Pitfall (15 page)

Eli had merely smiled and proceeded to write old man McAllister the biggest check anyone had ever seen. That stopped the questioning as surely as turning off a tap.

But not for long. It resumed when Eli brought in his own construction crew for the job, a firm no one around Harrisville had heard of. With calm assurance he smoothed things over, promising the people that once the dome was up and operational, there would be jobs at fair wages for anyone who wanted them. Again the naysayers grew quiet.

Eli’s builders began working around the clock, no matter the weather, the steady flow of taciturn men and large dirty vehicles unbroken. One year to the day after the ground had been turned, GeneSys was finished. A few days later an outside personnel company arrived, setting up temporary offices at the courthouse downtown. As promised, they hired for every position, including security.

And that’s where Shelly Thornhill came into the picture. She’d been divorced for two years, and money at her house was almost criminally tight. Which made what Eli Cross was offering so inviting.

Nearly fifty young men—and one woman, her—had shown up that day, for only twenty guard positions. Shelly was given the fish eye by the interviewer; it was obvious they only wanted males. Grudgingly she was told one of the requirements for the job was having proficiency with a firearm. 

“If they could just get past my gender, I knew I was in,” she said. “I grew up on a working ranch with three older brothers, so I was good with guns. What did I have to lose?”

After cooling her heels in the anteroom for nearly an hour, Shelly’s name was finally called, and she went into the jury room for her talk with the interviewer.

“It didn’t take long. When it was over, I hadn’t made the cut. I guess they were serious about wanting only men. It was just another bad turn in a road filled with them.”

She was turning to leave when she heard someone call her name. It was a scarred, thin man sitting at the far end of the review table, and he was staring intently at her. 

After asking her to take a seat, the man told her his name was Charles Cross, and he was head of security. Eli Cross was his father.

“At that point I could have cared less who he was.” Shelly’s tone was flat. “I hadn’t been given the job I needed so badly for me and my son. That GeneSys money would have literally saved us.”

But then a ray of light broke through. Cross told her he made final call on who was hired for his force, certainly not that fellow. He’d motioned back down the table, where the interviewer sat.

Cross went on to say that during the next week he was bringing in his own men for a different type of security work. They’d be performing tasks that need not concern her. Yet. He had a proposition for Shelly … if she was up for it.

Shelly shifted position. “I couldn’t imagine where he was going with this. And then he surprised me.”

Cross said Shelly’s questionnaire revealed she’d had firearms training, and allowed that, due to normal attrition, later on he might need to add to his special security force. He said he’d be willing to hire her for a probationary period in the regular force. If she did well there, the next opening on his personal squad would be hers, with a nice raise. 

“I was amazed at my luck,” Shelly said. “So I agreed.”

*

It was getting harder to see her. The sun was nearly completely down, the evening’s shadows spreading like pools of ink across the dry brown grass, but I didn’t want to drag my flashlight out of the car’s glove box unless it was absolutely necessary, for fear of drawing attention to ourselves. The crimson glory of the sunset on the ridge was doing dazzling things to her golden hair.

Reaching down and plucking a blade of grass, I rolled it between my fingers as I leaned back on one elbow. “So far I haven’t heard anything to really raise my hackles.”

“I’m getting there. I’m just trying to give you a feel for how things were around here then. And how they are now. Because Eli Cross brought the town hope, that’s true. But he also brought something else.” She stopped. I waited, but she seemed stymied.

“Yes?” I prodded.

“It was …” She fumbled for the words. “The only way to describe it is evil.” She paused again. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” That was exactly the feeling I’d gotten the first time I’d seen that ominous dome. “Go on.”

From somewhere she’d produced a handkerchief, and was unconsciously folding and unfolding it as she spoke. “I guess a better word than evil might be ‘twisted.’ Because whatever it was Eli Cross brought with him to Harrisville, the town began to change.”

Although the night was sweltering, an icy chill crawled up the back of my neck, slowly spreading throughout my entire body. “Change?”

