Major Gant shook his head no.
"So that's my point. I may be your science officer, but I'm here because I'm a doctor and I understand biology. Like that thing in the Everglades a few days ago. I have a background and knowledge base that allows me to deal with living things and understand them; even develop things like that Net Taser to help capture our visitor. But this is different. It's like, well, it's like they wanted someone smart to learn enough about the machine to get it to work, but also someone who doesn't know enough about all this physics shit to figure out the details."
Gant did not know what to say, but it did not matter; a quick knock on the door drew his attention. Lieutenant Colonel Liz Thunder stood there.
"Thom, sorry to bother you, but General Borman is upstairs. He wants to see us right away." The glare in her eyes told the rest of the story.
No, Borman is not happy at all about yesterday's field trip.
Thunder glanced at Twiste.
Gant interceded. "I'm sorry. Lieutenant Colonel Liz Thunder, this is Captain Brandon Twiste, my team's science and medical officer."
She offered a quick, polite smile and extended her hand.
"Pleased to meet you, Captain."
Twiste's reaction, however, was much different than expected. He accepted the colonel's handshake but did not share the polite smile. Furthermore, his eyes narrowed and his head tilted just a bit.
"I'm sorry, Colonel, do I know you? I'm certain I've heard your name before."
Gant offered, "Not many Thunders in the military, I would imagine."
His light tone did not lighten the exchange.
"Not that I'm aware of," Liz answered, then she rocked on her feet as if her physical balance had gone awry. "Major, we have to get upstairs."
"Yes, colonel. Let me lock up and I'll meet you there."
The fact that she turned around and marched away without offering to wait told Thom a lot more than any of her words. Of course, like everything else at Red Rock, he did not know what her actions suggested, leaving him again with nothing but questions.
Twiste followed him out of the room. Gant shut the door and sealed it with a padlock.
"Well, you heard her, I have a meeting to attend. I believe my ass is going to get chewed off."
Twiste did not find any humor in the situation at all. In fact, he reached out and grabbed Gant's arm.
"Thom, I know I've heard her name before. I just can't place it. But I've got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach."
"Yes, this place has that effect."
"No, look, I mean it," he said, locking his eyes on Gant's. "I have this feeling that trusting her would be a big mistake."
—
Lieutenant Colonel Thunder and Major Thomas Gant stood at attention, Liz behind her desk and Gant to the side.
The expression on General Borman's face made Thom think of an angry Texas sky about to spawn a twister.
"Let me try to understand this. You took an unauthorized trip to discuss your—" he glared at Thunder, "—top secret facility and his—" a head motion toward Gant, "—classified mission with a woman who isn’t even cleared to know either of you exist. You left Corporal—Corporal—Sanchez in charge of this facility for several hours?"
"Sir," Thunder replied despite the obvious fact that Borman was in no mood for replies. "Given the lack of information available to my command in regard to the nature of the threat here at Red Rock, I took action I deemed necessary to enhance security at this facility."
"Don’t try that bureaucratic bullshit with me, Colonel. I’m not a fat-ass senator at a subcommittee hearing where we can dance like a couple of whore-lawyers. This is a military operation, not the goddamn girl scouts. You’re not my priest—either of you—and I don’t have to confess to you, do you understand?"
"Sir, yes, sir," came the dual chorus.
Borman's anger seemed to increase, but instead of his voice growing louder, it became deeper, making him all the more menacing. Anyone could shout, but it took a master of intimidation to sound calm while at the same time unleashing a hellish fury.
"You have only one job here and you still managed to fuck that up. Should I be surprised, Colonel? Isn't that on your resume—she fucks things up. I pulled your sorry ass out of the closet and put you back on the front lines and this is the shit you pull?"
"Sir, trying to do my job."
"Don't you do it. Don't you pull that with me. Your job was to stay at this desk and make sure the men on this base keep their heads in the game. Instead, your head wasn't in the game. Let's get one thing straight, Lieutenant Colonel: you are a mother hen sitting on eggs. Your ass doesn't move. I'm of the mind to throw you back to the wolves. How would a charge of insubordination sound?"
Gant felt compelled to speak.
"Sir, I am as responsible for that excursion as the colonel. I needed intelligence for tomorrow's entry."
Borman swiveled around, sending the twister crashing into another barn.
"Who the hell are you, Major? You are a military asset. Nothing more. You go where I tell you to go. You do what I tell you to do. If I think you need intel, I pick up a spoon and feed it to you."
The general circled Gant and leaned in close, his nose nearly touching the side of the major's face.
"You and your little group think you're above it all, don't you? Look at you. Task Force Archangel, Friez's little darlings who get to walk around without any rank on their collar, sideburns and mustaches, and fancy equipment straight out of DARPA. You act like you're in some kind of goddamn fraternity."
Thom stood straight and still, but as he listened to Borman's rant his mind raced back to the Darwin facility a few days ago. He and Twiste had witnessed General Albert Friez arguing on the telephone and Frieze had not seemed comfortable with Archangel's new orders. Now Thom saw why.
