The Resurrector (The Dominic Grey Series)

by Layton Green

  “Not as a fugitive. If you submit to the local police and give a statement, I might use your testimony to push for a warrant.”

  “There’s a problem with that,” Viktor said.

  “Which is?”

  “The local police are trying to kill me.”

  After a long pause, Jacques said, “Can you get to a border? Leave the country?”

  “Probably. But we’ll lose valuable time, and access to the lab.”

  “Do you have a way to return inside?”

  “Not yet,” Viktor said.

  “Then what do you propose?”

  “I was hoping you had an idea.”

  “I can’t help you in South Africa, Viktor. In fact, I’m being pressured to turn you in. We shouldn’t talk again while you’re in the country.”

  When they hung up, after a stunned silence, Viktor and Naomi read the CDC’s statement on his phone together and saw the panic reflected in news outlets around the world. Exhausted, the professor sank against the headboard, and Naomi laid her head in his lap and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  A knock on the door startled them both.

  “Coming,” Naomi said. She disengaged from Viktor’s lap, her hand trailing against his cheek. Attraction stirred within him, and he wished they were in a different place, with different circumstances.

  When Naomi opened the door, a trim black woman in her fifties, wearing a lilac tracksuit and holding a dust cloth, smiled and gave Naomi a warm hug.

  “I know none of that nonsense is true,” the woman said. She gave Max a pat on the head when he padded over to sniff.

  “Thanks, Rose,” Naomi said, and introduced her to Viktor.

  “Will you join Daniel for lunch?” Rose asked.

  “When?” Naomi asked.

  “Soon as you’re ready.”

  When Viktor and Naomi arrived in the dining room, they found an elaborate spread of cheese, olives, artichoke hearts, and cured meats. A Sauvignon Blanc from Daniel’s cellar complemented the meal, and Viktor sighed his approval. One must always dine in style, he believed. Even at the end of the world.

  Especially at the end of the world.

  Naomi sampled an olive. “Thank you for everything. We’ll leave tonight.”

  “You’ll stay as long as you need,” Daniel said. He had donned a blue golf shirt and tan slacks. “And eat me out of house and home.”

  Viktor raised his glass. “ ‘A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly.’ ”

  Daniel smiled. “A man of the classics, ya? Homer, if I’m not mistaken.” His expression hardened. “I won’t begin to speculate as to what this is about. I know that when Jans van Draker is involved, it can’t be good.”

  “That’s the understatement of the century,” Naomi said.

  Daniel dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “After you sought my help, I asked about construction near the van Draker estate. This morning, I got an answer.”

  Naomi’s head jerked up. “A vineyard owner?”

  “An architect. My father’s best friend.”

  The timing was suspicious. Viktor didn’t trust anyone he didn’t know, but at that point, they had run out of options. “Why didn’t he reply until today?”

  “He’s been out of the country on business. I followed up this morning, after the news hit.”

  Naomi leaned forward. “And?”

  Daniel spread Brie on a cracker. “Soon after van Draker returned to Bonniecombe, an old water treatment plant was condemned. Slated for demolition.”

  “I remember that. The one near the nature reserve.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Only it’s still standing.”

  “Exactly,” Daniel said. “My father’s friend claims someone purchased the land from the government, but never tore the plant down.”

  “How would he know this?”

  “He buys property himself from time to time, and had the land appraised. He made an offer but was outbid.”

  “By who?” Viktor asked.

  “He didn’t know, but I looked into it,” Daniel said. “After some digging, I discovered that one of van Draker’s companies had purchased the property. That’s not unusual, to be honest. Land near the nature reserve could pay off handsomely in the future.”

  “How does any of this help us?” Naomi asked, and then sat up straight. “Wait—one of the sets of property records stolen back in 1994, the same day van Draker’s were stolen, was an old water waste treatment plant. I thought it was a coincidence . . .”

  Daniel took a drink of wine and leveled his gaze at her. “I asked my father’s friend if he knew of any construction on or near the van Draker estate, especially underground. He did not. But he remembered from the appraisal that the water plant had an old sewage tunnel that connected to the river. It’s been years, but from his recollection, the tunnel ran right past Jans’s manor.”