“I’m not sure if I can describe it.” Shelly’s voice had gone as thick as oatmeal. “It was like something heavy had settled on us. Especially when Cross’s people arrived. And I don’t mean just his security force, either. People like Alicia Bancroft. You met her, right?”

I nodded.

“Of course you did.” She sounded flustered. “I saw you coming out of her office.”

“Where you’d decided to slip me your note.”

“There are more like her there. A lot more. And even worse.”

How could they be worse? I didn’t know, but I also didn’t interrupt.

“And then there are those old doctors,” she continued.

“Yeah. I noticed some of them.”

“The few times that they come into town they hang together like crows on a fence, not friendly at all. The town joke is they’re escaped war criminals. But that may not be a joke.” She paused again, speaking just above a whisper. “Not after what I’ve seen.”

Now we were getting to it. My question was soft. “And what have you seen, Shelly?”

“What I’ve seen …”

On the other side of the sky, a hunters’ moon was rising. The first pale edge had crested the hill, its ghastly light bathing her silhouette.

When she turned face-on to me, it was all in darkness. “Mr.  Brenner, I’ve seen the back door to hell.”

Chapter Twenty-one

T
here wasn’t much to say to that. Shelly Thornhill and I had come to the same conclusion about GeneSys. Neither of us spoke for several minutes, both lost in our own thoughts, watching the flashing of the lightning bugs. The only sounds were the faint rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the crickets.

Then I said, “You still haven’t said what triggered your coming to me for help.”

“This is so hard …” She hung, and then got it out in an awkward rush. “I know what some of the guards are doing to the prisoners at night.” From her tone I had a good idea what it was. “I hear them talking, bragging, comparing notes like high school boys … And I just can’t be part of that anymore, or the rest of what’s going on there, despite the money.”

Withholding comment, I let her get it out.

“But maybe you can stop them. To do it you’ll need access to the elevators. That’s how you get down to the dorms. On Level Six.” Another beat passed. “Using this key card.” She pulled it out of her pocket, making it flash a quick red-white in the torch’s glare. “Only Boneless’s guards get them. This will open any door in the place. Except Eli Cross’s.”

“Let me see it.”

She handed it over without hesitation. It was white, graced with a large red stylized diamond in the center. The reverse was also white, but blank, with a black data strip running along its longer edge.

As I examined it she said, “You don’t know how glad I am you’re here, Mr.  Brenner. The stuff at GeneSys that never bothered me before is driving me crazy now.”

“Like what?” I attempted to hand the card back, but she held up her hand, shaking her head, and wouldn’t take it.

“Like everything. And you keep it. I won’t need it anymore.”

Slipping it in my shirt pocket, I asked, “Why’s that?”

“They don’t know it yet, but I’m not going back.” She swallowed. “Ronnie and I are leaving tonight.”

“Really.” Not that blamed her, but I said, “You’ve been flirting with it, but you need to tell me what has you so scared.”

There was a lengthy pause. When she finally spoke, she sounded like someone who’d just been told they had a terminal illness. “Six months ago my promotion came through. That day my card was fully activated, but I didn’t need to use it until last night.” Again Shelly swallowed. “And that’s when I got to see first hand what GeneSys has been hiding.”

*

For the next half hour she haltingly related the story as I listened intently. Level One, the immense domed greenhouse, was just what it appeared to be: a living, breathing laboratory for testing new strains of recombinant DNA on plant life. It made good P.R., and a great cover.

Levels Two through Six could only be accessed using the coded elevators. The black-clad guards carried key cards to operate them, as did the doctors and the other workers on those levels. Shelly said those levels held labs and conference rooms. Level Six also contained the dorms. The children’s unit held three, the men’s, six, but was built for ten, and the women’s, twelve. In that one presently an even dozen resided. Including Sarah Cahill.

Her eyes sparked with anger. “Some of them are in wheelchairs, or are mentally challenged.” As I silently processed this, she went on. “Whenever Eli says they’re allowed to exercise, it’s always with an escort from one of us. And I can’t be sure, but from the way the prisoners act they’re kept under some kind of mild sedation.”

Shit. If Sarah was drugged, that would slow things down in getting her free.

