland. Don’t worry, you will be provided with food. Now, please get out of the vehicle.’
Shaun sat for another moment and looked out the door. He could not imagine a less friendly or more isolated environment. He looked into the faces of the men in the truck, but none of them looked back at him.
They waited patiently in silence. Finally Shaun looked at David who was strangely quiet again. Slowly, grudgingly, he stepped out of his seat. The rocks crunched under his feet, and the cold bit into his skin. He felt sick. Exiting the military vehicle was like head-butting the air. Unbelievable. He promised himself he would not vote for President Samuels come the next election. A second later, David stood next to him holding a backpack one of the Marines had given him. It contained food and water.
‘One more thing,’ Captain Johnston said, stepping out. A Marine stood next to him with another backpack. He opened the pack and pulled out what looked like a futuristic helicopter hit with a shrink ray. It was painted with the same camouflage design as the Marine uniforms and as it was unfolded, Shaun could see several cameras at its front.
‘This is a bug. It’s your guide. Follow it.’
‘Where’s it taking us?’ Shaun asked as David looked at the unit with interest.
‘Sorry, son, that’s not my area,’ the captain said as he climbed back in the cabin. ‘Godspeed and good luck to you both, gentlemen,’ he said, and with that, he closed the door and the truck pulled away.
Shaun turned and looked at David, who still said nothing. The personnel carrier disappeared around a bend and was soon out of earshot. There they stood. Alone in the middle of nowhere. Pockets of snow dotted the uneven ground all about them. Rocks broke the sparsely covered surface and a chill wind bit into their flesh. Shaun looked down at the bug sitting at David’s feet. It had not moved. David reached into the pack he had been given and pulled out a foil package. ‘Sandwich?’ he said.
Almost an hour had passed and snow had begun to gently fall. Shaun had been through all the emotions he had energy for, frustration not the least among them. They had drunk a good deal of the water and eaten most of the food, including a slice of carrot cake, which Shaun had wolfed down and nearly choked on as an unusually large chunk of walnut got caught in his throat. To make it this far only to be killed by a giant walnut from the survival pack? A fitting end, Shaun thought.
Still the bug sat there. David had passed the time by examining it as closely as possible, without getting in the way of the evil-looking rotor blades that sat on the top of the tiny unit, trying to work out just how the bug was built.
It was while his head was mere inches from the tiny helicopter that a beep alerted him to the fact that it was not as lifeless as he had thought. The beep was closely followed by life singing itself into the rotors, which whirred within seconds of their first twitch. More smoothly than seemed possible, the bug lifted into the air and started to move away to the left of them at a steady pace.
‘Ah, Shaun?’ David said as the unit paused for a moment, turning to face them as if waiting for them to follow. Shaun moved quickly to stand beside his friend – the beginning of some action was a welcome change from the fruitless speculation that had occupied them for the past hour. The bug moved off again, leading Shaun and David on a trek for which they were neither dressed nor prepared.
The bug kept its distance for most of the day as the two men, more accustomed to the lab or classroom than the great outdoors, followed as best they could through the rocky, unfriendly terrain. When it began to grow dark around five hours later, David’s hands were so cold they no longer felt like part of his body. It had taken all of their energy and skill simply to not fall off the many narrow ledges to their death. When at last the bug entered a small opening in the rock, the fear of the unknown was washed away by the relief of getting inside to shelter. No sooner were they out of the howling wind than the bug’s front light came on, casting a red glow around the tight passageway.
The next hour consisted of inching along dark passageways and bumping shins and elbows on rock. David marvelled at how the bug was able to fly in the confined space without hitting the walls or ceiling. It hovered and moved and darted all without bumping into a single stone, which was more than could be said for Shaun or David. The maze of passageways the pair followed had been disorienting, but the bug never moved too far ahead.
The eerie silence was suddenly punctuated by a sound echoing through the cave. Distant but distinct, it was a high-pitched yelp of pain.
Shaun stopped dead, listening, waiting. David stumbled into the back of him in the darkness and fell against the wall. Exhausted, he sat where he dropped. The beating he had endured at the hands of the Pakistani militants had robbed him of the will to push on further.
