by Bob Finley
"How big is this place?" Marc asked, astonished.
The VIKING lay in the middle of a body of water easily half-again the length of the hundred and forty foot-long ship. But even under the glaring lights mounted high in the vaulted roof at least a hundred feet above them, the distant walls of the dome-shaped cavern seemed impossibly far away.
"Check this," Kim offered, as another image appeared on Marc's screen.
"We did a three-sixty radar scan, ran it through exclusion filters to segregate the original ‘returns’ from the clutter, enhanced the originals, and plotted the data. What you see is an outline map of the room we're in. Or, whatever you call it."
Justin studied the map intently.
"I didn't know our equipment could do this kind of thing," he said.
"Neither did I," Kim admitted. "It was Janese's idea."
"Really," Marc nodded slowly. "I'm impressed."
"Everyone's good for something," he heard her murmur. For him to have heard her that clearly through Kim's headset, she must be standing very close and leaning over Kim, he realized. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Kim threw a grid on the screen. If the data was reliable, the cavern must be slightly ovoid in shape and almost four hundred feet across. Four hundred feet!
"DOCK YOUR SHIP, CAPTAIN," The Voice ordered.
A shock of resentment shot through him, but Justin sat on it.
"Where?" he grated.
"STRAIGHT AHEAD. THERE'S A SLIP WITH MOORING FACILITIES. SEND SOMEONE TOPSIDE. ONE OF MY MEN WILL HAND A LINE OVER."
"I'll do that," Frank Sheppard volunteered. Kim disarmed the lockout on the main topside hatch as Frank went aft to the elevator.
Marc scooted out of the way as he saw Frank emerge on top of the VIKING. From where they sat below water level, Marc and Kim were able to see each other through the acriliglass spheres of their vessels. Marc raised one index finger in a subdued salute of encouragement as the VIKING slid by him like a leashed torpedo. Kim acknowledged with a sad shake of his head.
"I see guns," Janese warned. She was still watching through the stabilizer camera. Marc looked at the feed Kim had sent to the SQUID's monitor. One man in a fluorescent orange coverall stood waiting at floor level ten feet above a floating dock. A second, similarly uniformed, was trotting down the stairs that led down to the dock. Both were armed with what looked like machine pistols.
"Worker bees," Marc thought.
With his ‘eyes’ patched through a camera mounted at the VIKING's stern five fathoms above water level, Marc had the unique perspective of looking down the entire length of his ship as it approached the docking quay. He could see the pressure wave curl away from the bow. It was precisely the same view he had each time he docked her. He instinctively reached for the controls to slow her down for final approach. But...he wasn't driving her. Kim was. It hit him that moment just how much out of his control this situation had become. Someone else was driving his ship. Someone else was giving the orders. Someone else had taken over. And, worst of all...it had been his decision to put them all at the mercy of a possible lunatic...to take the bait and spring the trap...in order to find out what this rat was up to. He hoped he'd done the right thing. Feeling more like a lamb being led to the slaughter, he wondered.
Frank, his back toward Marc, caught the thrown line and, pulling up a recessed handle, secured it to a hidden cleat. Marc saw the side maneuvering thrusters die away. The VIKING's turbines wound down. His ship was quiet. And they were prisoners.
Chapter 26
"YOU WILL HAVE YOUR ASSISTANT SHUT DOWN ALL UNNECESSARY SYSTEMS ABOARD THE VIKING AND LEAVE THE SHIP, CAPTAIN JUSTIN. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COMPLY."
"Yeah? Or what?" Justin bristled.
There was no reply. Instead, the man at the top of the quay nodded, stepped to the edge, and raised his weapon.
Marc heard Janese's shrill warning.
"He's pointing a gun at us!"
An explosive rrrrrrpp! of gunfire reverberated through the cavern. Bullets tore through the water around Janese and Kim's fragile capsule, leaving contrails of bubbles in their wake.
"Hey! Hey!!" Justin yelled. "Are you crazy?! You stupid idiot! You can't do that! You'll sink the ship!"
Again, there was no reply. The gunman hadn't moved from his firing position. He was obviously waiting for orders.
