“The café here is weak. I despise weak,” she announced. “But I am done now.”
“Good,” Navarro said. “Then you can drop the other boot you’ve been holding on to. You said that Amy Zhao had a ‘pair’ of talents you needed. Bacteriology is one. What’s the other?”
“You are smarter than you look. Based on my findings, I felt that Doctor Zhao’s lesser-known specialty might come in handy. She was presenting a paper on it when I saw her in Santa Barbara, as a matter of fact.”
Zhao’s porcelain cheeks colored abruptly.
“You mean my work in paleobiology, don’t you?” The woman looked excited and ready to faint at the same time. Her already high-pitched voice went up a notch. “No one’s taken it all that seriously before, and you think it might play into this?”
“Oh, I have what the Americans would call a ‘hunch’. And I do mean to play my hunches when I can.” Lelache threw Austen a meaningful look. “This is going to be as much about discovery as it is containment. If one is strong enough to seize the moment.”
Austen’s emotions swung between hesitant and curious. She’d done EIS handoffs before, and none had gone remotely like this. Her gut leaned overwhelmingly towards the sense that Lelache wasn’t showing all her cards yet.
“Discovery?” Austen asked. “You’re talking about more than an emergent pathogen, aren’t you? You’re talking about going into the unknown.”
“This is ridiculous,” Blaine sputtered. “We don’t need to talk about discovery, we need to start looking at whatever data we can find up here.”
“Simmer down, Ian. I don’t think Helen’s been leading up to a set of hospital rounds. Or a mortality survey.”
Lelache made a Gallic shrug. “As the commanding EIS, it is up to you, of course. But it is late morning already. We have a very narrow window in which we need to move if you wish to come.”
“Narrow window? What do you mean?”
“A narrow window of sunshine. You don’t get much light down into the base of any mine, even an open-pit one.”
Blaine swallowed, hard. “Down into…the mine? This isn’t some cave-diving expedition! Leigh, tell me you’re not listening to this…this lunacy!”
But Austen’s sense of skepticism wasn’t kicking in. Instead of surprise, she felt the warmth of confirmation. DiCaprio had known, somehow.
“Well?” Lelache said, and her voice held the trace of a taunt. “What does the leader of this expedition say? This isn’t Africa, after all.”
No, this wasn’t the Black Nile valley again, Austen thought. Here, the problem’s buried deep. It’s the black sheep of the family.
Her suspicions had been correct. The emergence of the pathogen was tied directly to the Karakul. That meant the way forward led only one direction.
Down.
“All right, Helen.” Austen nodded. “I’m in.”
“Very good!” came the reply. The woman sounded positively gleeful as she continued to speak. “We need to conserve the hardsuits’ light batteries. Believe me, you do not wish to be stuck down there in the dark. Especially in what the miners here call the ‘Poison Cave’. Come along, allons-y!”
With that, Lelache slid the door to Module C open and disappeared inside. Navarro let out a low chuckle. He shook his head.
“You have to wonder,” he mused. “Is she always like this?”
Now it was Preble’s turn to laugh.
“Oh, I’d bloody well say so,” he replied. “After all, she’s French.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I want to see what Lelache’s learned,” Austen declared. “According to the manifest, this field laboratory comes with five hardsuits. Lelache and I count for two, and I want to keep one as a backup. That leaves two more. So, the question is, who else is coming with me?”
“It sounded like Helen wanted my take on something,” Zhao said. “So I’ll go.”
“Sounds good. That leaves one more suit for us to fill.”
Preble shook his head. “You’re off your trolley if you expect me to get into one of those things. I’ve got my hands full trying to stay upright as it is.”
“I understand, Ted. I don’t want you taking a spill down there either.”
“Count me out as well,” Blaine added, a trifle too quickly. “Lelache said she made sure the lab was put together correctly, but she never did a full check of the gear. Or the safety systems. Someone’s got to handle that.”