It became clear his unit was here for reasons beyond the mission. Borman's choice of words … his tone … the disdain frothing from his lips as he growled … Archangel was Borman's prize.
"Albert protected you and covered for you and kept making excuses for why you could never come to Red Rock; how you were too valuable. Not this time. This time you belong to me. Tomorrow morning you and your men are marching downstairs to that vault door and going in. I will tell you what you need to know. Not Friez; me. And you'll do it or so help me God I will bury the entire Archangel program so deep they'll have to add ten more sublevels at Darwin just to find your bones. Are we clear?"
Gant mumbled, "Perfectly."
"I can't hear you, Major. I asked if we were clear."
"Sir, yes, sir, my ears are fully functional and I comprehend the meaning of your words, sir. We are clear."
Borman backed off, apparently satisfied that his browbeating had obtained the necessary results.
"This is what you need to know, Major. Your unit will enter the quarantine zone tomorrow morning at 1100 hours. Captain Twiste will take with him a package that you will safely deliver to the Red Lab on sublevel 8. That is your target zone. Twiste has been trained to operate this package. All other considerations are secondary, and all team assets with the exception of Captain Twiste and his package are expendable. Do you understand, soldier?"
"I understand, sir."
"As for your speculation as to the cause of the quarantine or the status of the quarantine zone …" Borman hesitated.
Thunder seized on that momentary hesitation to take the initiative.
"Sir, with all due respect I wish to formally protest this mission."
Borman gaped at her, incredulous. He had just walked up one side of her then down the other, yet there she was still pressing forward.
Thunder hurried before she could be cut off: "Without understanding the nature of any hostile activity or conditions inside the zone, Major Gant’s team is almost certain to fail. I request additional information as to the nature of the threat and the estimated odds of success."
Borman replied to her, "Major Gant is the element l
eader. You are in no position to request further information. If the major feels that he is not capable of carrying out this mission without additional information then he's free to say as much," the general said, but the look in Borman's eyes told a much different story. There would be no questions and no answers.
"Sir, we can handle it."
Borman nodded approvingly. "Then that’s that. Prep your team, Major, You’re going in tomorrow morning."
Borman stepped to the door and opened it.
Liz broke from attention and gasped, "That's it? You're just sending him in there without any information, without any reason to believe things have changed since those first teams disappeared? It's a suicide mission."
"You stand down, Colonel," Borman shot back, but it appeared that his previous outburst had sapped his strength to fight. Nonetheless, he still threatened, "The only reason you're still standing in this office is because I don't want to waste my time getting another replacement in here. But don't push me or you will be on the first chopper out of here."
Thom saw that this was going nowhere, so it made no sense for her to get thrown out on her ear for a lost cause. He had received his orders and would do as commanded. Not because he agreed with the mission, not because he felt good about it, and certainly not because he enjoyed working under General Borman's command.
No, Major Thom Gant would follow his orders for the simple reason that they were his orders and he was a soldier. He knew no other way.
Perhaps Captain Campion was not the best-programmed robot on the Archangel team after all.
"Colonel, everything is okay. I have my orders."
His words cut Liz off in midthought, knocking her off balance. She glared at him not with surprise but contempt, with such intensity that he regretted stepping in. His acquiescence had struck a nerve, perhaps the same nerve McCaul had struck at The Tall Company.
Borman wagged his finger at Lieutenant Colonel Thunder. "One job. One fucking job. Keep the door closed. Everything else is not your concern."
Then he was gone, shutting the door behind him, although it immediately popped free of the catch.
She turned to Gant, staring at him as if he had grown three heads.
"How is it you can lead your men on this suicide mission without even putting up a fight?"
"I have my orders. This is my job and one could argue that most of our assignments are borderline suicide missions to begin with."
"No, not like this. Nothing has changed, Thom. No one has gone in there for years for a reason and those mental influences are still reaching out and causing people to go crazy. The man who was sitting in this chair last week was shot dead trying to open the vault. No one—not Borman, not anyone at Tall—has given us reason to believe the danger is less, or even an idea of what that danger is."
"Liz, it is my job to—"
"That's Lieutenant Colonel," she corrected in a voice nearly as hard as Gorman's had been. "This isn't about you. This is about your entire team. Not only as people but as valuable assets. This mission strikes me as an unnecessary risk to lives and a waste of a valuable resource."
His answer came with as much emotion and conviction as an automated answering machine: "I am aware of the risks."
"Yes, I know. That's what puzzles me. You're not stupid, and you have an obligation to protect your unit. Yet you are going to march right through that door because a general told you to do it."
"That is my job. I follow orders."
"Yes, I've said that to myself before, too. And I've regretted it. You're going to regret this, Thom. There will come a moment when you'll realize that following orders isn't the only commandment for being a good soldier. I only hope you live to understand that."
—
Corporal Sammy Sanchez sipped his coffee and gazed through the security glass at the vault door. The same sight, day after day.
The computer console and controls at his station never offered anything new—just the same countless security checks, the same ongoing atmosphere and seismic data analysis, the same continuous diagnostic of the defensive hardware.
