Origin (29 page)

She soon started to feel the effects. The first thing she noticed, after only thirty seconds of hard acceleration, was a progressive blurring and greying of her vision, the long tunnel ahead of her losing all colour and clarity. She closed her eyes to try and gather herself, but soon started to feel nauseated.

Opening her eyes once more, she experienced an intense tunnel vision. The fact that she was in a tunnel anyway didn’t help, but her range of vision was becoming progressively – and rapidly – diminished. She had no idea how fast they were going but she knew that the tunnel was five miles long. Even at two hundred miles per hour, the journey would take longer than one and a half minutes, and she was unsure how much time had already elapsed. How much longer could she hold out? She felt her vision start to fail completely, blackout coming on fast now, and knew that unconsciousness would follow soon after, with death being a significant possibility.

Blackness started to creep into the corners of her vision, and she knew all would soon be lost, but then she felt the cart slowing; it was gradual but she could sense the deceleration, and as the cart slowed, her senses started to come back to her. First the blackness ebbed away, then the tunnel widened out ahead of her, and then finally colours returned and her perception cleared totally as the cart continued to slow until it came to a complete stop.

Her hand went to the side of the cart for support as she was hit by another wave of nausea, her head swimming, but then she felt a hand on her arm, and turned to see Adams looking at her through bleary eyes.

‘Come on,’ he said weakly, pulling her by the arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Colonel Briscoe Caines stood at the main bank of monitors in the Main Security Building, a large brick structure located next to the new base headquarters, in the dead centre of the plethora of other buildings that littered Area 51.

Caines was in overall command of physical security at the base, a task he carried out with ruthless dedication. He had been a major in the US Special Forces before transferring to the Defence Intelligence Agency, where he had risen to the rank of full colonel before moving to Area 51.

Although his appointment had been made by the US military, in cooperation with the CIA, he had really been co-opted by his old friend Stephen Jacobs and was under no illusions about who really led security at the base: Commander Eldridge and the men of Alpha Brigade. Eldridge and his cronies had, however, recently decamped to Geneva, leaving Caines alone to clean up this mess.

He had been woken up when the emergency call had come through ten minutes before, the watch officer in something of a blind panic. He swung his feet out of the bed in his private room in the dormitories to the rear of the MSB and started to get dressed even as he listened to the report.

An emergency distress signal had been sent to the guard room on Level 34 from Laboratory 8 two levels below, from Professor Travers. It seemed that the two captives who had recently been brought to the base had overpowered the two guards assigned to them, along with two of the interrogators, and had managed to convince Dr Steinberg to try and get them out. Caines had scoffed when he heard that – what possible chance did they have?

But then it became apparent that they were headed to the Roosevelt Exit, and all of a sudden the possiblity became somewhat more real. Ordering a section of men to hunt the escapees down through the vast corridors of Level 36, and all other base security personnel to be on immediate standby, he left the officers’ dormitory at a full run, getting to the MSB in record time.

By the time he got there, however, things had gone even more wrong. Although Steinberg had been killed, Adams and Edwards had made it into the escape tunnel and had vanished towards the exit in the magneto-electric cart.

‘Converge on Groom Lake Road!’ he yelled into his radio mouthpiece, panic creeping now into his own voice. ‘All units!’

A
DAMS HOISTED
L
YNN
out of the cart and pointed upwards. The rail track stopped several feet from the end of the tunnel, which turned sharply upwards into a short vertical shaft. A ladder was bolted to the wall, which snaked its way up through the dark cylinder to what looked like some sort of submarine hatch.

Adams started climbing the ladder and Lynn followed him immediately, turning to look back down the long tunnel for only a second to make sure that they were still alone.

Her head had recovered from the shock of the cart’s acceleration, and the nausea had now left her completely, although her stomach still felt more than a little nervous, given that they still had to make good their escape from the most secure military base in the world; and not only was there a team of trained killers hot on their heels behind them, they had no idea whatsoever what would be on the other side of the hatch above them. Still, she stayed close behind Adams, watching as he reached the top and entwined his feet in the rungs so that he could brace himself to open the metal hatch.

