Quantico Part 11

William hunched and rubbed his jaw to keep it from aching. There was little enough to see on the screen-blurry images from the two helmet cams, people sitting in the back of the bomb squad truck. And little enough to hear-bombnet had fallen mostly silent back in Eglin and Redstone and Washington, DC.

The students were transfixed. This is what some of them would end up doing unless they made some serious decisions right now. But William could tell. They were into it. They were as focused and intent as if they were on the actual scene, offering helpless murmurs of advice to their onscreen counterparts. They were already thinking like agents. William was scared as h.e.l.l. That was his father in there, once again risking his life, unconcerned about family or friends-duty was all.

Duty came first every single G.o.dd.a.m.ned time, no matter how much it might cost.

That had made William angry when he was a boy. Now, he didn't know which side to come down on. Because he was sure that his father was having another big d.a.m.ned adventure. Another day in the life of a hero. Jack Armstrong, all-seeing, all-knowing G-Man, Jimmy Stewart with a biker's build.

'I will stand,' Fouad said, getting up. 'You will sit.'

'Thanks,' William said. His legs were shaky. He replaced Fouad in the chair. Fouad stood beside him, arms crossed.

'I hate the suspense,' Fouad said. 'I am here for it, but I hate it.'

'Thanks,' William said again, but he wasn't paying much attention.

The pictures from the helmet cams had brightened and the experts at Eglin were talking again, speculating on the wires and posts outside the barn, the fryers, the long stretch of tape, and why Griff was still going after a little girl.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Washington State.

Griff took a deep breath. He was starting to feel the old claustrophobia-unable to catch a deep breath, the sensation that first his nostrils and then his throat would close up and he would suffocate. Bomb suits always had that effect on him-the warmth, his stale breath bouncing back from the faceplate, the squeezing closeness of all the armor and the weight, more and more overbearing.

Andrews was suddenly in his ear. The volume seemed to have gone up. Griff was sensitive to all sounds. 'I'm patching through George Sch.e.l.l from Eglin.'

Sch.e.l.l had gone with Griff through EOD school at Redstone. He was a short whippet-wire guy with thinning hair and sharp gray eyes and a quick temper that miraculously vanished when he worked around ordnance.

'Griff, we've been discussing this in the room here,' Sch.e.l.l said, 'and we've come up with a crazy idea. Have you ever heard of Alfven waves?'

'No,' Griff said, annoyed. 'I don't pay much attention to hairstyles.'

'This is physics,' Sch.e.l.l said. 'Listen up. We're going through a major solar storm. They can trigger electrical currents in power grids. Alfven waves. I don't see how a few acres of strung wire can pull in much of a current, but then, it might not take much, right? Do you see anything like a spark gap, something that could be a low-amp, high-voltage fuse?'

'No,' Griff said. Then, to be polite-and because, frankly, the idea made his stomach churn-he added, 'Not yet.'

'I knew it,' Watson said, under her breath. 'Like Rose said. He was watching the skies.'

'Hush,' Griff said. 'George, explain this dumb idea to me.' Clever people. Just shoot them all. Clever people. Just shoot them all.

'Let's say we get a big pulse from s.p.a.ce,' Sch.e.l.l said. 'The wires on the posts could pick up a current and feed it into the barn. The current could be strong enough to set off a fuse or trigger something else.'

Andrews added, 'I'm standing outside the truck. It's completely dark and I can see the aurora, Griff. It's spectacular. There's a big pink and orange corona overhead. It's like staring up at G.o.d's eye. Maybe it's just me, but He looks unhappy.'

'f.u.c.k,' Alice Watson said.

'Is this idea credible?' Griff asked.

'You told Andrews this was the Patriarch's piece de resistance,' Sch.e.l.l said, using English not French p.r.o.nunciation. 'He's been making bombs for sixty years. You tell me what's credible.'

'Amen,' Watson said.

Griff gave her a critical squint. 'Bombers don't play dice with timers or fuses,' he said. 'How would he know it wouldn't go off while his family was still here?'

'He might have flipped a switch as soon as you drove up,' Sch.e.l.l said. 'Put his fate in G.o.d's hands. And yours, too. Isn't that his style?'

'Pull out, Griff,' Andrews said. His voice was steady but Griff could tell. 'Let 'em drop a doodlebug.'

'Divine whim,' Watson said, dead-pan. 'G.o.d is the timer. Very clever. You boys are scaring me.' She was facing him from the other side of the trap door.

'That's nuts,' Griff murmured. 'G.o.d doesn't make lights in the sky. Magnetic fields and particles do that, right?'

'If you say so,' Sch.e.l.l said. 'What would the Patriarch think?'

