Cold Frame

by P. T. Deutermann

  The man who had cut him out backed into another set of gaping lobes, which snapped shut, trapping the backpack he was wearing.

  “Where’s the third guy?” Av asked, as the two intruders struggled in jerky motions on the green screen. The man trapped by his backpack shrugged out of the straps and stepped away from the plant and turned around to yank it out of the plant’s grasp. The first man was pouring water out of his canteen all along his forearm, which was showing up as being much warmer than the rest of him.

  “Strong stuff, digestive juices,” Hiram noted. “Dissolved his shirt sleeve and probably burns like hell right now. Ah, there’s number three.”

  The third man came into the frame, dragging a lobe of one of the plants behind him that was attached to his right foot. The second man had taken his knife out again and was hacking his way into the plant to release his backpack.

  “Gotta say,” Av said. “I’d be shittin’ and gittin’ right about now.”

  Hiram smiled. “We’ll let them get clear of their personal flytraps,” he said. “If this doesn’t persuade them, we’ll stimulate the spider plants.”

  “Aw, shit,” Av said. “Spider plants?”

  “Well, they’re not spiders of course, but if we stimulate their root systems with a sudden dose of electrolytes, they begin to flex their branches. The branches hang down from a central trunk, like a weeping cherry. From a distance, they look like a big spider standing up and getting ready to come at you.”

  “In the dark?”

  “It’s not dark to the plants right now, Detective Sergeant. Remember the UV light. And those guys are all on night vision devices, which distorts the real picture even more.”

  The three intruders were once again huddled together, with the leader appearing to be back on the radio. The flytraps around them waited like baby birds, lobes agape and weaving slightly. The leader was gesticulating now, clearly arguing with whoever was on the other end of that comm link. The other two were still dealing with patches of the sticky fluid from the flytraps.

  “How far are they from the spider plants?” Hiram asked.

  Thomas switched to a new, diagrammatic screen. Av saw now that the estate’s defenses were in concentric rings, beginning with the wall and the Spanish dagger, then the moat, then the flytrap band, and a band inside of that showing trees and small, star-shaped objects between the larger trees. “Ring four,” he said. “Hydroponics are ready to go.”

  “Let’s see if they’re ready to call it off,” Hiram said. “What’s eagle’s nest showing?”

  Thomas switched screens again. The utility truck was still there, but now there were four other vehicles parked along the road. “There’s plan B,” Av said. “If the stealth crew can’t get in, they’ll break down the main gates and stage a frontal assault of some kind. See that big one? That’s the federal version of a SWAT command vehicle. They will get in.”

  Thomas had gone back to the camera watching the three operators, who apparently had been told to press on despite all the alien things snatching at them.

  “Okay,” Hiram said, wearily. “Send the electrolytes and restart the CO2 bubblers in the vicinity of the fake tree crossing. Add some pure oxygen.”

  The leader took a swig out of his canteen and passed it around, as the other two had exhausted theirs. They started forward, spread out now, pushing through vegetation and keeping a respectful distance from the flytraps.

  “Electrolytes are going in. Do we want sound?”

  “Not yet,” Hiram said, finishing his Scotch. “If they run from the spiders, then activate the approaching-crowd sounds behind them.” He glanced over at Av, whose face was a study in amazement. “I’ve had years to build all this,” Hiram said. “The really important stuff is in the main laboratory and up in the greenhouse. These mutations were mostly for fun, up until I realized what I had achieved in the lab.”

  “Audio?” Av asked.

  “Sure. Remote speakers, programmed to play a variety of digitally produced sounds. Remember the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey? They had an organ playing a single note in the background just to spook things up a little. We can do that. Or, we can generate the noises made by a distant crowd of men pushing through brush and calling to one another. The screech of a bobcat from a tree right above you. The hiss of a king cobra from directly behind you. Combine things like that with darkness and the phantoms of night vision, plants that seem to be moving on you—most humans will just bolt.”

