The Signal

by John Sneeden

  “Here we are,” the operative said, holding up a roll of masking tape. “Not great but should do the trick.”

  After snugly taping the mouths of both men, the operatives stole back out to hallway.

  “Are we going to bring the radios up?” Skinner asked.

  “Yes,” said Zane. “We’re past—”

  His sentence was cut off by a buzz. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a vibrating phone. Recognizing the caller was Reid, he answered with a frown, “What’s up? We’re in radio-only mode.”

  “Had no choice. We have a huge problem.”

  Zane didn’t like the tone of Reid’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “They have CP. We split up at the parking deck, and the next thing I know, she’s being carried out by two goons.”

  “Where did they take her?”

  “They entered the building on this end. I presume she’s either in the control room or somewhere close by. The Renaissance guards were swarming like bees so there was zero chance I could enter and look for her.”

  “Copy that. If they have Carmen, they have her radio. Have you called Brett to—”

  “Already done. He should have her unit disabled shortly and will send us a text as soon as we are able to go live again. That’s why I contacted you by phone.”

  “Perfect. You sure there is no way to get in on that end?”

  “Negative. As I said, there are tangos everywhere.”

  “Where exactly are you?”

  “In a row of bushes on the north side. Hold on a sec.” Reid paused. “Three more tangos just walked past.”

  “Can you get back here? We’re inside the doors on the east end and can let you in.”

  “Roger that. The storm is providing cover, so give me five to ten.”

  “Copy that. Try to make it in five. When you arrive, make sure the outside is clear and then text.”

  Zane put away his phone and stared at Skinner, who had been able to hear the whole conversation.

  “What do you think they’ve done with Carmen?” Skinner asked.

  “I wish I knew.” Zane rubbed his forehead.

  “How much time do you think we have?”

  “We can’t count on having much at all, particularly now that they know we’re here.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means,” Zane said, “that we’re going to have to bull-rush that control room before they blow this place sky-high.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  REID ARRIVED AT the glass doors on the east end precisely seven minutes later and briefed the two on what he had seen outside. While there seemed to be no patrols in the area, he guessed that every square foot of the property would be searched within the hour.

  Knowing that they needed to get away from their exposed position just inside the glass, Zane led Reid and Skinner back into the room where the two Renaissance goons were tied up.

  “Okay, we have very little time,” he whispered. “I’m guessing they’ve already started the collider. So we’re going to travel to the other end … but we also conduct due diligence on the way. If Mironov is done with VanGelder, it’s possible he’ll have both he and Carmen taken out of the control room, just to get them out of the way. That said, look for light underneath doors, security personnel stationed outside doors, that kind of thing.”

  “And what happens when we get to the other end?” Skinner asked.

  “Good question. And unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. We have no idea what may be waiting for us down there, nor do we even know the specific layout yet. My hope is that we’ll have time to conduct due diligence, but if unforeseen circumstances arise, we’re going to just have to react as we go. It’s an unfortunate aspect of this operation.”

  Skinner nodded.

  “How are you on Taser cartridges?” Zane asked. “I think you should have two left?”

  “Correct,” Skinner replied.

  “And I’m fully loaded,” Reid said, patting his coat.

  “Then we’re all—” Zane was cut off by the vibration of his phone. He pulled it out and looked at the text message on the screen. “Okay, Brett says he’s disabled Carmen’s unit, so we can go live with radios again.”

  All three turned on their transmitters and tested the system. Brett’s radio was also connected to the three, so Zane briefly filled him in on what they were going to do. After Brett confirmed he understood, Zane gave a signal and led the group back out of the room.

  It only took the group a few minutes to travel through the first building and the enclosed corridor that linked it with the second. They found a couple of rooms with light spilling out from underneath the door, but they only contained boxes and assorted containers. From all appearances, the first building was some sort of supply depot.

  The second building was a much larger structure, with a maze of hallways. It was also darker than the first one, forcing the operatives to slow their pace. They glanced in the occasional open door, which usually revealed either a classroom or a laboratory.

  “Building two is much larger with a lot of intersecting halls,” Zane whispered to Brett through the microphone on his cuff. “So far, no tangos and no sign of the packages,” he continued, referring to VanGelder and Carmen. “We’re going to keep moving forward. Do you have anything on the buildings up ahead?”

  “Not much,” was Brett’s crackled reply in their earpieces. “I’ve done a little online research, and the building you’re in is apparently a research facility for visiting physicists.”

  “We gathered that from some of the rooms we looked in.”

  “If you keep moving straight ahead then you should hit the third one in about five minutes or so.”

  “So that we don’t have to keep getting updates, what can you tell us about that third building?” asked Zane.

  “It’s a smaller structure. I was able to find some diagrams online, and as best I can tell it contains the elevators that take you underground to the collider itself.”