"Hey, you, whoever you are, you can't do that! One bullet is all it'll take and that ship 'll be a piece o' junk!"
It was a moment before there was a response.
"EXACTLY." The Voice was cool, controlled. And final. Justin understood.
"Alright. Alright! Tell that goon up there to back off, and I'll do what you say."
The man didn't back off, but he did raise the muzzle of his weapon toward the ceiling.
Justin took a slow breath and exhaled.
"Kim."
"Sir."
"Shut 'er down. In-port systems only. Send Ms. Cramerton topside. Then cut Cy-the-spy loose and take him up with you. Make it quick."
"Yes, sir. Jan...Ms. Cramerton's on her way now. Uh...what if Wojecki causes problems?"
"Then, drag what's left of him up with you."
Kim smiled slightly. "I heard that," he acknowledged.
Marc glanced back at his monitor. He was pleased to see that Kim had had the presence of mind to leave the cameras running. Through the stabilizer camera he saw that Janese had already joined Frank on the small transfer pad two-thirds of the way down the length of the VIKING toward the bow. She looked like she didn't know what to do next. That issue was quickly settled. Two men in orange coveralls had just arrived carrying what was apparently a narrow, lightweight gangway. They hurriedly bridged the gap to the VIKING. Justin grunted as they dropped the far end down onto the ship's polished surface. The burly shooter jerked his head and gun barrel in one motion, as if they were connected, and Frank led the way across the gangway. Janese Cramerton followed like a graceful tightrope walker. Marc saw Cy Wojecki emerge from the hatchway and stop to look around him. Even though he had admitted to conspiracy, he didn't seem to have been here before. Kim brought up the rear. He gave Wojecki a not-so-loving shove onto the gangway and turned to dog the hatch before himself crossing over. Wojecki appeared to still be talking, all the way across the gangplank.
"Motormouth," Justin muttered aloud to himself.
As Wojecki reached the end of the gangplank, an unarmed guard stepped between him and the other three of the crew and isolated him from the group as skillfully as a cowboy cutting a steer from the herd. He leaned forward and conspiratorially said something only Wojecki could hear. Whatever it was, it was what Wojecki wanted to hear. His face lit up and he nodded eagerly. The guard took him deferentially by the elbow and neatly plucked him from the group, engaging him in animated conversation as he led him away. They were already at a safe distance before it occurred to Wojecki to glance back. There was the briefest flash of alarm on his face before he was efficiently hustled into obscurity. Justin recognized a prisoner when he saw one.
"DOCK YOUR VESSEL AND COME ASHORE, CAPTAIN."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Marc said and pulled the SQUID alongside the dock, dwarfed by the massive bulk of the VIKING. He overcharged the ballast tanks with air to raise the minisub's access hatch above the waterline, turned off the monitor so curious eyes wouldn't notice the VIKING's cameras were still running, and put the SQUID to sleep. When he stepped onto the mounting stud outside the hatch door and swung it shut, the guard on the floating dock moved forward as if to help him onto the dock. But when Justin made no move to accept his outstretched hand, the guard raised his eyes to Marc's face. He slowly withdrew his hand, took two careful steps backwards, and instinctively tightened his grip on his weapon. Marc stepped onto the dock, his eyes following the guard, and climbed the steps to where the others were waiting.
"Everyone alright?" he asked, looking from one to the other. There were nods and murmurs. Before he could say anything else, he was abruptly interrupted from behind.
"Awright, lissen up!" The voice was coarse, loud, and used to giving orders. Marc turned to find it matched its red-headed owner. Standing six-three and weighing two-fifty or better, his arms were the size of Justin's thighs and bulged from the short sleeves of a desert camo uniform. Knife-edged creases, spit-shined jump boots, and black beret punctuated the holstered .45 on his right hip. There was no badge of rank pinned to the epaulets. This man didn't need to wear symbols of authority. He embodied it.
"Mercenary," Marc thought.
"You Justin?" the man asked, all business.
Marc nodded. "Who're you?"
"Banner."
"You got a first name?" Justin asked sarcastically.
