by Gini Koch
He tapped something onto his keyboard and another screen tossed up the D.C. area underground map. “It’s heading for the last dead zone, the one we’re not done mapping, but it’s not there yet. The sensors react and interfere with our mapping equipment, so we have very few sensors in this area.”
Because Big George had put up the map for this one underground area only, I could actually make out some of the words. “From the map, that dead zone looks to be near Langley.”
“It is.”
“But it’s also near Arlington, in that sense, and D.C.,” Stryker said. “It’s under the Washington Golf and Country Club.”
“Seriously?” Armstrong sounded concerned. “The President’s a member there. I’m a member there.”
“Everyone who’s anyone is a member there or good friends with a member there,” Franklin said. “It’s a perfect place to have a secret underground tunnel and room, too, because even if you’re not a member, if you’re someone’s invited guest, you’re ‘in’ once you’re there, and no one’s going to bother you.”
“If it’s really a room.” There were many other possibilities, which I chose not to share aloud. Why say “hidden bomb” right now? What good would it do if we couldn’t access the dead zones to verify?
“I think Amy’s father was a member there,” Christopher said quietly to me, as he, White, and William joined us.
“I’m sure he was. And that means LaRue probably still is.” I figured Ronald Yates, Antony Marling, and heck, even Madeline Cartwright had been members there. Or been pals with one. It was a safe bet every enemy we had was no more than two degrees of separation from a full-fledged member.
“No wonder your mother and Mister Reynolds have been careful,” Armstrong said. “The members of this country club are among the most powerful in the nation.”
“You should know, Senator. Are Mimi and Abby done meditating?”
“Yes,” Naomi said. “What do you need?”
“You two and Christopher—see if you can get a reading on Jeff or Chuckie.” Just because Big George had found some heat signatures, it didn’t mean they were emanating from the bodies we were looking for.
Christopher muttered something about every woman he knew bossing him around, but otherwise I could tell the three of them were concentra
ting.
Tried to be quiet while they were focused. Failed. “How deep are these tunnels?”
“Deep,” Big George said.
“There are tunnels under Washington,” Stryker added. “These are deeper. You did know that there were tunnels undeÀfr the city, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Eddy. Just like Disneyland, there’s a whole lot more underground that the regular folks don’t know about.”
“Just checking,” he grumbled. “Geez, bite a guy’s head off.”
“Get back to work, Eddy.”
“I’ve got something,” Naomi said. She and Abigail were already holding hands, but Naomi grabbed Christopher’s hand, too. “Need your help.”
“Two people,” Christopher said slowly. “The interference is extreme. I can’t tell if they’re human or A-C, let alone if they’re Jeff and Reynolds. I can just get that there’s something living in there and they . . . seem personlike.”
“Same here,” Abigail confirmed. Naomi nodded.
Something was bothering me. Something important. “I have a question.”
“Yes?” Big George asked.
“Why is it that three of the most powerful A-Cs on the planet are having more trouble reading what’s in that tunnel than a roving camera and some heat sensors?”
Yi
CHAPTER 82
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Abigail asked.
“I mean that you three should be able to see everything about these tunnels, let alone who’s in them. Christopher can see people in the Alpha Centauri system, for God’s sake. Yet, whatever these tunnels are reinforced with, it’s harder for an empath, imageer, or hybrid to see through them. Video feeds are doing better than the three of you, and that should be impossible.”
“They knew what they were doing, I guess,” Christopher said. “Though I don’t know how anyone would be able to predict the powers Naomi and Abigail have.”
“Let alone the ones you, Jeff, and Serene got from the Surcenthumain boost.” Which bothered me even more. “The other locations where there are dead zones, what are they under or near? I mean, one’s close to our Embassy. So where are the others?”
“In this area that we’re focused on, the Pentagon, Langley, Camp David, and Norfolk, all of which we’ve mapped,” Henry answered. “The Gaultier America research facility in McLean is mapped, but there’s more going on there. The main Gaultier America research facility in upstate New York is also mapped, by the way, and linked to this tunnel system.”
“For all we know, all the tunnels are linked,” Big George said. “As I told you earlier, we are nowhere close to done with this project.”
“Fabulous. But all of these are under our control now?”
“As far as we know, yes,” Henry said.
“All of them are mapped, and have sensors installed,” Big George corrected. “And noneƀ of those other sensors are showing signs of activity.”
“So, the only one that’s still essentially an unknown is this one under the Country Club of the Political Stars, right?”
“Right.” Henry sighed. “As Big George said, there are plenty that we haven’t confirmed. We now know what the tunnels and dead zones look like to our scanning equipment, but there’s a lot more than we have resources to deal with immediately.”
The lack of resources comments were interesting. Centaurion Division had the resources to help search. We had the resources to make the search go infinitely faster, too. But, to my knowledge, Chuckie hadn’t asked for help. I wanted to know why, but in order to find out, I also had to get Jeff and Chuckie back alive. But no pressure.
“Where are the tunnel access points? I mean, I know they’re accessible via our Embassy, but to my knowledge, Chuckie hasn’t been sending teams down through our basement to look at this stuff.”