  “Will there be any reason for us to use that?” Skinner asked.

  “Negative,” Zane replied. “Our goal is to keep moving forward until we get to the control center on the far end.”

  “And speaking of which,” Brett continued, “the control room will be in the fourth and final building. I watched an interesting video taken by a female physics student who was touring the facility. She was originally underground viewing the collider, and then she took the elevator back up into the third building. When she got out it was a very short walk from there to the control room. There is… lobby…” Brett’s voice broke up into a gargled mess.

  “Brett, do you read? We lost you.”

  “I’m here,” Brett replied after a few seconds. “I heard the same thing on my end. We’re getting interference of some sort. In any event, what I wanted to tell you is that when you get to the fourth building, there is a large lobby before you get to the control room. In other words, when you reach that lobby, you’ll know that the control room is just through the doors on the other side.”

  “Copy that,” Zane said. “And I can tell you right now that the lobby is going to be filled with tangos.”

  “Agreed,” Brett replied.

  “Over,” Zane said. He then turned to Reid and Skinner and said, “All right, we keep moving straight, unless we see lights or movement down one of the crossing hallways.”

  The first two intersections showed little activity, other than a couple of rooms with lights turned on. As with the other rooms they had searched, those were empty. There was also an eerie silence in the hallways that bothered Zane. With the whole Renaissance team on alert, he figured they would have heard distant shouting or movement. The silence told him that the enemy was actually doing their job in a professional way, silently and methodically searching the interior block by block in a deliberate attempt to clear each sector.

  A few steps before the third intersection, they heard distinct footfalls approaching from one of the crossing hal
lways. There was no time to waste, so Zane signaled that Reid should enter a room on the left, while he and Skinner took up a position in one on the right. All three then entered their respective rooms, leaving their doors open a crack.

  Seconds later, the footsteps approached the intersection just ahead. There was also the sound of soft voices speaking in Russian. Zane knew that it wouldn’t be possible to use a Taser in the dark environment, so he slipped a finger behind the trigger of his Glock, ready to use lethal force if necessary.

  When the Russians reached the intersection, they paused. There was a clicking noise as one of the men began to shine a flashlight in each direction, including the hall that Zane, Reid, and Skinner were hidden along.

  A few seconds later, the man extinguished the light, and they began moving again but more slowly and without talking. Zane’s heart began to pound as he saw two shadows draw even with their doors and pause. Had one of the men seen something? Or were they just debating whether or not to check the rooms? Either way spelled trouble, so Zane tightened the grip on his Glock.

  Just when it seemed as though the men were going to begin a search of the rooms, one of them said something in Russian, and they both started moving again. Their voices faded into the distance. When they could no longer be heard, Zane opened the door and began to step out when he stopped suddenly. He stood silently as if listening, and then motioned for everyone to get back into their respective rooms.

  “What is it?” Skinner asked in a low voice but was silenced by a lifted hand from Zane.

  Soon a new set of footsteps approached from the same direction the last group had come from. The operative only detected one set, and they were loud and unhesitating. The person arrived at the intersection and immediately turned down the hall where the operatives were hidden.

  Zane maintained his position as the shadow approached and then suddenly stopped. Who was it? It was impossible to tell if it were friend or foe, so Zane lifted his Glock and pointed it at the head of the silhouette through the crack in the door. If the person made any quick movements, the operative was prepared to blow his brains out.

  But mere seconds after he aligned the barrel with the target, a voice said, “Please do not shoot.”

  The voice sounded strangely familiar. While keeping his pistol trained on the subject, Zane used his left hand to pull out his red-filtered flashlight. He clicked it on and then froze, scarcely able to believe who was illuminated.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  AFTER CROSSING THE road, Amanda entered the trees. She was pleased to discover that the woods contained little undergrowth, and it only took her about a minute to traverse the distance to the other side. Upon arriving at the forest edge, she crept up behind a trunk. The snow was coming down hard and visibility was spotty at best, but she still felt the instinctive urge stay hidden whenever possible.

  The scene that met her eyes was about what she expected. Just ahead and to her left was a parking deck, and to the right was a series of buildings, although it was snowing too hard to see how many. Was that where everything was going to take place, or should she keep looking? Were Carmen and Zane inside? She felt as though the answer to both questions was “yes.”

  As she continued to stare, Amanda finally noticed that dim light was spilling out of the windows of the building that was facing the parking deck. Unfortunately, she was too far away to see inside, not to mention that she was at a bad angle.

  Moments later, voices could be heard from a couple of different directions. It seemed as though one set was coming from the parking deck and another set from the closest building. When she looked at the building again, she saw two men standing next to an entrance on the side. Amanda knew she was well hidden, but it concerned her that there were so many people around. Something was going down. She knew it.

