The Siren Project (21 page)

“Go left,” Christa said.

“Why left?” Mouse asked uncertainly.

“Because . . . I feel we should go left.”

“You feel?” Gunter asked confused.

“Yes, go left.”

Mouse glanced at Mitch for confirmation,
who nodded.

The crawler rolled silently into the left
shaft and made its way across the width of the laboratory to the far wall. Emerging
out of the gloom was a wire mesh blocking the vent.

Mouse tried using the crawler’s arm to push
it aside, but the wire was too strong. “Go left, she said!”

“Go through it,” Christa said firmly.

Mouse gave her a disparaging look, then
leaned close to the screen to study the image. “I'm going to have to cut.” He
said, throwing a warning glance to Mitch. “That'll waste a lot of gas.”

“Do it,” Mitch said. “But keep switching to
the minicam. Don’t want anyone sneaking up on us.”

Mouse activated the tiny acetylene torch’s
control arm. It had less movement than the robotic arm, due to the need to
mount the heavy torch and its gas tube. On the right side of the screen, a thin
cylinder graduated with horizontal lines appeared, indicating the remaining gas
supply.

“We've got three hundred seconds burn time,
then the torch is out of gas. Let's hope we don’t have to cut through too many
of these things,” Mouse said as he edged the crawler up to the mesh, lined up
the torch and ignited it. A narrow hot blue flame shot out and began cutting
through the mesh. Several times, he flicked back to the minicam view of the
laboratory, watching for anyone who might enter the lab and hear the torch hissing.
The thin graduated cylinder on screen fell rapidly as the crawler cut a
rectangle in the mesh. When the mesh was almost fully severed, he killed the
torch, wincing at the fuel display. “Damn! Close to one hundred and twenty
seconds! Too long.”

“We've still got three minutes left,” Mitch
said encouragingly.

Mouse peered at the dark tunnel that
vanished into shadows. “Straight ahead, I guess,”

“Wait,” Christa said, pointing to a vague
shadow on the screen. “What’s that?”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Pan up,” she ordered.

He tilted the crawler’s camera up, then
switched on a weak light, revealing a narrow pipe running along the vent, next
to the laboratory wall.

“What do you think?” Mitch asked.

“Could be anything,” Mouse replied
doubtfully. “Hot water . . . cold water . . . halon gas for the fire
extinguishers. Who knows?”

“Could be an electrical duct,” Gunter
suggested. “For power lines.”

“No, that’s it.” Christa said certainly. “That’s
our best chance.”

Gunter looked puzzled. “Why is that our
best chance?”

Christa seemed to listen to something they
couldn't hear. “I’m sure that’s what we're looking for.”

“Is that women’s intuition?” Gunter asked skeptically.

“You can call it whatever you like.”

Gunter snorted his disgust. “I say we
continue looking.”

“No! Cut into it. I know it’s something.”

“Are we professionals?” Gunter demanded. “Or
palm readers?”

Mitch looked from Gunter to Christa,
studying her uncertainly.

“Trust me,” she said. “That’s the best shot
we have.”

Mitch sighed. “Okay Princess, we’ll put your
intuition to the test.” He nodded to Mouse. “Cut into it, but keep an eye on
the minicam.”

Mouse lit the torch again and began cutting
a rectangular piece out of the duct. The graduated cylinder ticked down past
each line as the torch ate through its fuel, while every few seconds Mouse
switched to the minicam, ensuring the lab was empty. “Almost there,” he
muttered, as the torch worked its way back to its starting point. The fuel
display crept down to empty, then the torch flickered out, with the final cut
incomplete. “Shit! Nearly had it.”

“Try the main arm,” Mitch suggested.

“This is going to be noisy, if it’s strong
enough,” Mouse said as he maneuvered the telescoping arm around until its
pincers were lined up with the near complete rectangular cut. When the pincers
pushed into the cutting, the crawler’s microphone picked up a metal on metal
squeal as one of the claws penetrated the duct.

“Minicam,” Mitch ordered.

Mouse flicked back to the laboratory, ensuring
it was still empty.

“It sounds louder to us, because the
microphone is right there,” Gunter said.

Mouse returned to the crawler's view, then
ensuring the arm had a good grip, instructed the arm to pull as the crawler backed
away. There was another metallic squeal as the last sinew of metal holding the rectangular
piece in place tore off. He checked the laboratory camera again, without
waiting for Mitch’s command. Two guards carrying assault rifles stood between
the four test beds, turning around trying to find where the noise came from.

“Our luck just ran out,” Mitch said. “They were
under the minicam, out of its view.”

One of the guards walked off to the right,
pointing in the wrong direction, while the second guard shook his head and
moved toward where the air vent met the wall. They held their guns ready, moving
as if they were stalking a target.

“The air vent muffled it,” Gunter said. “They
are not sure of the direction.”

The guard on the left walked toward the air
vent, looking up and down listening for another tell tale sound, but not particularly
focusing on the vent. The other guard passed out of view, off in the wrong
direction. The guard near the vent stopped, almost directly beneath the
crawler, listening. Mouse switched back to the crawler camera to check the
telescoping arm. It held the rectangular piece in its claw by a fraction of an
inch. The piece rocked back and forth slightly, each movement working it free.

“If it drops it, we’re out of here,” Mitch
said, knowing the clang would give the crawler away.

“If they get the crawler,” Gunter said. “They
will find the minicam and the roof camera.”

“And they'll quadruple security,” Mitch
added.

Mouse switched back to the minicam to see
the guard begin to relax, showing no sign of moving. The second guard appeared
in view, his weapon slung on his shoulder. Mouse flicked back to the crawlercam's
feed, showing the metal rectangle hanging precariously from the claw. He edged
the claw left, starting the rectangle rocking again.

