“Now can we boogie?” Tony said.
I was about to say yes when we both noticed that there was no exit door. We’d have to go back the way we’d come.
“What makes a man want to associate with reptiles, and especially snakes?” I asked the air.
Then the lights all went off.
We froze and listened. I hadn’t heard any sounds from the outside except the offshore night wind starting up. I hadn’t felt any pressure changes in the air indicating a door had opened to the outside. The dogs hadn’t barked or set up a fuss outside. We both flicked our flashlights on at the same time. I pointed to the way we’d come, and we started back, keeping the lights down on the gravel just to make sure we hadn’t missed a hissing something.
The airlock was still empty. We paused to listen with our flashlights off. Nothing seemed to move around us. I told Tony to keep his light off so as to lessen the target, and I pushed through the Plexiglas door. We were back in the jungle. I thought I could hear water gurgling through the heating pipes, and it seemed warmer than it had been the first time. A faint glow of lingering daylight came through the glass panes. It was difficult not to just bolt down the path, but one didn’t go running in the dark in a snake house. I felt some vines brushing my face as we moved across the base of the complex and finally into the entrance wing. All we needed was some jungle birds making alien sounds off in the trees.
We stopped on the other side of the airlock door to listen. We could hear sounds out there in the dark, faint rustles and scrapes, but nothing that sounded human. That wasn’t necessarily comforting. Was Trask here? Had there been an alarm we’d missed? He could just as easily have a house nearby where he parked the boat—we hadn’t looked. The heated water continued to gurgle, and a metal pipe joint somewhere clanked in protest. I could hear a low hum, which had to be the water pumps. So it hadn’t been a power failure. Had someone opened the breakers down there?
We listened some more. As our eyes adjusted to the gloom, we could see the ribbon of gravel path stretching out in front of us. All we had to do was start walking. Get to the screened-in utility room and keep right on going. Two hundred feet and we were out of there.
You can get in, but you won’t get out, the little sign said. I nudged Tony, and we started walking, me in front this time, him right behind me. I could hear his breathing and then realized I could hear my own as well. I tried to ignore any movement in the cages as we passed them. Metal screens. Two locks. No problem, no matter what was in those cages. I formed a mental image of that thick viper with its murderous head and made sure I was in the exact center of the path
One hundred feet. The humming sound was getting louder.
Something hissed and struck hard against the screen to my right, and I damned near jumped out of my skin. Tony snapped his light on, and we saw a six-foot-long green snake disentangling ivory fangs from the screen, twisting its head to get them loose. Those fangs looked as long as toothpicks.
Tony turned his light off, and we kept moving. It was really hard now not to break into a full run. My mouth was dry and my heart was thumping in my chest. Steel screens. Double locks. No way they could get out.
Fifty feet.
More activity in the cages now. Snakes expecting dinner and now the lights had gone off? With no chow? Small sounds. Leaves moving. Scales against sand. Prolonged dragging sounds. One long exhalation.
Thirty feet to the door, which we could barely see now that we were closer. I focused on the door, trying hard to ignore the angry reptiles on either side, as I recited the mantra: Steel screens. Two locks. No way.
Fifteen feet. No way—and then something black rose up in the visual frame of the utility room door.
Tony collided with me when I stopped short, and we both switched on our lights. Directly in front of us was a dark green snake about ten, maybe twelve miles long. Okay, feet. The front five feet of him were vertical, weaving slowly back and forth as if he were range-finding. I thought it might be a cobra, but there was no hood. I moved my flashlight out away from my side, and Tony did likewise, going in the opposite direction. The snake’s head stopped when the lights moved, and the base of the vertical part began to bow out toward us. It gave a low hiss and opened its mouth, which was jet black. Then I saw the end of that black pipe, which was no longer capped.
You can get in, but you won’t get out. And here’s why.
The snake continued its hypnotically slow approach, its head just barely weaving now, its hiss more like a prolonged exhalation. Its top half didn’t seem to move at all, but that bottom half was definitely advancing. The snake wasn’t afraid, just getting ready to take care of business. It opened its mouth again in a menacing gape.
I married the flashlight with the barrel of my SIG in a two-handed grip.
“On three,” I said.
“Yup,” Tony said, and we pointed our guns. I aimed for the juncture between the head and the body, and gave Tony a second to do likewise. The snake kept coming, rising higher on its back half now.
“Three,” I said, and we both fired. A pane of glass shattered somewhere along the line of fire, but the snake’s head disappeared in a red bloom. Its body collapsed on the path into a writhing knot of reflexive coils.
We both shone our lights all around us just to make sure he hadn’t brought a brother into the weeds. Fucking Trask. He’d kept a sentinel in that pipe with some kind of automatic opening device. The whole greenhouse had only the one door in, one door out, and a black mamba for a doorkeeper.
We stepped around the still-moving mess on the path and reached the utility room. We did another sweep of the floor and the tables with the flashlights, just to make sure. The stink of gunpowder was strong in here, and the rat cages had all gone still. I looked at the breaker box. The breakers were still on, but that circular device wasn’t making noises any more. Then I realized what it was: a light timer.
