Gideon's Sword (75 page)

Searching around, I still don’t see a way out. Not even a window.

“There!” Viv yells, pointing to her right, just past all the red wagons.

As I follow behind her, she runs toward a narrow wooden door that looks like a closet. “You sure that’s it?” I call out.

She doesn’t bother to answer.

Moving in closer, I finally see what’s got her so excited—not just the small door, but the sliver of bright light that’s peeking through underneath. After all that time underground, I know daylight when I see it.

I’m two steps behind Viv as she throws the door open. It’s like coming out of a dark movie theater and stepping straight into the sun. The blast of sunlight burns my eyes in the best way possible. The whole world lights up with fall colors—orange and red leaves… the baby blue sky—that seem neon when compared with the mud below. Even the air—forget that recycled stuff downstairs; as I head up the dirt road in front of us, the sweet smell of plum bushes fills my nose.

“And on the tenth day, God created candy,” Viv sings, sniffing the air for herself. She stares around to take it all in, but I grab her by the wrist.

“Don’t stop now,” I say, tugging her up the dirt road. “Not until we’re out of here.”

Two hundred yards to our left, above the trees, the triangular outline of the main Homestead building slices toward the sky. It takes me a second to get my bearings, but from what I can tell, we’re on the opposite side of the parking lot from where we first started.

A loud siren bursts through the air. I follow it to a bullhorn up on the metal teepee building. There goes the alarm.

“Don’t run,” Viv says, slowing us down even more. She’s right about that. On the steps of one of the construction trailers, a stocky man with overalls and a buzz cut glances our way. I slow to a casual walk and nod my mining helmet at him. He nods right back. We may not have the overalls, but with the helmets and orange vests, we’ve at least got part of the costume.

A half-dozen men run toward the main mining entrance. Following the road past the trailers, we head in the opposite direction, letting it lead us back to the parking lot. A quick scan around tells me everything’s just as we left it. Tons of cruddy old pickup trucks, two classic Harleys, and—Wait… something’s new…

One shiny Ford Explorer.

“Hold on a sec,” I say to Viv, who’s already climbing into our Suburban.

“What’re you doing?”

Without answering, I peek through the side window. There’s a map with a Hertz logo on the passenger seat.

“Harris, let’s go! The alarm…!”

“In a minute,” I call back. “I just want to check one thing…”

55

H
OIST…” THE FEMALE
operator answered.

“You were supposed to bring the cage straight here!” Janos shouted into the receiver.

“I-I did.”

“You sure about that? It didn’t make any other stops?”

“No… not one,” she replied. “There was no one in it—why would I make it stop anywhere?”

“If there was no one in it, why was it even
moving?!
” Janos roared, looking around at the empty room of the basement.

“Th-That’s what he asked me to do. He said it was important.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“He said I should bring both cages to the top…”

Janos clamped his eyes shut as the woman said the words. How could he possibly miss it? “There’re
two
cages?” he asked.

“Sure, one for each shaft. You have to have two—for safety. He said he had stuff to move from one to the other…”

Janos gripped the receiver even tighter. “Who’s he?”

“Mike… he said his name was Mike,” the woman explained. “From Wendell.”

Locking his jaw, Janos turned slightly, peering over his shoulder at the tunnel that led outside. His cagey eyes barely blinked.

“Sorry,” the operator pleaded. “I figured if he was from Wendell, I should—”

With a loud slam, Janos rammed the receiver back in its cradle and took off for the basement stairs. A shrill alarm screamed through the room, echoing up and down the open shaft. In a flash, Janos was gone.

Rushing up the stairs two at a time, Janos burst outside the red brick building and tore back toward the gravel parking lot. On the concrete path in front of him, the man in the
Spring Break
T-shirt was the only thing blocking his way. With the alarm wailing from above, the man took a long look at Janos.

“Can I help you with something?” the man asked, motioning with his clipboard.

Janos ignored him.

The man stepped closer, trying to cut him off. “Sir, I asked you a question. Did you hear what I—?”

Janos whipped the clipboard from the man’s hands and jammed it as hard as he could against his windpipe. As Spring Break doubled over, clutching his throat, Janos stayed focused on the parking lot, where the black Suburban was just pulling out of its spot.

“Shelley…!” a fellow miner shouted, rushing to Spring Break’s aid.

Locked on the gleaming black truck, Janos raced for the lot—but just as he got there, the Suburban peeled out, kicking a spray of gravel through the air. Undeterred, Janos went straight to his own Explorer. Harris and Viv
barely had a ten-second head start. On a two-lane road. It’d be over in no time. But as he reached the Explorer, he almost bumped his head getting inside. Something was wrong. Stepping back, he took another look at the side of the truck. Then the tires. They were all flat.

“Damn!” Janos screamed, punching the side mirror and shattering it with his fist.

Behind him, there was a loud crunch in the gravel. “That’s him,” someone said.

Spinning around, Janos turned just in time to see four pissed-off miners who now had him cornered between the two cars. Behind them, the man with the
Spring Break ’94
T-shirt was just catching his breath.

Moving in toward Janos, the miners grinned darkly.

Janos grinned right back.