  Just before seven p.m., as dusk spread down the mountains like an ink stain, Viktor and Naomi joined Daniel in the dining room for dinner. During the day, they had made preparations to visit the old water plant around midnight, once they could move about unnoticed.

  “What if we find something?” Naomi asked Viktor, when Daniel left to select a bottle of wine. “At the plant?”

  As the professor considered the question, he checked his remote voicemail on Naomi’s phone yet again. Still nothing. “We evaluate the situation. I’m hoping we’ll have help, but I’m afraid we won’t.”

  “Help from who?”

  Viktor had not heard from Grey in far too long, despite leaving a number of messages. “My partner.”

  Daniel returned with a bottle of estate pinotage. As he popped the cork, someone rapped on the front door.

  Everyone froze.

  Swung their gazes towards the hall.

  “Coming,” Rose called out.

  “No!” Naomi said, jumping to her feet. Daniel and Viktor were right behind her as she hurried to the front door and checked the eyehole.

  “Thato,” Naomi said in relief. “Thank God.”

  When Naomi opened the door, Thato pulled her into a hug on the front stoop. “I knew it. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Her eyes flicked to Daniel and then Viktor.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Naomi said.

  “I want to help. However I can.”

  “It’s not safe to be seen with me.”

  “Love, please,” Thato said.

  Daniel interrupted them. “Why don’t we return inside?”

  The two women broke their embrace. Just as Viktor wondered if anyone had been watching Thato’s house and followed her to Daniel’s estate, he noticed a dark sedan gliding silently down the switchback drive with its headlights off.

  “Inside!” Viktor roared, just before gunfire crackled through the air.

  Rose screamed from inside the house. Naomi dove into Viktor, driving them both to the floor as Thato slumped on the concrete stoop, the door behind her splattered with blood.

  -42-

  After the ice door finished raising, two guards stepped out of the mountain, one on each side of the Superjeep. Grey held his breath as he and Jax handed them the stolen ID cards. What if the guards knew every face in the compound? What if Grey’s disguise wasn’t good enough?

  The guard next to Grey inserted the chip side of the ID card into a silver handheld device that resembled a grocery store scanner. After a moment, the scanner beeped and a green dot appeared. The guard returned the ID card and Grey forced himself to appear calm, praying the guards wouldn’t recognize his face beneath the disguise.

  Jax cleared as well. Once the jeep had rolled fully inside, the wheels unlocked and they got a look at the cavern. Low-ceilinged but immense, with natural convex walls striated in brilliant hues of red and yellow and green, the picturesque grotto housed a fleet of Superjeeps, black golf carts, Segways, snowmobiles, and motorcycles with knobby tires fitted with snow chains.

  The Segways told Grey there was
a need inside the complex for transportation. The size of the compound could be an advantage, as long as no one recognized them.

  Just to the left of the entrance, affixed to the cavern wall, Grey felt a shiver when he caught sight of a rectangular bronze plaque. He knew enough German to read it.

  This Facility Commissioned by the Ahnenerbe in 1939

  Grey parked in line with the other jeeps as a group of golf carts approached from the far side of the cavern. He tensed again, but the men and women inside parked, jumped into snowmobiles, and zoomed over the grooved platform just as one of the guards pushed a button on the wall and the ice door began to lower.

  After exchanging a glance, Grey followed Jax to one of the golf carts and let the mercenary drive. Grey had never played golf or ridden a Segway, and one misstep could alert the guards.

  The key was in the ignition. Jax turned it to the right and, once it beeped, reversed out of the parking space. The guards were no longer paying attention. Jax pulled a handle below the seat, switching into drive, and the golf cart jumped forward. Grey swallowed. Thank God for gregarious, golf-schmoozing mercenaries.

  The smell of lime and disinfectant. Voices echoing in the distance. Banks of overhead fluorescent lights providing illumination.

