Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  “I said hope, Colonel, not expectation.”

  Fuchs’s attention returned to the screen, where Joshua Wolfe continued to work on what was now a vial full of clear liquid. “I find myself growing distressed with your attitude in this matter.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Come now, Doctor. Your ‘creation’ of this boy does not give you the right to play the doting father. If there is any pride to be taken in his work, it must come at his revelation of the original CLAIR formula. General Starr was quite clear on the ramifications of Tuesday’s failed test. We have precious little time left to preserve our very existence. Certainly no time to waste coddling and appeasing this boy.”

  “My concerns are long-term, Colonel.” Haslanger spoke with his eyes glued to the screen, watching Joshua Wolfe’s each and every move with reverence. “If coddling and appeasing him will eventually make the boy more comfortable in our midst, what he will eventually produce for us is limitless.”

  Fuchs’s expression shifted between a sneer and a smile. “Oh, he’ll produce it all right, and soon. You see, I’ve prepared a different strategy … .”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “You wanted to see me,” Susan said, from the other side of the isolation lab where Joshua Wolfe was working.

  He looked at her through the thick glass. “There are some items I need from ordnance.” His voice was picked up by an unseen microphone, just as hers was.

  As they had planned before, Susan had made sure to sit behind a computer Josh had already keyed into the one he was using, forming their own private network. Knowing Fuchs and Haslanger could hear and see everything they did, Susan rested her hands innocently and unobtrusively on the terminal keys. The angle the computer was set at prevented the video camera from getting a clear view.

  Josh was well aware that everything which flashed across his screen was relayed to Fuchs and Haslanger, so he had arranged some camouflage. He had already keyed in a program that would broadcast random repetition of his work in place of what he was actually typing. All he had to do was give the proper command and Group Six’s electronic eavesdropping on him would cease temporarily.

  “How are you coming with the addition to the formula?” Susan asked. Josh’s response was to continue typing in apparent disinterest. He looked up and nodded ever so slightly.

  “It’s ready now,” he said, the intent of his words clear.

  And she typed a message that appeared instantly on his screen:

  WHEN WILL YOU BE READY?

  THIRTY MINUTES, Josh typed.

  Eight o’clock sharp, Susan calculated, fingers ready on her keys again, as the next part of Josh’s message appeared on her screen:

  YOU HAVE TO GET WHAT WE NEED.

  I’M NOT CONVINCED THEY’LL GIVE THEM TO ME.

  DON’T WORRY. THEY WILL. THEY’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING I TELL THEM TO GIVE YOU.

  Susan continued to speak in meaningless rehearsed banter while she waited for more of Josh’s words to slither across her screen. When none came, she typed:

  HOW MUCH TIME WILL WE HAVE?

  His answer was immediate. ELEVEN MINUTES.

  She waited for him to print out his list of requirements and then moved for the door.

  The hatch caved inward under the force of McCracken’s shoulder, revealing the expected presence of a second tunnel-like pipeline meeting the first to form a sharply slanted V. McCracken ran a chemical sensor across the walls and checked the readouts on the miniature LED screen.

  “Clean, Indian,” he said to Wareagle. “Been a while since they dumped anything. Makes this our lucky day. We’ve got our road in.”

  A difficult road, as it turned out, since going uphill along the cold, smooth surface was much harder than going down. With only the tube’s siding to use for handholds, Blaine found his progress coming painfully slow. It took over thirty minutes to reach the first break in the piping Group Six had secretly installed to link up with Brookhaven’s abandoned secondary toxic waste dumping system. Straight before them lay a hatchway, while the line itself banked sharply to the left.

  Blaine ran his hands along the hatch. “What do you say we have a look behind this?”

