The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

“Patients? What are you talking about?”

  “The scientists … they brought in some patients with a rare illness for treatment this afternoon.”

  “Those weren’t patients!” Cyrus shouted. “And they weren’t sick!”

  “I only know what I’m told,” Greve said. “They’re very secretive about their work here—all highly classified, above my clearance.”

  Well, that sounded consistent with Harv. Maybe that was the modus operandi around here—keep everyone in the dark.

  “Okay, where are these ‘patients’ now?” The long pause that followed made Laura’s gut clench with dread.

  Finally: “I can’t help but assume you had friends among the patients …”

  She wanted to scream Stop calling them patients! but he could only know what he’d been told.

  “Did something happen?”

  “Yes. I fear they’re all dead.”

  Wails from Tanisha and Marie, a shouted “No!” from Cy as the words slammed Laura like a blow.

  She knew she had to hold it together, which proved easier than she would have imagined. Probably because she couldn’t imagine Rick dead. Somehow he’d survive. She knew it, she just knew it.

  Her forensic brain had already parsed his words.

  “What do you mean, ‘fear’ they’re all dead? You don’t know?”

  “There was an explosion in the rear section where all the research is done. The walls there are extra thick and the doors blast-proof—just in case the worst happened. And today the worse happened. The blast was contained but it triggered a lockdown.”

  Her mind raced. Could it get any worse? The concussive force of an explosion could kill, but even if it didn’t, contaminants and chemicals could finish the job.

  “What was back there that could explode?”

  “I have no idea. The walls held but the doors are buckled and I was able to get a look inside. It’s all a horrendous mess, but I thought I saw movement among the carnage. That’s why I need to get out and call for emergency services. Someone might still be alive in there. But they won’t be for long if they don’t get help.”

  “Marie,” Laura said, “call 911 for EMTs.” She turned back to Greve. “I’m a doctor … if I can get down there …”

  She didn’t mention that all her patients were dead by the time they reached her. She didn’t care about Greve, but it wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in her nadaný crew.

  “Then you need to widen this opening,” Greve said.

  “Let me try something,” Cy said, gently elbowing her aside.

  He gripped the upturned lip of the hatch cover with both hands. Laura saw his knuckles whiten as he squeezed. When he removed his hands, the areas he’d gripped were gone, the edges looking like something had taken bites out of the metal.

  “I can do this!” he cried.

  “D-do what?” Greve stuttered below. “Wh-wh-what just happened there?”

  As Cyrus grabbed two more handfuls of lid, Tanisha pulled Laura aside.

  “I don’t trust this guy,” she said in a lowered voice.

  Laura nodded. “I don’t either. I don’t expect him to be on our side, but I have to get down there.”

  “That’s not what I mean. He’s lying about the reinforced wall in the back area. I went over those plans real careful-like when I was looking for this escape route and those back walls ain’t no thicker than anywhere else in the bunker.”

  “Maybe he just thinks they are.”

  “Maybe. But how do we even know he is who he says he is?”

  Good question, Laura thought. And now it occurred to her that all she had for proof about an explosion down there was the word of a man she’d never seen or heard of before.

  She pulled Tanisha farther back. “Before the lockdown alarm went off, do you remember the ground shaking at all, even the slightest tremor?”

  Tanisha frowned, then shook her head. “Nope. Not a thing.”

  “Neither did I. It might not mean anything. After all, the bunker was half a mile away and fifty feet down from where we were standing. But still … time for this guy to pony up with some ID.”

  A small thing. It didn’t mean he was telling her everything, but she’d know he was telling the truth about at least one thing.

  She stepped back to the hatch. Cy had made progress. Still not open enough for someone to slip through, but he was getting there. She motioned him to back away.

  “Agent Greve,” she said. “Could I see some ID please?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. I’ll feel better knowing you really are who you say you are.”

  “Your timing is questionable, but I suppose I can understand that.”

  His expression was irritated as he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. His irritation turned to a concerned frown as he tried his other pockets.

  “Damn! In all the confusion, I must have left it in my office below.”

  “Told you so,” Tanisha said behind her.

  “Then we’ve got a problem. How do we know if anything you’ve told us—?”

  “Wait-wait. Here it is.”

  He pulled a small black folder from his pants pocket and handed it up through the opening. Laura flipped it open.

  “This is a passport!” she said.

  It looked like the real thing with a photo of a younger looking Benjamin Greve, yet unquestionably him. But she wanted something with the Department of Defense logo to confirm he was with DIA.

  “Oh, hell,” he said. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  He was looking agitated now. “I don’t see what the problem is. You want to get down here and I want to get up there. Both ends can be accomplished by widening that gap.”

  “The EMTs are on the way,” Marie said. “Maybe we should wait.”

  Laura fumed. She didn’t want to wait. She was burning to get down to Rick and the others, especially if they were hurt. But this Greve was hiding something, she was sure of it. She feared she might never reach Rick if she trusted him.

  “Give me back my passport then,” he snapped.

  Still struggling for a decision, Laura extended it toward him. But instead of taking the passport, he grabbed her wrist and wrenched her down against the opening. A gleaming pistol had appeared in his other hand and he was pressing the muzzle against her cheek.