Still, he knew something was coming.
He had seen the tactical team killing time in the recreation hall and practicing entries on the near-deserted upper levels. And that man who had come in on the helicopter today—the man from The Tall Company—he had seen him often in recent weeks.
But most of all, he knew something was coming because of the general. Borman visited the vestibule constantly, choppering in and out of Red Rock every day.
The vault did not look different. It looked the same as it did each and every day, basking in the brilliant glow of white light, four red switches at its side. Four red switches waiting patiently to be turned green again. Waiting patiently for the vault door to swing open to swallow fresh prey.
Who are you going to eat this time?
"What’s that?"
Sanchez’s companion sentry glanced at him nervously. Mumbled words provoked as much fear inside the Hell Hole as Defcon 2 at NORAD.
Sanchez smiled politely. "Nothing. I’m just thinking out loud. Relax, soldier."
The corporal sipped his coffee. It was a long while before the other sentry relaxed.
12
Liz Thunder shined her flashlight up into a high corner, illuminating pipes, vents, and electrical conduits. An abandoned web hung in broken strands from the ceiling but she saw no sign of a spider; even the arachnids found Red Rock unsuitable.
She swept the beam in the other direction and lower. It fell upon a big piece of dust-covered industrial equipment sprouting thick tubes linking it with a network of air ducts.
Corporal Sanchez knocked on the door.
"Ma'am, you wanted to see me, ma'am?"
He instinctively reached to the switch on the wall to provide her with additional light but found the switch already in the “on” position.
"Yes, Corporal, I tried that already," she said and pointed to the ceiling, where one dim light bulb glowed among a row of dark ones. "It seems this place has an aversion to light. Or maybe everyone around here prefers shadows."
"Um, yes, ma'am. I don't think this area is used anymore."
"And that's why I wanted to see you, Corporal. You've been at this place for a while, right?"
"Actually, ma'am, only about a year."
"Oh." That answer surprised her. "General Borman seemed to indicate you have been on base longer than just about anyone here."
"Sorry, ma'am."
"Still, maybe you'll know." She moved away from the derelict equipment and closer to the door where Sanchez stood. "According to my blueprints, this was the pumping station responsible for getting oxygen down into the lower levels; below sublevel six, from what I saw. But this equipment is nonfunctioning. Exactly how is Major Gant's entry team supposed to breathe while they're down there?"
The question appeared to throw Sanchez for a loop, but only for a moment.
"Oh, yes, ma'am; I mean, no, this area is obsolete." The dust finally penetrated his nose deeply enough to cause a sneeze. "Excuse me, ma'am. I was saying, there is a building on the surface that took over those functions. From what I understand, it was installed about ten years ago when these units suffered malfunctions."
That puzzled her.
"Are you saying that the ventilation system for the lower levels is still running?"
"Um, yes, ma'am. I believe the system is tied in to the entire air supply for the complex, but that's not really my area. Colonel Haas handled facilities management directly. Since he . . . well, I just assumed you were taking that over."
"I suppose I'll have to. But I can't really do that if I don't know where everything is, now can I?"
"I suppose not, ma'am," Sanchez said as he rocked back a step.
"It's okay, Corporal, it's not your fault. I'm just sort of learning this on the fly."
"Anything I can do, Colonel, just say the word."
Another man appeared in the door behind Sanchez,
this one older with streaks of gray in otherwise dark hair. Liz recognized him as one of Gant's team.
"Excuse me, Lieutenant Colonel Thunder, I was wondering if I could have a word with you."
Liz glanced around the dirty room with the concrete floor and the cinder block walls and realized she had no more business there.
"Certainly. It's Captain Twiste, right?"
Sanchez glanced at the captain, who stared at the corporal until he took the hint and hurried off along the hall of sublevel 3. Liz joined Twiste in the corridor.
While every floor at Red Rock felt forgotten, sublevel 3 was downright neglected; merely a number on the wall that the elevator passed on its way to the high-security area of level four.
Only a handful of fluorescent lights worked in this hall, and many of the walls wore chipped and cracked paint because no one had bothered to repaint them in twenty years. Pieces of debris ranging from cigarette butts to Styrofoam coffee cups lay in corners because no one had bothered to sweep the floor in twenty years, either.
"What can I do for you, Captain?"
He did not answer until he saw Corporal Sanchez turn the corner. A moment later they both heard the big elevator doors open, then close, followed by the rumble of chains, ropes, and pulleys.
It occurred to Liz that she was now all alone on this floor with a man whom she did not know. Under most circumstances, that would not concern her. She carried a sidearm, after all, and had passed hand-to-hand combat training with more than adequate results.
But this was the Hell Hole, and it had a history of conjuring all manner of nightmares.
"A few years ago, I watched my wife die of cancer," he said. Twiste's words threw her completely off balance. "Understand, I'm a doctor. I saw the warning signs, took her for diagnosis, and found the best possible treatment for her. I'm no oncologist, but I knew enough to see what was coming."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied and shifted uneasily. Exactly why had this stranger sought her out to tell this story?
Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle Page 12