Death to the Jews. Griff walked around the trap door. He was beginning to have real doubts about there being a little girl anywhere in the barn. But he had to make sure. She might have gone down into the bas.e.m.e.nt to hide. The Patriarch would have certainly taught his children to be afraid of police, of government agents. There might not be enough time to get the big bot in here to move that hatch-certainly not time enough for them to reach minimum safe distance if the hatch was hot. Griff walked around the trap door. He was beginning to have real doubts about there being a little girl anywhere in the barn. But he had to make sure. She might have gone down into the bas.e.m.e.nt to hide. The Patriarch would have certainly taught his children to be afraid of police, of government agents. There might not be enough time to get the big bot in here to move that hatch-certainly not time enough for them to reach minimum safe distance if the hatch was hot.

He wanted us to go deeper, see a little more of what he was up to. The trap door is not rigged.

Twenty years he had worked on the Patriarch's case. Twenty years of his life, off and on, hunting down an elusive mystery-how and why-until he thought he knew the man without ever having met him. The profiler's illusion, of course, is that his work is a science. Illusions are like thick layers of fat. They slow you down and eventually they kill you.

'The wire runs the length of the barn,' he told Andrews and the boys and girls across the country, on bombnet. 'It jumps to a board ramp and probably goes all the way down to the floor of the cellar.'

'Could be double-stranded tape, live current and ground,' Sch.e.l.l said. Bombnet had appointed him spokesperson. 'Do you think it's attached to a charge?'

'I think it's a guide tape for some sort of mechanism,' Watson said, and challenged Griff to contradict her. He did not. Instead, he said, 'I'll go down there and find the girl. We won't need two. Back out of here, Alice.' He meant that literally. The bomb suits worked best facing a blast.

'You first,' Alice said. 'I'll hold your mitt.'

'You really believe this stuff about elf-vane waves?' Griff called out, louder than necessary. 'I'm looking at a trap door. I think the girl might be hiding down there.'

Andrews spoke up again. 'Bombnet wants you out of there. They think Sch.e.l.l's boys have come up with a credible theory. Some of the guys have pulled out their electrical textbooks and calculators, but their gut says it could be done. Redstone, Eglin, Washington-one and all, Griff. It's unanimous.'

'The Patriarch wants to tell me something,' Griff said. 'He'll try to make me pay, but I think it's going to be interesting.'

'What the f.u.c.k does that mean?' Sch.e.l.l said, his voice skipping in and out. Satellite communications were suffering-that's how big the solar storm was, way above them, up in G.o.d's cruel heaven. The aurora was just a sideshow.

The video feed from their helmet cams was probably suffering, as well.

'Law enforcement officers make irrational decisions if they've been through a bout of depression,' Sch.e.l.l added. 'Their priorities get all screwed up. They act out resentments...taking risks. Cap Benson tells me...from depression.'

'Who the h.e.l.l hasn't in this business?' Griff asked. Was it true? Was there a death-wish here? I honestly don't think so. I'd like to see William graduate from the Academy. I'd like to see him prove his a.s.shole father was wrong. I honestly don't think so. I'd like to see William graduate from the Academy. I'd like to see him prove his a.s.shole father was wrong. 'Cap, stop telling tales out of court.' 'Cap, stop telling tales out of court.'

'Sorry, Griff. Just get out of there.'

'There was something big going on down here. Don't you feel it? I'd like to know what it is, wouldn't you?'

'No,' Andrews said.

'Screw it, Griff,' Rebecca said. 'I'm not seeing anything of interest. Get out. We'll do everything we can to grab evidence later.'

'Griff, everyone here-' Sch.e.l.l was saying.

'Well, I'd like to find the girl and look around a bit, and then I'll get out, p.r.o.nto.' Silence on bombnet. Griff could imagine Sch.e.l.l stomping and cursing in that faraway room, or just standing there-shaking his head.

'We're on our own, Alice,' Griff said. 'You feeling depressed?'

'No, sir,' Watson said. 'I want to see what's down there.'

'A bas.e.m.e.nt beneath an old barn. I'm sure it's a wonderland.'

Watson grinned. But then, she was always grinning. Her mishap had left her looking like death's girlfriend.

He reached the toe of his boot under the trap door and worked to push it aside. It sc.r.a.ped out a hollow groan as it moved. Watson aimed her light. The ramp was a long one. The bas.e.m.e.nt was big.

Griff fought back against the sensation that the suit was clamping down on him. Fear is the mind-killer, Fear is the mind-killer, he told himself, quoting from a novel he had read as a teenager. he told himself, quoting from a novel he had read as a teenager. Fear is the Little Death. Fear is the Little Death.

But another voice was telling him, f.u.c.k that. The Big Sleep is a lot worse than the Little Death. f.u.c.k that. The Big Sleep is a lot worse than the Little Death.

