Death Angel (22 page)

He neglected to mention the other reason for focusing on Nordquist and Carlson—and for that matter, McCoy. They were the only three—the only three still alive—whose ten
ancy at INL predated the Sayeed affair, making them prime suspects in Rhodes Morrow’s hunt for Big Mole.

The final portal accessing the LRF opened up, allowing the trio to enter the mezzanine overlooking the blockhouse. Precipitating the discovery that the laser was in the process of being energized.

Jack Bauer, Hickman, and McCoy now closed on the front of the blockhouse. They approached it at an angle that allowed them to keep its front and long left side in view. From where they stood, they could see that the area outside the front entrance was unoccupied.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a guard on duty outside?” Jack asked.

“Yes—Harry Stempler’s on duty now.” McCoy was huffing and puffing, winded from the long trot across the main floor.

“He’s not at his post,” Hickman said.

“He must be inside,” McCoy suggested. He swiped his badge card through the scanner reader accessing the front door. He started forward, stopping short to keep from bumping into a closed door.

“What’s the problem, McCoy?” Jack asked.

“The scanner didn’t respond. I must have swiped it too quickly. I’ll do it again.”

McCoy ran the blue badge edge-first through the slot. Again, nothing. “What the—?”

McCoy slowly and deliberately inserted the badge and repeated the process. Results: negative.

“What did they do, deactivate your badge?” Hickman said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” McCoy snapped. He made several more attempts to activate the auto-door opener, all with an equal lack of success. He held the badge card up to the light, peering at the leading edge holding the data strip. He ran it
between thumb and forefinger to clean it. “Maybe there’s some dirt or gunk fouling the strip so the scanner can’t get a reading,” he said.

He tried again.

Failure. “That’s the damnedest thing! I don’t understand it—

“Let’s try my card. It’s cleared for total access so it should work,” Jack said.

He swiped his badge card through the reader slot several times, experiencing the same lack of success as had McCoy.

Hickman stepped forward to try his luck with his badge card, with the same results. He scratched his head. “Maybe they deactivated all of us,” he said, only half joking.

“The badge cards worked fine all the way here,” Jack pointed out.

“Maybe the scanner is broken.”

“Not a chance,” McCoy said. “The scanners have internal self-regulating software. In the rare event one goes out of commission—which almost never, ever happens—the reader sends a signal to SECTRO notifying them immediately.”

“Could the reader have been shut down from inside the blockhouse?” Jack asked.

“Impossible! There’s another reader indoors to monitor exits from the building. Even if it was defective, it wouldn’t affect the reader controlling access—they’re both on independent, self-contained circuits. All the scanners are.”

“Maybe the locking mechanism is jammed,” Hickman said.

McCoy shook his head. “Mechanical difficulties would trigger a red alert light on the reader. But the green on light is on. The scanner’s simply not reading the cards when they’re swiped.”

“You better sound a general alert.”

“Let’s not lose our heads over what most certainly is a perfectly explainable minor snafu, Bauer.”

“How do you explain it then?” Hickman asked.

McCoy ignored him. “There’s any number of other entrances into the blockhouse. We’ll try several of them first to assess the situation. Then we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

“The laser’s charging for an unscheduled firing and suddenly we can’t get into the building. I’d call those grounds for an alert,” Jack said.

“Perhaps you would but you’re not in charge here, Bauer. I am. I decide when to hit the panic button, and I’m a long way off from being convinced of the necessity for that drastic step.”

“You’ll have to take the responsibility for that choice. Or the blame,” Jack said pointedly.

“I’m comfortable with that,” McCoy said. He crossed to the left front of the building and rounded the corner, saying over his shoulder, “There’s an access door to the blockhouse tank not far from here—”

A glimmer of light suddenly appeared near the far left corner of the blockhouse. It widened, becoming first an acute and then an oblique angle spilling through an oblong open doorway and slanting across the floor.

“What’s this?” Hickman said.

“There, I thought other doors would be working,” McCoy said, smug.

A figure exited through the door into the open. At this distance it was a black man-shaped silhouette, identity undistinguishable. “Who’s that?” Jack said, pointing.