  “This human would have bolted a long time ago,” Av said, finishing his whisky as he studied the screen. And then he saw them: green blobs rising from the forest floor and swaying back and forth like drunks. At the top of each blob there were eight “eyes” reflecting back at the IR light from the floods. The three men saw them at just about the same moment and stopped cold.

  “Eyes?” Av asked.

  Hiram grinned. “Reflectors. Tape. As everyone knows, spiders have lots of eyes. Pretty cool, huh?”

  The three intruders didn’t think so. One unlimbered his MP5 and got ready to fire. The other two called him off, consulted briefly, and then all three turned back in the direction of the wall. As they entered the area of the flytraps, the plants near them began to close and then open again. That apparently did it. The man who’d been ready to start shooting did just that as he backed up in the direction of the wall. The muzzle blasts were brilliant in the IR image as he shot some flytraps to pieces and blew up one spider plant for good measure. They could just barely hear the stutter of the rifle outside.

  “Eagle’s nest!” Hiram ordered, leaning forward.

  Thomas switched cameras and they saw men tumbling out of the SWAT vehicles and start moving toward the main gates at the sound of gunfire. The command vehicle backed up in a cloud of diesel smoke to allow the vehicle that looked like a cross between a tank and a small bulldozer through on the lane.

  “Thomas—time to get him to the river.”

  Thomas switched to the screen that covered the estate’s main gate. Then he got up and beckoned for Av to follow him. Av didn’t hesitate: that SWAT team or whatever they called themselves would be in the house in less than two minutes.

  Thomas and Av trotted down the house’s main central hall and then turned into a stairwell. Taking the steps two at a time, they raced down to the basement level. As they passed a coatrack Thomas grabbed some raingear and threw it in Av’s direction.

  “Where we going?” Av asked.

  “To the river. There’s a tunnel from the house down to the boathouse. Chop-chop!”

  They went through two steel doors, which Thomas locked behind him. When they came to a third door, Thomas entered a code and opened the door to reveal what looked like a concrete utility tunnel: there were insulated pipes, electrical cables, and water lines running along the ceiling and on both walls. The steel door shut itself behind them as they trotted down a gradual slope, their passage lit by glass-enclosed lightbulbs at twenty-foot intervals. Av saw some branch tunnels headed off the main passage, also filled with a great deal of plumbing.

  After a five-minute downward-sloping jog they came to another steel door. Thomas again punched in a code that opened the door, admitting a wave of cool air. They were looking at a boathouse. Outside, Av could see the wide expanse of the Potomac River shimmering in the darkness, almost a half-mile wide at this point. Thomas took him to the U-shaped dock, where Av saw a small motorboat hanging on a lift frame. Thomas activated the lift. A winch began to grind away and the boat lowered down to the water’s surface.

  “Put that stuff on,” Thomas said, indicating the raingear. As Av got into the light vinyl pants-and-coat combination, Thomas clipped a strobe light to the coat’s collar. Then he handed Av an inflatable life jacket and a set of diving gloves. Av put the jacket on and then the gloves. Thomas handed him a diver’s knife, encased in a rubber sheath. He indicated that Av should attach it to his right leg, using the Velcro straps on the pants.

  “Okay, sunshine: listen up and list
en carefully. That’s the Potomac River out there.”

  “Got it,” Av said, half jokingly.

  “Good,” Thomas said. “Because it’s a man-killer. Most blokes have no idea how many people this river has killed along here, but it’s a surprisingly large number. We are two miles upstream of the Great Falls of the Potomac. You must not go through that cataract under any circumstances. You cannot survive that in a boat. So: take this boat out across the river and head toward the Maryland side and stay there until you’re past the Great Falls.”

  “It’s dark,” Av said. “How will I know?”

  “Once you’re out on the river and about two thirds of the way across, turn off the engine. Let the current carry you downstream. The big roaring noise to your right will be the cataract.”