  “Tell Cyrus there to get back to work on the cover,” he gritted through clenched teeth, “or he’ll find himself splattered with your brains.”

  Cyrus? She didn’t remember anyone calling him by name. How did he—?

  “You know his name?”

  “I know a lot more than his name, Laura Fanning. I know everything you know about him. And everything about you. So get me out of here—now!”

  32

  “Look,” Rick was saying. “I’ve been watching the Anomaly and it never seems to cruise below three feet above the floor.”

  “Except when it comes out of the floor,” Ellis said.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Again that urge to punch. “If we stay on hands and knees and keep our heads down, we should be safe.”

  Ellis said, “Unless, of course—”

  Rick jabbed a finger within an inch of his nose. “Zip it! And keep it zipped unless you’ve got something constructive to contribute.”

  “Just sayin’.”

  “And I’m just sayin’ that it could come out of the floor right under your ass while you’re sitting here, which means there’s no safe place, which means moving around is no more dangerous than staying put so we might as well be looking for the way out instead of sitting here waiting for something to happen.” He looked them each in the eyes, one after the other. “Got it?”

  When all three nodded, he said, “All right. Let’s go.”

  “Wait!” Moe said, grabbing his arm.

  Now what? He felt he’d already waited too long.

  “Wait for what? Godot?”

&
nbsp; “No. The security guys. They’re locked up!”

  Oh, right. Crap. He had to give them a chance.

  “I’ll get them out. That’s three extra sets of eyes looking for an exit.”

  “You think they’ll help?” Moe said. “You were pretty rough on them.”

  “Oh, they’ll help. I’m sure they’ve seen the Anomaly by now, which means they’ll want to get the hell out of here as badly as we do. I’ll head for their room. The three of you split up and—”

  “You know what happens when they split up in horror movies,” Ellis said.

  Always helpful …

  “This isn’t a haunted house movie. And the Anomaly isn’t Jason or Freddy, so we increase our odds of finding the emergency exit if we’re not all looking in the same place at the same time. Make sense?”

  They all nodded.

  “Okay. Moe, you know the place. Point them in the most likely direction while I go free the Keystone Kops.”

  Behind him, as he started to crawl away, he heard Moe instructing the two nadaný.

  When he reached room two, he noticed water leaking under the door. He knocked and said, “You guys all right in there?”

  He was answered by a confused and frightened chorus of pleas to let them out. He unlocked the door and did just that. They tumbled out just in time to see the Anomaly race by in the hall.

  “It’s that thing again!” Watts rasped, pointing. He looked terrified. “It came right through the walls—twice. The second time it came through the bathroom and ate its way through one of the pipes.”

  That explained the water.

  Rick motioned them into a crouch. “It’s safer if you stay low.”

  The one called Jon regained his composure first and turned on Rick.

  “You fucker! You locked us up with that thing!”

  Rick kept his voice calm. “Believe me when I say you were safer in there. It’s been spending most of the time out here in the hall. Doctor Stonington got in its way.”

  That apparently hit Jon hard. His expression slackened. “W-what happened?”

  “Not pretty.” Rick jerked a thumb at the body on the floor down the hall. “Made a big hole right through the middle of him.”

  “Is he dead?” Woolley said.

  Hoo, boy.

  Watts whacked his shoulder. “ ‘Is he dead?’ ” His voice was harsh and faint, like it hurt to talk. “A big hole through his middle? You kidding me?”

  Woolley clapped a hand against the side of his face. “Oh, yeah. Right. What was I—?” He broke off to gag but didn’t hurl.

  “What the fuck is it?” Jon said. “Where’d it come from?”

  “The back section,” Rick said. “They’ve been keeping it there since 1957.”

  “But what is it?”

  “Nobody seems to know.”

  “And it just happened to get out today?” His eyes narrowed. “You?”

  “A guy named Greve. You know him?”

  They looked at each other. “Our boss,” Jon said. “He let it out? Why’d he do that?”

  “He murdered a teenage girl right in front of it and that made it bust out and start to travel.”

  From their shocked expressions Rick could tell these guys weren’t true hard cases—just wannabes. He had no idea if Iggy’s murder was the real cause for the Anomaly’s behavior, but for now, it would do. Might even drive a bit of a wedge between these guys and Greve.

  “You know we’re in lockdown, right?” Rick said. He noticed Woolley’s gaze wandering. “You with us, Woolley?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Jon was nodding. “Lockdown means we can’t use the eleva—”

  “There it is!” Woolley cried, pointing.

  A glance down the hall showed the Anomaly cutting across, emerging from one side wall and boring through the other.

  Farther down, Annie was crawling across the hall on her hands and knees in the opposite direction.

  Watts watched wide-eyed. “What the f—”

  “Can we focus here?” Rick said.

  “But what’s she doing?” Woolley said, staring.

  “I’m about to explain: There’s supposed to be an emergency escape route. Does one of you happen to know where it is?”

  The three of them shook their heads.

  “News to me,” Jon said.