'The brain's a b.i.t.c.h,' Watson said, 'you know that?'

Griff chuckled. That's why he had chosen Watson. When they worked these situations together, she always seemed to know just what he was thinking. The ramp board was wide and thick and felt st.u.r.dy. He figured it could hold him and the bomb suit, but not the both of them. 'I'll go first,' he said.

'By all means,' Watson said, with a stuffed-sausage kind of curtsey. She steadied his arm as he got up on the board. From that point on it was an awkward little ballet, shuffling sideways, feeling the board bend, wondering if carpenter ants or termites had been busy down there.

Watson watched as the darkness swallowed him. His helmet light plunged off into the gloom like a smudge of white chalk. After an impossibly long time, hours it seemed, he reached a solid floor.

'All right, I'm down.'

'Back off the board. I'm coming,' Watson said.

He turned to his right. The stalls above were echoed by stalls below. He turned left. Just a few feet away, something moved-something he could not make out, that he saw but that his brain could not a.n.a.lyze. The plastic in the face-plate reduced and distorted visual cues. He lifted his head slightly to put the outer glow of helmet light on the object.

Watson seemed to descend in record time. Her light flared across his own.

'Jesus H. Christ. Hold off,' he said, raising an arm.

'What is it?' she asked.

He began to take a step forward, then stopped. Attractive objects lured you through tripwires. You never reach the object or solve the puzzle. 'I found our little girl.'

A cardboard cutout of a child with a red wig on top had been mounted on a motorized toy offroad vehicle. The big toy was still faintly whirring and b.u.t.ting against a concrete wall. The vehicle had followed the taped path, carrying the bewigged shape out of an upper stall, through the barn, and down the ramp like a target in a shooting gallery. Simple enough and effective. A small music player had been ducttaped to the back of the toy. It was still making weak little sobbing sounds.

'What set it moving?' Watson asked. 'A timer?'

'Our bot crossed the tape,' Griff guessed. 'A few seconds delay-then, bang, the fryers.'

The stick supporting the cutout slipped to one side and the silhouette fell to the floor, setting loose the toy to whir into a corner like a frustrated bug. It dragged the flat image in a half-circle. Then its motor stopped. The music player stopped as well.

The cellar was quiet-except for another, more distant whirring sound.

'There's no little girl,' Watson told the people outside.

'Copy that,' Andrews said. He sounded exhausted.

Oddly, other than feeling hemmed in, confined in his own protective coffin, Griff was not doing too badly. He was no longer tired. This place was interesting. The trap door opened through the wood floor on the north end. Where he stood now, the floor directly above was probably four or five inches of reinforced concrete. North and south, the floor above was not concrete, but wood over frame-both ends of the barn.

He swiveled his light. In the beam the air looked foggy. He aimed the light higher. Back in the truck they would see the video. They would see almost everything he was seeing. (But what about the interference? He could not answer that, so he ignored it.) Glittery dark powder fell from a series of long wire racks suspended on ropes just below the concrete ceiling.

Somewhere, a small electric motor was humming with a ratchety rhythm.

'Do you hear that?' he asked Watson.

'I do,' she said. Her light fell on gallon-sized steel cans and bulging sacks piled in one corner, not unlike the sacks of flour and sugar upstairs, but wrapped in clear plastic. A toppled can had spilled brownish chunky powder across the otherwise bare dark gray floor. Griff lifted a can. He scanned the label. A stylized swallow hovered over the brand name and description,

Crumbled Yeast Product of France EU Export License 2676901

'Yeast,' Watson said. 'You ever bake bread, Griff?'

'I've made beer,' he murmured. 'Was that what they were doing down here? Hey, Becky-should we call in the revenooers?'

No answer. He chuckled just to give himself an audience.

Twelve workbenches had been arranged in rows along the south side of the bas.e.m.e.nt. They looked worn and splintery and dark. Watson's feet raised puffs. The floor was coated with the glittering powder, not yeast. Beyond the tables stood a long trough or sink and suspended beside the sink, a long wooden box topped with a sheet of transparent plastic. Holes cut through the sheet still held inverted black rubber gloves.

'That's a glove box,' Rebecca said. 'Look around that area.'

'I don't see any expensive equipment,' Griff said after a moment. 'Maybe they took it with them.'

Watson pinched a wrinkled blue and yellow piece of plastic off one of the benches. It unfolded into a protective hood with a transparent face-sheet. A corrugated plastic tube-made to be attached to an air supply-dangled from the back of the hood.

'Part of a biohazard suit,' Rebecca said.

'What the h.e.l.l were they making down here?' Watson asked.

'Not beer,' Griff said. 'Chambers didn't drink.'