He tried to twist the circular spin lock but it was too tight.

He looked down at her. ‘Damn thing’s rusted shut,’ he said sourly. ‘Probably hasn’t been opened in the last fifty years.’

Despite the seeming pointlessness of it, he turned back and twisted again, until he was red in the face and the skin on his hands started to blister. But still it wouldn’t move, the inoperable hatch teasing them cruelly with the possibility of escape just beyond.

Caines checked the monitors. Although the corridors of Level 36 were conspicuously absent of security cameras, being almost completely off the grid, the team headed up by Captain Aldo Barnes was feeding images back to him from their own helmet-mounted imagers.

He was happy to see that Barnes had had the foresight to bring some L-84 ‘Ramcarts’ down from the upper guardroom. The vehicle was basically a modified golf buggy, and although not anywhere near as fast as the device that had whisked the escapees away at such high speed, it was considerably faster than making the pursuit down the tunnels on foot.

Caines watched as half of the men managed to squeeze into the two small vehicles and then took off up the tunnel at a rapid thirty miles an hour, while the rest of the men started to jog along behind them. Then he turned away to check on the progress of his other units, who were headed for the tunnel’s surface exit.

Barnes took point in the lead buggy, the noise of the diesel engines deafening in the confines of the narrow tunnel, a savage grin on his face as he checked the magazine on his Steyr AUG assault rifle. The couple just a few miles up ahead had left two of his men unconscious on the floor back in the interrogation rooms, a professional insult to Barnes, and one that would soon be avenged.

Adams heard the noise of the engines first, even with his ears pulsing with blood from the pressure inside his head as he continued to struggle against the spinlock.

The damn guards must have brought some sort of vehicles into the tunnel and would be upon them a lot sooner than Adams had hoped. A team of armed men on foot would probably have taken close to an hour to reach them. But in motorized transport? It depended on the exact speed, of course, but it would certainly be a lot less than an hour, that was for sure. It could even be as little as a few minutes.

Adams looked down at Lynn, saw that she, too, had heard the roar of engines; could see the look of worry in her eyes, not only for themselves but also for the unborn child she now knew was growing in her belly.

Adams turned back to the cursed, rusted hatch and attacked it with renewed ferocity. The damn thing was going to open one way or another; he could not let it be otherwise.

Moments later, he felt Lynn move up beside him, feet entwined with his, her back braced against the tunnel wall opposite.

She smiled reassuringly at him, reaching up to take hold of the opposite side of the lock. She looked at him, more than simple love transmitted by her gaze; it was understanding, belief, mutual recognition of their deepest feelings for one another.

‘Let’s do it together, OK?’ she said to him, and Adams knew that she wasn’t just talking about opening the hatch.

He returned her look with one of his own, one that he hoped transmitted just as much to her, and nodded his head.

‘On the count of three, we both twist together,’ he said, as the noise of the diesel engines grew louder and louder.

‘One,’ he said, as they both tightened their hands around the stainless steel hatch seal. ‘Two,’ he continued, taking a deep breath. ‘Three!’ he shouted, and they both hauled on the ring as hard as they could, muscles contracting with such force that the veins started to pulse blue in their foreheads, threatening to burst from their skin.

At first there was nothing, not even a hint of movement, but as both of them continued to exert an almost inhuman level of force, there came the very first slip of metal on metal, a grinding sound and slight judder that they both felt through their hands.

Adams looked at Lynn, unable to talk with the effort; but his eyes said it all.
We’re almost there! Harder!

T
HE
R
AMCART BUGGIES
built up to their maximum speed of fifty miles per hour just one mile into the long tunnel, and Barnes calculated that they would reach the end within seven minutes of setting off from the disguised elevator entrance.