“It’s going to fall,” Mitch whispered.

Mouse brought the claw over one of the
crawler’s rubber wheels, lowering the arm until the rectangle rested on the
wheel. He pressed the arm down harder, pinning the rectangle between the rubber
wheel and the arm, then switched back to the minicam view. The two guards were discussing
the noise, then one guard went right, followed a moment later by the other. He
waited until both guards had been out of sight for several minutes before
switching back to the crawler. He raised the claw arm, and the rectangular
piece fell with a clank onto the vent's metal floor.

“Clunk, I’m here!” Mouse said quickly
switching back to the minicam view, but the guards didn’t appear again. After a
few anxious minutes, he aimed the crawlercam into the freshly cut hole,
discovering a single black insulated cable inside.

“Let's see what we've got,” Mitch said.

The telescoping arm retrieved the last item
from the crawler’s cargo bay, a small silver cylinder with aerials attached and
four multi jointed clamps. Mouse rotated the cylinder until it was lined up
with the rectangular hole he'd cut, then inserted the device.

Gunter moved to his control console near
the front of the van and triggered the robotic clamps, which attached
themselves to the cable. “Secure.”

Mouse retracted the crawler’s arm,
revealing the metal cylinder, now sitting snugly in the rectangular hole.

Gunter activated the package, which forced
a needle like contact through the insulation into the wire beneath. “Connected.
Running diagnostics.”

Mitch glanced at Christa, seeing the
anxiety in her face.

“It is not a power cable, voltage is too
low,” Gunter said. “Negative on the camera feed. We have no interior pictures.”
He cursed silently under his breath, shaking his head, “It is not a sensor
line, current is too variable.”

Christa’s face showed her disappointment. “I
was sure there was something there, something we could use.”

“Next time, let us try a séance,” Gunter
said. “That might get a better result.” He glanced toward Mouse. “Take a look. There's
data flowing through the line, maybe you can do something with it.”

Christa watched hopefully as Mouse produced
a cable from his bag, handing one end to Gunter and connected the other to his
computer. In a few seconds he had a program running that was analyzing the data
flowing along the cable. After a minute he laughed.

“What is it?” Mitch asked.

“It’s the air conditioning system.”

“Damn!” Mitch said, disappointed their
search had come to nothing and Christa’s abilities had been proven to be
fallible, if not imaginary, in the eyes of Mouse and Gunter. He couldn't bring
himself to meet her eyes. He knew she was having trouble believing she could
have been so wrong.

“No, that’s good,” Mouse declared
excitedly. “Their air conditioning system is high tech. They have multiple
rooms, with temperature regulated environments. Give me some time, and I’ll
back end this baby all the way to their central computer.”

Suddenly Christa brightened. “So it’s
useful?”

Mouse sobered. “Yeah, it’s useful”

She smiled, relieved, then glanced at Gunter
who looked uncomfortable.

“Do you need to be here to figure it out?”
Mitch asked

“Nope, I’m taking a copy of the data stream
now. In another couple of minutes, I’ll have enough info to build a worm, then
we can start playing.”

“How long will the worm take?” Christa
asked.

Mouse shrugged. “Can’t tell yet.”

“How much endurance have we got left on the
crawler?” Mitch asked.

“Walking or talking?”

“If we leave it where it is, all systems
shut down.”

“Twenty hours, maybe a bit more in reserve.”

“Park it for now. We’ll bury the recorders
here to record off the roofcam and the minicam.”

“And a data recorder. I might need more of
this signal.”

“Okay, a data recorder too.”

Mouse shut down the crawler’s systems,
while Gunter reached for a shovel. Lying on the floor of the minivan, tightly
wrapped in waterproof coverings, were several receivers attached to long play
digital recorders. Mouse hooked a data recorder up to a receiver for Gunter’s
signal snooper, slid it beneath the waterproof covering, then he and Gunter
went to bury the receiving units.

When they were out of earshot, Mitch turned
to Christa. “I’ve never seen a look like that on G’s face . . .” Mitch
chuckled. “You just rocked his world.”

“He’s got a scientist’s mind, skeptical of
everything he can’t put under a microscope.”

Mitch nodded, then slowly a troubled look
appeared on his face. “Are you a hundred percent certain, those things were SDI
lasers?”

“Yes, old ones. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking ... do you have any
idea what it takes to hijack something like that?”

“I know,” she said soberly. “It’s a big
operation.”

“It’s not like Chinese spies slipping a
computer disk into their pockets and walking off with the secrets to the
H-bomb.” He looked thoughtfully through the van’s rear window at the lights of
the Newton Institute. “I can’t even begin to think how many government agencies
would have to be screwed to do it.”

* * * *

Mouse laid a set of blueprints of the
Newton Institute’s main building before them. “As you can see, there’s nothing
in these plans resembling that room or the cooling system we saw, and there are
no plans anywhere showing what the six outbuildings behind the main building
are for. Originally, the building was designed as an office complex. According
to county records, the Newton Institute set up there about five years ago. The
first thing they did was rebuild the interior, without letting anyone know what
they were doing.”

Mitch ran a practiced eye over the out of
date plans Mouse had extracted from the local government authorities. “Do we
know who installed their security systems?”

“No,” Gunter replied. “County records show
a simple alarm system was installed in the original building, but it is certain
that was replaced long ago.”

“It’s probably a military or intelligence
community set up now,” Mitch concluded.

“Or both together,” Christa suggested. “Getting
those technologies took a lot of cooperation.”

Mouse ran his finger over the blueprint
thoughtfully. “These drawings should be correct structurally, so no change to
fire escapes, elevators, major concrete and steel structural work. Otherwise
they’d have had to tear down the building. It looks the same from the outside
as it did when it was originally built twelve years ago.”