She ate, her mind on trying to figure out how the attackers had made it up the mountain without setting off Mother’s sensors, let alone getting inside the facility. The park wasn’t open, the day guards weren’t there, but the checkpoints she usually had to go through were enough to catch anyone trying to sneak in. The inspectors scheduled to arrive had probably been turned back when Mother went down, so that cut them out of the equation. The day shift? Had those scientists been accounted for? And the data? Her work?
The elusive “they” had known how Mother operated, knew how to get close enough to shut Mother down. So much for state-of-the-art security and technology. She tried to remember if the emergency lights were on when she got off the elevator. She couldn’t recall anything except Corporal Tanner dropping like a stone, helpless and bleeding to death, and the gunman who’d killed him, pointing his weapon at her heart.
Shaking off the fear, she mentally plucked at the events since she’d arrived at work just before midnight. Arrived by car—a chauffeur was a perk of the job so cars weren’t seen outside the facility when tours weren’t operating. Day security parked with the tourists and walked. During park hours, only two guards were outside the facility, dressed like guides for the caverns or mingling with tourists. Sydney suspected they were just downright lucky to be on their way to work at the time. Key locks and codes, hidden steel enforced doors, palm scans; in the cold room was a retinal scanner. All sensors linked to Mother, then from Mother to someone who knew what all that stuff meant, somewhere in Langley. Three Marines were inside the Cradle twenty-four seven, shift changes were at 2200 hours, and they left in civilian clothes. Corporal Tanner favored baggy khakis and big shirts, she recalled, her throat tightening.
All information was filtered and yet, she understood there were at least fourteen possible leaks in military personnel and scientists. Then there was the Defense Department, finance committee members, NSC, their staff. Anyone who could get a look at certain “eyes only” papers if one DOD personnel slipped up. But she doubted that. Data went to the Under Secretary of Defense first, then was filtered down. She frowned, chewing the last bite and dusting off her fingertips.
At least she was told that’s how it worked. Security wasn’t her bag.
She dove into the Ben and Jerry’s, which was just the right consistency for her to finish off what was left in the pint in record time. She was glad now she hadn’t given her unexpected savior her name. It was a little too convenient that he was in the forest and armed at the time. Deer or no deer. Was he part of it or had he been stationed there to stop a suspected attack? Why, then, hadn’t she been warned? She was the project manager; it was her research that garnered millions from the government and enabled the Cradle to exist. Okay, think smart. If he’d been part of it, he’d have killed her instead of risking his life to protect her.
Tossing the spoon into the empty pint, she glanced at her watchdogs. Combs looked at her, bland and so very special agent–like.
“Get the chief up here. I have some things to tell him.”
“He’s got his hands full right now.”
And you don’t have the clearance to take my statement, she thought snidely. “Really? Well how about you tell him my ID tag, which I had on this morning, is missing.”
Combs’s features tightened, the first sign of life. He grabbed the radio.
Cisco’s people found chute packs, and another body. Two terrorists and three dead Marines, and motorcycle tracks. Worst case, no one was alive up here to have heard anything. Except Dr. Hale. He had to assume that everyone inside the facility had been killed by the attackers—too many dead aboveground to believe otherwise.
He couldn’t order the air compressor to the Cradle turned on if the vials were broken. The toxicity would kill everyone aboveground. Below ground, a dozen people were dead, or dying.
Standing under a tree, Cisco tried to comprehend what happened. The intruders had dropped silent and waited to take out Mother. How they did that was a mystery in itself, but somehow they managed to delay the internal alarms, or he would have heard about it before it was too late—and it was painfully late. Stupid place to put a lab, he thought.
“Wick. Contact SETI and see if anyone reported a UFO; assign men to canvas any homes in the valley. If they parachuted in, someone might have seen something.” Not that it would do him much good, he thought. “I need satellite photos of this area, from twenty two hundred yesterday till now.”
“I can do that. But infrared didn’t tell us anything. Not even showing the men running when, with all the footprints, is proof positive they were here.”
Cisco braced his back on the tree. It was a beautiful day. “You’re getting slow, Wick. You didn’t notice the suit, the black fabric, but more specifically, the lining.”
Wick frowned, and remembered Cisco pulling out threads through the bullet holes.
“It keeps the body temperature even to avoid infrared. Those particular thermal liners are classified. They knew we could track them, so they chilled themselves up for it.”
“Great. Now what?”
“We need delayed infrared, Six A.M. to sunrise. After the attack. They might have chilled up, but not the motorcycle engines. Cast the tracks and footprints, I want to see if the ones near the Marines match any we find here near the escape hatch.”
“I know I’m going to really feel stupid for asking, but why?”
“Dr. Hale got out of here alive, was she the only one? Why?”
“Evasion? Luck?”
Cisco shook his head. “The escape hatch.”
Wick frowned down at his notes. “Her checkpoint is logged in at the HQ. Her palm print says she was in there. I don’t get it.”
“She was. But she wasn’t inside the facility at the time of the attack.”
Wick looked at him blandly. “I take it back, I wanna be you.”
Cisco scoffed, pushed off from the tree and started walking.
“You really think she had something to do with this?”
Cisco didn’t answer, and Wickum drew his own conclusions.
Four
Never leave a man behind.
It clawed at Jack, brewed in his chest with the grief he’d suppressed for the last couple of hours. He dealt with it the way he always had. He shoved it to the back of his mind while he addressed the here and now. There’d be time enough later to drink to the dead.
Parked in an alley a couple blocks from his house, he watched his place, smoking a stale cigarette he found in a crushed pack under the seat. He didn’t know if the cops and NSA had shared information yet, but he wasn’t taking a chance at getting hauled in before he learned more about Hale and what really happened on that mountain.
Time to call in some favors. He dialed his cell phone. The pick-up was instant.
“Hey, Jack.”
Caller ID at NCIS. He’d have to remember that. “Hutch, I need a favor.”
“Name it.”
“You been contacted by NSA?”
“No.” A pause and then, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t say. Not yet. Run a check for me.” He pulled out the ID tag and read off the name.
Jack heard the computer keys tapping.
“Nothing. No record, no address. You sure this woman exists?”
Her