The Dig: A Taskforce Story (7 page)

I said, “You ready to do this?”

In the soft glow from the moonlight I saw her nod. I shook my head, internally hoping to see some reticence on her part. Anything to slow down this train. I said, “That damn badge isn’t going to work anymore. They know I took it.”

She said, “I told you I’d climb. Anyway, you said it didn’t work on the door where I was held to begin with.”

Part of our half-assed plan was using the access badge I’d taken off the scientist, but if it didn’t work because they knew they’d lost it, Jennifer was going to climb to the outside balcony where I’d seen the guy on the phone, break a window, then come down to the door from the inside and let me in.

I had a bad feeling about the entire situation. From our reconnaissance, all the Blackhorse guys were either in a trailer offset from the motor pool, or in the bunker-like concrete building that was formerly the SAC alert base, but none were in the hangar. It was completely off-limits to all but Blackhorse leadership—like the fake federal agent who had slapped Jennifer—but leadership would be gone at night. We hoped. What would happen if someone
were
inside? What would I do locked outside? Scream as they captured Jennifer?

I’d brought that up to her and she’d said, “Would you be worried if it were another teammate doing the entry?”

When I’d told her no, she’d said, “Then why do you want me to do Selection?” The implication was clear: Don’t tell me I’m capable, then treat me like a piece of fine china.

She broke the silence, snapping me back to the present: “Let’s do this.”

I checked my equipment one more time and said, “Here goes nothing.”

I handed her the tail end of a section of 550 cord—a thin, green, nylon military twine used for everything except making coffee—and snaked forward on my belly, pulling the other end. I reached the fence and, using a large binder clip from an office-supply store, I attached the cord to the bottom chain link, right next to the aluminum vibration sensor. I retraced my crawl, taking care to fix the disturbance of my passing, knowing they would shine a light.

I reached Jennifer in the ditch seventy feet away. I rolled next to her and said, “Okay, last chance to just get the hell out of here. Get back to Charleston.”

She snapped at me, saying, “Why do you keep asking? Is that what you want to do? Really?”

I was taken aback by her statement, since she usually got me involved in the overall problem, then acted like everything I did to solve it was insane. I considered, then said, “No. Not really. Those assholes think they have a cloak of immunity because of their classified status. Building a bunch of crap that costs billions and doesn’t even work. It pisses me off. The minute you start using your classification as an excuse to profit, you need to be gone.” I looked at her again and smiled, “Not to mention they were going to kill you. That alone is worth my attention.”

I started to pull the lanyard, beginning the show, when she stopped me, locking eyes in the moonlight. She said, “You mean that?”

“Well, yeah. Of course I do. Someone fucks with you, they fuck with me.”

“No, no. I mean about the abuse of power.”

Where is this going?
I paused, seeing her search my face. I said, “Yes. I meant that as well.”

“So if the Taskforce were to start doing something wrong, you’d step up? Stop it?”

“Hell, yeah, I would. Jesus. You think I wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. You keep pushing me for Selection, but you never talk about the consequences. You see a force for global good. I see a damn secret police. I’m okay with the global good. I’m not so sure about the Gestapo.”

I laid flat, saying, “Then what the fuck are we doing here? Really? Because
I’m
the Gestapo that’s about to risk my life entering this site.”

She said nothing for a moment, then, “This is good. I can do this. The people inside need to be exposed. And I’ll do Selection if Kurt lets me. But I won’t be a partner to groupthink. I
will not
roll over if I see something going bad. You get that, right?”

I squirmed in the ditch to face her again. I said, “That’s exactly why I want you to do it. No other reason.”

She grinned and said, “No other reason?”

I heard the words and felt the flush on my neck, now glad for the darkness. I rolled away from her eyes and said, “Get your head down.”

I jerked the cord, muttering under my breath.

Nothing outward on the fence happened. No lights, no sirens. But within seconds I saw a glow behind the bunker building, near the Blackhorse trailer.
Headlights
.

Soon enough, they came ripping down the fence and stopped right outside our position, shining a Q-Beam handheld spotlight. I pulled a burlap cover over our head as it swept the earth around us. The beam began hunting, raking the ground left, then right, the spikes of light punching through the burlap enough to illuminate Jennifer in the flashes. I whispered, “Wanna run?”

She actually smiled, saying, “Too late.”

The vehicle rolled on, the light from the Q-Beam fading. She said, “I’m starting to get a kick out of this. Jerk the cord again.”

I grinned, pulling the 550 cord hard. Forty seconds later, the vehicle was back on us. The spotlight stabbed the dark and I scrunched down next to Jennifer, pulling the burlap tight and ducking my head into her armpit.

I felt her hold her breath, and the light went away, the engine noise fading. She said, “Did you really need to jam your nose into my breast?”

I leaned up and jerked the cord again, saying, “What are you talking about?”

She started to say something when the light came back. I slammed back down flat, pressing my head into her armpit again. She hissed, “This is not funny.”

