by Jacob Gowans
Commander Byron paid little attention to any of it. His mind had gone back to the same questions that had plagued him for the last two weeks. Had someone sabotaged the cruiser going to Rio? Had someone tipped off the CAG that a Psion team was coming? Who would do that? Why?
The day after Albert told him about the modulator, Byron had gone down to the hangars and inspected everything himself. The damage to the equipment was minimal, almost non-existent. No wonder it had been missed during the initial checks. With such little evidence, conclusions couldn’t be drawn.
Treason is an unthinkable act. Maybe I am naïve, but there is not one person I know who would do such a thing.
There was always the chance that some bizarre event had caused damage to the modulator, and that the Thirteens had coincidentally put up the brick wall that blocked Samuel and Kobe’s exit, and that they’d been monitoring activity at the Rio factory . . . but who was he kidding? The more he analyzed Albert’s debriefing statements, the more he saw the obvious truth staring back at him: the Thirteens had been too prepared for the Betas’ arrival.
He couldn’t bring the information to Command. The mole could be any of them. It could be more than one. The ramifications if it was one of them would be enormous. For now, the only people he trusted were Albert, Ho Chin, and Djedaa El-Sayid.
He steered his focus back to the mission as they approached CAG territory. Sometimes Byron found it hard to believe he had grown up on this hemisphere, back when the world was still united under the New World Government. Each time he flew into enemy territory, he thought of the same conversation, the one that ended with his own father throwing him out of the house. He tried not to think about that now. The man who’d said those words, if he was even still alive, was thousands of kilometers away from Rio.
Byron glanced over at Dr. Rosmir who was poring over another article on his tablet. His face was pale, even with his dark skin. His eyes shifted rapidly back and forth across the screen. Byron pitied his friend, but he needed him along, just in case . . .
“Are you holding everything down okay there, Maad?” he asked.
Dr. Rosmir bounced in his seat, as if he’d been startled. “Oh—yeah—fine. Just getting through all this information. Sometimes I think there’s no bottom to the well.”
Byron watched him for a moment longer, hating that he had to suspect his friend as a possible traitor simply because he was one of the few people with access to the hangars. Such was war.
During Tango’s briefing, Byron had given each member of the squadron specific orders for the investigation. In teams of two, every centimeter of the factory was to be searched, every Alpha armed with heavy-spread hand cannons and bomb tracers. The principal target was Samuel’s body, but they were to report anything suspicious.
Byron, with Dr. Rosmir and one other soldier, would go directly to the hallway where the two bombs had detonated. A reasonable estimation was that the team would only be there for two or three hours, four or five if there was a lot of heavy work to do.
They landed in the loading square, exactly where Albert’s team had landed three and a half months ago. Byron rubbed his face.
“I hate days when I feel my age,” he told Dr. Rosmir. The doctor gave a sympathetic chuckle back as a response.
“What odds would you put down that we even find a body?” he heard one Tango ask another as they geared up.
“Ten to one,” came the answer.
“More like a hundred to one,” Shamila said. Shamila Bessette was the squadron leader and acted all the part. “Find it anyways.”
The fraternizing stopped as they went to work. Byron noted the squadron’s discipline with a touch of pride. As the overseer of Beta headquarters, he knew each Psion personally, including their strengths and weaknesses. He’d chosen Tango Squadron because it was the only squadron made up entirely of Psions. All others included some combination of Psions, Ultras, and Tensais.
Teams paired off with efficient execution, entering the building through different routes. Most of the warehouse looked like a warzone. All the loading doors had been blown away, the dock itself cracked in four places, and two areas sagged under their own weight. Byron, Dr. Rosmir, and Shamila went around the building. Blood stains soiled the cement walkway as they approached the stairs that led down to the basement.
“Should I collect samples, Commander?” Dr. Rosmir asked.
“Not yet. The pilot said he fired on the enemy in this area. How about we take a peek around first?”