“No,” Big George said with a chuckle. “Far from it. Your Embassy is off limits, remember? No, there are access points near the dead zones.”
“Easy to find access points?”
“Some yes, some no.”
“Fabulous. So, are there any actual guards on the access points?”
“Personnel, no. Sensors only.”
“Including by the country club?”
“Yes. Its access point is actually fairly easy to get to.”
“How so?”
“It’s in some dense, older foliage that’s part of the golf course.”
“Big trees and bushes and such? Secluded area that’s sort of in plain sight but no one really looks at because they’re focused on the main attraction?”
“Yes.”
A brand new question was begged. “Walt, is someone, presumably Clarence Valentino, still trying to get into our Embassy?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“So why is Clarence spending his time trying to get in here, if he wants to get into the tunnels, instead of trotting over to the country club?”
“No idea,” Christopher said. “Maybe he wants into the Embassy for a different reason.”
“Why?” Buchanan asked. He’d been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was there. Tried to remember if I’d seen him in the last few minutes. Decided there were more important things going on than my figuring out if he was really Dr. Strange in disguise. “What could he want in the Embassy?”
“He can’t need a gate,” Christopher said. “He can go to any airport and calibrate one for wherever he needs to go.”
“But can he use them to get into the tunnels or the dead zones?”
“Probably not,” Christopher said. “But we can’t tell without being able to access these dead zones.”
ˀ“Maybe it’s the only access point Clarence knows about,” Naomi sugges
ted.
“Maybe. You know, what’s ‘our’ secret lab actually under? It’s not all that close to the Embassy.”
Big George cleared his throat. “Your dead zone is under the Lincoln Memorial. Its entrance is, like the country club’s, within some dense foliage along the side of the Memorial.”
“I have Bad Guy Bingo!”
“Then I have Bad Guy Bingo, too, because Clarence wanted Sis and me to follow him into the trees by the Memorial,” Abigail said. “I think that means he knew exactly where the entrance was.”
“What does that prove, though?” Christopher asked.
“That Clarence cannot be trying to get into the Embassy in order to access the tunnels. Because he could do it from the Lincoln Memorial and be anywhere on Earth, it looks like. Do your sensors show anything in the tunnels from earlier today or this week?”
“I’ve got the reports, let me check,” Henry said. “Interesting. Heat signature triggered the sensors in the tunnel near the Memorial, but it was so quick the program assumed a small foreign body.”
“You mean like a little Japanese girl or something?”
Received a slew of “duh” looks from Hacker International and a lot of “really?” looks from everyone else.
“No,” Stryker said as he rolled his eyes. “He means like insects.”
Henry nodded. “The sensors are very delicately tuned, so they pick up everything. The heat registered so quickly it appears to be nonhuman in nature.”
“Oh, it’s nonhuman. I’m betting that Clarence was moving so fast he fooled the sensors.”
White nodded. “It makes sense, and having seen him running this afternoon, it’s very believable.”
“So he’s been in the tunnels. Henry, check for more ‘oh, it’s nothing’ readings from the sensors. We think Clarence has been back for about a week. Eddy.”
“Yes? You want me to add something onto what I’m already doing, don’t you?”
“You’re still sharp as a knife. Yeah. I need help with the conspiracy theories, and since Chuckie’s not here, you’re my next go-to guy.”
“I’m so honored.” His tone didn’t say “honored,” of course. But I chose to ignore that.
“You have a good understanding of what’s going on, so suck it up. First off, we have a massive, deep underground, tunnel system and a whole lot of big, cubelike dead zones, right?”
“Right.”
“So, what are the bad guys using these underground tunnels and supersecret rooms or whatever they really are for?”
“As near as we can tell, not a damn thing.”
“So why are these tunnels and dead zones in place? The one secret lab we destroyed, okay, I get why thˀjat was there. But why this intricate tunnel system, which clearly extends beyond the D.C. area? From what I can see, it doesn’t look like a vehicle could fit in there, so really amazing drug running can’t be the answer.”
“It’s so nice that you just assume I know what you’re talking about.”
“You saying you don’t?”
“No. Just commenting on your faith in me.” Stryker was quiet for a few moments. “Obviously there’s more going on. But you’re wrong about the vehicle thing. I mean, a motorcycle would have no problem in these. Something larger could make it, too.”
“But not a tank.”
“No.” Stryker cleared his throat. “But you could probably use these tunnels to transport illegal weapons.”
“But why?” Christopher asked. “These had to be put in place with the help of our former Diplomatic Corps. We were fooled by them for decades. Why go to all this trouble and then not use them for anything?”
“I have a better question—do we think the tunnels are either manmade or A-C made?”
Yi
CHAPTER 83
“WHAT ARE YOU QUESTIONING?” Franklin asked. “Who put this system in place, when, or why?”
“Colonel, all of the above. My other question, though, is how in the world could anyone on Earth put in something this intricate, this far underground, that’s also cloaked from everything we can throw at it, either human or A-C? I could buy the tunnel and secret lab when that’s all it seemed to be. Now? What’s on the screen is too intricate even for the most devious and dedicated of A-Cs, let alone humans.”