The light lingered, hovering over us for the first time. We were about to be discovered.

I whispered back, “Shut up. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.”

She went rigid, a plank without movement, my nose bunching into her left breast. The light lingered for a good ten seconds, then moved on. She rolled to the right and punched me in the shoulder.

I hissed, “What? What’s wrong with you?”

She looked at me, trying to find some sign that I had enjoyed what had just happened. I gave nothing away. She squinted her eyes, but said nothing. I pulled the cord again, this time getting no response.

They’d shut down the sensor.

With a choir-boy look of innocence, I climbed out of the ditch with my wire cutters. I held the smile at bay until I was out of her eyesight, but it busted wide open as I crawled toward the fence.

I started snipping a spot big enough to get us through. I got about a third of the way around when I saw the lights from the patrol kick up again. I cinched the fledgling hole in four places with micro-fiber zip-ties, then scrambled back to Jennifer.

We waited, seeing what would happen. The fact that the patrol was coming this early either meant they were starting their manual protection, or that we were fucked and they hadn’t shut down the sensor. If they focused on our spot at the fence, like they had before, we would be found out when they saw the cut links.

The vehicle swept on through, the light bouncing along at a good ten miles an hour, but not stopping near us. I did the math and figured I had about eight minutes. I crawled forward again.

We went through four rotations, and the hole was cut. On the fifth, we entered the compound, leaving behind a knit job that would pass cursory examination. I led the way, skirting the lights to the hangar.

We drew up on the right side, crouching down in the darkness, the balcony above us. I pulled out my stolen access badge, looked to see if she was ready, then leaned into the light, placing it against the reader. It blinked red.

Shit.

I said, “Not working. You sure you want to do this? You get up there, you’re on your own.”

Her eyes were wide, the adrenaline coursing through her. She nodded. I said, “Check your pistol.”

She’d kept the Glock she’d taken from the badge guy who had slapped her around, with me keeping the one from the roving patrol. She pulled the slide a bit, just enough to see the brass of a round, then let it ride forward, nodding at me and slipping the pistol back into its kydex holster.

I said, “Okay. Let’s get this circus stunt over with.”

I’d found out in Guatemala that Jennifer was a little bit of a freak when it came to climbing or acrobatics. Which is to say she could get up the side of any building like a lizard, as long as she had a start. In this case, she’d studied the pictures we’d taken on our reconnaissance and figured she could get to the balcony above the hangar doors by utilizing an offset electrical conduit. If she could get to it, she could jump to the balcony. Unfortunately, the only way to reach the conduit was to stand on my shoulders and leap. Like some demented college cheerleading event.

We’d actually rehearsed this in the motel room, Jennifer coaching me through how to do a lift onto my shoulders, then launching her into the air high enough to reach the conduit. In a past life, she’d been a member of Cirque du Soleil, and she’d wasted no time tearing into me at my ham-handed abilities until I got it “right.”

Now, hoisting her up in the dark, the reality hit home. The worst thing about the whole idea was that I couldn’t repeat her maneuver to the box. Once she was on her way, we were committed, with me on the outside.

She got up on my shoulders and I stood, holding her hands. She squeezed once, and I bent down at the knees like I was squatting weight. She squeezed again, and I stood. She held it for a moment, and I heard her breathing rapidly. Getting ready. She squatted down on my shoulders and squeezed one more time.

Here we go.

I lowered until my legs were at a ninety-degree angle. I squeezed her hand once, then exploded upward with all my strength. Two-thirds the way up I felt her body shift, with her now leaping off the top of my shoulders. She let go of my hands, and I immediately rotated, looking up and holding my arms out to catch her fall.

I needn’t have worried. She was hanging from the conduit ten feet above me.

Amazing
.

She hoisted herself up, then pushed backwards, releasing the conduit and turning in midair, catching the bottom of the balcony.

Fucking super-amazing.

She scrambled on top and disappeared. I waited, the silence both good and bad. Good, in that she hadn’t said she was under attack from the inside. Bad, in that I automatically assumed our damn radios weren’t working. And that she was getting her ass kicked.

One minute later, the door opened, Jennifer on the inside looking like she’d just figured out the final level to Candy Crush. I gave her a fist bump and ran right to the office where I’d hammered the scientists earlier.

I pointed at the computer on the desk, then drew my pistol, covering the open hangar bay. Jennifer powered it down, then inserted a thumb drive designed to bypass whatever security was on the hard drive. She powered it back up, then glanced at me, nodding. She inserted another thumb drive, this one a WiFi dongle tethered to her phone.

I needed Creed to be able to go rooting around the computer remotely, which meant I needed to establish an Internet connection with him. Since this place was so top secret, I knew their computers would be air-gapped from the World Wide Web, which meant I needed to build a bridge. Using a 3G connection from Jennifer’s smartphone, the WiFi dongle would hopefully do just that.

