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DRESSED IN the rain gear they’d taken from Han’s men, Kurt and Joe looked more like they belonged. They crossed the hill, found another stairway and made it down to level ground. Using the infrared goggles, Kurt spotted the residual heat from the helicopter once more. It was rapidly fading from the rain.
He turned his attention to the walls beyond the landing area. Several openings had been cut in the mountain and were now barricaded. Through the human eye they all looked the same, but through the heat sensitive goggles one of them shimmered a magenta color.
“Across the field,” Kurt said. “The shaft on the far left. That’s the one.”
“No sign of any guards,” Joe said.
“Let’s not wait for any to show up.”
Kurt flipped the goggles up once more and sprinted across the open ground. Arriving beside the tunnel, he pressed himself against the wall. Joe took a position right behind him. A quick look confirmed what Kurt needed to know. “Tunnel is empty but venting heat.”
Joe glanced up at the rain falling steadily from the heavens. “Warm and dry,” he said. “Looks good to me.”
Kurt nodded. Without another word, both of them slipped quietly into the tunnel.
* * *
• • •
THE GROUND was turning to mud as Ushi-Oni continued his exploration of the island. He’d never been in such a haven of decay and he found himself marveling at the beauty of it. The crumbling buildings, piles of rubble and stark emptiness spoke to him.
This is what the world would be like after men were gone, he mused. It wouldn’t take long for nature to erase the insignificant stain mankind had worked on the planet. Not long at all.
The wind picked up as he neared the seawall and he decided he’d had enough. He turned around, began the journey back toward the laboratory and stopped.
A faint glow was emanating from the debris ahead of him. He held still for a moment and then moved closer. The light vanished and then reappeared.
Using the samurai sword, Oni slashed at a bush that got in his way. The branches fell, cut clean through. The light was more visible now. Oni was looking at a tiny screen with a low-powered LED attached.
He bent low and pulled it from the rubble. Recognition came instantly. He had in his hands a damaged pair of night vision goggles. The front plate was missing and the screen was cracked, but the goggles were still operating, and they were obviously the type military and police forces used to make assaults under cover of darkness.
Oni looked around, expecting to be shot or attacked at any second, but nothing of the sort happened. Still, the high-tech device didn’t just fall from the sky like a . . .
The words died in his mind. He looked up at the vacant monolith beside him. The rain shrouded it in a jacket of mist and white noise. The damage to the goggles was consistent with a high-speed impact or a long drop. One side was dented and scraped, the other unblemished; parts were broken off. And though he’d only made a cursory search, the missing parts were nowhere that Oni could see.
Perhaps they did fall from the sky after all.
He switched the damaged goggles off, clipped them to his belt and went looking for a way into the building.
45
KURT AND JOE moved quietly through the tunnel as it bent back and downward into the mountain. A small berm had been built toward the front to keep water out, but the rainwater pooled quickly and soon found its way around the rudimentary defense, traveling in a narrow channel at the center of the tunnel before vanishing over the edge of a vertical shaft that dropped into the depths. An elevator on the near side looked abandoned.
“This thing looks like it hasn’t been used in years,” Joe said.
Kurt took a brief look down the vertical shaft with the infrared scope. “No heat coming up the shaft either. They’re not down there. Must be farther back.”
They moved on and soon found the first signs of recent occupation. The old electrical cables had been replaced and the new wire along the wall was connected to a string of LEDs that glowed dimly.
When they came to a split in the tunnel, Kurt studied the ground using the IR goggles. The residual heat of footprints could be seen. Most of them went left. Kurt followed.
Joe put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure?”
“Yellow Brick Road,” he whispered. “We’re in a high-traffic area.”
His faith was rewarded when they came to pair of plastic-coated, triple-sealed doors. The handle glowed from the heat of the last person to touch it.
Kurt flipped up his goggles. “Han has been doing some remodeling.”
