Empire (39 page)

Only Cat was with Cole now, moving together near but not on the crest of the ridge between lakes. Occasionally they would cross over the ridge and move down the other side, since they were observing the far shores of both lakes now.

They were near the peak of the ridge now, approaching the observation tower. Now they moved even more stealthily, moving slowly and methodically toward the tower from two different directions. There was no sign of any kind of wiring, though that hardly proved that there
was
no wiring. Nor was there any sign of cameras—but, again, that might simply mean that the cameras were very small and well concealed.

In the southwest, clouds were building. A summer thunderstorm? That would be potentially disastrous—lightning could do worse things than an EMP gun. Even fog would be irritating, forcing them to wait till it cleared to complete the mission.

Cole crept back away from the cleared area around the tower; he knew Cat was doing the same. They would move slowly around to two other vantage points and inspect the other two sides of the tower.

It was in the midst of this maneuver that Cole's receiver vibrated. He immediately began backing farther away from the tower. He pressed the go-ahead button.

“Mingo here,” said Mingo. He was talking softly, but articulating very clearly. “Come down to the area twenty feet above the clear-cut zone. Right where you are, just go down. No structures, no sign of tunneling, but something you need to see.”

Cole pressed the go-ahead button again, requesting more information without having to speak aloud.

“If you don't see it, then we're crazy,” said Mingo. “I'm not going to predispose you.”

Cole pressed the code for Cat, knowing he had heard. Cole whispered, “Down to Genesseret.”

It took only fifteen minutes to move, relatively noiselessly, to the zone twenty feet or so above the clear-cut zone. Whatever they were supposed to see, Cole couldn't see it.

And then he could. The ground was suddenly wet underfoot.

Cat noticed it, too. He moved toward Cole and when they were near enough, said in a low voice, “Somebody ran the sprinklers this morning.”

The ground was sodden, as if it had been heavily watered. From about fifteen feet above the waterline, the pine needles no longer carpeted the forest floor in a natural way. They had been carried downward as if by receding water, hanging up on tufts of grass, roots, rocks, any obstruction, the way floating pine needles would when the water drained away.

Cole switched on his transceiver and coded for Mingo. “Is this about even with the top of the dam?”

“From what we can see,” said Mingo, “it
could
go ten feet higher. But the line is absolute. Everything below it soaked, everything above it as dry as normal. Benny has me for ten that this lake has been fifteen feet higher within the last twenty-four hours. Which is impossible and/or weird.”

“You bet against him, though.”

“Somebody had to,” said Mingo. “It's how he pays for food.”

“Anything else on our side?” asked Cole.

“Nothing.”

“And we've seen nothing on yours. Anything near the dam?”

“Just the old road 20, where it dives down under the water. The new road's on our side, but it's already overgrown with grass and saplings. Nobody's using it.”

Cole sat and thought for a while. This obvious change in the water level was weird, but it was hard to see what the point of it would be. Why would they have released so much water, so rapidly? The lake was small, as reservoirs go, but it was still millions of gallons of water. By now Mingo had probably figured out approximately how much. He asked.

“If it was all released in a single flow, it would be enough to cause flooding downstream,” said Mingo. “The valley floor is populated. The neighbors would complain. Cole, this water was here, no more than a day ago. It went somewhere.”

Mingo was a civil engineer and it was his business to be able to make guesses that were worth something.

“Any sign of it draining right now?” asked Cole.

“No,” said Mingo. “In fact, it's at the
usual
waterline right now. Where the vegetation changes. The high level seems to be the rare condition.”

“Heavy rainstorms here lately?”

“No,” said Benny. “Dryish summer for this area.”

“Rain heavy enough to raise the water level this high, you would have seen it on the news. ‘Washington State washed out to sea,' that would have been the story.”

“Somehow they're raising and lowering the water level of the lake by massive amounts,” said Cole, “and I can't think of a single reason why.”

“I'm still trying to think of how,” said Mingo.

“Anybody get close enough to the shoreline on Chinnereth to see if it does the same?” asked Cole.

“Drew here. We reconnoitered the shoreline while we were waiting. Nothing like what you describe. The shoreline was the first wet area. No flooding higher up.”

“Load here. Ditto. If the water level rose fifteen feet on Chinnereth, it would flood that cabin.”

Cole sat and thought for a long moment.

“Maybe they dumped a huge amount of rubble in here,” said Mingo. “That would raise the level. But that wouldn't explain why it went back down.”

“No roads where they could dump the rubble,” said Benny.

“While we're complaining about what they don't have here,” said Load. “I don't remember seeing any power lines running away from this dam.”

“No, there were power lines,” said Benny.

“And a power station? Lots of transformers? Where?”

“No. Nothing like that,” said Benny. “But definitely power lines. No, wait. They ran along Highway 12. But I never saw them link up with the dams. Sorry.”

“This was officially a hydroelectic project,” said Cole. “There are turbines in the dams.”

“So maybe they use the power right here,” said Cat. “In their vast system of underground factories and training facilities.”

“Cat and I are going back up to the observation tower to check whether there's any kind of vent up there for an underground system.”

They all switched off their transmitters. It was harder going uphill. But not slower. That's what all the stairstepping and rock climbing were for.

Now Cole knew what to look for, he climbed a tree well back from the cleared perimeter and scanned for some kind of pipe or vent hidden in the tall grass.

Bingo. There were about two dozen small pipes, sticking up only a few inches above the ground before they bent over to keep water from coming in. At ground level you couldn't see them for the grass.

Cole pointed his soundcatcher toward them and was able to pick up a difference between the pipes and the surrounding area. They were connected to something that was actively producing noise.

He climbed back down the tree and backed away from the cleared area, heading down the Chinnereth slope this time. Cat was soon near him, though they did not talk and remained fifty feet apart as they made their way down the slope.

