Zero Point (18 page)

“I will go to the Parliamentary Council myself,” Captain Saune said defensively. “They will listen to me.”

“They will do nothing until it is too late,” Yashiro argued. “You don’t understand. Osama and Pencor’s money and influence have far-reaching tentacles. You can rest assured they have bought and paid for key government officials here on Tenerife. How do you think they got the contract to replace the seismic sensors on La Palma? They have men everywhere and….”

“Quiet,” Turner said as they approached a huge lava boulder ahead of them. “I hear machinery up ahead. Wait here and I’ll check.”

He headed off in a light sprint in the direction of the sound of the machinery, becoming louder as he advanced. Coming to the side of the huge slab of basalt, he peered around its cold black surface to see lights on the walls about forty-five feet distant. As the whirring sound suddenly ceased, Turner watched as bodies were unceremoniously dropped from the opening at the top of the ladder, each of them hitting the floor with a sickening thud.

Wonder who those poor bastards were
, Turner thought, tightly gripping the side arm in his hand. Just then, the sound of the mechanism started again and he could see the light from the opening in the ceiling fade as the steel door closed with a muffled boom. “All clear,” he said to the group as the cave was thrust into silence once again.

“Looks like they don’t appreciate the help around here,” Samuel said, reaching his side and seeing the bodies up ahead.

“Can you see any guards further ahead?” Saune asked, arriving next.

“None that I can see, Captain,” Turner replied. “Someone was dumping bodies down from the ceiling hatchway,” he stated coldly.

“More of Pencor and Osama’s dirty work, I assume,” Samuel said, clicking off the safety of his weapon.

“Let’s get moving before some of their goons decide to come back,” Turner said.

Rising up, they walked into the open tunnel that led to the ladder beneath the facility. Turner then gestured to Yashiro to join him at the lead. “Yashiro, I want you to lead us out of here once we check the entrance to make sure that it's clear. Are you up to it?”

“I can do it,” the Japanese scientist said with new found optimism and courage at the sudden turn of events that had snatched him from the jaws of certain death.

The group came up to the ladder beneath the trap door and Turner's earlier observations were confirmed as Yashiro looked in horror at the macabre scene before him.

“They have killed the remaining scientists. No witnesses,” he said, his voice shaking a little as he stared at the mound of bodies stacked atop each other like a grotesque pile of firewood. “That tells me they are very close to triggering the landslide. The entire process is now automated.”

The group passed the final storage bin at a quicker pace now, and towards the lava tube opening just ahead of them. “Once we clear the tunnel,” Yashiro said, “there is an old path to the right of the entrance that leads to a worn switchback pathway. It will lead to the complex’s main gate above.”

“Let’s go to night vision,” Turner said to Captain Saune and Samuel as they approached within fifteen feet of the tunnel’s exit. The three men flipped down their goggles and powered them up. Upon reaching the lava tube’s end, the three crouched down and surveyed the perimeter for any sign of activity.

Scanning the area with the night vision goggles, the men were relieved to see no movement and continued to scrutinize their surroundings. Just to their left was a conveyor belt that descended down ninety feet to what appeared to be a loading platform on a natural plateau. Turner made a mental note of the conveyor belt’s control levers located next to them. He continued his scan of the loading area far below and saw that the plateau was studded with landing lights. Sitting there were two helicopters.

“Do you see what I see, Captain?” Turner said, pointing to the sleek aircrafts as he signaled for the rest of the group to join them.

“I know where you are headed, Josh. Those are R-44 Ravens and, even though I can fly them, the Robinson only carries one pilot and two passengers. There’s no way we could get everyone out,” he said.

“I guess that will have to be Plan B,” Turner replied as he stood and directed Yashiro to lead the group in the direction of the path up to the complex’s main gate.

“Here we go with the Plan B crap again,” Samuel groaned as he and the weary group followed Turner up the pathway.

“Captain,” Turner said straightforwardly, moving ahead of the others. “If things go badly, I want you to get my father and Maria out of here in one of those helicopters. Promise me you will try.”

“I don’t think it will come to that, but I promise I will do my best.” Saune said, knowing he had come to trust and respect this man and he would do his utmost to honor his request if the need arose.

Led by Yashiro, the group started out along the narrow ledge that ran parallel to a steep, vertical drop off that descended to the bottom of the ancient caldera. Each was mindful of their steps and avoided the occasional glance into the blackness below them. They followed in single file until Yashiro, leading with a flashlight, stopped and directed them to the first switchback leading up to the Bishamon facility's main gate.

The group began their assent upward, not knowing what awaited them at the top of the rise. The eastern sky above them hinted at its first sign of the coming dawn.

13

Tenerife, Southern Airport

H
iroshi Tanaka yawned sleepily as he rose from the comfortable lounge chair in the commercial airways facility at Tenerife Sur Reina Sofia, the Island’s southern airport. This airport, larger than its counterpart
Aeropuerto de Tenerife Norte in the north of the island, was a commercial hub for the Canaries, leading to the surrounding islands, as well as out-bound to Africa, Europe, and beyond.

Hiroshi strolled over to the old white Mr. Coffee and grabbed an old, stained cup. He proceeded to pour the ancient brew, hoping it would jar him awake. Taking a sip of the foul hot liquid, he grimaced, put the cup down, and lifted the cargo manifest for this morning's run.

Hiroshi had been flying the latest string of supply runs to the Bishamon complex on the old volcano for the last three months. He was glad that he would be relieved by a new pilot after today’s run, affording him a few weeks off for a much needed rest.