You can get in, but you won’t get out. I wondered how many teenagers had not come home in these parts after accepting a beer-driven dare.
The shepherds were waiting anxiously outside the door after hearing the gunfire. I was glad I hadn’t taken them inside. The air outside was much colder, headed for the low forties. It felt really good to be outside. I told Tony what my solution to the snake house was. He agreed. We propped the back door open, and Tony went around front to break a bunch of glass panes to improve air circulation in the hothouse. Then we went looking for the main breaker.
It took us ten minutes to trace the underground riser from the last telephone pole, but finally we found it, a big metal box with a lead-seal wire in the middle of the base section. A glass meter looked back at us from above the box. I ripped off the seal and opened the box. A spider jumped out into the darkness when I lifted the lid. I reached in and threw the D-handle. The dials on the meter stopped moving. The humming noise inside the utility room ran down to silence.
“There,” I said. “See how they like North Carolina in November with no heat.”
“If Trask comes back, all he’d have to do is turn that back on,” Tony pointed out. “Let’s go get that master key and cut the propane service line.”
I called in the dogs, and together we made a sweep of the grounds around the greenhouse just to make sure no one was lurking. A fragment of moon was rising, throwing a thin wedge of white light across the river. If there were any boats out there, they weren’t showing lights.
The shepherds seemed to be glad to move around. So was I. Tony retrieved the bolt cutters and went back to disable the propane tank. The fuel was a liquid in the tank, but would evaporate into the night air once he opened that line. He was back in five minutes, giving me a thumbs-up sign and displaying a two-inch-long piece of copper tubing. We walked back out to our vehicles, alert but increasingly grateful to get away from that place.
“Let’s go find a bar and make some calls,” I said, loading up the dogs. “In that order.”
“Amen to that,” Tony said.
; We went back to Southport and stopped at Harry’s because he and I had already reached an understanding about the shepherds. Having two of them with us at our corner table only seemed to reinforce said understanding. The first Scotch made me feel better; the second made it down to my throbbing arm. The pills had nothing to do with it. I reached Alicia by phone at the hospital; she reported that Pardee’s vital signs were slowly but surely rising from whatever depths he’d been exploring for the past eight hours. The docs were now contemplating stabilizing him into a medically induced coma to allow his lungs more time to recover.
I asked if they were treating her all right, although that bordered on being a frivolous question. Alicia Barter-Bell was a litigator who specialized in suing hospitals and doctors when they mistreated black people in Triboro. I’m no admirer of the tort bar, but after hearing some of her stories, I had to admit that the occasional shark attack was probably good for the hospitals’ QA program. Apparently, they were being treated very well indeed. She wanted to know if we’d caught up with Trask. I told her we were working on it, glad she couldn’t see the Scotch. She asked that, if we did catch him, we save a part of him for her. I was afraid to ask which part she wanted saved.
I rubbed my tired eyes, which made my arm hurt again. I probably should not have been mixing single malt with antibiotics and the residue of a really spiffy tetanus shot, but I didn’t care. Tony kept quiet, waiting for me to decide what we were going to do next, if anything. The bar wasn’t very full, and the few regulars present were all watching the TV along with the bartender.
My cell phone went off. It was Ari.
“Where are you?” he asked, almost too quickly. I told him.
“Aw, shit,” he said. “Someone’s here.”
“Where’s here?”
“I’m at home. The Bureau people are still at the plant. Everybody’s waiting for Trask. But I think someone’s—”
Sudden silence.
“Ari?”
Then the connection was broken. I hit the received call log, dialed back. Four rings, then voice mail.
Not good. I told Tony, who suggested we call Sergeant McMichaels, ask him to go see. Great idea.
McMichaels had gone home, but they promised to call him. He called me back three minutes later, and I told him what had happened. He said he’d send a car over there, but wanted to know what was going on. I suggested we meet face-to-face. He gave us directions to Ari’s house on the river. We threw money on the table and went over there in our two vehicles.
By the time we arrived, there were two cruisers there, both at the front gates, which they hadn’t managed to open. Sergeant McMichaels was standing outside one of them and came over when we showed up. It was cold enough that his breath was showing in the early night air. Snakes hopefully were expiring upriver by the dozens.
“I’ve got people inside,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to be asking me how.”
“And?”
“No one there,” he said. “One window broken in the back kitchen door, said door unlocked and ajar. Lights on, a TV dinner in the microwave, but no signs of violence. They found this cell phone, but nothing else indicating trouble.”
“Can I keep that?” I asked.
He looked at it for a second and then, obviously perplexed, handed it over.
“Anyone check the pier?” I asked before he could ask me any more questions.
“The pier?” he said. “Oh. You think this is the good colonel? Come by boat?”
“The not-so-good colonel, Sergeant,” I said. The three uniformed cops were listening, so I suggested he and I take a little walk. I filled him in.
“A greenhouse full of snakes?” he exclaimed. “I’d heard that was his nickname, but I had no idea. But why would he take Dr. Quartermain?”
“I think he’s going to the power plant. He needs Ari to penetrate the vital area security systems. It takes two people to get through the important doors, and his own cards have been disabled. He’s going to do something, but I don’t know what.”