"Yeah. Mister. Now, go with them," he ordered, hooking a thumb in the direction of two non-descript orange uniforms. "The rest o’ y'all...my name's Banner. Mister Banner. Put these on and come with me." He thrust plastic, clip-on ID discs at them and turned away.
"Hold it!" Justin barked. "Where're you taking them?"
The man broke stride but turned only part-way back around. The look he gave Justin was anything but friendly and it was obvious he wasn't in the habit of explaining his orders. His eyes narrowed with the effort of restraint.
"I'm taking them to their quarters where they'll be confined until they're told otherwise," he said in a dangerously quiet voice, "and you're going to a meeting. And unless you want a knot up 'side your head, you'll do what you're told, when you're told. Come on." He wheeled away in dismissal. Kim, Frank and Janese, furtively looking back at him, quickly fell in and were marched away, angling off to the left across the vast open space of the cavern.
"Here. Put this on." The guard in front of him thrust a security badge at him. "Don't take it off. If you try, you fry." Short and burly, with hairy fence posts for arms and the florid face of a heavy drinker, he looked like a roughneck off a Louisiana oil rig. Gulf coast native, maybe. Little Cajun slur when he talked.
Justin frowned and looked at the plastic clip-on. "What do you mean, ‘you fry’?" he asked, puzzled.
There was a nasty laugh from the guard behind him and the one in front snorted and joined in. Obviously IQ was not one of the considerations for this job.
"Just don't take it off, okay?"
"Yeah," the one behind chimed in, "don't say we didn't warn you." They laughed again.
"Come on," the one in front said, and moved away. "Just don't get too close, 'cause if you try anythin’, Freddie back there won't ask no questions."
Justin started to have a look at Freddie, but was roughly jabbed from behind by what felt like a gun barrel. Freddie might be a little slow mentally, but he had good reflexes. They hustled briskly off in a different direction from where the others had gone. Justin had the urge to look back at the VIKING but remembered Freddie and thought better of it.
During the minute or so it took for them to cross the cavern, Marcus Justin took in as much of his surroundings as he could without turning his head to invite Freddie's attention. The floor was strangely quiet under the two guards' boots. He looked more closely and found it was volcanic rock, polished level and smooth but still porous. The minute air pockets probably accounted for the sound dampening. Tipping his head back as far as he dared and squinting against the glare of the lights, he could detect in the bluish haze a network of pipes, girders and cables strung against the ceiling six stories above him. There was also what looked like a catwalk, way up near the domed roof, that dead-ended at the sheer rock wall they were approaching.
"Hold up."
They stopped abruptly at a six-by-six concrete pad next to the wall. Wire cables ran up the wall behind the pad. The first man walked a few feet away, turned away from them, and spoke into his headset. Justin glanced at Freddie, who was watching him from a safe distance like a hungry ferret. Freddie wore no headset. Worker bee. Justin looked at the other man, who had rejoined them.
"Where am I going?" he asked in a non-threatening, conversational voice. The man regarded him suspiciously.
"Penthouse."
"The penthouse?" Justin echoed.
The taciturn guard merely scowled and jabbed upwards with his left thumb. Just then, from way above came the whining crescendo of an electric motor and the heavy wire cable on the wall next to them came to life. Marc's eyes quickly trailed the cable up the wall and realized that part of the catwalk had separated and was dropping toward them.
"An elevator!" Marc observed. "This place if full of surprises."
"Ain't it?"
Justin eyed the guard. "What's going to happen to my ship while I'm...up there?" he asked.
The guard looked surprised. Then he shrugged. "Nothin', I guess. Why should it?" Marc tried another tack.
"What's going on here?"
"Whaddaya mean, ‘going on’?"
Marc spread his hands and looked around him.
"This," he said, indicating the huge cave and all its mysterious activity.
The guard's face darkened as if a cloud had passed over it.
"Anything you need to know, you'll find out upstairs," he said gruffly.
Justin opened his mouth to ask another futile question, but the elevator clattered to a noisy halt next to them. There was nothing fancy about it. Rack and pinion. Open cage. He'd seen similar ones on high-rise construction sites. Primitive but functional.