Getting inside wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. Two bombs had gone off near the entrance. The bottom steps were badly damaged. A huge pile of wreckage comprised mostly of brick, cracked plaster, and drywall filled the doorway, which had miraculously held strong.
Commander Byron sent Shamila in as the point, Rosmir in second, and he covered the three-person team from the rear. They took caution, trying to be as silent as possible. Inside was the epicenter of the storm. Black soot and ash covered what was left of the walls. Several places had blown clean through into the adjacent offices and hall. Above them, Byron saw a gaping hole where the ceiling had collapsed.
“We’re gonna have to move this piece by piece, aren’t we?” Shamila asked.
“Should I call in for help, Commander?” Dr. Rosmir asked.
“No, I want to do the work myself. Shamila, please stand guard outside while Maad and I get to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Rosmir gave Byron a puzzled look. The commander ignored it and put on his working gloves, handing a pair to the doctor when he was finished. “This is something I want to do in private; just you and me. They never knew Samuel.”
Together, the two men heaved and hauled both massive and small chunks of the pile further down the hall. The amount of rubble and debris, combined with the awkwardness of the lifting and moving, made the work slow. Byron held his breath with each piece they cleared away, wondering if it was the one that would uncover his pupil. After almost an hour of work, Byron knew Dr. Rosmir had to take a rest. The doctor hadn’t complained, though sweat poured down his pale face. They went outside and Shamila reported on her squadron’s progress.
Commander Byron kept the respite brief. He wanted to find the body and get back to safety as soon as possible. After another ten minutes, Dr. Rosmir came up with something. “I found a body!”
They quickly dug to uncover it, but after only a glance Byron knew it wasn’t Samuel. It was a Thirteen. He was so badly burned that the only recognizable feature was a tuft of blond hair. They grabbed him by his uniform and heaved him out of the way.
Dr. Rosmir bent down to inspect the spot where the Thirteen had been. “Check this out. It’s Sammy’s Beta transmitter . . .”
“Still in decent shape,” Byron muttered as he turned it over in his hand. “But not what I came here for.”
He handed it back to the doctor, who slipped the metal into his pocket. Just as they returned to work, crunching noises echoed from down the hall and around the bend. Byron stopped in a half-squat and looked at Dr. Rosmir. The doctor reached for his weapon, hands trembling. Commander Byron stood back to full height. The crunching stopped for a few seconds, but Dr. Rosmir didn’t relax. Then the noise started again.
Dr. Rosmir cursed under his breath several times as he drew out his weapon.
Byron allowed himself to wonder if it could possibly be Samuel. It was a stupid thought. More likely, knowing what he knew now about the possibility of a traitor, more Thirteens had arrived to welcome them. Neither he nor Dr. Rosmir moved. The sound drew closer. Rosmir’s gun pointed steadily at the end of the hall. Byron drew his own weapon. He fingered the switch to the light beam, trying to decide if he should turn it on.
Finally his patience ran out. He flipped the switch, and in a soft voice called out, “Samuel?”
The crunching noises stopped.
“Samuel?” he repeated just a hair louder.
The crunching began again but
at a slower pace. Whoever it was stood just around the corner.
Two eyes appeared at the end of the hall, much lower to the ground than Byron had expected. They reflected back two ghostly dots, but Byron couldn’t tell who or what it was. The eyes watched them but did not move. Dr. Rosmir turned on his laser sights and trained it between the eyes.
“Samuel?” Byron asked one last time, louder than before. Two high-pitched, ear-splitting sounds rang out in the hallway. It was a dog. A chocolate Labrador, Byron noted, as it came fully into view. Dr. Rosmir sighed, his hands trembling as he lowered his gun, then holstered it. The dog approached them for a pat and rub. When he smelled Shamila, he pushed past them toward her.
“That was a nice surprise,” Dr. Rosmir commented.
“You look like you just lost two years off your life,” Byron told his friend.