It was silent except for the beeping. Nice to know I’d stumped the room.
Franklin cleared his throat. I sensed a trend starting. “Ah, do you have a theory?”
“Oh, sadly, I think I do. Can we see those pictures of the space armada on one of the screens again, please and thank you?” The pictures appeared. “You know, these spaceships look like what literally every human on Earth who’s reported a UFO describes as what they’ve seen.”
“We can’t get any reading on them from the probes,” Franklin said. “But we can see them and photograph them. So they’re not hidden.”
“No, they’re not hidden from our eyes or our cameras, apparently. For whatever reason, they don’t cloak like that.” I considered why. “Possibly because the last times they were here in force, we were so primitive it didn’t matter if they allowed themselves to be seen. Possibly because they don’t think we can hurt them even if we see them.”
“Then explain that secret lab you, my father, and Reynolds found and destroyed.”
“My guess? It was a coinkydink. The bad guys get them so much more frequently than the good guys do, after all. I’d bet they wanted their secret lab and discovered the tunnel and room by happy accident. They could have been drawn there, too. There are a lot of possibilities.
“You think these aliens have been here before, just like the Ancients, don’t you?” Christopher asked.
“Yeah, I do.” My feminine intuition shared that it thought so, too. It also thought we were screwed. Had to stop listening to the negative intuitive parts. “If they arrived before the A-Cs were sent here, Earth wouldn’t know about them and neither would any of you.”
“Yates was here far longer than the rest of us,” White said quietly.
“Yeah, I know. And I’m betting he knew whoever’s coming to visit.” Chances were they’d liked him, too, because they’d have had more in common with him. “Maybe they even brought the right parasite here, to join with him.” They were driving enough parasites in front of them, effectively, that this seemed extremely likely. Figured. A guy like Yates wouldn’t connect with the Mephistopheles parasite by accident. Not in the world I got to live in.
Stryker cleared his throat. Apparently the trend was really catching on. “Ah, Kitty? Didn’t you say you killed Yates?”
“Yep. So, I’ll offer three guesses for who this group is going to be the most pissed off at, and the first two don’t count.”
“But all of the secret rooms are under or near important places in the U.S.,” Buchanan pointed out. “How is that possible?”
“Maybe they give off some kind of power. Maybe they’ve got some kind of attractor in them. Heck, maybe they emit some form of mind control. I doubt that the locations are random, either way. But based on what these ships look like, I’d say they’ve been dropping by frequently. Give the right person the suggestion for where to put the Pentagon, and presto, the Pentagon is on top of your dead zone. Oh, let’s call them what they are—hidden strongholds with God knows what inside.”
“There are green circles around other places of importance outside of the United States, too,” Mona said.
“Many,” Khalid chimed in. “I count at least fifty in our part of the world alone.”
“Including in Israel,” Jakob added.
“At least as many in Europe, even more in Asia,” Oren shared.
“What does it all mean?” Jeremy asked.
“We don’t know. Yet.” We needed to figure it out, before the invaders arrived to explain it to us.
“So all the people who say they’ve been abducted by aliens are telling the truth?” Franklin asked.
I looked at Stryker. He contrived to look innocent. “Oh,
I’d say many, but certainly not all.” Stryker opened his mouth. “Eddy, think carefully before you let your ego do the talking.” He slammed his mouth shut. “Knew you were more intelligent than you seem.”
“Does this mean the invasion has been in place for some time?” Armstrong asked. “As opposed to being something your enemies started on their own?”
“Captains in place!” Bellie squawked. “Paraguay and Paris! Paraguay and Paris!”
Oliver and the Middle Eastern Contingent were all trying to shush the bird. “I’m sorry,” Mona said. “She was doing so well.
“The bird knows something,” Omega Red said.
“Yes, Yuri, we know. Problem is, she only knows some things, not everything. And I don’t think we’ve asked her the right questions.”
“Gil felt the bird had identified Esteban Cantu as one of those captains,” Franklin said.
“Gil?” Christopher asked.
“Captain Morgan. I thought you met him.”
“I did. We weren’t on a first name basis before I was tossed out of the Dome. So, Cantu being involved isn’t a surprise. Bellie said he was a good man.”
“Or she was identifying Goodman as another captain,” Buchanan added.
“Or Hammy, who everyone says is a good man.”
“Hammy?” Christopher asked.
“Colonel Hamlin, as in Colonel Franklin’s mysteriously vanished predecessor. That’s his nickname. At any rate, Bellie knows something. Good luck to anyone figuring out what it is.”
“We’ll work on it,” Oliver said.
“You don’t want in on the alien invasion theories, MJO?”
“When your thinking diverges from mine, I’ll chime in.”
“Nice to get the World Weekly News stamp of approval.” I was about to toss off another witticism, when something caught my eye. It was a little something, and if I wasn’t enhanced, I’d never have seen it at all. “Wait a minute.” I stared at the space ships. “Is there any way to make the picture bigger? Just zoom in on one of the ships, doesn’t matter which one.”