Secret Passage

by Amanda Stevens

  At the far end of the room, her grandfather sat at one of the low tables, head bowed to his work. He wore a white lab coat over his rumpled suit, and he looked up anxiously when he saw Camille approach.

  “I apologize for the subterfuge.” He waved the guard away and stood. “I thought it best that Special Agent Talbott not get wind of this meeting.”

  “Why? What’s this about?” Camille asked nervously.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if trying to massage away tension. “I wanted to speak with you about those letters you typed for me yesterday.”

  “What about them? I haven’t told anyone if that’s what you’re concerned about,” Camille assured him.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t think that you would. No, I wanted to talk to you about…the content. Did you understand the meaning of those letters?”

  Camille hesitated, not sure how much she should tell him. She understood everything, but he wouldn’t expect her to. “I gather you’re trying to get members of a congressional oversight committee to stop some kind of experiment involving a U.S. warship.”

  He let out a weary sigh. “I shall fail, of course, just like all the other times that I’ve tried to appeal to their conscience—” He broke off and shook his head sadly. “There’s no stopping it, I’m afraid. But…that’s not the reason I wanted to see you.”

  “Then what is it?” Camille asked in confusion. She didn’t have a clue why he’d summoned her there.

  “I had you brought here because there are very few people on the reservation that I can trust. You’re one of them.” Before Camille could respond, he put up a hand. “I know that must sound strange. I barely know you. But I consider myself a good judge of character, and, from the moment I first saw you, I knew I could rely on you. Don’t ask me to explain it. I simply knew that you were the one who could help me.”

  “Help you do what?”

  He reached inside his pocket and withdrew an envelope which he handed to Camille. It was addressed to a Miss Elsa Chambers at a prominent university in California.

  She glanced up. “I don’t understand. What is this?”

  “I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about the advice you gave me. That I should get in touch with Elsa after the war, I mean. And I’ve come to the conclusion that you were right. I should very much like to rekindle our…acquaintance, but, unfortunately, that may not be possible.”

  “Why not?” Camille asked in alarm. Something in her grandfather’s tone, in his demeanor, worried her a great deal. He had the look of a man with a monumental weight on his shoulders.

  “The experiment that I referred to in those letters is scheduled to take place in a matter of days. If, as I predict, my pleas once again fall on deaf ears, there is only one thing left for me to do.”

  Destroy the generators, Camille thought.

  Should she tell him the truth? Should she try to convince him that his one final act of desperation and defiance had the potential to change the world in ways he couldn’t even begin to imagine?

  “What are you going to do?”

  His eyes glinted with steely determination. “If I can’t prevent the experiment from taking place, then I shall be a part of it.”

  Camille stared at him for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

  “I plan to be on board that ship to witness firsthand what chaos is wreaked when man decides to play God.”

  Camille gasped as the implication of his words sank in. “But you can’t do that. You can’t be on that ship.”

  Her reaction clearly startled him. “It’s something I have to do, for my own conscience. But, you see, I don’t know what the outcome of the experiment will be. No one does. That’s why I want you to make sure Elsa gets that letter. I want her to understand why I left things the way I did—”

  Camille flattened her hands on the table and leaned toward him. “Don’t you understand? Your presence on that ship could change everything. It could have consequences you can’t even begin to imagine. The world needs you alive. I need you. I won’t let you do it, Grandfather. Do you hear me?”

  He looked at her in astonishment. “Grandfather?”

  ZAC WAS PRETTY SURE he’d been out for only a few minutes, but during that time, he’d been dragged across the dirt floor, his arms pulled behind him and fastened with handcuffs around one of the old wooden support beams. Betty was behind him, her arms pulled back and secured to the brace, as well.

  Another lantern had been brought in, and Zac glanced around, trying to pinpoint his attacker.

  “He’s gone,” Betty whispered.

  “I have a feeling he’ll be back,” Zac muttered. Using the handcuffs, he tugged at the beam, and a shower of dirt and gravel rained down on them from above. Very clever, he thought. If they struggled too strenuously to free themselves, the whole mine could come down on them.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Betty.

  “Yes. He didn’t hurt me. What about you? He hit you pretty hard.”

  “It was just a glancing blow.”

  “Glancing blow?” she said in disbelief. “You were out cold. For a moment there, I was afraid…”

  “Good thing I have a hard head, I guess.” Zac frantically glanced around for something to use as a weapon or to pry loose the handcuffs. If he could just reach that crowbar with his foot—

  A shadow appeared in the doorway just then, and as Zac’s gaze lifted, his blood went cold.

  The silver hair. The odd-colored eyes.

  “Vogel.” He all but spat the name. And then something Camille had told him the night before came rushing back to him. “It wasn’t an accident. He made him run into the street after the ball.”

  A fury like nothing Zac had ever experienced came over him, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that had he been free at that moment, he would have ripped the man’s heart out with his bare hands.