McMichaels stared out into the dark river. “Do something at Helios,” he said quietly. “Do I need to trigger the area incident alert system?”
“I think we need to call the Bureau, tell them Quartermain’s missing.”
“Wonderful idea,” he said. “I’ll get someone to go have a look down at the boathouse.”
I had the RA’s office number on my cell phone, which I expected to get me a duty officer. Worse. It got me voice mail. I left a message that there were indications Dr. Quartermain had been kidnapped and that I urgently needed to speak with Special Agent Caswell.
We saw a cop climbing over the wall near the gate and went back to see what he had, which was not much. The landing float was wet, but there was a light chop out in the river, so waves could have done that. I wondered if Trask could have come alongside that float with a boat that big and still managed to tie it up by himself. It was possible, or maybe he had some help.
My cell went off. It was Creeps.
“Lieutenant,” he said amiably. “Quartermain kidnapped?”
I told him where I was and why.
“Oh, I think not, Lieutenant,” Creeps said. “I think we’re going to have to start calling you Lieutenant Bum-dope. I just got off the phone with Dr. Quartermain five minutes ago. He’s heard from Trask. We’re meeting at the container port in just under an hour.”
“The container port?”
“There’s an echo on this line,” he said. “Yes, the container port. Trask is arriving by boat, Dr. Quartermain by car, I presume. If he was under duress, he certainly didn’t sound like it. Homeland Security will be there, along with the usual federal suspects. Is there evidence of a struggle at Dr. Quartermain’s house?”
“Um, no, or not that the local police have found.”
“Oh, dear, you’ve gone and upset the local police? Is there a boss present?”
I said yes and gave the cell to McMichaels, who identified himself and then listened. I told Tony what Creeps had told me. Tony threw up his hands and shook his head. McMichaels thanked Creeps, closed the phone, and gave it back to me.
“Well,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed. “No harm, no foul, I suppose.”
I didn’t believe it. Not that Creeps was lying, but that Ari was on his way anywhere voluntarily. To prove that, though, I had to get to the plant, and there was no way the gate people were going to let us in. If I had a boat . . . but I didn’t have a boat, and it wasn’t likely the marina would rent me another one. McMichaels was rounding up his people.
“There’s no way Trask can just drive up into that canal,” I said to Tony. “We know they have that whole area under surveillance.”
“It’s his people who have it under surveillance,” Tony pointed out unhelpfully.
“How else could he get in there?”
“Get in where?” McMichaels said as he rejoined us..
I explained my problem. The sergeant gave me a patient look, as in, Why are we still talking about this—you heard the Bureau.
“People like to fish around power plants,” I said. “Something about the warm water. Is there another way to get close to the plant by boat, besides that intake canal from the Cape Fear River?”
“Certainly,” he said. “The tailrace canal. That’s where the warm water is, by the way. Not on the intake side.”
I wanted to execute a Polish salute. Of course that’s where the warm water was. That’s where those two enormous jets came out of the condensers below the generator hall.
“Can you lead us there?”
“I can, but of course I’d be wanting to know why.”
“Well, we’re not going to swim up the tailrace and break into the power plant, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, I know that, Lieutenant. You haven’t seen the tailrace when the plant is running.” He paused for a moment. “You get something into your head, you don’t let go, do you?”
“Not when I think I’m right,
and especially when I hope I’m wrong.”
He thought about that. “If it were anything but Helios,” he said, “I’d be firmly requesting you to exit the jurisdiction. But.”
“But you know the government’s first instinct is to cover itself when they suspect someone’s made a big mistake.”
“Indeed I do,” he said. “Okay, I’ll take you. Let me get these boys on their way. Although getting in via the tailrace is just not possible.”
What I knew that the sergeant didn’t was that the plant wasn’t running. The tailrace would be quiet as a millpond.
McMichaels led us down a narrow dirt road that seemed to be going absolutely nowhere until we popped out on the banks of a broad creek. The perfectly straight banks indicated that it was man-made. No current was visible, just a strip of dark water perhaps eighty feet wide. We got out of our vehicles and walked to the bank. To our right, the only light was the occasional sweep of a lighthouse that had to be several miles away. To our left, above the trees, was the loom of the power plant’s lights, although the buildings themselves were not visible.
“I think I need to take these dogs for a walk, Sergeant,” I told McMichaels.
“I understand perfectly, Lieutenant,” he said with a grin. “By the by, I was just thinking that perhaps this would be a good juncture for me to resume my domestic duties back at home, from which I was so rudely summoned.”
“This would be a great time to be at home, Sergeant,” I said. “But may I please have your phone number?”
His grin vanished. “Look, boyo,” he said. “If you discover that some evil bastard has or is about to let the fire genie out of that handsome power plant over there, you call me at once. I kid thee not. We all love our power plant, but we have few illusions about what could happen should all those smart boys manage to muddle things up, eh?”
“I promise,” I said. “I think what Trask has in mind is a scare, not a disaster. He keeps talking about a wake-up call.”
Cam - 03 - The Moonpool Page 29