Near the cleared edge of the woods, but not close enough to be seen, they stopped and Cole approached Cat. Across the water, the cabin sat on its little island. It had a chimney, which might very well contain vents for more underground structures.

It might also contain something else. An entrance.

“I think I'm going for a swim,” said Cole.

“I was having the same thought,” said Cat.

Cole switched on his transmitter. “We're on the west shore of Chinnereth, just west of the cabin. Cat and I are going to swim across to see if there's an entrance there.”

“Water's gonna be cold,
abun
,” said Babe. “You two gonna have little tiny dicks when you get there.”

“Least I'll still have one,” said Cat.

“We won't go for another half hour,” said Cole. “Drew and Babe, bring the SMAW down near the waterline in case we need some backup. Load and Arty, you get to Chinnereth shoreline nearest to the cabin. Benny and Mingo, you can't get here in time to be useful. So go north, get to Highway 12, but stay in infra range. If we confirm that this is the place, get to where you can make contact with Torrent so he can send in a strike force.”

“I don't know what you just figured out,” said Babe.

“That's because you're in public relations,” said Mingo, “and I'm an engineer.”

“Thought that meant you drove trains,” said Babe.

“There are standpipes in the tall grass under the observation tower,” said Cole. “There's machinery operating underground.”

“And the water,” said Mingo. “Only place where it could go is from one lake into the other. Anything else would be too obvious. They must pump it out of Chinnereth, uphill, into Genesseret, using all that electricity they've stored up. Genesseret rises, Chinnereth falls. Exposing their doorway. They go in or out, whatever, and when they're done, they seal the watertight entrance and let the water flood back downhill to fill it back up. Genesseret drops back to normal, Chinnereth rises.”

“You can't
know
that,” said Babe.

“No other possibility,” said Mingo. “Word, man.”

“The ultimate moat,” said Drew.

“That's a lot of water to move,” said Babe.

“The federal government paid for the whole thing,” said Benny. “Your tax dollars at work.”

“So why are you going out to the island?” asked Arty.

“We're almost sure,” said Cole. “But are we sure
enough
to call in a strike force yet?”

“They got to have a back door,” said Mingo. “Can't drain the lake every time somebody's got to go outside to smoke.”

“Boat,” said Cat.

They switched their transmitters off.

A small motorboat was coming up the lake from the area of the dam. Heading for them or for the island? Had their chatter been detected? Even if they couldn't decode the scrambled signal, they'd know somebody was there.

But the boat pulled up to the little dock on the island.

And waited.

And waited. The driver of the boat didn't seem particularly alert. Like a cabdriver waiting for a fare.

The door of the cabin opened. Four men came out.

“Is any of them Verus?” asked Cole.

Cat looked through his binoculars. “No,” he said. “You recognize any of them?”

Cole took the binoculars. The men wore suits. He thought he might have seen one of them on television. The news, probably, since he didn't look like an actor. But he didn't remember who or when.

The men got into the boat and it pulled away from the dock. The boat headed on down the lake.

Cole took off his pack. He quickly inflated the floats on it and attached his weapons and boots to the top. The floats were widely spaced enough for it to be stable, at least on smooth water. Top-heavy, but it wouldn't tip. He attached the towline to it and shrugged on the harness. Cat was doing the same.

“Never much call to use these in Afghanistan or Sudan,” Cat said.

“Nice to get a chance to test out all the equipment,” said Cole.

“Glad you're so white,” said Cat. “Easier target on the water.”

Cole just grinned at him.

Then he moved swiftly down the slope and into the water. It was cold, but he didn't hesitate. His body went into that momentary shock and he trembled a little, but as soon as he had laid the miniraft of his pack down on the water, he immersed himself and began swimming in long, steady strokes, dragging the pack behind him. He broke water as gently as possible. But if someone was watching, there's no way he wouldn't be visible on the calm surface of the water.

Having their main entrance hidden under water explained why they didn't have a lot of patrols. Patrols would be seen. Encounters with civilians would leave memories.

Of course, so would letting a civilian see the lakes drain. It was so easy to get here. Hikers might do it at any time.

Easy? Not so easy. They had moved very cautiously. They had made little noise and made sure to stay out of sight. Maybe regular hikers
were
detected, and either they didn't drain the lake until they had passed or they'd send somebody out dressed in a ranger uniform to send them on their way.

It was so
cold
. He could feel his body reacting to it, struggling to stay warm. But they were most of the way to the island now. Not much longer. He glanced around to see Cat was only a little bit behind him.

Cat pointed toward the island and started swimming faster.

The island was rising.

Which meant the water level was falling.

Just a little way below the waterline, the island stopped being a hill. It was a thick pillar, solid concrete. Of course. There wouldn't be an island here. They had built it.

The dock was now hanging in midair; the pillars of the dock were actually resting on steel beams jutting out from the concrete wall of the island. Under the dock, there was a ladder rising up to the level of the beams. From there, it looked easy enough to get to the short wooden swimmer's ladder.

What was going to be hard was climbing that ladder without being seen.

Cole and Cat got to the base of the ladder at about the same time. The water was still sinking. But it wasn't getting warmer.

“Can't stay in this,” said Cat.

“Can't climb,” said Cole. “They'll see us.”

Back on the shore they had come from, only about a hundred yards closer to the dam, a heavy concrete wall was being revealed. Huge steel doors looked like they could withstand the water pressure just fine. But once the water sank low enough, and those doors
opened, anybody coming out of them would have a clear shot at anybody climbing the ladder.

Cole clung to the ladder with his legs as he worked the pack back onto his shoulders. It was hard—his fingers were numb and he was shivering. Cat was having the same amount of trouble.