Dr. Rosmir shook his head and got into position to lift the next piece of debris off the pile. “You going to help or make jokes?”
After all they had done, the once daunting task now seemed quite manageable. With only a few more heavy loads remaining, the bottom of the pile wasn’t far away. Byron felt some concern. What would he do if they reached the end of all this mess and Samuel was not there? What then?
He put off those questions and focused on finishing the task. They came to a particularly large chunk of the brick wall. Byron, feeling his age a little more than he’d care to admit, had to call Shamila in to help lift it off the pile.
“Prepare yourself,” he told Dr. Rosmir and Shamila. “He’s probably under this.”
Together the three of them lifted at one end, standing the giant slab against the wall.
“Holy heavens,” Dr. Rosmir said. “Am I really seeing this?”
Byron turned back to see what Dr. Rosmir saw: a hole in the floor the size of a square of sidewalk grinning back at them. “I see it, too.”
Shamila peered into the black square, running her hands along the smooth sides. “How does something like that happen?”
“Flare please,” Byron ordered.
Shamila handed him a flare. The commander jammed it against the wall, and it ignited, fizzling and popping merrily. They all watched as it dropped meter after meter after meter until—
CLUNK!
It landed on the ground and rolled out of sight.
Byron looked at Shamila. “Maad and I are going down there.” Now he spoke into his com. “I need two sets of repelling equipment and one of those boomlights brought to me.”
“Right away, sir,” the voice of Robert Greene answered in his ear.
In under five minutes, with the repelling gear secured and a light in hand, Byron jumped down into the hole and blast landed safely at the bottom. Immediately he dropped into a defensive stance and shined his light around the room in all directions.
“It’s safe,” he said to his com. Dr. Rosmir lowered a forensics kit down the repel line and followed suit with his own land blasts. With two boomlights, the room was nice and bright. The walls were of strong sturdy brick. Shelves lined over half of the room and a giant generator took up a large portion of one corner.
“Geez . . .” Dr. Rosmir said. “What do you make of all this?”
“Looks to me like a bomb shelter. Who knows how old it is, but I see no sign of Samuel.”
Trying not to let his hopes get too high, Byron circled the room looking for any definite sign of habitation. If Samuel had been here, he did an excellent job of hiding his tracks. Byron felt a touch of pride at that.
Dr. Rosmir, meanwhile, got busy with his kit. Byron had seen him use things like this before and knew better than to offer help. The kits were expensive, complicated, and extremely handy in investigations such as these.
Rosmir took out a long skinny can and sprinkled powder on the floor all around where the two Alphas landed. Then he sprayed the powder with an aerosol can, and waited. Byron marked areas around the room with a special pen that could only be seen with wavelength altering contacts. Both he and Dr. Rosmir had one to wear when they needed it.
“Come see this, Walter,” Dr. Rosmir said.
The commander noticed that his friend had used his first name, something he only did on rare occasions.
“What is it?”
“Can’t you tell? Look . . .” he said pointing to small color variations on the floor.
“You seem to be forgetting that I did not attend medical school, and never bothered to memorize the color code for chemical traces.”
“No—no, I haven’t forgotten,” Dr. Rosmir said with a bemused smile. “I’m trying to prolong your suspense.” He pointed out several spots to Byron. “This faint orange is caused by a reaction with hydrochloric acid. See it?”
“Not really, no.”
“It takes lots of practice. Hydrochloric acid is found in the stomach. It comes up with vomit. But since it’s such a common acid, even in cleaners, there’s only one way evidence of vomit can be used in a court of law.”
“How’s that?”
“Pepsin and pepsinogen—enzymes also secreted by the stomach, but never found in your household cleaners. All I have to do is spray this over it, and if it turns blue—”
With a quick spray over the orange spots, even Byron could see traces of blue.
“Voila!” Dr. Rosmir exclaimed.