Austen came close to objecting. Yet if Blaine was scared to go down into the mine, he was apt to be more of a hazard than a help. She needed someone who could keep a cool head.
“Nick, what about you?”
“Me?” Navarro said, surprised. “I’m no scientist!”
“You’re private security, right? You get to ride shotgun, so to speak.”
He looked skeptical. “I’m used to protecting people against things I can shoot or otherwise get my hands on.”
“We still might need those hands at the right moment,” she insisted. “Are you in or out?”
Navarro hesitated for only a moment. “Looks like I’m joining this rodeo.”
Austen led the way through the sliding doors, deeper into the mobile field lab. Module C had a conference area and rows of stone-gray storage cabinets.
Instead of a sliding door, the border between the next two chambers had an airlock-style system. As the first set of doors closed, Navarro felt the gentle tug of air at his shoulders, evidence of slight negative pressure. The flow of air from now on would flow like water down a drain towards the field lab’s final module.
A handwashing sink and a set of glaring UV lights gave way to Module D, which was painted a harsh shade of orange. Clearly, the architects of the field lab wanted to alert the visitor that it was time to take the hazard flower’s numbers more seriously from here on.
While Zhao was familiar with the gowning procedure, Austen carefully led Navarro through each step. A mild tremor ran through her fingers as she instructed Nick, but he made no mention of it. She was only glad that the memories of her time in Africa didn’t flood her nostrils with the scents of the wrecked hot zone.
She ran through her mantra again and again as she tucked her hair under an elastic cap. God grant me the courage to change the things I can. And to not push my luck on the things that I can’t do crap about.
Biosafety cabinets with attached gloves glistened under warm orange light. So did the rows of pipettes, beakers, and other pieces of lab equipment. After donning gloves and a protective surgical gown, they pushed on through another UV-lit airlock and into the snow-white confines of Module E.
They had to side-step in single file to get around the gleaming – and blessedly empty – autopsy table. A closed door lay at the table’s head. Austen glanced through the door’s window for a moment, noting that the side exit aligned with the entryway of the base’s infirmary.
One last airlock, and they finally arrived in Module F. The walls were a dark, metallic blue broken only by the silver of the chemical showers and the hardsuit gowning area. The cool tones made Austen feel as if she were preparing to make a deep-sea dive.
“There you are!” Lelache said. She beckoned them over to the hardsuit area. “Come on, we must be quick about it. Vite, vite!”
The Chiron suits held the rich, purplish color of Bordeaux wine. Austen hadn’t worn anything remotely like them before. She slipped on the pressurized jumpsuit, made a fist, and tentatively tapped her chest. The impact was barely noticeable through the hard-but-light armor plates made of fiber-reinforced plastic.
Each plate gave way at the joints to flexible fabric made of spun polyethylene. She doubted that this armor could deflect a bullet. But it would be leagues better than the old hazmat suits at resisting rips, tears, and impacts.
The helmets hung from special hooks at neck height. Austen and her companions had to slide into the headgear from below, until the metallic collars on the suits mated up with a click. Sound flooded her ears, making he
r start.
“Okay, she’s in,” Blaine’s voice said, as crystal clear as if he’d been stuffed into the suit next to her. “Lelache too. See, there’s the other ones as well.”
Navarro turned to look at her, impressed.
“Are you getting that?” he asked, pointing an armored fingertip to the side of his helmet. His voice came in just as clearly. “I need to talk to M&B, we need a couple of these.”
“Okay, so we can talk suit-to-suit,” Austen observed. “How do I open the communications channel to talk back to Blaine?”
“Tap your left wrist, where you’d wear a watch,” Lelache replied. “That toggles the communications channel between the suits and the receiver in the laboratory.”
She tried it. “Ian, you there?”
“Ah, there you are,” came his reply. “Preble and I are watching your progress from up in the C&C. There are cameras mounted in your suit helmets. If we lose contact with you, they should still record what you’ve seen.”