"Get in," the guard ordered, sliding open the mesh door. Justin stepped in and the guard slid the door closed behind him. Marc was surprised.
"You're not going up with me?" he asked.
"We don't go up there," the guard answered with terse finality and stepped back. Without warning, the elevator lurched and lifted off, the guards' upturned faces seeming to fall away from him. He was ‘going to a meeting’, he'd been cryptically told. With whom and about what, he didn't have the foggiest idea. There was one bright note to his elevator ride. He finally got an unobstructed look at his ship, lying far below and growing ever smaller as he rose toward the fate he'd chosen for them all. Back in the VIKING, among familiar surroundings, he'd been in control and sure of his decision. Now...he was as much in control as a soup sandwich. And the only thing he was sure of was that this elevator was taking him closer and closer to the center of the spider's web.
Chapter 27
Five floors up, Marc stopped looking over the edge. He wasn't exactly afraid of heights. But he was afraid of falling from heights. The elevator rose through a network of interlaced metal struts near the ceiling that supported lighting, metal and plastic conduit, and ductwork.
"Every stage has its backstage," he thought as he peered through the maze. Looking up, he saw the elevator was approaching what seemed to be the catwalk he'd noticed from below. When the floor of the catwalk and the floor of the elevator merged, the elevator abruptly stopped. He almost lost his balance from the sudden stop motion. He noticed for the first time that there were two doors in the elevator. One opened onto the catwalk, the other faced the rock wall up which he'd risen. He tried the door to the catwalk. It wouldn't open. Which didn't hurt his feelings any. He didn't relish a stroll along that thin spider web. A Navaho steel walker he wasn't. But when he put his face close to the door and peered through the wire mesh, he could see that the walkway ran across the cavern to the far-distant wall, where it apparently ended at a room he hadn't noticed before. It had large glass windows which angled outward to give a clear view of the cave floor seventy or more feet below. He couldn't quite make out what was in the brightly lit room and he wondered why it was so isolated from everything else.
"TRY THE OTHER DOOR, CAPTAIN."
He jumped. And could have kicked himself for it. The Voice had come from a speaker in the rock wall behind him. He turned the latch and the elevator door swung open. Beyond, flush with the rock face, was a massive, hardened steel door mounted into an equally fortified frame. It whooshed opened.
"COME IN, CAPTAIN."
Fighting his better judgment all the way, he stepped across the threshold from
the fragile elevator into the corridor beyond. He watched with some apprehension as the massive door closed behind him with a hiss and a clunk.
"...said the spider to the fly," Justin muttered to himself. Not quite to himself.
"NOT AT ALL," said the spider. "PLEASE...JUST FOLLOW THE CORRIDOR."
Justin looked around. He'd suddenly realized...he should have known...that there had to be cameras. ‘Try the other door’ hadn't exactly been a subtle hint.
"YES, THE CAMERAS ARE THERE, CAPTAIN. PLEASE...COME ALONG. I'M ANXIOUS TO MEET YOU."
"Uh huh," he thought, "I'll just bet you are."
But he walked down the corridor. It was a typical hallway, except that it was hewn from solid rock...rock floor, rock ceiling...only the walls were overlaid with a decorative covering. Fifteen feet along, the corridor turned sharp right. Then, in another fifteen feet, it turn sharply to the left. There were cameras at each turn.
"If I were building a fort, this is how I'd build it," he thought. "An easily defensible access, with two fallback positions." The thought didn't make him feel any better.
At the end of the second turn was a second heavy door. As he approached, it swung inward. He stopped, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
"Anybody order take-out?" he asked. And walked through the door.
Chapter 28
They'd hustled along for almost forty yards behind their silent, not-so-friendly giant when Frank stopped dead in his tracks.
"Kim, wait!" Janese Cramerton called. "We've left Frank."
Kim, startled out of his private thoughts, turned to look behind him. Frank was looking toward the ceiling and slowly pivoting in freeze-frame half-steps, an odd look on his face.
"What are you people doing?!" Banner's voice carried sharply back to them.
"I don't know..." Confused, Kim was torn between wondering what Frank was doing, and defending Frank for whatever it was that he was doing.