Fires of Midnight by Jon Land

Author:Jon Land
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

The hatch caved inward under the force of McCracken’s shoulder, revealing the expected presence of a second tunnel-like pipeline meeting the first to form a sharply slanted V. McCracken ran a chemical sensor across the walls and checked the readouts on the miniature LED screen.

“Clean, Indian,” he said to Wareagle. “Been a while since they dumped anything. Makes this our lucky day. We’ve got our road in.”

A difficult road, as it turned out, since going uphill along the cold, smooth surface was much harder than going down. With only the tube’s siding to use for handholds, Blaine found his progress coming painfully slow. It took over thirty minutes to reach the first break in the piping Group Six had secretly installed to link up with Brookhaven’s abandoned secondary toxic waste dumping system. Straight before them lay a hatchway, while the line itself banked sharply to the left.

Blaine ran his hands along the hatch. “What do you say we have a look behind this?”

Johnny had already broken out a fresh torch and was moving forward to take the first shift. He fired up the torch and started it along the top of the hatchway’s perimeter. Another thirty minutes passed with Blaine and Johnny trading places as they worked. McCracken was holding the torch when the blue-hot flame at last finished outlining the hatch’s perimeter at the weld points. This time no shoulder was required; the hatch simply dropped inward. Blaine shone his flashlight inside and saw what could only be described as a temporary holding chamber. A number of weapons already into production sat stockpiled against all four walls. McCracken quickly realized the ease with which they could be disposed of, thanks to the hold’s proximity to the dump hatch. That, of course, was the idea. In the event of attack or attempted takeover, the contents of this hold could simply be flushed away with the rest of the discharge originating elsewhere in the Group Six facility.

“This wasn’t on the plans, Indian.”

“We are beneath the complex’s final sublevel, Blainey. This chamber must link up with a tunnel that runs most of the length of Group Six.” Johnny swept his flashlight about. “Through there.”

McCracken’s eyes followed the beam. “Doesn’t look good.”

The room’s only door resembled that of a bank vault, much too thick to break through with either the torch or the explosives they had brought along.

Blaine moved closer to the door and ran the flashlight’s beam down its length slowly. “Electronic seal alterable only from the outside, unless we can figure out a way to short-circuit it from in here.”

“The control panel must be inside one of these walls.”

“Let’s see if we can find it, Indian.”

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