Then Shelly said slowly, “There’s one other area in Level Six, sealed off from the rest.” She paused. “It’s what I was allowed access to last night.”

“And it is …?” I prodded.

Nervously she rubbed her hands. “Do you really need to hear this?”

“Yeah, Shelly,” I said. “I really do.”

“Well …” she started. “I guess you might call it some kind of … operating room.”

The torrid air around me seemed to congeal and grow closer. Above us, the moon was fully up, its wan light as pale as skim milk. “Operating room?”

“There was a girl there. Terrified. Screaming …” Shelly drew a shuddering breath. “They put her on a metal table, and placed her hands and ankles in restraints. Then she … started crying for her mother, and they … they …” She slapped her hands over her face.

“They what?”

Pulling her hands away her muffled voice cracked, almost as if she were retching, but the raw horror came through. “Boneless took a scalpel and started s-skinning her then, and
carving
her, and cutting her …
breasts
… He didn’t say a word, but his eyes …
gleamed
…” She hung up, unable to go on.

It looked like GeneSys was everything I’d feared, and then some. And I was, of my own volition, going back inside, without backup. Marsh was right. I must have been insane.

I waited as Shelly fought to regain her composure. After another moment passed she choked out, “So can you help? You
have
to.”

Vainly I tried to get my whirling thoughts under control.
Fear faced is fear mastered
. My sense of foreboding deepened, but I managed to keep my reply steady. “I’ll try, Shelly. Tonight. It’ll never be any easier to get inside than it is now.”

“Alone?” She gaped at me. “Aren’t you going to call for help?”

“I already did. But I can’t wait any longer. It may already be too late.”

Again she drew a shaky breath. “Okay, if you’re insisting on going in by yourself, there’s one more area you need to know about. Level Seven is the way it’s listed on the internal documents at GeneSys, but we’ve got our own name for it.” Once more revulsion clotted her voice. “The Pit.”

I could even hear the capital P when she said it.

“You know how Trask tells everybody nothing is ever wasted at GeneSys?” she asked. “That’s true, but not in a way most are ever told.”

Shelly put her limp handkerchief back in her jeans pocket, having done about as much damage to it as she could. I couldn’t tell if her expression was just a strange trick of the moonlight, or if she really was feeling as sick as she appeared.

“You get off the elevator on Level Seven. Right across the hall is a big door. From that you go through an airlock, and through a last door. You’ll find yourself in a huge mirrored room. Like a great big empty water tank or something.”

“You said huge. That’s a relative term. How huge?”

“Maybe fifty feet across, twenty feet high.”

It did sound like an underground tank. But holding what?

“And right in the middle, right in the center of the floor, is this …” She fluttered her fingers, groping for the word. “Camera thing.”

That made no sense. “Explain.”

She shook her head. “You know that thing in a camera, right behind the lens, that thing that looks like a flower?”

Recognition dawned. “An iris opening.”

“That’s it. It’s like that, but big, maybe fifteen feet wide, set flush in the floor.”

“But what is it?”

“I’m not really sure. I guess you might call it, well, the opening to a kind of garbage disposal.” Her tone betrayed the fact she must have felt it was a lot worse than that. “When you come in there’s this big, steel bin on metal wheels against the wall. But stained. Used. Like a small dump truck, you know?”

“If you say so.”

“It fits into this track that leads up to the iris. You load garbage in it, bags or boxes or whatever will fit, and you press this button on the wall next to the door. And then that iris opens up.” Fear filled her face. “And when it does, it never makes a sound.
Never.”

I didn’t know why that seemed so unnerving to her, unless she was trying to convey something more by its very silence.

“You press another button, and that starts the bin rolling down the track to the opening. When it gets there it tilts up, and the stuff inside dumps in. Then it rolls back to where it started, you press the button again, and the iris closes.”

“I still don’t understand. Why is that so frightening to you?”

Her voice grew as tight as the skin on an apple. “I can’t even describe the awful stench that rises up out of that hole when the iris cycles open. Some kind of harsh enzymes are down in there. Sooner or later everything ends up in the Pit. Trash, medical waste, food.” Painted white by a moon-goblin’s brush, Shelly’s face looked cadaverous. “And bodies.”