An experienced chopper pilot, Hiroshi had been flying the
Big Iron,
or more precisely the Sikorsky CH-53 Heavy Lift, for
many years. He had amassed hundreds of flight hours during the Iraq war with the Japanese Defense Force, and now for the Bishamon Corporation.

It will be dawn in an hour and I want to be loaded and airborne
, he thought as he began to peruse the manifest. His plan was to arrive at the mountain facility at first light, unload the supplies, and get back to the airport quickly. He had already booked the next flight back to Japan for a hunting trip on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Walking out of the hanger, he felt the cool Tenerife breeze blowing gently off the Atlantic Ocean as he quickly re-checked the cargo manifest. Finishing his inventory, he kept a watchful eye on the ground crews as they moved about completing their pre-flight procedures on his heavy lift chopper.

Stopping halfway to the craft, he admired the refurbished CH-53K with its gross weight of eighty-four thousand pounds and lifting capacity of another twenty-seven thousand pounds.

I’ll never get tired of flying this old workhorse
, he thought, looking at the craft with true admiration.

The
Big Iron
, that he was so fond of, was leased to Bishamon for the duration of the business venture on Tenerife. Though ungainly in appearance, it was state-of-the-art with its three new General Electric six thousand shaft horsepower engines and composite airframe.

Hiroshi loved the new drive system; its split torque main gearbox and advanced digital fly-by-wire system made it an
agile but tough flying machine. He now recalled how Osama re-installed the ramp mounted Herstal GAU-21, 50-caliber
12.7mm gun
in the rear of the craft on a swing-out mount.

Why he added that killing machine is beyond me. The only things to shoot at on this rock are the sea gulls
, he mused, laughing aloud and lighting a cigarette.

Hiroshi saw his co-pilot approaching from the hanger with an object under his arm.

“You almost forgot your new toy,” his copilot, Kentaro Udo, yelled to him over the din of a fuel truck that went clambering by.

“Ah, thank you, Kentaro,” he responded in a cheerful voice, as the co-pilot handed him his new Mathews Switchback hunting bow and carbon-tipped arrows. “I plan to use this on my hunting trip next week. I hear the hunting season has been exceptional in Hokkaido this year.”

“You’re in a good mood today,” his co-pilot said with a grin.

“I should be. It’ll be good to get away from here for a few weeks of long deserved rest,” he replied happily to his co-pilot. The two men headed out on the tarmac towards the CH-53K.

Things had not always been lucrative for Hiroshi since the Iraq war. He was laid off from Japan Airlines after one year of piloting corporate executives. Nothing came his way in terms of a steady paycheck for a long time. Then a friend told
him that a position as a chopper pilot was available in Yagato Osama’s organization, working in the Canary Islands. Hiroshi knew going into the venture the reputation of Osama and the risks involved, but the generous salary offered to him for his loyalty made it impossible to refuse.

It was not all bad, ferrying supplies to the Bishamon complex on the old volcano. It disturbed him knowing that occasionally he was ordered to hover over the Atlantic Ocean as Osama’s men would dump something out of the loading ramp into the sea. He looked back that first time and saw two men tossing a body from the rear of the craft.

The two men had then given him a look that said,
do your job and mind your business, or else
. The event unnerved him at the time, and for many days he tried to put the grizzly scene out of his mind.
Just fly
, he told himself,
just fly
.

The last of the supply crates was being secured in the cargo hold of the Sikorsky by the loading crew as the two men reached the rear of the craft. They walked up the steel drop down-loading ramp to prepare for takeoff. Hiroshi strapped himself in his seat and powered up the craft’s six thousand SHP engines. His co-pilot went back to ensure that all the crates were secure.

“We’re secure in the loading bay,” Kentaro said as he returned and hit the lever that closed and secured the loading ramp.

After getting clearance from the airport tower, the deafening roar of the Sikorsky filled the pre-dawn stillness as
the lumbering behemoth lifted off its landing pad and headed towards the southwest.

“One more trip,” Hiroshi whispered, smiling as he took a quick glance at the new hunting bow that was sitting on the flight deck beside to him. Turning to his copilot, he spoke through the ANR flight headset. “Let’s take the coastal route, Kentaro. We’re twenty minutes early, and it’s going to be a beautiful sunrise.
Nothing
is going to spoil this day.”

The lumbering seven-blade helicopter flew over the sleeping town of San Miguel and then banked to the southwest, heading for the western coast of Tenerife.

14

A
s night slowly began to shed its veil of darkness, cautious eyes watched two lone guards that were stationed inside the Bishamon compound’s main gate. From their concealed position on the edge of the caldera’s rim, Turner and the others sat single file on a rocky ledge just below the compound access road. They surveyed the nine-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. It surrounded the entire complex and ended at a menacing looking guard shack adjacent to a rolling gate. Inside the gate sat four black SUVs, parked side by side along the building in close proximity to the main door.

The building itself was a two-story steel pre-fabricated modular structure. Its width was a mere forty-five feet, but the length was unusually long at about two hundred feet. Seeing the ominous, windowless building again made Yashiro uneasy as he whispered to Turner in the growing pre-dawn light.

“If you decide to just open fire on the guards, you will alert the whole compound,” he warned.

“We may not have much choice,” Turner replied. He was focusing on the pair of armed guards who now faced each
other, preoccupied in conversation. “We’re losing the darkness fast, and we have to get moving.”

At that moment, Turner and the others heard the distinct sound of a vehicle approaching the compound from the access road. The two guards, upon hearing it as well, hit a switch on the guard shack. The area surrounding the gate was bathed in a bright light, and the mechanized rolling gate opened as they brought their rifles to bear on the approaching vehicle. Turner and the others quickly ducked below the rise as the two guards came out of the gate to intercept the vehicle.