Conviction (2009)

by Tom - Splinter Cell 05 Clancy

  He started sounding for the bottom with his oar. Sixty feet from shore, the tip plunged into mud. Fisher handed his oar back to Gillespie, then slipped over the side into the water. Hansen followed a moment later, and they began towing the boats until the water was only waist high. Noboru, Gillespie, and Valentina climbed out and helped drag the boats onto the sand.

  Quickly and quietly, they unloaded their gear, ran a final weapons and equipment check, and donned their packs. Fisher checked his OPSAT. As they had been since early afternoon, the Ajax bots showed as a tight cluster two miles inland, sitting between them and Lake Frolikha. Again, Fisher found himself wondering where in the middle of thick, almost impassible Siberian forest did someone find a suitable spot for the auction. They would soon know.

  He looked at each of the team members and got nods and thumbs-up signs in return.

  In a staggered single file, they set off into the darkness.

  WHAT none of them knew, and none of their maps showed, was that the area between Lake Frolikha and Ayaya Bay was part of the Great Baikal Trail. According to the sign they found higher up the beach, the non-profit, volunteer-driven project hoped to create a series on interconnected trails that circumnavigated the entire lake. Six years into the task, the trail was halfway done.

  This again raised the issue of why this area had been chosen for the auction site. Admittedly the area was remote and the hiking season had not yet fully begun, but to go as far as holding the auction in Siberia only to place it astride the Great Baikal Trail . . . Something didn't add up. Even so, Fisher knew better than to overanalyze the gift. The trail would not only save them hours but also the effort of blazing their own path.

  Taking fifteen-minute turns walking point, they made quick progress, covering a half mile in twenty minutes despite frequent stops to look and listen for signs of guards. By 3:00 A.M. they had closed to within a quarter mile of the Ajax signal. Fisher resumed point and led them forward until the trees began to thin and they found themselves at the edge of an oval-shaped meadow. In the moonlight stalks of brown grass and weeds jutted through the foot-thick blanket of snow. On the north side of the meadow sat a square, cinder-block hut with a rusted sheet-metal roof.

  Fisher called Hansen up and whispered, "Take Gillespie and circle around to the east side of the meadow. Check for signs of foot traffic, sensors--anything out of place."

  "Got it." Hansen collected Gillespie and they disappeared back down the trail. Noboru and Valentina moved up beside Fisher. He gestured to them to scan, and all three started panning their binoculars across the meadow. Twenty minutes passed, and then Hansen's voice came over Fisher's headset: "In position. No off-trail foot traffic, no sensors, no guards. There's something interesting at your eleven o'clock, though, in the center of the meadow."

  "What is it?"

  "I know what it looks like to me, but you better check for yourself."

  Fisher adjusted his binoculars to the appropriate area and zoomed in. "Got it," he confirmed. He'd missed it the first time, but now the parallel ruts in the snow were unmistakable. Helicopter landing skids. "Our missing Sikorsky," he said.

  "My thought as well. We're right on top of the touchdown coordinates."

  The Ajax hadn't left the meadow. There was only one place they could be.

  "Move back to the hut," Fisher told Hansen.

  When both teams were in position, Fisher took a final look through the night-vision goggles, then whispered, "Move in."

  In unison Hansen and Gillespie and Fisher and his two cohorts stepped from the trees and started toward the hut, their Grozas held low at the ready. As arranged, Hansen circled behind the hut, Fisher in front, where they joined up. A faded metal sign with red Cyrillic letters read METEOROLOGICAL STATION 29. The hut had only one entrance, a heavy steel door set into the cinder block; like the roof, it was pitted with rust. Fisher crept up to the door, then turned, signaled Hansen forward, and pointed at the door's padlock.

  It was brand-new.

  37

  FISHER knelt down before the lock and realized it was more than brand-new. It was a Sargent & Greenleaf 833 military-grade padlock--six-pin Medeco biaxial core, anticutting and grinding ceramic inserts, liquid nitrogen resistant.

  "This must be one special meteorological station," Hansen whispered. "Can we pick the lock?"