Even though I’d expected it, the word still hit me like a blow. “Bodies?”

She shuddered again. “Have you heard the story of Buddy Mordetti, the man that gave Boneless Chuck his nickname?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was there the night Buddy’s body was dumped, two weeks ago. Thank God, I wasn’t part of the burial detail; I guess that’s because it was my first night on the special squad. But I saw some of Boneless’s troops wheel Buddy in there. What was left of him, anyway.”

She stared down at the ground, and I asked her to continue. She looked back up.

“I’ve never seen a man beaten so badly, Mr.  Brenner, and growing up the way I did, I’ve seen my share. Buddy was like a bag of broken glass. My God, the blood …”

“They let you watch?”

“Sure.” Her laugh was humorless. “I was just one of the gang now. A press of the button, and Buddy was history.” Her expression seemed haunted and ashamed, as if she was remembering things best left forgotten.

“But it wasn’t just him.” She’d grown even grimmer, if such a thing were possible. “A week before I was promoted, I heard one of the girls in the dorm died of an infection or something, and she was put in there too. And then three nights ago one of those old doctors just dropped dead. They said he had a stroke. He ended up there too. I personally saw Boneless pitch the man’s body in with no more thought than you’d give a squashed bug.”

Nightmare fuel, and then some. “Do you know what’s down there? Beneath the iris?”

“Cross says it’s like a huge chemical toilet, and everything thrown in there gets dissolved in some kind of an enzyme bath. The methane gas that’s released gets drawn off, and they use that to help power the dome.”

I’d heard enough. More than enough. I had to end this, now, and I started to turn away. But what Shelly said next seemed to come from straight out of left field.

“Wait a minute, please.” With a will she’d calmed herself, as if she’d had a lot of practice at it, and she lightly placed her hand on my arm. “Don’t think I’m crazy for asking this, but I have to know what’s in that rig you’re carrying.” Using her other hand she pointed to my shoulder holster, where it rested snugly under my left armpit.

For some reason it seemed vitally important to her that I answer. “A Browning Hi Power 9mm Pathfinder.” I regarded her strangely. “Why?”

“Because you’ll need more than that to impress Boneless and his boys. I don’t want your death on my conscience, not that on top of everything else. That key card I gave you will open my locker door when you get inside. Take my gun. Keep it for backup if for nothing else.” Her eyes were pleading. “Please.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because there’s another piece of firepower Boneless has his elite corps carry. An FN P-90. With frangible bullets.”

I knew of P-90s, and had fired them on more than one occasion. It’s a Star Wars-looking machine gun imported from Belgium, with forward grips and downward ejection. It only weighs in at seven pounds, and is totally illegal for civilians to own or operate, their use exclusive to black ops military units and federal agents.

The rounds it shoots are five point seven by twenty-five millimeter armor-piercing, and it fires them at the rate of nine hundred a minute; in other words it can fully empty its fifty-round magazine in less than two and a half seconds. But it was the frangible part that gave me pause. Those particular bullets break apart in pieces when they hit. If I got in their way, it would look as if a dragon had chewed me.

Vainly I tried to push that picture out of my mind, my body being cored by a slew of those things. “All right, you convinced me. I’ll get your piece out of your locker when I get inside.”

“Good,” she nodded, seemingly relieved. “Otherwise you don’t stand a chance of living to see the morning.”

“Thanks, Shelly.” I bit back a grim laugh. “That’s the spirit.”

With a long sigh I again reached for the Camry’s door when Shelly dropped her car keys. We both bent down to retrieve them. She got to them first, and I offered her my hand to help her up. She took it.

And as she did, the craziest thing happened. From the warm, slightly puzzled look in her eyes, it appeared that attraction I’d felt for her was going both ways.

No. Impossible. This was insanity of the first degree, and for a wrenching moment I felt like I was being unfaithful to my late wife. If I lived through this, I thought, then we’d see.

But first I’d have to live.