He checked his watch as six minutes came around, gesturing for his men to get ready. They would make the assault as soon as they arrived, hit the two escapees hard and fast.

And then he saw the end of the tunnel coming up, the cart abandoned. The man and woman were not readily apparent, which meant that they were probably stuck up the access tunnel, struggling to open the metal hatch.

Barnes smiled to himself; the hatch was as good as welded shut from years of neglect. It was on the ‘to do’ list but always seemed to be one of the things that never got done.

The buggies cruised to a stop and Barnes and his men spilled out into the tunnel, guns raised, sprinting towards the vertical shaft. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Two of his men got there before him, assault rifles pointing vertically up the short exit tunnel. Barnes was momentarily confused when no shots were fired, but then he was there, looking up towards the hatch himself, and understood in an instant.

For there was nothing there to shoot at; the shaft was empty, the steel hatch open to the night sky above.

Adams and Lynn had finally managed to turn the steel rim enough to break the rusty seal, the sound of tortured metal giving way to a freer, easier movement, until the hatch had opened fully.

Dirt and soil had collapsed on their heads as Adams pushed the hatch gingerly open, and he held it open a few inches as he and Lynn moved to the side and waited for the soil to work its way down to the tunnel floor.

Adams pushed again, and although he met with resistance, he continued the effort until it was halfway open. For reasons of safety, he hadn’t wanted to open it all the way anyway, as he didn’t want to attract too much attention if there were any guards in the vicinity. He presumed that the guards from Level 36 would have issued a general alert, and that they may therefore have already reached the tunnel exit, if they could find it.

Holding it open just enough for someone to crawl through, he gestured for Lynn to come across to him. She transferred to the ladder side, bracing herself as she took the weight of the hatch. Adams pulled out his handgun, kissed Lynn quickly on the lips, and edged his way slowly out into the moonlit night.

He kept his profile low to the ground, slipping out of the semi-open hatch slowly and silently. Once his upper torso was out, he stopped and monitored the immediate area, keeping his head still while his eyes roved.

There was no movement, of that he could be pretty sure. He was an expert in tracking animals at night and was used to searching for movement even on the darkest nights; but here there were no telltale signs whatsoever. But that wasn’t to say that there wasn’t anybody further out, monitoring them electronically, or behind the hatch cover where he couldn’t see.

And so he slowly extricated himself from the hatch completely, allowing his body to turn in order to check the rear area as well. He swept the entire horizon for three hundred and sixty degrees, until he was happy that nobody was there.

But, now clear of the engine noise in the tunnels below, he began to pick up the noise of other engines, on the land, converging on them, and he knew security must know where they were and already be on their way.

He pulled up on to his haunches, reached for the hatch and ripped it open completely, the earth that had been resting on top now flung to the side. He reached further in and grasped Lynn by her arms, pulling her up and out of the tunnel in one smooth motion until her feet hit solid ground next to him.

He gestured to the noise of engines to their right, and Lynn followed his gaze. There was a high chain-link fence just twenty feet from them, and they could see the brightly lit runways just beyond the fence line. The noise was coming from the runway, and they quickly realized that armoured vehicles were approaching at speed, using the runway as a fast road. To their left, a narrow empty road ran far into the distance. Other than that, the area resembled the barren scrub of the Chilean and Peruvian deserts from which they had so recently escaped.

‘They’re on their way,’ Adams said to her. ‘We need to leave. Now!’

B
ARNES EMERGED FROM
the hatch as the headlights of four large off-road vehicles headed across the bumpy terrain towards him, body-mounted .50 calibre machine guns trained directly at him.

‘Stand down!’ he shouted into his tactical mic, tuned to the wavelength used by all the different elements of Area 51 security. He raised his arms as the lead vehicle’s searchlight hit him straight on, illuminating him perfectly.

The rest of his men poured up and out of the tunnel behind him as the four 4x4s steered to a stop around them.