I dialed Creed, getting him on the first ring, his voice sounding high-pitched in my earpiece. He said, “You ready?”

“Think so. What now?”

He gave me a website and I relayed it to Jennifer. She pulled up a Linux web browser from the first thumb drive and typed the address. She said, “I got an ‘enter’ button.”

I told Creed and he said, “Click on it.”

Five seconds later, he said, “I’m in.”

The initial euphoria gave way to boredom. Waiting for Creed to dig around the multitude of files was about as exciting as watching paint dry. Jennifer came around the desk, holding her Glock.

“How long will this take?”

“I have no idea. I figured he had some kind of software search engine, but maybe he’s just clicking on random documents and reading them. Why don’t you go back to the front door? Keep an eye out.”

She nodded and I heard Creed say, “No, I’m not just randomly clicking on shit. That’s what you operators would do.”

I had forgotten that my earpiece was still live.

He continued, “I’ve found a lot of smoke, but no fire. There are quite a few documents relating to testing, but they’re all just single-page cross-reference sheets for filing purposes. I think what you want is in hard copy only. Is there a file cabinet in the office?”

I glanced around, saying, “No. Just a locker for lab coats.”

He said, “Okay. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find it on this computer. Let me go through their e-mail.”

“E-mail? I thought this was air-gapped?”

“It is from the World Wide Web, but they have their own local area network. It’s secure from external attacks.” He sniggered at that last statement.

A second later he said, “Hey, what’s the name of the guy’s badge you took?”

I looked at it, saying, “Nathaniel Broadmoor. Why?”

“Just ran across a security list that shows the clearances of everyone.” I heard nothing for a second, then, “And here he is. Yep. With a big black X next to his name. They haven’t gotten him a new badge yet.”

“That’s really interesting. Can you get back to the task at hand? I don’t want to be here when the sun comes up.”

“I have a search program running. Geez. I can do more than one thing at a time.”

I said nothing. Three minutes later he said, “Okay, I got the smoking gun. An e-mail from someone named Wynn Deveron to the entire R-and-D staff stating that all ‘Class C’ tests were to be expunged from digital media and stored in his office. I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably what you want.”

“Who is he?”

Instead of an answer, I heard, “Whoa, Pike, their security board just went haywire. A bunch of red-letter messages.”

“What’s that mean?”

I heard footsteps returning, and from the door Jennifer hissed to get my attention. “I have flashlights coming our way. Four of them from the bunker building.”

Shit
. Somewhere along the way we’d tripped a wire. They might have found the fence hole, or maybe it was Jennifer coming in through the upstairs windows, or just opening the door downstairs. All irrelevant.

I ripped out the thumb drives and heard Creed say—in a voice way too calm—“Deveron’s the program manager for the whole project. He’s the head guy.”

I realized he had no idea what was going on, being a thousand miles away. I said, “Jennifer, we’re going back out the way you came. Lead the way.”

She took off running, dodging around the crash-site UAV and running up the metal stairs. I hit the bottom rung just as the door opened. I made it to the top before anyone focused in our direction. Jennifer was waiting outside the door where I’d found her and Sweetwater, the access panel blinking red.

I said, “Creed, we have some issues here, can you turn on Dr. Broadmoor’s access card?”

“Well, yeah, but I need to be in their system.”

Damn it.
I forgot that I’d broken the connection when I’d yanked out the thumb drives.

Edging along the balcony, watching the flashlights searching below, I whispered, “Find a computer.”

The room where I’d rescued Jennifer was obviously a no-go with its access pad, but not everything was locked down, as we’d found out from the office below. We skulked along the balcony, stopping whenever a light looked like it was coming our way. Jennifer tried the fourth door, and it opened. On the inside was a fairly new Dell throwing a soft glow from the monitor.

I powered it down, then went through the process of getting the two thumb drives up and operational. I whispered, “Phone.” She tossed it to me. I tethered it to the WiFi dongle, then brought up the website. I clicked “enter” and said, “I’m back on line.”

Jennifer heard something, and peeked out the door. She whipped back inside and said, “We’re out of time. They’re coming to the stairs.”

I said, “Creed, can you access the card? Turn it on?”

He said, “Yeah, hang on, I’m working it.”

“Pike, we don’t leave now, they’ll catch us. We still have to get through the window, and that thing was small.”

I said, “Where are they?”

“Halfway up.”

“Creed?”

“Almost there. It’s got some sort of CAPTCHA code I have to input.”

“Well, for fuck’s sake, hurry.”

Jennifer said, “They’re at the top. They’re going to catch us before we can get through the window.”

She knelt down behind a desk, the Glock out over the top. Getting ready to fight.

Creed said, “Got it. You have access to the entire compound now.”

I grinned and said, “Don’t worry about the window. We’re going out the door.”

I grabbed her hand and hoisted her to her feet. I saw the bounce of a flashlight and said, “Ready?”

She nodded. I handed her the access badge, ripped out the thumb drives, and said, “Lead the way.”