Byron smiled and clapped him on the back. “Well done. So we know someone threw up here.”
“And not too long ago,” Dr. Rosmir added. “Within the last six—maybe seven months.”
“Any signs of blood?”
“Yep. But nothing like what we’d have seen if the boy had fallen down the shaft to his death . . .”
“Can you get a DNA—?”
Dr. Rosmir shook his head. “Not from vomit. I can run the blood when we get back, but it still won’t tell me if he survived or not.”
Byron frowned. No trace of Samuel here. None upstairs. What if he hadn’t fallen down the hole? What if his body had been taken away with all the others?
“I marked some areas for fingerprints,” he said, pointing around at the pen marks he had made. “Take that side of the room.”
None of the places Byron circled yielded results.
“I must be missing something,” Byron said with a frown as he turned around on the same spot, letting his gaze fall everywhere. “A little blood and vomit. No note, no fingerprints. No fingerprints anywhere.”
Dr. Rosmir held his hands in the air like he was about to play an invisible piano. His eyes were closed. “The kid wakes up here. He’s alone. He finds food and water. What does he do?”
“Stays, hoping someone will come and get him.”
The doctor nodded. “I go along with that. But how long does he wait? A week? Two? A month? More?”
Byron shook his head and kept looking around the room for clues. “So he lives in here for some time. After a while, assumes no one is looking for him. Then what? Where does he go? What does he do?”
“That’s what I’m figuring. He has to know he can’t stay here forever, but just in case someone comes looking, what does he do? He leaves . . . something. Maybe a note? A sign? Nothing at all?”
“Samuel is smart; too smart to leave a note. Maybe . . . something.”
“So what? Where? Where would he leave it?”
They spent a half hour searching for and talking about possible messages or symbols Samuel might have left to tell where he might go. They found nothing.
Byron scratched his head in frustration. “All we have is a spot of vomit and old blood. Come on, Samuel. Where would you leave a message?”
Dr. Rosmir snapped his fingers. “What is the last place he touched? A door? A light switch? Maybe turning off the generator?”
A smile spread across the commander’s face. “You want to do the honors?”
Dr. Rosmir sprayed a small aerosol over the generator kill switch. Sure enough, a nice fat fingerprint appeared in green. Byron used his scanner to make a copy of the print, but hardly need
ed to see the results of the analysis. And yet, he hadn’t needed to see anything so badly in a long time.
It was Samuel’s print.
Byron’s knees almost gave. He caught himself as they bent. It was too much to believe.
“Walter, are you all right?” Dr. Rosmir asked. “Wasn’t it his?”
The commander dropped the scanner at the doctor’s feet. Rosmir picked up the scanner and belted out a laugh.
“He’s alive . . . what a lucky kid!”
The two combed every centimeter of the underground shelter, making sure that nothing was overlooked. When Byron believed they could glean no more information from the bunker, he told Tango squadron to prepare for takeoff. Dr. Rosmir was just about to climb back out when Byron put his hand on his shoulder.
“I need to talk to you privately,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Only we know Samuel is alive. I want it to stay that way . . . for now.”
“But why?” Dr. Rosmir asked. “How can we organize a search if—”
“Tomorrow, I am going to bring Tango Squadron right back here to start a search, and I am going to forbid them having any contact with Command other than myself.” Before Dr. Rosmir could protest, Byron stopped him. “I have my reasons, and I’m leaving it at that.”
“What are you telling Tango? And Psion Command?”
“I will tell Tango what they need to know . . . tomorrow. Command will think we found no sign of his body or of survival.”
“Walter—”
“I need your trust on this. I will keep you up to date with everything Tango finds, but I need you to have some faith in me.”
Rosmir responded with a sound of exasperation, but Byron knew he had his confidence. He patted the doctor on the back and climbed out of the hole. The rest of Tango waited in the cruiser. Byron told them he and Dr. Rosmir found nothing in the bunker.