“Stempler, I suppose,” McCoy said. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he shouted, “Hello, there!”

The figure started, then ran back through the doorway into the blockhouse.

“Uh-oh,” Hickman said.

McCoy frowned. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

Jack Bauer was already in motion. “Cover the front and make sure no one gets out that way,” he told Hickman and took off running.

“Hey, wait!” McCoy said, starting after Jack. Jack’s pace did not slacken, he did not look back to see if McCoy was following. He made for the oblong of yellow-brown light that was the far doorway. It was a long run.

Jack Bauer slowed as he neared his goal. He knew better than to go charging in without looking. He stood to the right of the doorway, covered by the wall, out of any line of fire.

The light shining out through the portal was not a static thing. It was restless, stirring, pulsing. The color cycled, dark bronze ripening to a rich honeyed amber, then darkening back to bronze, all within the space of a few beats.

The door was mounted on oversized mechanized hinges, like a vault door. It was about a foot thick. It was motorized to move all that weight. It was now open, motionless.

Inside, a torrent of noise sounded like a power plant pumping itself up. Percussive machine sounds underlined a deep booming drone. The sound was as much felt as heard. Jack felt it in his bones; it rattled the fillings in his teeth.

The hum rose and fell, synchronized with the light. As the hum grew louder, the light dimmed. As it fell, the light brightened.

McCoy, exhausted and out of breath, finally caught up with Jack. He started toward the doorway but Jack stuck out an arm, holding him back. Jack ducked his head down and peeked inside.

The portal opened on the rear of the Snake Pit. The ground floor was a narrow border surrounding the sunken floor holding the machinery and testing apparatus. Grouped around the floor at the near end of the tank were armatures of various sizes and intricacies, each mounting various
sheets, squares, and slabs of mirrored metal. In the middle ground stood the laser gun and its energizing apparatus. At the far end, a metal scaffolding staircase accessed the control room. The window on the viewing module was a horizontal bar of dimly glowing light.

There were lots of places where a lurker could hide. Jack drew his gun. That prompted McCoy to draw his gun, too, a small, snouty, big-bore semi-automatic pistol he wore under his jacket in a clip-on belt holster.

“Cover me,” Jack mouthed to McCoy. McCoy nodded. It was the standard Alpha/Bravo pattern: one man advances while his partner covers his advance, then covers for his partner as the other advances.

Jack went in first, rushing through the doorway in a crouch and angling toward a nearby piece of equipment on the walkway hemming in the tank. The hardware was a podium-shaped and-sized console at the near corner of the sunken floor. Jack ducked down behind it, gun in hand.

He scanned the scene. Overhead lights flickered as the energies of the charging apparatus waxed and waned, providing an unwanted distraction. Shadows moved, restless, shifting.

The ceaseless motion fooled the eye into thinking it saw lurkers where none existed. Or did they?

The walkway was a strip of rubber-coated flooring about ten feet wide. Spaced on it around the tank were various odds and ends of equipment: a wheeled portable ladder, handcarts, crates, worktables, and the like.

Jack surveyed the immediate area for signs of the intruder, came up blank. He glanced back and saw McCoy edging around the outside of the door frame. Jack motioned to him, signaling him to advance while he covered him. McCoy made his move, darting through the doorway with leveled gun. He ducked down behind a waist-high metal tool bin.

At the opposite end of the blockhouse, a shape detached itself from the shadows in a corner and ran along the long walkway toward the front of the building.

Jack darted out from behind the console and started across the short walkway. Short only by comparison to those bordering the long walls. It seemed lengthy enough as he rushed across it.

One thing he knew for sure—he wasn’t going down into the Pit, not while the laser was charging up. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with an armed McCoy at his back, either. If McCoy should be Big Mole—

The intruder stopped running, turned, and fired at Jack Bauer. He was a long way off for effective handgun accuracy but some of his blasts were too close for comfort.

Slugs cratered the wall a few yards ahead of Jack. He stopped short to avoid running into the other’s line of fire.

Shadows were thick along the long wall; between them and the flickering lights the intruder was a faceless, man-shaped blur whose gun spat streaks of orange light.

The intruder’s sex was indeterminate, it could have been male or female. Impossible to discern if it was a man or woman.

