“Is that what this is about? Mother’s reluctance to kill those who aren’t infected?”
“I’ve heard her speak in private. She wants peace with the monsters who hunt us.”
“You say that, but even as we speak, her army is killing them.”
“Some of them.” He stepped closer, and Issa quickly retreated. “But not all. And then you show up with your perfect little half-breed family.” He growled and made a halfhearted stab at her stomach. “Don’t you see? Soon, all our women will be having their children, cleaning their toilets, and waiting on them like so many others have before. We’ll be their slaves! It’s all they will ever see us as.”
“I’m no one’s slave.”
“Aren’t you?” He eyed her stomach. “You were enslaved without even knowing it. When I saw you in the tunnels, you were a warrior, a woman who would perhaps one day rule our people. Now,” he spat, “now you’re a whore.”
Issa felt her anger rise.
“Perhaps. But then what kind of man are you who dies at the hands of a whore?”
She came for him suddenly, batting the spear aside. Her first cut was to his extended left hand, slicing it at the base of the thumb. He jerked like he had been touched by a hot wire, as her knife continued across his hand and doubled back to open his bicep.
Tillman screamed and shoved her away, stabbing the spear in her direction with his one good hand. The tip raked across her ribcage, opening a jagged wound.
Issa howled in pain as she withdrew and clutched her side.
Despite the damage to his left arm, Tillman charged ahead, the shaft of the spear tucked under his right arm like a lance. Issa had no doubt that if he managed to strike her, the spear would impale both mother and baby.
She dove to the right, rolling across a bunk. As she stood, she dropped one of her knives to pull the heavy green blanket off the bed. Like a Roman retiarius, she flung the blanket toward him. Tillman tried to dodge, but the blanket cloaked the point of his spear. He fought to get free, flinging and shaking the weapon. As he did, Issa came for him again.
This time, she advanced along his left side, parrying the blanket-covered spear to slip inside his guard. The blanket prevented her from reaching his other hand, so instead, she brought the blade down along the outside of his left thigh. Tillman’s legs buckled, and he pulled Issa to the ground with him as he fell.
He quickly abandoned the spear, instead using his right hand to punch and flail. A blow caught her on the jaw, rocking her sideways as the knife slipped from her grasp.
Issa tucked her chin and lunged forward, the top of her head smashing into Tillman’s face. Blood trickled from both nostrils as he hit her again, this time on the cheekbone. It hurt, but by now, rage was muting the cry of pain.
She brought her fingers into a fist, leaving only the tip of her thumb protruding. When Tillman cocked back for another strike, Issa drove her thumb deep into his throat, compressing his larynx and causing him to fall to his back.
As he choked and heaved, she used the opportunity to straddle him, lodging her feet beneath his legs. He bucked, trying to get free. As he did, she slashed down at his face, raking fingernails across his eye.
Water poured from his injured eye as he began pounding his fists against her stomach.
“Die, you little bastard!”
Issa dropped her elbow onto his face, once, twice, three times. After the third blow, Tillman’s hands fell to his sides. She continued to hit him until his face became wet and mushy.
When her strength finally gave out, she stopped and sat astride him, panting. She raised her left arm and studied the wound along her ribs. It was ugly and might leave a scar, but thankfully wasn’t deep enough to require stitches.
Tillman moaned, and Issa quickly reached over and retrieved one of her knives.
Placing it against his throat, she weighed her next action carefully. With Tillman alive, they could discover whether he had operated alone or as part of a larger movement. That would be especially important to Mother. On the other hand, he had tried to murder her husband and child, and that demanded vengeance of the worst possible kind.
She studied Tillman as a thin trail of blood seeped out along the blade’s edge. He was a mess, not only because of his pulverized face but because of the hate stewing inside him. Still, killing him wouldn’t be the smart thing to do.
She closed her eyes and envisioned Tanner’s face.
“What do I do with him, my love?”
His voice was as clear as if he had been kneeling right beside her.
“Darlin’, you do whatever’ll help you sleep at night.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Issa gritted her teeth and slid the blade across Tillman’s throat.
Chapter 18
By staying to the paved road, Tanner and Samantha were able to exit the depository with much less fanfare than when they had entered. They also managed to retrieve Major with a little coaxing, and Samantha now walked beside him with his reins firmly in hand.
When they came to the end of the small private road, they stopped and looked north along Bullion Boulevard.
“Any idea where we should start?” said Samantha.
Tanner glanced over his shoulder at the metal hangar with the emergency vehicle peeking out.
“There,” he said, starting toward the structure.
The building itself was nothing exceptional, just a standard steel hangar that would have been right at home in any industrial area of the country. There was no sign, not even so much as a walkway—just an empty parking lot out front.
When they slipped under the low bay door, they found a single red ambulance inside. The hood was raised, and they could see that the battery had been taken. Immediately to their left was a long check-in counter covered with delivery logs and sign-in sheets. To the right was an old-fashioned mechanical time clock mounted to a wall neatly tiled in manila-colored timecards.