  Johnny had already broken out a fresh torch and was moving forward to take the first shift. He fired up the torch and started it along the top of the hatchway’s perimeter. Another thirty minutes passed with Blaine and Johnny trading places as they worked. McCracken was holding the torch when the blue-hot flame at last finished outlining the hatch’s perimeter at the weld points. This time no shoulder was required; the hatch simply dropped inward. Blaine shone his flashlight inside and saw what could only be described as a temporary holding chamber. A number of weapons already into production sat stockpiled against all four walls. McCracken quickly realized the ease with which they could be disposed of, thanks to the hold’s proximity to the dump hatch. That, of course, was the idea. In the event of attack or attempted takeover, the contents of this hold could simply be flushed away with the rest of the discharge originating elsewhere in the Group Six facility.

  “This wasn’t on the plans, Indian.”

  “We are beneath the complex’s final sublevel, Blainey. This chamber must link up with a tunnel that runs most of the length of Group Six.” Johnny swept his flashlight about. “Through there.”

  McCracken’s eyes followed the beam. “Doesn’t look good.”

  The room’s only door resembled that of a bank vault, much too thick to break through with either the torch or the explosives they had brought along.

  Blaine moved closer to the door and ran the flashlight’s beam down its length slowly. “Electronic seal alterable only from the outside, unless we can figure out a way to short-circuit it from in here.”

  “The control panel must be inside one of these walls.”

  “Let’s see if we can find it, Indian.”

  Susan moved down the hallway, keenly aware of the closed-circuit cameras that no doubt followed her every move. She hurried to the ordnance control area with the memo Josh had given her on the pretext of needing certain items to complete his work. The clerk read the list, raised his eyebrows and read it again. There was a desperate, breath-stealing moment when he dialed up a superior for authorization. His expression was unchanged as he hung up the phone.

  “This will take some time.”

  “I’m not in any rush,” Susan told him.

  The case he handed her several minutes later was light enough for Susan to carry easily down the hall to the lab where Joshua Wolfe was closeted. She walked with the fear that Fuchs or Haslanger could appear at any moment and ask to inspect the case’s contents. Or perhaps they had been testing her all along and would be waiting to intercept her outside the lab.

  But she reached the lab without incident and waited for Josh to buzz her in. Inside she closed the door behind her and rested the case on the closest table.

  “Get ready,” he said softly.

  His fingers flew across the keyboard of one of the computers, while she used hers to open the case. She had just removed two sets of night vision goggles, rendered less cumbersome and bulky than ordinary ones courtesy of Group Six, when Josh hit the execute key.

  McCracken was working futilely with the wires revealed behind a plate in the wall next to the vault door when the overhead light he had managed to find died. A metallic click sounded at the same time he located his flashlight and switched it on.

  “Power failure, Blainey” said Wareagle, turning his on as well.

  “Means that click was the backup security system being activated to keep intruders from getting in here.”

  “But not keeping us out.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Blaine said, and returned to his work.

  Not more than a minute later, he succeeded in crossing the proper two wires. A second click sounded as the backup system disengaged and the door’s electronic seal parted. Wareagle eased it forward effortlessly. It opened onto a narrow corridor that,
as expected, wound tunnel-like beneath the installation.

  “I don’t know where this leads, Indian, but it’s got to be better than where we are now.”

  Blaine noticed the duffel they had dragged with them was now overstuffed with equipment Wareagle had selected from among the stockpile the chamber contained.

  “For when we get there, Blainey,” Johnny said, hoisting it effortlessly over his shoulder.

  Every bit of power inside the Group Six complex had died. Josh’s earlier preparation behind the keyboard and most recent commands had also cut off the emergency backup system from the grid. The generators had been automatically activated, yes, but the juice they spewed outward never reached the feed lines.

  The plunge into utter darkness stunned Susan, even though she had prepared herself for it. Joshua Wolfe was only a yard from her but she had totally lost her bearings and felt panic rearing to overtake her.

  “Here,” the boy’s voice called. “I’m here.”

