Colleen Gleason
Page 5
“Settle down, Boris,” she laughed as he finally succeeded in upsetting her balance, dumping her butt-first onto the tiled foyer. “You’re going to rip your stitches!” He would have accompanied her on the search and rescue operation if he hadn’t been recovering from minor surgery.
Marina pulled back to her feet and, grabbing the stack of mail that consisted of at least five catalogs, jabbed a finger onto the blinking light on her answering machine. Probably a solicitor. Everyone important knew to use her cell number, because she never knew when she might be called to a rescue.
She’d left for Terre Haute on Saturday morning, less than twenty-four hours after the quake had struck, demolishing the AvaChem plant. She had arrived on-site by early afternoon. From then on, it had been four days of climbing, clambering, shifting, and stumbling through the ruins of the plant, searching for anyone who might be alive. Her own technique was hampered by the absence of Boris, but she’d worked with another canine whose handler had been injured on the first day. Now, home at last, early Thursday morning, all she wanted was a hot bath, a glass of wine, and something substantial to eat … then sleep, on a real mattress.
Oh, please, sleep!
“Marina, this is Manjiri Prikash speaking.” The cultured, feminine voice blared through the answering machine, grabbing Marina’s attention from her half-baked perusal of the latest Pottery Barn catalog. Manjiri was a colleague who lived and worked in various locations of India, Pakistan, and Myanmar, and while they regularly communicated by email and instant messaging, they rarely spoke on the telephone. “I hope you are well, and I am sorry to call you on your home telephone, but I have some difficult news. The Royal Cambodian Government has issued a statement that the Lam Pao Archive must be returned to them by the 15th of July. This means we have less than two weeks to examine the manuscript and validate its historical accuracy before it is gone.”
“Ten days!” No way. Not now. She was teaching the summer half-term in two weeks. Blasted governments and their politics. This could only be a reaction to the little tussle between the University of Chicago and Yangon last year.
She and Manjiri had expected to have at least six months before Cambodia started making a fuss about wanting the ancient Buddhist manuscript—the one that had been missing for two centuries, the one that Marina and Manjiri had helped Myanmar archaeologists locate—back in their control.
Ten days to finalize the greatest achievement of her career? In the best of circumstances, it would take a month of study to complete the project.
And now she would have, at the most, barely a week.
Forgetting her exhaustion, she dropped the catalog and snatched up the phone, dialing the familiar number of her favorite airline. She’d just have to get herself to Mandalay as soon as possible and finish what she could.
Damn.
Just as she was making her selection—“For international travel, press three”—her cell phone rang. Marina tucked the landline phone between her ear and shoulder and grabbed the small one with the tinny ring.
“This is Marina.”
“It’s Bruce. Marina, we need you over here in PA. We’ve got a missing caver in the Allegheny North Coal Mine. Can you come?”
“I thought they closed it to cavers last summer,” she said, dropping the landline phone onto its cradle and launching to her feet. She could call the airline later … once she figured out how long this rescue was going to take. Adrenaline rushed through her as she grabbed up her still-packed gear and started for the door. She’d call Dawn later to come and take care of Boris.
“They did. But somehow these two guys got in here, and one of them’s been missing for five hours. How soon can you get up here?”
“Yep. Already on my way out the door—I just got back from that quake site in Indiana and still have my gear packed up. Boris can’t come, though. He’s still recovering.”
“Aw, shit, Marina, I didn’t know you were down there, though I should have expected it. But it’s a nine-hour drive over here—”
“And a ninety-minute flight in my P210 from Ann Arbor to State College. I’ll be there by lunch if all goes well.”
“Marina, you must be exhausted—”
“Maybe … .but at least I’m not lost or injured in some cold, dark cave. I’ll be there, Bruce, don’t you worry.”
-9-
July 5, 2007
Langley, Virginia
Colin Bergstrom didn’t consider himself a particularly lucky man.
In fact, he’d had enough unfortunate and downright bad things happen in his life that he figured Lady Luck wasn’t on his side in any way, shape or form.
But today, something beyond his comprehension of “coincidence” and “luck” occurred, and gave him an opportunity he’d never dreamed he’d have. A second chance.
His first day back at the office in Langley after a week vacation for the holiday, and he was going through the piles that had accumulated on his desk and the emails that had stacked up in his virtual in-box.
Later, he never could say what drew his attention to the bulletin that came in on email regarding the earthquakes in Allentown, Terre Haute and Hays, Kansas; they weren’t a CIA investigation. The Bureau was on it. But something drew his attention, nevertheless, and he perused the bulletin.
Interesting, intriguing, but nothing that pertained to him or his counter-terrorism team.
Yet something gnawed at him in the back of his mind, and he logged on to the database that linked all of the branches of Homeland Security to read more. There were photos and he skimmed through each one, trying to determine what it was that caught his attention.