When the gunfire stopped, Jack started forward again. The intruder still hadn’t had his fill of fight. He stuck to his ground, covering behind a vertical support beam and snapping shots at Jack. Something struck the left side of Jack’s face with a sharp sting. It was a rock chip gouged out of the rear wall by a too-close shot.

Jack dove, rolling across several yards of rubber-matted walkway. He came up out of the roll, crouching behind a handcart laden with stacked sections of pipe.

McCoy opened fire at the intruder. Jack was not far from the foot of the long walkway. McCoy, behind him, was halfway across the short walkway.

Motion at the opposite end of the blockhouse caught
Jack’s eye. The motorized vault-type door was closing, sealing the doorway through which he and McCoy had entered.

The energizer droning in the Pit reached a new height in volume. There was motion down there, too—

The laser gun was rising, its snout lifting. Without warning a ruby-red beam spat from its muzzle. Instantly a scarlet line extended from the tip of the laser gun to the rear wall of the blockhouse. It angled up out of the Pit, above the top of the tank, to lance into the wall about four feet above the walkway.

The power drain dimmed the overhead lights, filling the interior space with a murky yellow-brown glow. In the gloom the beam stood out with prismatic, jewellike brightness and intensity. A ruddy aura shimmered along its length.

The concrete wall melted where the beam touched it, molten stone running like water. It made a hissing, spitting sound. Smoke, dust, and vapors streamed up from the melting.

The beam was between Jack Bauer and McCoy. Jack was not far from the corner of the blockhouse. McCoy was near the midpoint of the short walkway. When the beam surged into being he recoiled, throwing up his arms and staggering backward. The beam swung left, following him. A horizontal line burned into the wall marked its path.

The beam sliced through McCoy above the waist, cutting him in half. The two halves of his body, upper and lower, fell to the walkway.

The beam switched off. Not the energizer, just the beam. The energizer continued to drone, buzz, and roar at full-throated power.

The laser gun traversed toward its right. Toward Jack Bauer. It moved damned quick, too.

So did Jack. He jumped up and ran toward the corner. The ruby-red beam sparkled into being, highlighted against a rich golden-brown gloom as the overhead lights again
dimmed from the power surge. It touched the handcart behind which Jack had been sheltering only instants before.

The cart and its cargo of pipes were showered with blood-light. It made a dark outline at the heart of a ruby glow. The darkness dimmed as the cart and its contents took on a brick-red glow.

The glow brightened, incandescent. Now it was sizzling scarlet. The cart began to lose its shape, its metal tube framework softening, sagging like melted taffy.

Jack crouched in the corner, huddled down, shielding his eyes from the mounting glare. The beam radiated blast-furnace heat.

A door was nearby, twin of and opposite to the one through which he and McCoy had entered the blockhouse. Jack rushed to it, hammering his palm heel against the wall-mounted metal plate that opened and closed the door from inside.

No response. The vaultlike door remained closed.

The beam switched off. The overheads shaded into brightness. The cart and its contents were a still-glowing, seething mass of half-melted slag sizzling away in a puddle of molten metal.

The laser gun swung right, hard right. Jack had intended to run along the long walkway and outrace the limits of the cannon’s angle of traverse, putting him safely beyond the reach of the beam. He now saw that the gun’s free-swinging swiftness would block his ploy.

He checked and abruptly reversed course, running in the opposite direction back toward the corner. At the same time the red beam licked out, stabbing the long wall several yards farther up the walkway.

The beam operator—who?—had calculated Jack’s gambit and struck to overturn it. Had Jack continued on his original path, he would have run straight into the beam and
suffered McCoy’s fate. Instead, his sudden reversal took him away from the beam.

For how long? There was no safety on the walkway, not at this end of the blockhouse. As if to underline that fact, the beam went dark and then thrust out again, trying to pin Jack in the corner.

Jack had guessed the unseen beam operator’s intention. Instead of retreating, he moved forward at a tangent toward the edge of the Pit. The tank floor was about ten feet below. Jack lay flat, hooked his hands over the edge, and lowered himself down the sidewall. Hanging by his hands with arms extended, he had a short drop to the sunken floor.