  As they approached the far side of the cavern, three exit tunnels appeared, each with a bronze signpost listing the route choices in German, English, and Icelandic.

  LOGISTICS & CONTROL

  BUNKERS & ARMORY & MESS HALL

  RESEARCH

  Grey knew the Nazis had a love affair with secret underground bases. A fitting metaphor for the evil that lies beneath. The existence of the compound did not surprise him that much, despite the official denial of an Iceland expedition.

  The current occupancy was another matter.

  Each of the route choices was a wide, smooth, well-lit passage that delved deeper into the mountain as if bored out by a giant worm. Lava tubes, Grey guessed.

  “This is unbelievable,” Jax said in a low voice, after Grey nudged him towards the Research tunnel. Too many voices emanated from the Bunker & Armory route. Logistics & Control sounded like someplace Dag and a host of guards would be.

  As much as Grey hated to think about the implications, Research was probably where they kept the prisoners.

  A shudder rolled through him. If they’ve harmed a hair on her head . . .

  Yet he knew they already had.

  The Research passage, ten feet high with walls the color of chocolate syrup, bored through the earth in a gentle curve. Overhead lighting flicked on as they passed, and flicked off moments after. The passage was cold, for which Grey was grateful. Easier to stay anonymous inside the snow camo.

  After passing five golf carts and a nest of unmarked side passages, they entered a grotto that branched into four smaller tunnels. The cavern had cement walls and a stippled stalactite ceiling that resembled a 3-D surface map.

  The exit tunnels, each another lava tube with brilliant hues, gave more route guidance.

  RECORDS ARCHIVE

  ARTIFACTS

  LABORATORIES

  CRYOGENICS

  “This is getting weirder and weirder,” Jax said. “I can’t believe how big this place is.”

  Grey felt his hands shaking at the thought of Charlie used as a guinea pig in some unholy experiment. He had to force his next words out. “Lab or Cryogenics.”

  Jax avoided Grey’s gaze. “We don’t look much like scientists.”

  “We’ll have to take the chance.”

  They tried the corridor marked Laboratories first. A few minutes later, the passage narrowed and then dumped them in a warren of side passages with polished concrete walls and glass doors. A host of lab equipment filled the rooms behind the doors. Only one was occupied by scientists, men and women dressed in white lab coats with the W.A.R. emblem embossed on the back. None of them paid Grey or Jax any attention.

  “Is it just me,” Jax said as they kept driving, “or do these labs look a bit dated?”

  “I was thinking the same,” Grey said, remembering the high-tech equipment in the CDC.

  Using a key card, they accessed a room with a windowless steel door. A blast of warmer air greeted them. They flipped on a light and found a room that resembled a cross between a torture chamber and a laboratory. Two steel cages with iron manacles attached to the wall occupied the rear corners of the room, and a pair of gurneys was affixed to a spiderlike apparatus near the left wall. The floor was stainless steel and sloped gently towards a drain in the middle. Grey didn’t want to think about the fluids that had spiraled into the abyss of that drain. Human lives spent like pennies. He felt his skin crawl, and his heart started beating faster.

  “I’ve visited a few concentration camps before,” Jax said. “They gave me the same feeling, like the air is heavy. Weighed down with lost souls or something. If you believe that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t know if I believe,” Grey muttered, “but I know what you mean.”

  They checked every windowless room in the mazelike section. No sign of Charlie.

  “It doesn’t feel right here,” Jax said. “If they’re keeping her alive, no one’s coming all the way over here to feed her.”

  “I agree. Let’s do a quick run through the other sections.”

  “Very quick. I’ve about reached my limit.”

  Artifacts and Records Archive looked like Grey had imagined: another nest of tunnels and storage rooms filled with crates, desks, file cabinets, and bookshelves that looked fifty years old. The record keeping of the Nazis was legendary, and Grey had always found the unemotional ledgers of genocide and human experimentation one of the most chilling aspects of the Third Reich.

  They saw two people cataloguing files. Again, the general lack of activity made Grey think they were in the wrong place. They sped back to the Research grotto and idled in front of the signs.