  She pushed her panic down and reached over to Josh. He took one of the goggles from her hand and fit it over his eyes, then helped her do the same. With only the outside light sneaking in through the mirrored windows to use, the updated goggles were of minimal aid. Enough, though, to see a number of yards forward and anything that lay directly ahead of them.

  “Come on!” Josh shouted, taking Susan’s hand and heading for the door.

  She had made sure not to let it seal all the way so they wouldn’t be trapped as most everyone else in Group Six must have been. The electronic keying necessary to leave or enter virtually any facility could effectively turn the complex into a prison if the proper circumstances were introduced. That was what had made Josh so confident about this plan. His eleven-minute estimate was based on the amount of time it would take Group Six control room personnel to run a bypass and override his command to the physical plant of the system.

  Josh and Susan had the hall to themselves and they ran hand-in-hand down it, following the path she had memorized to the garage area. They could enter it by stairs through doors not fitted with keypads or slots. Josh had already ordered the computer to switch various bay doors in the garage on the third sublevel to manual operation. At that point any of the parked cars would do nicely as an escape vehicle, gunning up the steep ramp and then toward the fence with no fear of the motion or infrared detectors setting off the immobilized lasers.

  Susan estimated they reached the stairs just past the two-minute mark and would reach the garage with still more than eight to go. Allotting three to find a vehicle and then open a main bay still left five to flee the grounds.

  Plenty of time, she thought, and kept running.

  Johnny and Blaine followed the circuitous length of the darkened tunnel in single file, searching for hatchways that might provide entry to the primary installation. McCracken figured this passageway had been constructed to allow for the transport of hazardous material from one section of the installation to the other without the risk of contaminating the entire facility. If he was right, there would be access points at regular intervals.

  “Blainey,” Johnny Wareagle signaled, when they came to the first one: a hatchway a foot above them, accessible by a ladder built into the wall.

  McCracken took the rungs and balanced himself awkwardly. He spun the wheel attached to the hatch until he heard a click. He felt it release and then lowered it slowly. A familiar smell flooded his nostrils.

  “Think I know where we—”

  A gush of light streaming through the hatch from above forced McCracken to cut his words off. He dropped off the ladder and clung to the wall opposite Johnny, pistol ready when he heard the voice.

  Joshua Wolfe and Susan Lyle dashed down the steps. The night vision goggles, hardly bulkier than a sophisticated swimming set, gave the darkened stairwell a dull orange hue. Three floors down Susan pushed through the door that opened onto a corridor leading to the garage. Josh was at her side when they reached the door at its end. Susan threw her shoulder into it. The sea of vehicles swam in the orange-tinted darkness.

  Then an incredibly intense burst of light, like an ultrapowerful flashbulb, burned her eyes. Her hands flailed for her goggles and she stumbled as she tore them off to see the garage aglow with its normal lighting. Her eyes watered, ravaged by pain, clearing to reveal Lester Fuchs and Erich Haslanger standing before her, flanked by two broad-shouldered men in sports jackets. Behind them, clinging to the shadows nearer the wall, loomed the massive shape of a man who didn’t look like a man at all.

  “I gave you a test,” greeted the colonel. “You failed.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “You have to pay for that,” Blaine heard the voice continue after a pause long enough for the sound of footsteps to clack across the floor. “You and the boy both, Dr. Lyle.”

  Susan Lyle … the Firewatch team leader he’d encountered in Joshua Wolfe’s room. Now their paths had crossed again, and this time the boy was with her.

  McCracken gazed at Wareagle, whose eyes were riveted on the open hatchway, expecting an assault through it any moment. None came; the attention of those in the garage above was focused too intently elsewhere to notice the anomaly.

  “I think we can dispense with the pleasantries,” the voice continued, sounding farther away from the hatch. Fuchs’s probably, or maybe Haslanger’s. “Krill,” he said, “bring her.”

  Blaine stiffened when a number of barely discernible footsteps clipclopped across the asphalt. He recognized the sound from the assault on him in the New York Public Library by some hideous mutant, a living creation of Haslanger’s, most likely.