  "If we had a few hours, maybe. Semtex would do the trick, too, but we'd probably have company before the smoke cleared. Fisher stood up and backed away from the hut. "Not big enough," he said.

  "What?"

  "It's not big enough to hold the 738 Arsenal."

  "Maybe we're wrong. Maybe it's not here."

  Fisher shook his head. "Why did the Sikorsky land here? And why the lock? If the arsenal isn't here, then it's just Qaderi's laptop and phone sitting inside this hut."

  "That may be, but we're not getting past that door."

  "Let's find another one, then."

  They retreated to the trees and crouched down in a circle. Fisher briefly explained what they were looking for, then assigned each of them a search area. "One hour. If we don't find anything, we regroup here."

  FORTY minutes later, Valentina called, "Got something. Three-quarters of a mile north of the hut. Placing a marker on the OPSAT now."

  They converged on her position: a narrow, six-foot-deep ravine bordered by scrub pines. Fisher whispered to her,

  "Where?"

  "Dead ahead, about twenty yards. See that rock outcrop sticking up beside the stump?"

  Fisher followed her outstretched arm with his eyes. It took him a moment to see it--a nearly perfect circle of melted snow around the outcrop. Fisher signaled for the group to wait, then donned the night vision goggles and crept ahead. He was still six feet away from the outcrop when he felt the warm breeze. He continued forward, extended his hand, and stuck it into a niche in the rocks. His hand touched something metal.

  IT took minutes of painstakingly quiet work to move the rocks away from the air vent. It was roughly the size of a manhole cover and consisted of steel crossbars. Fisher stuck his fingers through the gaps and felt around the edge. He found neither a locking mechanism nor alarm wires. He pointed to Noboru and together they squatted over the cover, gripped the bars, and lifted. It came free. They crab-walked it a few feet away and gently set it down. Fisher put his NV goggles back on and leaned into shaft. Beyond ten feet he saw nothing but darkness.

  Gillespie already had her rope coil detached from her pack. Hand over hand, she lowered the end into the shaft. She stopped and reeled in the rope, counting turns on her arm as she went. She held up three fingers, then five fingers. Thirty-five feet to the bottom.

  Fisher gave her the nod.

  ONCE they had the rope tied off to the trunk and measured out thirty-five feet, plus another five for safety's sake, Gillespie severed the remainder and tied the rope to a Swiss seat rappelling harness. After a few adjustments, she secured herself in the seat, gave the group a nod and a smile, and lowered herself into the shaft.

  A minute later her voice came over their headsets. "Down and clear."

  Fisher went next, followed by Valentina, Noboru, and then Hansen. Having already cleared the space with her night vision, Gillespie had set one of her LED flashlights upright on the concrete floor, casting a pale cone of light on the ceiling.

  The room was ten feet long and roughly triangular, with the ceiling angling away from the overhead shaft to a half wall into which was set a doorway. Running down the middle of the floor was more vent grating. Warm air gusted past them and rushed out the shaft above. Somewhere below they could hear the faint pumping of machinery. Fisher turned on his headlamp and walked through the other door. He emerged thirty seconds later.

  "It's a utility room. There's another door. I checked the circuit panel. Some of the lights are on somewhere."

  "More signs of life," Hansen said.

  "How big is this place?" Noboru wondered aloud.

  Fisher replied, "Judging by the pan
el, damned big. There were a few hundred switches. A service tag read March of '62."

  "Almost fifty years old," Valentina said. "Cold War era. What do you think--bunker, test facility?"

  "Either or both. Let's pair up and do a little recon. Hansen and Gillespie; Noboru and Valentina. Stay sharp and stay in touch. Any trouble, we collapse back here."

  "That leaves you on your own," Hansen observed.

  Fisher smiled. It was strange to hear a fellow Splinter Cell talk about solo work as if it were an aberration. Kids these days. Then again, he reminded himself, there was something strange about working and living alone and considering that normal. He'd been under too long.

  "I'll get by," he said.

