Subterrestrial (19 page)

“
Come in, Speranza! This is Echo One. Can you hear me?
”

Wiley willed Thyssen to stop talking. For the speakers to blow out or the soundboard to fry. Anything at all. He was having a hard enough time hearing the stealthy advance of the intruder. It was all he could do to tune out Thyssen’s voice and focus on the almost imperceptible clicking sounds.

Their intonation changed.

Clatch
.

Clatch
.

Whatever made the sounds must have entered the narrow corridor between buildings.

Wiley blew out a breath, seated his cheek against the stock of his M4 Carbine automatic assault rifle, and sighted down the passageway through the gap between two monitors, both of which were alive with flashing alarm lights. The pressure gauges on the external impeller drives were rising at an astronomical rate. Increased pressure meant decreased flow rate. Someone needed to bleed the lines soon or they were going to start freezing from the outside in. If that happened, it wouldn’t matter how long the pumps could withstand the siege. With no outlet for the siphoned water, their motors would burn up in a matter of minutes.

Clack
.

Clack
.

He didn’t dare blink as he watched the doorway through the scope of the rifle, which was set to fire three-round bursts of 5.56 mm NATO rounds. If so much as a shadow passed through that orifice, it would be Swiss cheese in a matter of seconds.

Thud
.

The command console bucked. Monitors shook and toppled over. Something had bumped the table from underneath. How had it gotten into the room without him seeing it?

Clack
.

Clack
.

There was always a chance that it didn’t know he was in there. If that were the case, then all he needed to do was remain silent until it risked stepping out into the open, which wouldn’t be a problem for Kellen Wiley. Even before the loss of his tongue, he’d never had much to say. He’d learned early in life that if he was quiet enough, people tended to forget he was there. It was a lesson that had served him well through his formative years and prepared him for a successful career in intelligence.

People didn’t just talk to hear the sound of their own voices. Some called it insecurity, but Wiley knew better. People talked incessantly because they feared the silence; They feared the demons whispering in their ears, the kind whose voices could be heard only when these people shut their mouths.

His captors in Afghanistan had talked nonstop, whether to one another or to themselves. It was that trait more than any other that convinced him they were going to kill him, even if he told them what they wanted to know. So he’d remained silent for as long as he was physically able, knowing that every day spent having his fingernails pried off or his thighs blistered by a blowtorch was a gift of life, whether they knew it or not. What they did know was that eventually he would crack. Real life wasn’t like the movies. One way or another, every man talked. There was simply a point when the primitive animal inside took over. Wiley had felt it coming, felt his consciousness slipping away in favor of the animal that cared nothing for secrets and intel, nothing for men and women half a world away in their comfortable homes, only for survival and ending his months-long torturous ordeal.

It had been with the last of his humanity that he whispered for the man with the black bag over his head to come closer. No, closer still. And used the top of his head for the leverage he needed to slam down his chin and bite off his own tongue. It was in the resultant silence, while his captors stared blankly at him and before the world erupted with gunfire and explosions, that he understood that his entire life had been in preparation for that one single moment in time, when the silence would be his only ally, when the silence would save his life.

Clack
.

Clack
.

Sitting here now, he felt the same pull of destiny. He’d been wrong before, though. Those monsters had just been men after all, men with their own demons. Whatever crept through the Quonset hut was something else, something that didn’t fear the silence as they had. This was something that wielded the silence as a weapon.

Clack
.

His heartbeat accelerated. He had to focus on regulating his breathing so the sound didn’t betray him.

Whatever it was knew he was in there, but it also knew he was acutely aware of its presence. Wiley understood what that meant. When it came for him, it would do so only when the time was right, and it would do so with every ounce of speed and ferocity it possessed. He didn’t intend to be here when it did.