‘You heard that, right?’ Shaun asked.
‘I think I did,’ David said.
Shaun waited, but no sound came again. His mind was playing tricks.
‘Come on, if that thing gets ahead of us, we’ll be left here in the dark. We’d never get out. We have to keep going,’ Shaun said, but as he spoke he noticed that the bug had stopped, waiting patiently as David drew his breath. The thought of getting lost in the caves caused David’s mind to fill with images of panthers and hippos. It was all the motivation he needed to get to his feet and press on, but the bug did not move.
‘Well?’ Shaun asked, looking up at the drone. It hovered, unmoving except for the rotors. Again Shaun called to it: ‘Okay, we can go now, we’re ready.’ Still the bug did not move.
It’s waiting for something, Shaun’s brain warned. For another ten minutes it hovered, before once again turning into the maze of cave passages and leading the men further into the mountain.
David struggled to keep up, and Shaun slung his friend’s arm over his shoulder and helped him walk for the next hour. It was just when he was also about to drop from exhaustion that the bug touched down in front of them and faced a wall. Shaun and David limped up to the robot and looked into the beam of its red light. Nothing. Rock. It had been flying nonstop for the past eight hours, so why had it stopped now?
The sound came first: something heavy, like hydraulics moving. The sound was followed almost immediately by a blue light, as an outline appeared in the wall that both men now faced. The outline framed an area the width of a bus, and twice as high, before it split in the middle. The hydraulic sound came again, and then the hum. Finally, the rock began to move outwards.
Apart. Opening. The bug’s light went out; it was no longer needed. Now the men were bathed in the blue light that came through an ever-increasing gap in the stone. Wide-eyed and exhausted, Shaun and David stared through the opening, which they now saw was, in fact, a set of doors.
CHAPTER 58
Light from the other side of the doors bathed Shaun and David in an eerie blue wash. Silently, they stared through the massive doorway, then they strode through.
Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw. Nothing. After hours in darkness, in tiny twisting passages and a maze of tunnels, they now stared out into a monstrous cavern that was altogether too enormous to be inside a mountain. Even more spectacular was what the cavern contained.
It was a city; a mass of grey steel domes and passageways connected in every direction. They found themselves on a ledge three storeys above the ground level on which most of the buildings sat. Each level was ringed around the cavern walls with a metal walkway.
Without thinking, David walked forward. Shaun followed and they both stood at the very lip of the railing gazing in awe at the impossible structures. Everything was bathed in a blue light that seemed to permeate from everywhere at once. Off to one end of the city was a large area of grass, on which ran lines and markings, almost like a football field.
It was, however, the middle of the whole mass of structures that drew Shaun’s immediate ga
ze. Rising up above the level of the surrounding buildings, like a centrepiece for the whole world around it, was a large circular platform. It was around one hundred and fifty feet off the ground and had all manner of cables running to it. He stared at the scene and his blood ran cold.
‘David,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen this before.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in my dreams.’
David did not respond but merely looked at Shaun. Neither man doubted where they were, but neither had imagined that it would look – so beautiful.
Blank monitors hung everywhere. The technology mingled with the rock as cables and pipes disappeared into and reappeared from the walls and floor. But there was something that made the whole place even stranger: it was deserted. They could not see a single sign of life, only the blue light that shone steadily throughout.
‘How do we get down?’ came David’s question.
Shaun looked about for some kind of stairwell but could not see one. Each ring of catwalks seemed to be a full, unbroken circle.
‘Where is everyone?’ David asked.
‘I don’t know. I suspect we’ll find out something if we can get to ground level.’
As soon as he said ‘ground level’ the section of the platform on which they stood began to move downwards. The small jolt caused Shaun to grab onto the railing for support, and as he looked down he saw the railing levels parting beneath them. Within seconds, they were at ground level, their platform becoming an elevator for their wishes.
‘Look at this tech!’ David enthused, through his swollen eye. They walked forward off the gangway and set foot on the rock and dirt that made up the floor of The Facility. From down here it was hard to get perspective, but one thing they could always see was the raised dais in the centre of the cavern.
‘Do you think that’s—’
‘Yes,’ Shaun replied before David could finish. ‘I have to see it.’