56

W
ITH MY EYES ON THE
rearview mirror, I veer to the right, pull off the highway, and follow the signs for the Rapid City airport. There’s a maroon Toyota in front of us that’s moving unusually slow, but I’m still watching our rear. It’s barely been two hours since we blew out of the mine parking lot, but until we’re on that plane and the wheels are off the ground, Janos still has a shot—a shot he’s aiming straight at our heads. Slamming my fist against the steering wheel, I honk at the maroon car. “C’mon,
drive!
” I shout.

When it doesn’t budge, I weave onto the shoulder of the road, punch the gas, and leave the Toyota behind us. Next to me, Viv doesn’t even look up. Since the moment we left, she’s been reading every single word in the
Midas Project
notebook.

“And…?”

“Nothing,” she says, flipping the notebook shut and checking her side mirror for herself. “Two hundred pages of nothing but dates and ten-digit numbers. Every once in a while, they threw in someone’s initials—
JM… VS…
there’s a few
SC
s—but otherwise, I’m guessing it’s just a delivery schedule.”

Viv holds the book up to show me; I look away from the road to check the schedule for myself.

“What’s the earliest date in there?” I ask.

Resting it back on her lap, Viv flips to the first page. “Almost six months ago. April fourth, 7:36
A.M
.—item number 1015321410,” she reads from the schedule. “You’re right about one thing—they’ve definitely been working on this for a bit. I guess they figured getting the authorization in the bill was just a formality.”

“Yeah, well… thanks to me and Matthew, it almost was.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“But it almost was.”

“Harris…”

I’m in no mood for a debate. Pointing back to the notebook, I add, “So there’s no master list to help decipher the codes?”

“That’s why they call ’em codes. 1015321410… 1116225727… 1525161210…”

“Those are the photomultiplier tubes,” I interrupt. She looks up from the book. “Wha?”

“The bar codes. In the lab. That last one was the bar code on all the photomultiplier boxes.”

“And you remember that?”

From my pocket, I pull out the sticker I ripped off earlier and slap it against the center of the dashboard. It sticks in place. “Am I right?” I ask as Viv rechecks the numbers.

She nods, then looks down, falling silent. Her hand snakes into her slacks, where I spot the rectangular outline of her Senate ID badge. She pulls it out for a split second and steals a glance at her mom. I look away, pretending not to see.

Avoiding the main entrance for the airport, I head for the private air terminal and turn into the parking lot outside an enormous blue hangar. We’re the only car there. I take it as a good sign.

“So what do you think the tubes and the mercury and the dry-cleaning smell is for?” Viv asks as we get out of the car.

I stay silent as we head under a bright red canopy and follow the sign marked
Lobby
. Inside, there’s an executive lounge with oak furniture, a big flat-screen TV, and a Native American rug. Just like the one Matthew used to have in his office.

“Senator Stevens’s party?” a short-haired blond asks from behind the reception desk.

“That’s us,” I reply. Pointing over my shoulder, I add, “I didn’t know where to return the car…”

“There is fine. We’ll have it picked up for you, sir.” It’s one less thing to worry about, but it doesn’t even come close to lightening my load. “So the plane is all set to go?”

“I’ll let the pilot know you’re here,” she says, picking up the phone. “Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

I look over at Viv, then down at the notebook in her hands. We need to figure out what’s going on—and the way I left things in D.C., there’s still one place I need to follow up on. “Do you have a phone I can use?” I ask the woman at the reception desk. “Preferably somewhere private?”

“Of course, sir—upstairs and to the right is our conference room. Please help yourself.”

I give Viv a look.

“Right behind you,” Viv says as we head up the stairs.

The conference room has an octagonal table and a matching credenza that holds a saltwater aquarium. Viv
goes for the aquarium; I go for the window, which overlooks the front of the hangar. All’s clear. For now.

“So you never answered the question,” Viv says. “Whattya think that sphere in the lab is for?”

“No idea. But it’s clearly got something to do with neutrinos.”

She nods, remembering the words from the corner of each page. “And a neutrino…”

“I think it’s some type of subatomic particle.”

“Like a proton or electron?”

“I guess,” I say, staring back out the window. “Beyond that, you’re already out of my league.”

“So that’s it? That’s all we’ve got?”

“We can do more research when we get back.”

“But for all we know it could be good, though, right? It might be good.”

I finally look away from the window. “I don’t think it’s gonna be good.”

She doesn’t like that answer. “How can you be so sure?”

“You really think it’s something good?”

“I don’t know… maybe it’s just research—like a government lab or something. Or maybe they’re just trying to turn stuff into gold. That can’t hurt anyone, can it?”

“Turn stuff into gold?”

“The project is called
Midas.
”

“You really think it’s possible to turn things to gold?”

“You’re asking me? How should I know? Anything’s possible, right?”

I don’t respond. In the past two days, she’s relearned the answer to that one. But the way she bounces on her heels, she still hasn’t completely given up on it. “Maybe it’s something else with the Midas story,” she adds. “I mean, he turned his daughter into a statue, right? He do
anything else beside giving her the ultimate set of gold teeth?”

“Forget mythology—we should talk to someone who knows their science,” I point out. “Or who can at least tell us why people would bury a neutrino lab in a giant hole below the earth.”

“There we go—now we’re moving…”

“We can call the National Science Foundation. They helped us with some of the high-tech issues when we did hearings on the cloning bill last year.”