The entire base was equipped with security cameras, right down to the cab of the elevator. He’d seen what happened to Butler, if not the attack itself, which had happened with such speed that it was as though Butler were simply there one second and gone the next. He’d seen the pool of blood shimmering on the floor of the cab, though, and the wet trail left by Butler’s body after it was dragged off into the darkness. Coupled with the fact that they hadn’t heard from Martin or his team and had watched helplessly as their tracking beacons had stopped moving some time ago, he’d felt the stirrings of the primitive animal inside of him and had known exactly what he needed to do.

Halversen’s remaining manpower was on the Alaskan mainland, supervising the transfer of supplies to a chartered freighter and running interference in the wake of the “accidental” fire on Little Diomede. He’d just terminated the transmission when he heard the first sounds from somewhere deeper in the complex and had hurried to secure what he needed. By now the chopper had to be nearly to Speranza. He was bundled against the cold and was prepared to make a break for the doors the moment he heard the rumble of approaching rotors.

Clack
.

A shadow passed across the wall, hunched and of indeterminate shape. Its movements were slow and sinewy as it ducked out from beneath the table and passed the bank of servers toward the rear of the room in an effort to flank him. Fortunately, his destination was in the opposite direction.

Clack
.

Clack
.

Wiley sighted down the point where it would emerge from behind the servers. Sweat trickled down his temples from beneath his fur-rimmed hood. He blinked it away from the corners of his eyes.

From the distance came the muffled
whupp-whupp-whupp
of helicopter blades, right on schedule. He wanted to see whatever it was first, though, wanted to catch a glimpse of its face before he spread it across the room in a spray of bone and gray matter. He couldn’t think of a single animal capable of overcoming a man as resourceful as Butler before he could so much as call for help. Or one capable of inflicting such extensive physical damage so quickly, especially without sticking around to consume its kill. Even polar bears, for all their savagery, attacked a person only when they were on the verge of starvation.

Clack
.

The shadow stretched across the wall and onto the floor. It was so close now.

The helicopter banked over the base as he knew it would and prepared to alight on the windswept stretch of snow that served as the helipad.

The time had come to make his move.

One more step,
he thought.
Come on.
Just one more.

He tightened his finger on the trigger. Blew out his breath. Stilled the barrel of his rifle.

Err-err-err-err-err-err-uhh-uhh-uhh-err
.

The sound came from somewhere above him and to his left. His heart sank at the realization that there was more than one of them.

He whirled and fired in one motion. The bullets struck a wooden crate and sent splinters flying. A dark shape ducked down and scrabbled for balance as the crate collapsed underneath it.

Movement from the corner of his eye.

He spun and fired. Two bullets hammered the servers and a third struck the shadow on the wall as it sped past.

Clack-clack-clack-clack
.

Wiley leaped to his feet and sprinted for the door. He thumbed the selector from triple-burst to full automatic.

The ground shuddered and the walls shook, buffeted by the rotor wash.

He turned the knob and shouldered the door in one motion. It barely opened a foot before lodging in the snow. He fired back toward where two dark shapes moved fluidly over the remains of his barricade, then he ducked out into the cold. The wind assaulted him with snowflakes, against which he could barely keep his eyes open.

The helicopter was an ill-defined shadow through the driving storm and clouds of accumulation thrown from the force of the whirling blades. He waved his arms to draw their attention.

“Ipp opp!” he shouted and twirled one arm over his head. “Ipp opp!”

The chopper just sat there, its blades spinning impotently. Either they didn’t hear him or couldn’t understand.

“Ipp opp!”

A crashing sound behind him.

Wiley glanced back to see two shapes charging through the blizzard low to the ground and moving impossibly fast. He fired blindly behind him and ran toward the chopper through the deep snow, knowing full well he wasn’t going to make it.

“I have eyes on him,” Tom Raynor said through the cans on his ears. “Two o’clock and coming in hot.”

Dalton Womack leaned past Drew Batterson, who sat beside him in the copilot’s chair, in an effort to see through the window, which was already beginning to frost around the edges.