  ONCE through the utility-room door they found themselves in a wide, low-ceilinged corridor. On the concrete floor painted lines in fading green, red, and yellow led away in both directions. Stenciled on each line were what looked like three-letter Cyrillic acronyms. There were no lights. Everyone donned their night-vision headsets.

  Fisher flipped a mental coin and pointed the others down the corridor to the left; he would take the right. With nods, the groups parted company and headed out.

  FISHER hadn't gotten fifty feet before Hansen's voice came over his headset. "Sam, I've got something you'll want to see." He checked his OPSAT and saw the four of them were clustered together in the main corridor, fifty yards to the south. "On my way," he replied. When he got there, he found the group standing before the wall, shining their flashlights on a four-foot-square Plexiglas placard. It was a map of the facility.

  The complex resembled a geometric cloverleaf. At its center was what looked like four concentric circles; Fisher leaned closer and read the faded label: RAMP TO LEVELS 2, 3, 4. Situated in each quadrant around the ramp were the clover's leaves, each one called a "zone"; each of these was divided into four "areas." Running between each zone was a corridor like the one in which they stood, and inside each zone smaller halls divided the four areas. Squares within squares, Fisher thought. The Soviet military had always been fond of geometry.

  Gillespie stepped closer and read the Cyrillic labels beside each zone: MEDICAL, ELECTRONICS, WEAPONS, BALLISTICS. "It's a test facility. I assume ballistics means missiles and rockets."

  Fisher nodded his agreement.

  "This place is massive," Noboru said. "Take a look at the scale."

  At the bottom of the map was a gradated line in alternating gray and black. Each unit indicated fifteen hundred meters, or five thousand feet. Using his index finger and thumb as calipers, Fisher measured the complex from end to end. "Twelve hundred meters," he announced.

  "That can't be," Hansen said. "That'd make it a square mile."

  Valentina replied, "Four levels. Four square miles."

  Fisher did the mental math. "The east side of this place runs under Lake Frolikha." He tapped the placard. "Ballistics and electronics. If you were experimenting, you'd want access to water for cooling and fire suppression." He turned to the group. "We'll clear it as it's laid out, by zone and level, starting here and moving down. He assigned Hansen to the medical zone, Valentina to electronics, Gillespie to weapons, and Noboru to ballistics. I'll loiter at the ramp area and play free safety. Questions?"

  There was none.

  "Lights off. Night vision on. Let's go."

  AT the ramp they found a freestanding elevator shaft that presumably led to the hut they'd found in the meadow. Fisher took his post beside the ramp railing while the others split up and disappeared down the corridors leading to each zone. Fisher listened to their progress over his headset: "At the entrance to the weapons zone . . . flexicam negative . . . entering zone. . . ." One by one, over the next few minutes, they each reported clear or no activity. Hansen was the last to report in. "Sam, meet me in level one medical zone."

  "On my way."

  In the greenish white glow of his night vision, Fisher found his way to the correct corridor. Two hundred yards away he saw a figure crouched beside a door. Hansen raised his hand and Fisher walked to him.

  "Some weird stuff inside," Hansen said.

  "Describe weird."

  "See for yourself. It's clear."

  Fisher stepped through the door and found himself in yet another corridor, this one narrower. Fisher poked his head through the door of the first area. It was a laboratory: long black workbenches, sinks, rolling stools, and gray metal shelf units along the walls. Fisher clicked on his flashlight. In the narrow beam he could see that the shelves were full of glass jars of varying sizes. Some were empty, some filled with amber or yellow liquid, and some containing formless, organic-looking blobs.

  Fisher moved on to the next area. It was a hospital ward. Dozens of steel-framed beds were bolted to the walls, each equipped with shackles at the head and foot. Rolling IV stands stood clustered in the far corner like stick-figure mannequins. The floor was covered with litter, towels, and skeins of gauze bandages. A bank of X-ray light boxes lined one wall like a row of dark windows.

  Fisher moved on to the last two areas and found more of the same: laboratories and hospital wings. He returned to the main door and crouched down beside Hansen, who asked, "Human experimentation, you think?"

  Fisher nodded. "There were a dozen or so gulags within a hundred miles of here. There'd always been rumors of prisoners disappearing and either never coming back or coming back . . . different."