  But what should she do next? That simple question gnawed at her as she shivered in the cold. She knew that the parking deck and the nearest building were out of the question. There was no way she could move around at either place without being seen. She eventually decided to move further down the tree line and enter one of the other buildings, all of which appeared to be dark. In the meantime, she would continue to pray, asking God to give her further instruction. Her experience had taught her that sometimes those instructions were clear, and other times they were just a vague notion or inclination.

  At that point, she only knew to push forward, recognizing that danger was closing in on all sides.

  *

  Amanda took her time moving through the woods, occasionally pausing behind the trunks of trees to look around. She knew that whoever had come in on the bike could be lurking nearby, just like her.

  When she drew even with the second building, she noticed that it was smaller and didn’t have any windows or doors. Giving her no means of ingress, she continued weaving through the trees until she was opposite the third building. That one had windows, and yet it was hard to be sure if there were any doors because of the row of fir trees planted along the side.

  With the temperature dropping by the minute, she knew she needed to move quickly. Seeing no movement, she took a deep breath and ran across the space between the woods and the building. The snow out in the open was deeper than the snow under the trees, which almost caused her to fall a couple of times. But despite the pitfalls, she eventually punched through the row of fir trees to the other side.

  Before proceeding to look for a door, Amanda decided to try some of the windows on the other side of the bushes. The hedge was thick and would provide her some measure of cover. Since the plants were adorned with prickly thorns, Amanda walked a few yards down until she found what appeared to be a slight opening in the tangle of branches. She would scoot through, try a couple of the windows, and then scoot back out.

  Just after pushing some of the limbs aside, Amanda thought she heard a noise behind her. She turned around, the hairs on her neck standing on end once again. Where had the noise come from? And what was it? It sounded like a twig snapping, and yet she also realized that the wind had picked up and might be blowing something around.

  Amanda stood perfectly still, her eyes moving back and forth in an attempt to discern the slightest movement. At one point she thought she saw something behind one of the trees, but after staring at the same spot for a full minute, she realized there was nothing there. And if her eyes were playing tricks on her, it was likely her ears were as well.

  Taking a deep breath, Amanda took one last look and then got down on all fours and started to crawl through the opening. As soon as she did, she could have sworn she heard another shuffling sound, but she ignored it. Her adrenaline was running at high levels, and it was likely affecting her senses.

  And then, right as she was about to punch through to the other side, a hand grabbed her ankle. She let out a little scream and rolled over in an attempt to defend herself, but it was too late. A large brute of a man was looming over her.

  Another scream welled up inside her, but before it could leave her mouth, the butt of a rifle swung down through the air, striking her across the head and turning everything to black.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  BY THE TIME Philippe tracked Amanda’s footprints to the other side of the woods, they had mostly disappeared, dissolving into what was by then almost a full inch or two of snow. The impressions appeared to move off to the right, but he couldn’t be sure. The gentle undulations could have just been subtle changes in topography.

  Soon after the pastor had started to pray, he—like Amanda—had come to the conclusion that his destiny lay inside one of those buildings. And like his American friend, he still didn’t know what role he was to play, only that it was a more active one than he originally thought.

  It hadn’t been hard to follow her tracks initially, particularly on the road where the snow had not yet become too thick. The footprints had been a bit more difficult to follow in the woods, but he took the liberty of using a small penlight on occasion, when the trail seemed
to disappear.

  He stood at the edge of the woods looking at the CERN complex spread out before him, with a parking deck to the left and a series of buildings to the right. What next? That was the question that echoed in his mind as he crouched behind the trunk of a tree. Should he go into the parking deck? That might afford a good view of the building on the end. Or should he move to the right to see if Amanda had followed the line of trees? Perhaps she was trying to find a way into the buildings.

  In the end, Philippe felt drawn to the parking deck. He didn’t like the idea of crossing the open space, but he knew he had to be obedient to the voice he sensed in his spirit. The timing couldn’t have been better, and was perhaps even providential, because as Philippe stepped out from behind the tree and ran, a strong gust of wind came ripping through the open space. Not only did it kick up clouds of snow from the ground, but it also swept an avalanche of flakes off of the parking deck and buildings. For a full fifteen seconds, it was as though he was running through a snow globe that had been shaken hard.

  As soon as he stepped under the protection of the deck, Philippe sprinted up a flight of stairs to the second level. He had seen the tops of a couple of sport utility vehicles, and assumed it would make a good place to hide. Not to mention it would provide some shelter from the storm.

  Before stepping out of the stairwell, Philippe paused and listened. Hearing nothing, he approached the line of vehicles in front of him. They were all facing the building, so he would simply slip in between two of them and watch. If someone came toward the parking deck, perhaps to enter one of the vehicles, he would retreat to the third level or to the other side of the elevator column in the center.