  He told Av to get into the small boat and then handed him an eight-foot-long pole.

  “The Maryland side is full of rocky channels, but nothing like the big cataract. With the engine off the current should carry you through the open channels, but you’ll need that pole to fend off the bigger snags. Once you hear the cataract behind you, your next challenge is the Little Falls Dam. There’s a patch of quiet water between the Great Falls and the Little Falls. Once you hit that, start the engine again, turn left, and then beach the boat on the Maryland side. After that you’re on your own, mate.”

  “Oka-a-a-y,” Av said, not at all confident about his navigating skills on the darkened, man-eating Potomac.

  “One more thing: make that turn earlier rather than later. If you hit the Little Falls, no one will ever find you. As soon as you think the Great Falls are behind you, turn left toward the Maryland side and get out of the river. Crank it up, now.”

  Av turned to the little outboard engine as Thomas instructed him on how to start it. The engine caught after two pulls. As Av was wondering whether he needed to warm it up, Thomas cast him off and shoved the boat with his right foot out into the current. Av pointed the little boat across the black mass of streaming water. He saw flashes of light up on the grounds of the big house. He wondered if Hiram had any idea of what a SWAT team did when it broke into a house. On the other hand, he wondered if the SWAT team had any idea of what Dr. Frankenstein might have waiting for them when they tried it.

  * * *

  While Thomas was seeing to their guest’s getaway, Hiram took over the main console and upped the magnification on the main gate area. That team was definitely getting ready to do something. The street tank had arrived in front of the main gates and was pointed at the house. Several other figures were deploying on either side of the gates, while a smaller team was headed down the wall in the direction of the intrusion team.

  Hiram switched the cameras again to find the terrified threesome climbing back over the wall, with two of them on the rope and the third man covering their rear with his submachine gun while standing on the end of the rope.

  Back to the treetop camera. The assault team, for that’s what it looked like, were all in position, but, for some reason they weren’t moving. He searched the scene for a command vehicle, and thought he saw one back up the lane.

  What were they waiting for? Orders? Or did they want to debrief their intrusion team first to see what the shooting had been all about.

  He was relieved when Thomas came back into the room.

  * * *

  Once clear of the boathouse and the Virginia bank of the Potomac, Av pointed his little boat on a diagonal across the big river, already feeling the strength of the current. The engine was small but it sounded like it was happy. He was glad for the raingear. His jeans and T-shirt outfit weren’t meant for a fall night on the big river.

  Av’s knowledge of the Potomac was limited to MPD barbecue outings down on Haines Point, where the river was a silvery lake, with no hint of violence. If someone fell in at Haines Point, the immediate worry was what he might be covered in when they got him back on the bank. This was very different and he could feel the current’s strength. It made him wonder what would happen if he tried to go back upstream and if the little engine was big enough.

  Av knew that several miles upstream at Harper’s Ferry, the entire Shenandoah River added its stream to what was coming down from the eastern slopes of the Alleghenys. As it approached the palisades along Great Falls, that huge volume of water was funneled into rocky gorges some sixty to eighty feet high. Moving water confined becomes fast water, and, with the bottom made of slate, shattered over the eons into rows of underwater crevasses, the river there was no place for swimmers or, for that matter, small boats.

  AV could sense that his boat seemed to be going faster, if the lights along the Virginia shore were any indication. He pointed the bow of the boat to the left to compensate for what felt like an out-of-control surge in the current. Then he heard the low rumble of the Great Falls cataracts to his right. He recalled taking a young lady out to Great Falls Park for a picnic date. He remembered the sign on the rocks above the booming cataract: if you go into the water, you will die. He’d never seen such a stark sign at any park, but one look at the rocky gorge confirmed the message.

  He pointed the bow of the little motorboat farther to the left to make sure he wasn’t being swept into the deceptively calm open channel above the cataract. Then he remembered his instructions: get left of the center channel, kill the engine, let the river take you through the fast-moving channels until that menacing rumble was behind you. Then, light the engine back off and run for the Maryland shore.