Behind the counter were several tall storage shelves stacked with boxes and wooden crates. Looters had already sorted through the goods, leaving the floor littered with splintered wood, paper, cleaning supplies, and bubble wrap.
“This doesn’t look very promising,” muttered Samantha.
“Sometimes, it’s more about attitude than what you find.”
“Attitude is going to let you breathe underwater? Now that I gotta see.”
Tanner smiled. Samantha was not above throwing the B.S. flag, and that was exactly the way he wanted it.
After ten minutes of looking around, they still hadn’t found anything useful, and Samantha seemed ready to call it. Tanner pushed open one of the three doors along the back of the building and found that it led to a concrete patio. A white pickup truck sat parked with a bucket and a garden hose stretched out beside it.
Samantha moseyed up beside him. “Not much here.”
He nodded toward the truck. “Remember what I said about attitude?”
“Someone was getting ready to wash their truck. So?”
“It’s not the truck that interests me. Look harder.”
She studied the scene more carefully.
“All I see is a bucket and a hose.” Her eyes cut toward him. “Wait a minute. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If you’re thinking that I’m going to use that hose to breathe underwater, then yes, I am.”
“Is that even possible?”
He stepped outside and began disconnecting the hose from a spigot at the back of the building.
“More or less.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He coiled up the hose and slipped it over his shoulder.
“It means that it’ll help me to breathe, but I won’t be able to go very deep.”
“Why not? The hose must be nearly a hundred feet long.”
“It’s not the length that matters. It’s the pressure.” Tanner led her around the building and hung the hose on the horn of Major’s saddle.
&nb
sp; “I don’t get it. Wouldn’t it be like a pipe going straight up to fresh air?”
“It would, but when you’re underwater, the air in your lungs and the water around you are at different pressures. The deeper you go, the greater the difference.”
With Major’s reins in hand, Tanner began leading them back toward the depository.
“And that makes it hard to breathe?”
“Not hard. Impossible.”
“Okay, so how deep can you go and still breathe?”
“Three feet maybe. Any deeper than that, and it’ll feel like a Volkswagen’s sitting on my chest.”
“Three feet? That’s it?”
“Afraid so.”
“That means you’ll have to stay up near the surface.”
“I can dive deeper. I just won’t be able to breathe.”
“Won’t the hose collapse from the pressure, like a straw does when you suck on it?”
“Good question.” He reached over and gave the hose a good squeeze. It seemed pretty sturdy. “For as shallow as I’m going, I think it’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? It sounds dangerous.”
“Story of my life, darlin’.”
When they arrived at the front doors to the depository, Tanner tied Major to the bumper of an overturned truck, and slipped the hose back over his shoulder. They reentered the building, made their way downstairs, and returned to the mysterious watery hatch.
Tanner dragged one of the heavy shelves over to the hatch and laid it on its side. With one end of the hose wedged under the shelf, he put the other end into his mouth and took a breath. Overcoming the air resistance of the long tube required some effort, but he managed to pull in a breath. He blew it out through his nose and took another.
“Well?” she said, watching him.
He took it out of his mouth. “It’s doable for the short distance I need to go.”
“We could always cut it shorter.”
“Let’s see what we have down there first. I’d hate to come up short.”
Setting the hose aside, he sat down and once again began stripping off his boots and shirt. He set them aside, along with his pack and weapons. When he was ready, he placed a few feet of the hose against his chest and had Samantha run a long strip of duct tape around his midsection to hold it in place.
“Good idea,” she said. “That way you won’t have to hold onto it.”
Tanner sat down on the edge of the hole and let his feet dangle into the water.
“You ready?” he said.
“Me? I’m not doing anything.”
“Sure, you are. You’re making sure nothing happens to the hose.”
“And if it does?”
“If it does, I get to find out how long I can hold my breath.”
Tanner studied the underwater corridor, the flashlight extended before him. Everything seemed a bit darker and more ominous the second time around, and the gate shone in the distance like a mirage daring him to make the journey.
He pushed off the ladder and brought his face up to the top of the shaft. He had hoped that there might be a small gap of air between the ceiling and the water that he could use in case of an emergency.
There wasn’t.
The architects had made certain that if someone were caught in the flooded tunnel, they would be dead within a couple of minutes, no matter how hard they looked for a way out.
Rolling onto his back with his face nearly pressed to the ceiling, he flutter-kicked his way toward the gate. He kept one hand on the hose to ensure that it didn’t pull free and the other extended overhead to act as a feeler. By the time his fingers bumped against the gate, he was giving serious consideration to turning back. The whole thing was beginning to seem like a bad idea.
Maybe that’s what Samantha would put on his gravestone.
Tanner Raines, a man with one too many bad ideas.
Holding his breath, he rolled onto his belly and faced the gate. The first thing he saw did little to bolster his confidence.
The body of a man floated on the other side, one arm lodged between the bars, as if he had used his last breath in an insane attempt to squeeze between them. His body was swollen and pulling apart, the skin covered in a substance that looked like yellow candle wax. Both eyes were missing, leaving behind dark hollows and helping to answer the mystery of the floating eyeball.