  As it was, Zac jerked helplessly at the handcuffs, accomplishing nothing more than to trigger another tiny avalanche of dirt.

  Vogel laughed. “Quite a predicament you find yourself in, isn’t it? Struggle too hard…and the mine could cave in on you. Ingenious, if I do say so myself.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Zac growled. “Did Von Meter send you?”

  “Von Meter doesn’t call the shots for me. He hasn’t in a long time.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Right now? I’m putting the finishing touches on some rather clever explosives I’ve devised for my new friends.” Vogel walked across the room and took something out of one of the crates, placing it gently inside the leather bag he’d brought in with him. Then he straightened. “The Germans have quite an impressive network in this area. They’ve even got people behind the fence, and they’re quite eager to deal. I’ve already made some very useful contacts, but then, why wouldn’t I? I’m one of them, see. My grandmother was a German spy. Or rather, is. She’s been operating in Oak Ridge for nearly a year now, right under the very noses of the FBI.”

  Zac continued to work at the handcuffs. He could feel Betty doing the same. “Who is she?”

  “A clever young woman named Alice Nichols. She has no idea who I am, of course. I’m saving that little tidbit for just the right occasion.” He grinned down at Zac. “Actually, you’ve met her. You probably don’t remember, but she paid you a visit in the hospital. If it wasn’t for Nurse Betty there, you would never have awakened from your coma.”

  Betty said in outrage, “So she was trying to smother him with a pillow that day. I knew it!”

  Vogel laughed. “Can you blame her? He’s been quite a nuisance. She actually wanted to finish you off, too,” he said to Betty. “But I convinced her you could be useful to us. A little flattery, a few baubles, and you were more than willing to spy on Zac for me, weren’t you? Of course, that’s over now. I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

  “What are you going to do to us?” Betty demanded, but the tremor in her voice gave away her
terror.

  “That’ll be up to Zac.”

  Zac cut him a glance. “Meaning?”

  Vogel came over and knelt beside them. He held up a key, then tossed it to the floor a few feet away. “You’ve always been Von Meter’s fair-haired boy even though I had ten times the skills and talent. Time after time you led missions that should have been mine. But all that’s about to change. You see, Zac, you were never really a match for me. Not in the future and not here in the past. Look how easily I got the best of you.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Zac said.

  Vogel grinned. “That’s the old fighting spirit.” With his toe, he slid the key a few inches farther away. “Let’s see how much of a super soldier you really are. You once had some rather mundane telekinetic skills. How about it, Zac? Can you move the key?”

  Zac stared at the key for a moment, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. According to Camille, he’d once had the power to stop a speeding car with his mind. Now he didn’t even have a clue how to move something as tiny as a key.

  As if reading his mind, Vogel laughed again. “That’s what I thought.” He stood and walked back over to the crates.

  “You say Alice Nichols is your grandmother.” Zac tried to focus his attention on the key. “What about your grandfather?”

  “I’ve never known who he was,” Vogel said matter-of-factly. “Someone my grandmother used to get information on the Allies, no doubt.”

  “What arrangements have you made with the Germans?” Zac still had his eye on the key. Was it his imagination, or had it moved a millimeter? Behind him, Betty gasped softly, and he wondered if she’d seen it, too.

  “They’re willing to pay millions to find out the secrets behind the fence. They’ll pay even more for the secrets of Project Phoenix. And all I have to do is deliver Dr. Kessler to them. Preferably alive, but if that isn’t possible, his notes will suffice.”

  A cold chill shot through Zac. Vogel planned to kidnap or murder Nicholas Kessler. And the person standing in his way was Camille. She would die protecting her grandfather. Zac knew that without a doubt. He also knew that he would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen. He hadn’t been able to save Adam, but he damn sure meant to save Camille. Or die trying.

  Closing the leather bag, Vogel picked it up and walked to the entrance. Turning he stared down at Zac. “In a matter of minutes, when I’m safely down the ridge, I’ll detonate enough explosives to seal the entrance of this mine, as well as your fate. This time, you won’t be leaving here alive.”

  “If you blow up the mine, you won’t be able to go back through the wormhole. You’ll be trapped here,” Zac said.

  He shrugged. “The Germans will treat me as a god once I deliver victory to them. They’ll lavish me with riches and power beyond my wildest dreams. I think, under the circumstances, I’ll be able to adjust.” Then, with a mocking salute, he turned and disappeared into the tunnel.

  “What was he talking about?” Betty asked nervously. “The future, the past? What did he mean by that? And how did you make that key move?”

  “You saw it move?” Zac asked anxiously.

  “Of course, I did. How on earth—” She broke off as the key moved again, another millimeter. “How did you do that?” she asked fearfully. “Who are you people? What are you?”

  Zac tried to tune her out as he concentrated on the key, but it didn’t help. He could move the key slightly, but not enough. The fierce meditation only left him light-headed.

  “How long before the explosion, do you think?” Betty asked worriedly.