“Looks like he’s having a seizure,” Raynor said. “Or trying to fly.”

Womack squinted to see through the snow.

“He’s trying to tell us to lift off.”

“Without him?” Raynor said.

Wiley ran as though he had the devil himself on his heels. Womack couldn’t think of a single instance when he’d seen the man move at any kind of speed that might spill coffee from a mug. Wiley was like a ghost who haunted their base, yet here he was, kicking up fire from his heels and waving for them to get this bird off the ground.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.”

Womack raised the collective in his left hand and throttled up the engine. The rotors whined and the pontoons lifted from the snow. The wind shoved them hard from the side. He twitched the cyclic into it and used his feet to swing the tail around.

They were close enough to Wiley to see the sheer terror on his face. He waved his arms frantically and screamed something unintelligible.

Womack caught a glimpse of several shapes barreling through the snow behind Wiley before the storm concealed them once more.

“Lift off!” Raynor shouted from the seat behind him. The words were like gunshots through the speakers in his helmet. “For Christ’s sake! Lift off!”

“What in the name of God . . . ?” Batterson said. “Get us out of here!”

Womack ramped up the RPMs with a mechanical scream and raised the collective so fast the chopper bucked sideways.

Thump
.

The helicopter canted in the opposite direction.

Raynor threw open the side door and lunged for Wiley, who wrapped one arm around the pontoon and reached for Raynor’s outstretched hand with the other.

The tail swung around again. Womack fought the wind, leveled off, and commenced a controlled ascent.

“Close the door!” Batterson shouted.

The shapes burst from the snow like lions from tall grass.

Womack caught a flash of long sharp teeth before Wiley was ripped from the pontoon, taking Raynor with him.

“Jesus! Get us out of here!”

“I’m trying!”

Womack banked away from the bloodstained snow and headed out over the ocean. They were five hundred feet above the Bering Sea when he saw the reflection on the windshield of something behind him. Inside the chopper.

Blood spattered the glass.

Searing pain in his neck, wrenched it sideways.

He was only peripherally aware of Batterson’s cries as the helicopter spun wildly back over dry land.

The icy peak rose to greet them.

The rotors struck the ground, shearing metal from the blades.

Ice and rocks flew.

The flaming chopper tumbled downhill toward Speranza Station. The last thing Womack saw before the world turned to fire was the rear Quonset hut racing toward them.

Below Speranza Station

Bering Sea

Ten Miles Northwest of Wales, Alaska

65°47′ N, 169°01′ W

The ground shook Calder back to consciousness. She opened her eyes and immediately closed them again when she saw rocks streaking down from the earthen roof and striking all around her.

Mitchell covered her body with his. A dull thud and a groan. She wanted to ask if he was all right, but she couldn’t seem to coordinate her thoughts with the movement of her mouth. She tasted blood and wondered how it got there. Her head throbbed and she couldn’t seem to make the ground stop trembling.

Mitchell pushed himself up from on top of her and warily shined his handheld light through a haze of dust toward the ceiling, where entire chunks had fallen off to expose the brighter limestone underneath.

Her stomach clenched. She barely had time to turn her face before a bellyful of water burst from her lips and spattered the bare stone. She coughed so hard she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She rolled away from Mitchell and vomited again.

“That was attractive,” he said.

Calder wasn’t prepared with a retort. She’d aspirated too much water and seemingly no amount of coughing would purge it from her lungs.

Mitchell’s light made the blood on his face shimmer.

“You’re hurt,” she whispered, and reached for his cheek.

“Just a scratch,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Or at least I will be if we can find our way out of this maze.”

They were in a small cavern, roughly the size of her bedroom back home. A stream vanished under the limestone ledge to her left. The water was so cold that she didn’t immediately recognize the fact that her numb lower legs and feet were still immersed. She dragged herself away from the water and fully onto dry land. The assault of pins and needles in her toes was instantaneous and brutal.