  Okay, he thought. He reached over and switched off the outboard. The first thing he realized was that the rumble of water going down the Great Falls gorge was louder than he’d thought. Too soon? he wondered. But no, it was to his right and sliding behind him. Loud, powerful, threatening, but passing behind him. Ahead was a wide expanse of river, spattered with small white ripples as the current ran over rock snags. He grabbed the pole and prepared to fend off obstacles, but then realized he couldn’t see anything that resembled obstacles. Then he learned that the obstacles had a purpose of their own as the boat banged off a rock, and then another one, swerving in the current and jinking in different directions as if totally out of control. He felt ridiculous holding the pole. What good was it if he couldn’t see the rock coming?

  Then the boat stopped suddenly, pinned by the muscular current against a rock ledge. The water began to rise up on the upstream side of the boat, certain to swamp it. He lunged with the pole and, when it hit solid rock, he pushed. The boat swirled in place, dropping him into the middle of the boat, and then it whirled again and swept downstream. He got back on the single gunwale, trying to get his bearings, and then the boat hit the next snag, again dumping him onto the aluminum bottom. The pole sailed out of his grip with the impact. He tried to regain his footing, but the boat was nothing but a cork now as the big river’s current flung it downstream, banking from snag to snag, sometimes hard enough to make him wonder if the small craft could take much more.

  Little Falls Dam. In his effort to stay upright, he’d forgotten all about the Little Falls Dam.

  He scrambled to the back of the boat and set the ignition switch. The boat hit something really solid and almost backed up in the current for a moment before shooting through a chute of white water. He felt a swirl of icy water on his feet. The hull was punctured; he was sure of it. Regaining his footing, he started pulling on the rope as hard as he could.

  Choke. You have to choke it.

  He set the choke and tried again. He smelled gasoline. Dammit! Flooded it.

  The boat went sideways and stopped suddenly, heeling over at an alarming angle. Water began to sweep in as he kept yanking on the cord. Then the engine caught. He grabbed the handle and gunned the engine. More water came in, so he turned the handle, urging the boat across the current and out of the narrow chute of white water. It made it, but he felt that the boat was getting logy and unresponsive. Too much water onboard.

  Where was Maryland? Which way? He had no idea.

  Then the sky
above him exploded into white light as a helicopter swooped down over his position, its rotors punishing the air over his head and blowing huge clouds of spray everywhere. Blinded by the spray, he pushed the handle hard over, trying to get out from under the roaring machine that seemed to be right over his head. He could smell the acrid stink of JP-5 from the turbine exhaust. Then a rope or wire slapped him in the chest before flying off to one side of the boat.

  Rope? He realized the situation was totally out of control. He had no idea of what to do next. The downwash from the hovering helicopter continued to blind him and he was still going downriver. How far was that dam?

  Then a man dropped into the boat, almost capsizing it in the rushing current. He was wearing a dark jumpsuit and a compact helmet with a wraparound face shield. The weight of two large men in the boat began to sink it. A second man appeared, still on the rope, dangling just above the boat and pointing some kind of weapon at Av’s face. A second wire appeared, with a horseshoe-shaped collar dangling from the end. The man in the boat braced himself and slipped the collar over Av’s head and under his armpits, and then made a signal. Before Av had a moment to realize what was happening, the wire tightened and he was dangling over the boat and the river, and then being hauled up toward a black, rectangular hole in the side of the hovering helicopter. He felt himself slipping out of the wet horseshoe collar and quickly grabbed the sides.

  He looked down through all the downwash spray blowing in the harsh white light and thought he saw the rolling curl of the Little Falls Dam just fifty feet from the now twirling boat. The water going over the low dam was deceptively calm as it dropped over the eighteenth-century rock abutment into a dark coil of white water. The man who had dropped into the boat was beneath him, riding a second wire back up.