  McCracken waited until the sounds of voice and footsteps had vanished before he reached for the ladder again, his eyes seeking out Johnny’s. “Find us something to travel in, Indian, and get ready for a rough ride.”

  “What am I to do with you?” Colonel Fuchs accused Susan and Joshua Wolfe, shaking his head as he closed the door to the test chamber behind him.”I don’t want to be unreasonable, in spite of your abuse of my trust. Let’s just talk for a moment.”

  The chamber where his guards had escorted Susan and Josh consisted of a small viewing gallery looking straight through a glass wall into an inner room that was currently dark.

  “Sit, please,” Fuchs ordered.

  Susan and Josh took chairs at the observation room’s single table. The broad-shouldered security men stood rigid at either end. Dr. Haslanger lingered behind Fuchs, but it was the man-shape who had accompanied them up from the garage Josh found both repulsive and fascinating at the same time.

  “I see Krill has secured your interest, young man,” Fuchs continued.

  “He makes me sick.”

  “He shouldn’t: you’re very much the same, he and you.”

  The boy’s face knotted up in puzzlement.

  “You belong here, my boy, just as he does,” Fuchs continued. “You are as much a part of this place as any of the other experiments we have conducted. You are nothing more than the residue of one lost in the past before our tenure began.”

  “Why don’t you tell him the truth, Colonel?” Susan shot out suddenly. “Why don’t you tell him the only thing he’s here for is to save your ass? Washington’s ready to toss you out and shut this place down.” She stole a quick glance at Josh before proceeding. “Don’t bother to unpack your bags.”

  Fuchs’s eyes blazed her way. “I’m most impressed, Doctor. It would seem your expertise at research does not stop with test tubes.”

  “You looked into my background. I looked into yours.”

  “And it all comes down to backgrounds, doesn’t it? Yours, mine …” His stare swept back on Josh. “His.”

  Josh returned the stare wordlessly.

  “Come now, young man, can it be that you have not come to suspect the truth even in the aftermath of your conversation with Dr. Haslanger last night? Think of his past.”

  Josh’s eyes flew from Fuchs to Haslanger and then back to Fuchs. He looked dumbfounded. His
lips trembled.

  “The connection should have been obvious to someone of your intelligence. Dr. Haslanger created you. You are the product of one of his early experiments before he joined Group Six. It was called Operation Offspring. And its purpose was the creation of genius, to be used in any way its creators desired.”

  “My God,” Susan muttered.

  Fuchs let his eyes wander to the man-monster, ignoring her. “Now, Krill was created for an entirely different purpose altogether. The desired genetic elements of other species identified and blended to form … well, you can see what they form. Not all the products of the good doctor’s work turned out as they were supposed to, but Krill is as close as he ever came.”

  “You’re the real monster here, Colonel,” Susan said sharply.

  But Fuchs didn’t so much as gaze her way. “You, my boy, on the other hand, are exactly what he envisioned you would be. But circumstances forced him to abandon your development, the careful grooming that would have assured you achieving an even higher level of your capabilities. Regrettable but necessary.”

  “Bullshit,” said Joshua Wolfe. “You’ve been steering my life for as long as I can remember.”

  “Not us, I’m afraid. We would have handled the situation with considerably more tact and responsibility than Dr. Haslanger’s replacement. Beyond that we would have provided you with the resources that would have much more fully allowed you to realize your potential. As proof I offer this.”

  Fuchs placed a small vial that had been found in Joshua Wolfe’s pocket on the table before the boy. “A most productive day on your part,” he said, “thanks to the wondrous facilities we are blessed with.”

  The boy remained silent.

  “I am assuming the contents of this vial represent your attempt to ‘fix’ CLAIR.”

  The boy nodded.

  “Of course, there is nothing wrong with CLAIR. From our perspective it worked just fine in Cambridge and we would like to acquire it in precisely that form. I would ask that you now provide us with the formula.”