  “Before he died, Doctor Stonington confirmed that there is one, but it may have been covered over during a remodel. We need to find it, and if we all search we can find it sooner and get the hell out of here. You guys game? Woolley, you game?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Okay, we’ll all split up.” He pointed to Jon. “You can assign your guys different rooms. Look for signs that something has been papered over or boarded over. And stay low, like that gal you saw down the end of the hall. Got all that, Woolley?”

  Woolley nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

  Jon looked annoyed. “Why do you keep asking Woolley?”

  “He’s sort of the canary in your coal mine here. I figure if I get through to him, the rest of you are good to go.”

  From Jon’s expression, this apparently made perfect sense, but Rick didn’t wait for a reply. Intending to leave this end of the hall to Jon and his crew, he maintained his crouch and started back to join Moe and the two nadaný. He’d traveled maybe a dozen steps when he heard someone start shouting.

  Watts was crouching outside a door. “Hey, I hear noise in here.” Rick could barely hear him. “And it’s locked!”

  Rick made a U-turn.

  “That’s the storage room,” Jon said when he arrived. “We go in and out all the time. It’s never locked.”

  It hadn’t been locked when Rick had looked in just a short while ago. Things started clicking into place.

  “Gotta be Greve.”

  Jon didn’t look like he was buying that. “Why Greve?”

  “He’s the only one missing and he’s got the keys to everything. I’m betting that’s where we find the escape route.”

  Now Jon looked downright dubious. “Based on what?”

  “The only person here longer than Greve was Stoney, and he said the escape was off the conference room. But what if they changed the conference room when they remodeled? What if they turned the old conference room into a storeroom?”

  It all fit. Stoney had been so sure they’d find it in the conference room, but they hadn’t. Moe had said his memory was showing signs of slippage. Very possible that a switch in location of the conference room had been one of the things that had slipped.

  “The excape is in there?” Watts said, hope lighting his features. He rose to his knees and started banging on the door and shouting in a wrecked voice. “Agent Greve! Agent Greve!”

  Jon pulled him back. “Knock off that crap! He might already be gone.” He felt around his pockets. “Damn! You took my key ring!”

  Rick handed him the one he’d taken from Watts. “Try this.”

  Jon found the key he wanted but it wouldn’t go in the keyhole.

  “Fuck! He left the key in the lock!”

  Watts was suddenly back on his knees and banging. “Agent Greve! It’s Watts from security. I’m with Jon and Woolley. Let us in! We need to get outta—”

  The Anomaly came through the door and made a direct hit on his face. It passed through his head, leaving only a strip of skin that contained his left ear. As the ear flopped down, twin geysers began to pulse-pump straight up from the stump of his neck. The pumping continued as he slowly fell back to sprawl on the hallway floor, legs and arms akimbo, while the Anomaly veered rearward toward the research area.

  Woolley let out a high-pitched scream and Jon dropped forward onto his hands and knees, retching. Rick was up and moving. If he was going to get through that door, now was the perfect time.

  He risked getting his head blown off by sneaking a quick peek through the hole left by the Anomaly. No sign of Greve. Another peek and he spotted a section of wallboard pulled back from the wall, revealing
a dark space.

  If that didn’t lead to the escape route, he’d offer to have Greve’s baby.

  Rick turned and shouted down the hall. “Moe! Annie! We’ve found it!” He realized he’d forgotten to call Ellis, but hell, he’d hear.

  He snaked his arm through the hole and felt around until he found the key. A sharp twist and the latch snapped back. He pulled the HK from his pocket and checked the breech. He knew it was loaded but checking was a habit he didn’t want to break.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” Jon said.

  “Yeah, but I’m keeping it for a while. Any objections?”

  “Well … it’s pretty dangerous out here.”

  “You think a nine-millimeter slug is going to stop the Anomaly?”

  “What’s the Anomaly? Oh, you mean—”

  “Yeah. The thing that made your buddy’s head disappear.”

  “Okay, I guess not.”

  “Better believe. And if Greve’s in there with his Luger, I’ll need this. You guys wait here and don’t let anyone pass—either way.”

  If Greve had found an escape route, Rick had no doubt he’d taken it and was long gone. But if the lockdown sealed it …

  Cautiously, he eased his way in. He stood still a moment, scanning the crowded jumble of junk as he listened. He heard something moving in the dark space behind the angled wallboard.

  33

  “You’ve gotta be kidding!” Cyrus said from the blackness above.

  He had his flashlight trained on Laura Fanning’s head. Greve couldn’t see him so he pressed the Luger’s muzzle a little deeper into her cheek for emphasis.

  “I assure you I’m quite serious. So don’t try anything cute.”

  “I could just walk away,” Cyrus said. “Then what’ll you do?”

  “Let’s not find out, okay?” Fanning said.

  “Yes, listen to the good doctor.”

  Cyrus said, “No, seriously. What are you going to do if I walk away? Kill her? What for? You’re still stuck there until the cops come. And then you go up for murder. Lose-lose, Agent Greve.”

  Greve knew damn well that killing Fanning would rob him of all his leverage, but he had an answer for that.

  “Who said anything about killing her? Imagine what a nine-millimeter Parabellum into the shoulder joint feels like. First one, then the other. Then—”