Tanner had no idea how long the man had been dead or how he had gotten there. The only thing he could say for certain was that, based on his badge and uniform, he had been a member of the US Mint Police. The weight of his gunbelt had pulled down his trousers, and they now dangled from his ankles like the anchor from a jon boat.
Grabbing the gate, Tanner used it to pull himself deeper. Tightly spaced bars had been stapled together with thick horizontal straps to ensure that no one forced their way through with anything less than a cutting torch. There weren’t any signs of rust or corrosion, which he took to mean that it was made of stainless steel.
He gave the gate a firm tug.
Nothing. It was either jammed or locked.
Tanner’s eyes were drawn to a single key hanging from a small retractable clip on the dead man’s belt. Surely, it must open the gate. But if that were the case, why hadn’t he opened it? Perhaps he had been caught during the flooding? Or maybe he had panicked and fumbled the key only to drown moments later in a desperate attempt to squeeze through the barrier. Whatever the reason, things hadn’t gone well.
Tanner squeezed his thick arm through the bars, the similarity of his situation to that of the dead guard’s not escaping him. His fingers closed on the man’s key. As he pulled it toward him, a thin metal tether extended from its retractable reel. He gave the key a sharp tug, and the cord snapped.
With the key in hand and his vision beginning to darken, Tanner pulled himself back up to the top of the corridor and took several deep breaths through the hose. When the fog of asphyxia cleared, he descended once more.
Not knowing how long he would be without air, he moved with a sense of purpose, first inserting the key and then giving it a firm, but careful turn. To his delight, the lock opened with a muted clunk.
He pushed the gate open, moved through, and carefully positioned it to gently prop against the outstretched hose. An overhead spring tried to close it the rest of the way, but the hose was stiff enough to withstand the force without crushing.
Tanner tucked the key into his pocket and floated back to the ceiling, gently dragging the hose through the partially open door.
Shining the flashlight in front of him, he looked ahead and spotted a ladder leading up to a second hatch. It too appeared to be open. Beyond the ladder lay a stone wall. This was it, the destination for whatever treasure the government had deemed so critical that it needed to be buried underneath Fort Knox.
Staying near the surface, he kicked his way over to the hatch. There was no light shining down from above, and when he lifted his head up out of the water, he found only darkness awaiting him.
Tanner spat the hose from his mouth and took several deep breaths. There was the stench of human decay in the air, but it was many months old. He brought the flashlight up and swept the room. It was small, perhaps twelve feet on a side, with white granite walls, floor, and ceiling—a vault within a vault. But it wasn’t the nation’s crown jewels that awaited him. Instead, the room was filled with black filing cabinets, and sitting between them were the remains of a second police officer, this one withered and dry.
Tanner hauled himself out of the water, carefully pulling the hose behind him as he did. Even with the gate propped open, it would be a long swim back without his life line.
The filing cabinets were big monstrosities designed to guard classified information. Each was equipped with a combination lock and a magnetic sign-out sheet tacked to the front. Surprisingly, nearly all of the drawers sat open.
Tanner stepped closer and studied their contents. Inside were thick, official-looking files, each with
a numerical tab along the top. He pulled one out at random and flipped it open.
The topmost page was a memorandum with a heading that read, “Project MKUltra, Subproject 8.” The memo went on to describe research that studied the biochemical, neurophysiological, and sociological effects of lysergic acid diethylamide, or L.S.D. The words “Central Intelligence Agency” were printed along the top of the page, with “Top Secret” stamped in faded red ink along the bottom. The date of the memo was June 3, 1965, and on the “authorized by” line was none other than President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signature.
Tanner flipped through a few pages to find black-and-white photographs of the participants, as well as verbiage describing how effective the tests had been at controlling human behavior. A list of institutions and their associated laboratories followed. The report went on to describe the proposed next phase of the project in which they would attempt to create a true “Manchurian Candidate,” someone who could act as an unwitting, and thus undetectable, government operative in a hostile regime.
Tanner closed the folder and set it on top of the cabinet. The next file he pulled out was titled “Operation Big Buzz.” In it he found a report describing a field test from 1955, in which 300,000 yellow-fever-infected mosquitoes were dispersed from aircraft using E14 bombs. The experiment was specifically designed to assess the feasibility of spreading disease as part of a campaign of entomological warfare.
“What the hell kind of nonsense is this?” he growled, slinging it behind him.
Folder after folder contained much of the same. Secret projects with names like ARTICHOKE, Mockingbird, and Plumbob. In each, the US government had been a bad actor, conducting secret tests on its own population. Lists of known casualties were included, sometimes reaching into the thousands. Every folder was a confession of yet another government sin, a dark blight on history that was never meant to see the light of day.
Growing frustrated, he moved to the second cabinet. In it, he found folders containing compromising photographs of politicians, industry leaders, and movie stars. Files went on to describe the when and how of the indiscretions, as well as the likely fallout, should they happen to become public. All of it was fodder used to coerce people into doing the government’s bidding when they might normally choose to do otherwise.
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