AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay,” Travers said. “That’s the interior. What about exterior security?”
“On the outside? Forget about it. A full company or so of Black Wasps in the campus grounds or just outside. A couple companies of regular army troops garrisoned within a mile.” Zack thought a moment. “La Finca is a more secure physical structure, but there are fewer guards inside and out.”
“What’s La Finca?”
“It’s the name given to the old KGB dormitory building, a half-underground bunker, about a ten-minute drive to the campus.”
Travers nodded, then scrolled through some images on his iPad.
“NGA sent blueprints of both the campus and the dormitory building. The plans are for when the campus was built in 2007, and it shows three subterranean levels of the dormitory.”
Zack nodded. “The ground floor is just the security building, a bar, a cafeteria, some common areas, and the elevators. Floors U1 and U2 are the bedrooms and such, and U3 is the armory, storage, even a warehouse with like a year of supplies.”
“Oh…” Zack held a finger up. “Also down there are sixteen decommissioned robots with Walther PPQ pistols on their hips.”
Court blinked hard at this. “Wait. They weren’t four-legged, with a rifle on the top?”
“Negative. They look like astronauts. They’re called Safe Sentries, made by a company in Boston. Hinton got them for site security, but then ordered them deactivated when the killing started, because he worried America would find a way to hack into them.”
“Unreal,” Zoya muttered.
Travers held up the tablet and showed Zack an image. “We also have another set of blueprints, these were smuggled out of Cuba in 1962, just after construction of the facility was complete.”
“Nineteen sixty-two?” Court said, incredulously. “Yeah…let’s use the newer ones.”
But Travers persisted. “Here’s the thing, though. When the place was originally built, a tunnel was constructed that went between the lowest level of the dormitory and the lowest level of the SIGINT headquarters building, about six hundred meters long, and then it branched off to the other buildings at the campus. You could travel underground to anywhere.”
Travers handed over the tablet, and Zack saw for himself. On the sixty-two-year-old plans, the tunnel ran to the northeast from the dormitory, from the fourth floor belowground, a subterranean level that Zack knew nothing about.
Chris Travers looked to Zack. “Have you been in the SIGINT headquarters building at the campus?”
“No, but I drive past it every day. It’s abandoned, fenced up.”
“Well,” Travers continued, “the SIGINT building has a massive basement built to withstand a tactical nuke, or at least it did in 1962. The tunnel from the dormitory led one story below that basement. What if the aboveground floors of the building are abandoned and the server farm is located belowground?”
Zack thought a moment. “Shit, Chris. That checks out. The power station and the generator complex are right there, one on either side of the SIGINT HQ. Wren told me they had four sources of power feeding the lab so there wouldn’t be any outages. But what if two of those sources are just there to keep the server farm supplied?”
Court heaved a long sigh. “I just have to ask, dude. You didn’t see the Dr. Evil lair your boss was living in as some kind of a tip-off that he was a shithead?”
“I mean…in retrospect…I guess it’s a little fishy.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Court muttered.
“So if security is lighter at the dormitory,” Zoya asked, “we need to find that tunnel access. Have you been everywhere down there?”
“Yeah, Wren showed me around.” Zack thought back. “There’s a service elevator, it’s closed off. He said it hadn’t worked since the Russkies ran the place, and he said it only went up. Maybe I’ll go check it out, see if it will take me down to a lower level.”
Court said, “You sure you want to go back there? We can pull you out now.”
“Wren and Hinton sent me out tonight to make contact with CIA to try to get you guys off their ass, but I think they are just stalling for time. Hinton’s been saying for days something was coming at the lab, some new capability they would be fielding. He said it would make the world more peaceful, but I guess it’s just the opposite.
“I’ve got to go back in there so they don’t suspect you guys are coming, because if they do, they might adjust their countdown clock.”
Court pulled a sat phone from the pocket of his linen pants and handed it over. “This is from Pace. You think you can get into the building without it being discovered?”
Zack nodded. “I’m still one of them. I’ll put it in my room, then go down and look for the tunnel so I don’t have it on me then. I’ll contact you when I return to my room.” He shrugged. “If.”
Court said, “The phone is programmed with my Signal number.”