“That’s not all,” Lelache added. “We need to lean back to get the extended-wear pack working.”
Austen did as instructed. A second, louder clack sounded as each helmet then forged a link with an attached backpack. She stumbled forward a step and looked in a nearby full-length mirror.
The ‘pack’ was a rigid rectangle that began at the lower back and ended just below the top of her head. A pair of inset lamps winked on, throwing light over each of her shoulders. She heard a whirr, and a puff of fresh air entered her helmet.
“This is really neat,” Zhao remarked, as she held up her hardsuit-plated hand to examine it under the shoulder lights.
“The pack encloses the battery, air purifier, and your headlamps,” Lelache said. “And there’s one more thing that should pop up any moment.”
Austen heard a couple of metallic chirps. The left side of her transparent faceplate lit up with readouts for battery power, suit integrity, and basic vital signs. Once more, she heard Blaine’s voice in her ear.
“We’re seeing it too,” he said. “I’d say that we got our money’s worth on these suits.”
She heard Preble’s voice next. “Would you look at that. Check out those heart and breath rates.”
“That’s to be expected, Ted. If you’re going into the unknown, then you’re bound to have slightly elevated breathing and heart rates.”
“Not those two, over on that screen,” Preble said. “Lelache and Navarro’s are rock steady and slow. They look like they’re about ready for a nap.”
Navarro let out a snort. “I don’t plan on taking a siesta anywhere down here, Doctor Preble.”
“Elevated heartrate or not,” Austen said, “I want to take some sampling equipment with us.”
“Then I would first turn off your suit lights,” Lelache instructed. “We won’t need them until we’re at the bottom. Toggle them by touching either thumb to your little finger.”
Austen followed her instructions, as did Zhao and Navarro. Afterwards, it only took a moment for her to select a pack with a single strap and load it up.
Without being asked, Navarro slung the strap over one shoulder. The pack’s specially treated gray fabric made him look like a utility repairman, geared up and ready to climb a telephone pole.
The big man glanced at Austen as he selected the only edged item he could find: a size-22 scalpel with an extra-long handle. She nodded. He slipped the surgical knife into a safety case, which then went into the pack’s side pocket.
Lelache led the way out the rear door. The small party’s steps kicked up small clouds of dust as they walked along a wide gravel-strewn road. One side was filled by a row of tumbledown shacks and rusty piles of broken mining equipment.
A single building, roughly the size of a phone booth, looked in good repair. It was marked in Russian on one side, while on the other an English sign read EMERGENCY. Just beyond the booth, the road ended in the mine’s sharp drop-off.
The lip of the Karakul glowed faintly, as if from molten fires within the earth. Austen knew that it was merely the reflection of sunlight from below, but it sent a shiver through her. Mist wafted up from unseen depths to swirl up the warm column of air and form the huge cloud which hung high above.
They came up to a massive housing for the mine’s freight elevator. Lelache pressed one of the fist-sized buttons to one side and was rewarded with a diesel engine’s purr. The car that came up from below could have easily swallowed three automobiles parked side-by-side.
Instead of being an enclosed box, the elevator car turned out to be an open metal cage made of inch-thick steel bars. The side facing them slid up with a sinister, ear-splitting rattle. Lelache went inside and stood by the car’s button panel, waiting for everyone else to board.
A stray beam of sunlight filtered through the cloud cover as they began to file inside. It illuminated the car’s insides, turning them bright scarlet. Austen looked around at the blood-red interior.
She let out a rueful sigh as she murmured, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
“Sounds like Dante,” Navarro remarked. “From one of the less-than-happy parts of The Inferno.”
“Pretty much all of that book is less-than-happy.”
“Either way,” Lelache said, “it is appropriate. On y va! Let’s go and visit Hell.”
With that, she reached up and pressed the button for the bottom floor.
The elevator dropped with a sickening lurch.