Bergstrom hadn’t worked with spooks for thirty years without trusting his instincts.
And they didn’t fail him this time, because on the sixth page of images, one of them caused him to freeze and gape. His fingers curled around the computer mouse tightened so hard he accidentally pushed one of the buttons, and had to jerk the mouse, clicking and dragging to get that image back on the screen and make sure he hadn’t imagined it.
But no.
It was there.
By God, it was there.
He stared at it, and felt the way his breathing worked his lungs, quickly and shallowly.
The chance he’d been waiting for.
* * *
Dr. Paul Everett, a retired geologist who taught part-time at Princeton, had left a message for Helen Darrow two days ago.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call, but I’ve had to personally visit all three of the locations of the earthquakes,” she explained, readying her pencil and narrow-lined notepad. She’d been glad to return to her office in Chicago after traveling around half of the Midwest in the last three days. “Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kansas. There aren’t supposed to be earthquakes in those areas, are there?”
“Not ones like those.” Dr. Everett’s voice came through the phone ringed with politeness and a formality that reminded Helen of her grandmother’s new boyfriend, who always tried to make a good impression on the family. “That’s the reason for my call. I saw the seismogram of the quake, and actually put off a vacation in order to travel to the site in Allentown, because it’s not so far from where I live in Princeton.
“I’m not sure if you are aware that the site itself, at least in Allentown, has a unique formation to it.”
“You mean under the ground?” Helen asked. “Is that what caused the quake?”
“No, what I meant to say was that the result of the quake was a very unusual surface deformation. Agent Darrow, perhaps you are already very knowledgeable about how earthquakes are caused; but if you would indulge me for one moment just so that we may be on the same wavelength, I might be able to clear up some of your questions. And help with your investigation.”
Despite her liberal arts degree from Northwestern, Helen was fairly comfortable with the concepts of faults and shifting plates. She figured she could check her email while he talked—and it wouldn’t be
a bad thing to have a refresher. “Sure. Go ahead.” The USGS hadn’t done so; they’d just told her it wasn’t a normal earthquake and they didn’t know how to explain it.
If this man had some ideas, she was all ears.
“As you may know,” he was saying; and she recognized that he’d slipped into lecture tone, “The layer of ground that we walk on is the earth’s crust. It extends about thirty miles to the mantle, which is filled with hot magma. Below the mantle, at the very center of the earth, is the core—which is solid, due to enormous pressure.
“Most earthquakes happen when pieces of the crust floating on that mantle, or lava, bump into each other, or one tries to slip under the other. It causes the ground to shake, as you know.
“I believe what happened in Allentown, at least, was not an earthquake caused by that kind of activity. Based on the unusual activity seen on the seismogram—the record produced by the seismograph activity—and the unusual surface deformations above the site, I am fairly certain it was not a natural earthquake but an underground explosion.”
Those last two words snagged her attention firmly. “An underground explosion. How?”
“Let me first begin by telling you that I’ve seen this kind of activity, and its seismological effect, only once before. This was in the late ‘Sixties in Nevada—perhaps you heard of the Faultless Project?”
“Sounds like a government program to me.”
“Right you are. They were testing the atom bomb in Nevada, under the ground, where it was believed the damage would be minimal. Faultless, as you might say.
“It didn’t happen that way—instead, there was massive destruction in the area despite the fact that there weren’t any fault lines. Windows were shattered over eighty miles away. Needless to say, Faultless didn’t go any further; but I was working with the USGS at that time, and I saw the seismograms of the activity. What happened in Allentown is nearly identical to the activity that happened when the atom bomb was detonated underground.”
“You’re not suggesting that someone detonated atom bombs beneath these four plants?”
Everett sighed. “I’m not sure what I’m suggesting. An atom bomb, no. Something, yes.”
“But couldn’t something else have caused that kind of seismogram?”
“There is other evidence too, Agent Darrow—as I mentioned, the surface deformation left by the quake.
“You see, during a—shall we say normal—earthquake, the ground shifts in a random pattern. As the plates crash against each other, the disruption creates shifts and crevices into the ground—you’ve seen the pictures.
“But in the case of Allentown, and perhaps the other places, I’m not sure—the formation was not random. An entire area of approximately a mile’s radius from the center of the quake looks like it was shoved up. The entire ground, like an island, looks as though it was displaced from beneath.”
Helen’s mind was racing. “Yes, I see. If it were an explosion, the force of the explosion would have blasted a whole chunk of the ground up. Like an abrupt elevator.”
“Indeed. And, if you notice, all around that area, in the last few days, the ground has fallen away, down, sixteen, seventeen feet. Almost like a moat. That is identical to what happened during the Faultless Test.”
