Project Sail (50 page)
“Take your place at your console, private,” Haas said, motioning with his gun, “and prepare to open the inner door.”
Haas referred to the door between the two consoles; the one that opened to the vault room.
As with launching a nuclear missile from a silo, opening the inner door required the simultaneous turning of two keys. Haas retrieved the first key from the top of the console where he sat. The second soldier kept his around his neck. He fumbled with the chain, dropped it once, but finally held it in his hand.
Haas slipped his key into a silver hole on the console in front of him and ordered the other soldier to do the same. The sight of his buddy’s blood on the floor served as a great motivator and the soldier did as told.
“Turn on three,” Haas commanded, then counted.
The freckle-faced kid turned his key in perfect unison with Colonel Haas.
As soon as the door’s heavy bolts released, a new set of alarms tore through the complex.
Daddy…come get me now before it’s too late!
“Sorry, son,” Haas said as he stood again. “I can’t have you letting anyone in here just yet. You see, my daughter’s locked up behind that door and I have to get her out.”
The colonel shot the freckle-faced kid in the knee. He screamed as he collapsed.
Haas turned the heavy latch on the now-unlocked inner door. It swung open and he entered the vault room.
Several rows of track lighting, thick perforated soundproofing panels, and three different security cameras decorated the pure-white chamber. In the upper corners of the room sat strange round metallic pods. Those pods, Haas knew, housed a series of defensive devices.
Everything in the room, including Haas himself, concentrated on a large metal door that resembled a small bank vault, yet it was much, much more.
Haas approached it despite a lonely voice in his head warning him to stand down. That lonely voice was easily cast aside by the sound of his daughter’s voice.
Daddy … you’ve come … let me out of here, Daddy! LET … ME … OUT!
Haas gazed at the door’s fine steel finish then ran his hand across the surface. It felt cold and smooth.
To the right of the door beckoned a control panel with four lights and four heavy switches, not unlike oversized circuit breakers.
“Right there, sir!”
The shout came from behind.
Haas did not need to turn around to see the M16s. Either Sanchez had entered with Lewis’s security card or the guard Haas had shot in the knee had managed to open the door. Either way, a part of the colonel felt pleased.
While his pistol dangled from one hand, he used the other to push the first switch, sending one of the lights from red to green as a heavy electronic bolt slid open.
“Drop your gun, sir! Don’t make us shoot you!” Sanchez shouted. “Concentrate sir, remember how they told…”
Sanchez still spoke but his words faded amid the Klaxons, the screams of the soldier shot in the knee, and the voice inside Colonel Haas’s head.
Daddy…it’s almost too late…
Haas activated the second switch, and yet another light turned from red to green and yet another electronic bolt released.
Corporal Sanchez pleaded with him to stop, reciting from the textbook for such emergencies: reasoning with him, trying to get him to concentrate, trying to make him remember.
What was my focus again? Was it a wildflower or something?
Whatever the psychological warfare experts had wanted him to focus on was so far removed from his mind that he could not find it.
The third switch opened and the third of four bolts made the door vibrate as it unlocked with a loud thud.
Haas felt a tremendous push in the back that slammed him forward into the door. A millisecond later, he heard the sound of exploding cartridges
Warmness rushed over his body. His strength flowed out. His body fell heavily to the floor, one arm reaching for the sealed door.
“I’m sorry, Katy…”
Read the rest of
Opposing Force: The God Particle
at
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Also by Anthony DeCosmo
Beyond Armageddon Series
Beyond Armageddon III: Parallels
Opposing Force Series
Opposing Force 1: The God Particle
Opposing Force 2: The Cannibal Virus
Opposing Force 3: Hans Hagen (coming 2014)