Chapter Seventeen
Amy Zhao let out a squeak as the elevator dropped out from under them. Austen caught her by one elbow as the car steadied in its descent, while Navarro grabbed her shoulder on her opposite side. Blaine’s voice echoed in everyone’s ears again, though this time it popped and hissed with an edge of static.
“We just saw a jump in everyone’s pulse,” Blaine reported. “And we lost video there for a bit. It’s still glitching.”
“That’s because we’re dropping straight down a trench carved into the earth,” Lelache said. “It’s to be expected. By the time we reach the bottom, reception shall be almost fini.”
“Sorry about that,” Zhao said. “I’ve always been a little jumpy.”
“That’s all right,” Austen assured her. “I’m finding that it helps if I focus on the task at hand.”
“Then perhaps I can help,” Lelache put in. “The bottom is over a kilometer down. This is a fast elevator, but we have some time. Allow me to fill you in on what I have learned in my time here.”
Austen nodded. “Please do.”
It’s about time, she grumped to herself. Nice that Helen waited until we were beyond the point of no return before telling us.
A blast of air from behind broke her chain of thought. She turned to look out the rear wall of the elevator cage. Zhou let out a gasp, and even Navarro looked impressed for once.
The sweeping out-and-down vista of the Karakul opened before them. The mine opening formed a rough circle almost a mile in diameter. The shaft itself bored down into the rock in a series of steep steps or tiers, each at least twelve feet high.
Although the buildings at the surface were either murky brown or green, the rocks around them were festively colored like a multi-layer birthday cake. Pastel shades of pink, ochre and burnt umber stretched both up to the surface and down to the bottom. Zhao stared out at the view as if mesmerized by what she saw.
The sides of the shaft had a strange scoured look. Austen leaned forward and squinted through the cage bars. She realized that she was looking at the remains of a road that had circled along the edges, spiraling down into the depths of the mine.
“You’re looking at what they call the initial ‘haul road,” Lelache said, as if reading her thoughts. “When working the initial deposit, a wide pit was dug, with a road around the edge forming a ramp where trucks could carry out ore and waste. Over the decades, the pit became too steeply sloped for vehicles. So they shifted to vertical conveyor belts to move ore, and elevators to move the people.”
“Back home, they would call this a quarry,” Navarro said. “Only it’s a hell of a lot bigger. I’m used to seeing the tunneling sort of mine.”
“That’s because this mine was originally dug to scoop out rare earth elements. Scandium, yttrium, all sorts of things useful in electronics during the Cold War. Yet at the very bottom, they started seeing evidence of something new. A vein of gold quartz. So, they began drilling side tunnels to explore this new source of income.”
“Do you think that’s connected to the outbreak?” Austen asked.
“It’s possible. Two weeks ago, a group of miners working the very bottom level of the Karakul began complaining of severe chest pain and difficulty breathing. They were evacuated, but several collapsed on the way up to the surface. The entire shift was brought to the barracks area serving as this mine’s primitive medical center.
“Within hours, all of the workers reported high fevers, rapid heartbeat, and flashes of intense pain. The symptoms progressed until they had increasing difficulty in swallowing, talking, and then breathing. They died six hours later. There were no survivors.”
Preble’s voice came over the radio again. This time it was marred by static.
“You see what I mean, Leigh? I’m telling you, these are all hallmarks of industrial metal poisoning.”
“Initial autopsy reports indicated they died of pulmonary edema,” Lelache continued. “Fluid in the lungs, suffocating them. The next day, a second group of miners on a different shift complained of similar symptoms. This time, three died on the way out of the mine, while the rest passed away only hours–”
“Wait a minute,” Austen objected. “Were you able to identify an index case?”
Lelache shook her head. “The records here leave a lot to be desired. You have no idea.”
“Why is the index case so important?” Navarro asked.
“The index case is the first documented case of a patient with the unknown disease,” Austen explained. “It’s a key element of any epidemiological investigation. If we don’t have it, then it’s going to be harder to define the emergence of the pathogen.”
The Devil’s Noose Page 8