  "Christ Almighty."

  "Did you get to the end?" Fisher asked, pointing down the corridor.

  "Yeah. It's a ramp to the outside. It's been plugged with enough cement to make a Wal-Mart parking lot."

  Fisher spoke into his headset: "Status report."

  The rest of the team checked in with an all-clear. They regrouped at the ramp a few minutes later. Gillespie said, "Found an indoor target range--fun lockers, sandbag tables, a lot of pretty-good-sized chunks taken out of the concrete walls."

  Valentina reported, "Standard electronics stuff: cabinets, testing benches, old capacitors, switches, wiring . . ." She looked at Noboru.

  "Blackboards and drafting tables are all I found," he said. "What about you, Ben?"

  Hansen explained what they'd found in the medical zone.

  Gillespie muttered, "Okay, now I'm officially creeped out."

  "Big shop of horrors," Valentina replied.

  "Let's keep going."

  AT staggered twenty-foot intervals they started down the ramp. It was wider than it had looked above, almost fifty feet from the wall to the guardrail--large enough, Fisher suspected, for the transport of heavy equipment, including rocket engines.

  Forty vertical below level 1, the ramp opened into level 2.

  Suddenly Fisher raised a closed fist. Behind him the others stopped and crouched down. Fisher pointed to his ear, then toward the railing overlooking the next level. He signaled to wait, then crept up to the rail and looked down. After a minute he returned to the group, gestured for them to follow, and led them a safe distance down the corridor.

  "Two guards stationed at the entrance to the ramp below. Both armed with AK-47s. No night vision that I could see."

  "Where there are two, there are more," Hansen said.

  "Agreed. Let's check this level and regroup here."

  Over the next half hour they each searched their assigned zones and found more of the same: experimental equipment and supplies. Noboru was the last to report in: "Sam, come down to ballistics."

  "Coming. Everyone else regroup." He got three "rogers" in reply. As he had with Hansen, Fisher found Noboru standing outside the main entrance to the level 2 ballistics zone. Fisher stepped through. Instead of finding four areas divided by hallways, he found a man-made cavern. Measuring roughly two football fields in length and width, the area was filled with row upon row of engine-test scaffolding ranging in size from a VW Beetle to a commercial bus and each equipped with truck-sized tires. Fisher did a rough count and came up with thirty-six units. Four of them still held rocket motors.

  "Ch
eck the far end," Noboru said.

  Fisher got out his binoculars and zoomed in as best he could with the night-vision goggles. Near the east wall, more than an eighth of a mile away, were what looked like four garage-sized concrete sewer pipes lying on their sides and spaced evenly across the width of the space. The wall behind the pipes was charred.

  "Blast funnels for rocket exhaust," Fisher guessed.

  "Yeah, that's what I thought, too, but I'm not talking about that. See the dark lump between the second and third funnel?"

  Fisher panned the binoculars and zoomed in. It took him a few moments to realize what he was seeing--a pyramidal stack of military-grade Anvil cases. "I'll be damned." Then, over the radio: "Everybody converge on ballistics."

  38

  THERE were twenty-eight cases ranging in size from footlocker to armoire. All were secured by the same Sargent & Greenleaf 833 padlock they'd found on the door to the hut.

  "This isn't all of it, is it?" Gillespie asked.

  "No. Unless Zahm's inventory was wrong, I'd say this is about a third."

  "They're pretty well sealed," Valentina remarked, running her hand over one of the cases. "Sure the Ajax bots can get inside?"

  "We're talking about a fraction of a hair's width," Fisher replied. "They'll get in. Everybody get behind me and back up." Once they were a safe distance from the cases, Fisher pulled Noboru's makeshift Ajax pistol from his pack and loaded a dart. He took aim on the ceiling above the Anvil cases and fired. The pistol emitted a barely audible pfft. The dart bounced off the ceiling, bounced off one of the cases, and rolled until the case's steel edge stopped it.

  They stood in silence for a full minute. While Fisher hadn't expected fireworks, the dispersal of the Ajax bots was nonetheless anticlimactic.