“My God.” Helen breathed. Until he said that; until he painted that picture, the possibility that the quakes had been man-made had been farfetched; like something out of a thriller novel. But now … she could picture exactly how it had happened.
And in the other locations … . “They’re all like that! I’ve seen every one of them; they all have that kind of island of ground thrust up from the rest of the land, and then the crevice around it.” She sat back in her chair, pencil dangling from her fingers. “But how?”
-10-
July 5, 2007
Langley, Virginia
“Dr. Sayed said you should take at least another two months, Gabe.”
“Dr. Sayed’s just worried about his reputation. I’m damned ready to be back. Three months to lick my wounds is plenty long enough, don’t you think?” Despite his hard words, Gabe MacNeil’s voice was colored with the faint lilt of a West Virginian accent.
Colin Bergstrom settled back in his chair. The man across from him could have been his son if one were considering age and level of intelligence. But where Bergstrom’s Matthew was short like his father, MacNeil was tall and rangy, with close-cropped dark hair that had more than its share of grey edging the sideburns and along the front of his hairline. Colin guessed he must be considered good-looking, if the way all the female admins constantly mooned over him was any indication. And there was, of course, the incident with Rebecca Yves. She hadn’t flickered an eyelash at any of her colleagues until MacNeil came along.
In his mid-thirties, single, dedicated, and sharp as they came, MacNeil was just what Colin needed for this gig. And, since he insisted on returning prematurely from a medical leave of absence, and was thus currently unassigned, he needed an operation he could sink his teeth into while easing back into fieldwork.
Colin wasn’t above keeping his early return a fact between himself, HR, and McNeil—for the time being. He wasn’t going to miss the golden opportunity that had just landed in his lap.
He’d been telling him about the three coincidental earthquakes before he’d looked at the report regarding MacNeil’s return to work, and noticed that the recommendation of Dr. Sayed was that he take another two months. At least. Sayed had put him at approximately 75% physical capacity, and 85% mental readiness.
But this little project Colin had in mind was not a demanding operation; and with MacNeil still officially on leave, Colin could utilize him without digging too deeply into tight, well-managed resources.
The fact that he would be putting one of his best officers on the project, under the blind noses of the Powers That Be, gave him only the slightest of hesitations.
“Everything related to those three earthquakes is being investigated, even a mass of flyers that were found blowing about the site in Allentown. You know how it is—everything out of the ordinary is a potential terrorist attack until proven otherwise nowadays.”
“I hardly think an earthquake, or even a series of them, could be considered a terrorist attack. As we know, subtlety is not one of their trademarks.”
“The theory is that it was some kind of underground explosion. Some professor at Princeton who was watching the seismograph at the time recognized the unusual activity—which consisted of several large spikes out of the blue; no other activity before.”
“An underground explosion.” MacNeil’s wheels were obviously turning. His hands were clasped on his chest, the left thumb tapping on top of the right as if in rhythm of his thoughts. “Certainly is a consideration, but how in the hell a bomb was placed twenty feet—or however deep—under these sites, in solid rock, is impossible to fathom.”
“You’re right of course, but the team, led by SA Helen Darrow, has been combing the areas, looking for anything that might indicate that’s what happened—but it’d have to be a cave or some other underground passage that gave them access. And there’s nothing like that in any of these places.”
“Darrow? She’s never handled anything this big before. She’s sharp, but if this is really a terror operation, she might be in over her head. Still. She’s no dumb blonde.”
“I didn’t realize you knew her that well,” Colin said.
MacNeil gave a short nod, along with a thoughtful quirk of his lips. “You could say that.”
“Well, you’re right—she’s sharp. Darrow did find something. And I’ve offered to put you on it.”
The spark of interest was back in MacNeil’s grey eyes; whether it was due to the lovely Ms. Darrow or the case wasn’t clear. But it didn’t matter. In a few moments, MacNeil would be fully engaged. Bergstrom slid a photograph across the desk. “Take a look at this. There were about twenty papers blowing around the Allentown site with this symbol on them.”
“No. Only Allentown. And that’s the crux of the matter—Darrow doesn’t have the man-power with her own team to follow up on something like this that’s likely unrelated. Yet she’s smart enough to know she can’t take the chance on something slipping through. The police chief told her he thought it was a gang symbol; guess they’ve been having lots of problems with that in the local high schools.”
“So, you got involved how? And you’re putting me on it—why? Because I’ve been away for a few months and I need to be eased back in, chasing around monkey clues? If this is a counter-terrorism investigation, a whole helluva lot has changed in the last few months.”
“This isn’t a Mickey Mouse operation. I happened to see the symbol, just by accident, and I contacted Darrow and told her I had someone who could do the follow up. Actually, I seized the opportunity. Purposely.”