  “We haven’t seen a camera since the entrance,” Jax said. “Why not, if they keep such good records?”

  “Not sure. Maybe they don’t want a visual of this place leaking out. Or maybe the cameras are hidden.”

  “Should we bother with Cryogenics, or go back to the beginning?”

  “Just a glance, since we’re here,” Grey pushed away the thought of finding Charlie frozen, mouth agape, lost to the world. All he knew about cryonics was that some people chose to freeze their heads or their bodies just after death, in the hope science would one day know how to resurrect them. Cryonic suspension was illegal on the living.

  Not that it mattered to the people down here.

  They drove down a lava tube the color of unpolished gold. Two minutes later, the tunnel split in two. Another signposted intersection. The arrow pointing to the left read Cryonic Storage, Detention, and Geothermal Plant. To the right, Cryonic Transport Facility.

  Detention. Trying to control his rage, Grey jerked his thumb to the left and tensed as Jax drove down a narrow concrete tunnel. A hundred feet away, the passage dead-ended at a steel door. Two guards with assault rifles stood at attention on either side.

  Jax swore. “They’ll get suspicious if we turn around,” he said, in a low voice.

  “Just keep going.”

  “And do what?”

  “See if they open the door. If they don’t, and we have to fight, no gunshots. It will blow our cover. Can you handle that?”

  “Do Russians like vodka?”

  The guards, both wearing snowsuits with three red stripes on each arm, watched them approach. One glance at their brusque demeanor told Grey they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

  Fifty feet away. Grey noticed lettering on the door, just above a small metal box jutting out of the center. Another keycard device. As they drew closer, he read the sign.

  LEVEL FOUR ACCESS.

  “I’m guessing that’s not us,” Jax said in a low voice.

  “Not yet it isn’t.”

  Jax gave him a sharp glance. “You sure about this?”

 
“Like you said. Too late to turn back.”

  The door was fifteen feet wide. Jax drove right down the middle. As the golf cart slowed, the guards watched them carefully, though they didn’t raise their weapons. They clearly expected Grey or Jax to lean forward and swipe a keycard. Grey knew that if he swiped and an alarm sounded, it would be too late. The guards would shoot.

  So Grey didn’t wait.

  “On five,” he said to Jax, as the golf cart came to a stop. He counted to five in his head as he took out the key card. Instead of leaning forward to insert the chip, Grey pushed off the golf cart with his back foot, lunging towards the guard on his side. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, Grey saw Jax take a tiny stun gun out of his belt and leap out of the golf cart.

  The guard nearest Grey reared back, fumbling to bring his weapon up. Grey was too fast, and clamped down on the guard’s trigger hand. It prevented a shot, but cost Grey the momentum, and the guard kneed him in the groin.

  The knee hurt, but Grey pushed through and didn’t release the weapon. Instead he jerked it back and forth in small increments, confusing the guard’s reactions, and then stomped on the front of the guard’s foot just before he slammed the butt of the weapon into the guard’s face. Grey heard the crunch of a broken nose, and he followed it up with an open palm beneath the guard’s chin, snapping his head back. Reeling, the guard didn’t even get his hands up before Grey delivered a knockout blow to the temple with the butt of the gun.

  As the guard slumped to the ground, Grey whipped around and saw the other guard convulsing on the cement floor as Jax stood over him. The mercenary put the stun gun away and gave the guard a leisurely kick to the head, soccer style, knocking him unconscious.

  Grey took a black-and-silver keycard off one of the guards and then dragged him to the golf cart. “We’ll lock them in the torture room.”

  Jax followed suit with the other guard as Grey gathered the weapons, which were true assault rifles. HK G36s with settings for semi-automatic and continuous fire. Powerful weapons.

  They piled the two guards on the back of the golf cart and sped over to the laboratory section, eyes straining for enemy movement. With a sigh of relief, they locked the guards in the steel cages in the torture room; the old keys were still hanging on the walls. After that, Grey and Jax stored the rifles in the rear compartment of the golf cart and sped back to the steel door with Level 4 access. Less than five minutes had elapsed.