  “Not long.” With renewed determination, Zac focused on the key. There had to be a trick to it, some way to harness his energy—

  “Zac?” a voice whispered from the main tunnel.

  “Davy?”

  The boy glanced over his shoulder as he crept through the opening. “I think he’s gone.”

  Fear shot through Zac as he realized the danger the kid was in. “Davy, you have to get out of here. He’s put a bomb in here somewhere.”

  But instead of running away, the boy scrambled across the floor and picked up the key. Quickly, he unfastened Zac’s handcuffs, then Zac in turn freed Betty.

  The young woman looked shell-shocked as she rose shakily to her feet. “What do we do now—”

  It started with a low rumble that began to build until the sound grew deafening and the floors and walls trembled. Dirt and rock spewed down on them, and dust thickened the air until Zac could see no more than a foot or two in front of him. His throat and eyes stinging from the assault, he reached out blindly and found Betty, found Davy, then pulled them both toward the opening. “Come on! We have to get out of here!”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Betty screamed. “He blew up the entrance. We’re trapped in here—”

  Davy tugged on Zac’s arm. “I know another way out.”

  He darted into the main tunnel, and Zac followed, pulling Betty with him. Behind them, he could hear the log braces snapping in two as the tunnels began to collapse.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Answer me! Why did you call me ‘grandfather’?” Dr. Kessler demanded. His blue eyes burned into hers.

  “Because I—” Camille’s head snapped around at the sound of a distant explosion. The equipment on the table rattled for a moment as her heart started to pound in alarm. “What was that?”

  “It sounded a long way off,” her grandfather said. “Whatever it was, I don’t believe we’re in any danger.”

  Camille wished she could be as certain. But she remembered all those crates stacked in the mine and Zac’s assertion that there could be a threat, other than from him, against her grandfather’s life.

  She glanced up in panic. “I think we should get you out of here.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Off the reservation. Out of Oak Ridge. It’s not safe for you to be here right now.”

  He frowned as he regarded her across the table. “You never answered me. Why did you call me that? I’m obviously not old enough to be your grandfather. Is it some sort of code? Who are you? Something tells me that you’re no ordinary file clerk.”

  “No, I’m not,” Camille admitted. “I’ve been sent here to protect you.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Sent by whom?”

  She paused. “I was sent here by…you.”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. I sent for you, yes, but not to protect me. I told you, I want you to deliver a letter for me—”

  “And I told you, you can’t be on that ship when it disappears. It’s too dangerous.”

  “When it disappears,” he repeated. His gaze narrowed in suspicion. “How do you know about that? I never mentioned anything specific in those letters that you typed. How do you know—”

  “That the ship will vanish? Because you’ve made other objects disappear here in the lab, haven’t you? You’ve devised generators that create electromagnetic fields around objects, rendering them invisible. Except…they’re not just invisible. They’re transported to another time, another dimension…and when they return, they’re altered somehow. That’s why you’re so worried about the experiment scheduled to take place on that ship. You’ve already seen what can happen.”

  He sat down heavily in a chair, his face drained of color. “How can you know this? How can you know any of this?”

  “The experiment will go off as scheduled,” Camille said. “And when the ship rematerializes, it will punch a hole in the space-time continuum, forming a tunnel that will link your time—1943—to the future. And sixty years from now, the experiment will be recreated using a submarine. Another tunnel will be formed that links the future to…now. To 1943.”

  He stared at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. But there was something in his eyes, a glint of fear, that made her think a part of him already knew she spoke the truth. “What are you saying? That someone from the future could travel
back in time?”

  “Not just in time. To this time. To 1943.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Yes, it is,” Camille said softly. “I’m living proof that it is.”

  He put a hand to his mouth and observed her for a long, tense moment. “You’re trying to tell me that you’re from the future?”

  “I’m trying to tell you more than that.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m your granddaughter. And I’ve come here to protect you.”

  He drew a sharp breath. “My…granddaughter? That’s ludicrous. As I said before, I’m obviously not much older than you.”

  “But sixty years in the future, you will be. It’s true,” Camille said softly when he didn’t respond. “You said yourself, you knew from the moment you laid eyes on me that you could trust me. Don’t you see? There’s a reason for that. We have a bond. We’re family. You’re my grandfather. Or you will be.”

  He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate hoax? Some enemy ruse—”

  “It’s not a hoax. I’m your granddaughter.” Camille reached across the table to touch his hand, but he jerked away from her. She drew a breath. “Okay, I see I’ve got my work cut out for me. So here goes. After the war, you’ll not only become reacquainted with Elsa Chambers, the two of you will marry and have a daughter whom you’ll name Elizabeth, after your mother. My great-grandmother. I’m Elizabeth’s daughter.”

  He was looking at her not so much with suspicion now, but awe. “You do remind me so much of Elsa,” he murmured.

  “The two of you will have a long and happy life together,” Camille said.