“We wouldn’t like that either, sir,” Drake answered.
Colonel Bozeman leaned over Painter’s shoulder and spoke into the microphone. “Listen to the director, Drake. No lip. He’s in command.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the colonel straightened, Painter continued. “From the schematics of the base, you should keep at least two hundred yards back. Any closer and you’ll find yourself parked over the station itself.”
“Don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Drake replied.
On the screen, the Hummer trundled through the open gate and up the entry road a short distance where it stopped.
“Are you seeing this?” Drake asked.
To get a better view, Painter tapped one section on the monitor, zooming in on that feed. It came from the camera built into Lisa’s suit. She stood in the bed of the truck, giving him a good vantage of the road ahead.
Fifty yards away, a large crater had been blown out of the flank of the hill. A pall of smoke hung over the blast site. The span of destruction was much greater than he had anticipated. It seemed Dr. Hess had been taking no chances when he designed this fail-safe.
“I think more than just the base collapsed,” Jenna radioed.
Nikko stirred at Painter’s feet, rising to his haunches, one ear cocked to the sound of his master’s voice.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Rumor has it that the military built this station inside an already existing mine. One from the gold rush era. Looks like when the station blew, it collapsed sections of the surrounding tunnels, too.”
That can’t be good.
Painter swung to Bozeman. “Do we have any map or survey of that old mine?”
“I’ll go check.” He rushed out, already bellowing commands to his staff.
Painter took a deep breath and spoke again. “Until we know the full extent of those old tunnels, you should pull back.”
“What about investigating ground zero?” Lisa asked.
“From the looks of it, you’re not going to find anything useful anyway. It’s safer if you—”
The image shuddered on the screen.
Shouts erupted.
Painter watched as Lisa’s hands grabbed the roll bar behind the cab. The front end of the Hummer tilted downward, the ground crumbling away beneath it. Fissures shattered outward toward the large crater.
On the screen, Drake slammed his palm repeatedly on the top of the cab. “Go, go, go!”
The engine roared into reverse. He heard tires tearing into gravel.
Nikko leaped to his feet, growling to match the timbre of the straining motor.
Slowly the truck retreated, the front end climbing out of the ever-widening hole. The driver drove backward, zigzagging for traction on the unsteady ground. A breathless moment later, they barreled in reverse through the gates and onto the outer road.
Ahead, the sinkhole crumbled and fell away into the abandoned mine, but it did not pursue them any further.
Drake spoke up. “I say we listen to the director and get our asses out of here.”
No one argued.
Painter leaned back and patted Nikko on the flank. “They’re okay.”
He sought to calm the dog as much as his own pounding heart. He switched to another video feed—this one coming from Josh’s camera. As the young man helped his sister down to the bench, Painter studied her face, her features partially obscured by the mask. He noted strands of hair plastered to her cheeks by sweat, but she appeared otherwise unfazed and more important—
She’s safe.
That was victory enough for him.
The expedition might not have learned anything significant about the base, but hopefully the collected samples would help lead them in the right direction.
The truck began to turn around outside the gate when Jenna spoke up again. “Wait!”
Drake called for the driver to stop.
Painter sat back up.
“I just realized something. I don’t know if it’s important, but I forgot to mention it earlier.” She pointed to the gate. “When I arrived last night, this was open. Like it is now. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but now it’s got me wondering.”
Painter followed her train of thought. The enemy had departed by helicopter. Likely that’s the way they arrived, too.
“Who left the gate open?” Jenna asked. “What if it wasn’t someone entering the base, but someone fleeing out?”
Painter considered the timeline. “When the mayday was dispatched by the base’s system analyst, she mentioned the containment breach, but nothing about an attack.”
“Which means someone—someone on the inside—likely sabotaged the base in advance, setting everything in motion. And knowing what was coming, the saboteur fled before all hell broke loose.”
Painter weighed the likelihood of this scenario. “Makes some sense. The resulting chaos would’ve helped cover the arrival of the assault team, allowing them to land and nab Hess.”
Jenna pointed to the crater. “And with this level of destruction, it would take weeks, if not months, to find and identify all the bodies. No one would know Hess had been snatched for quite some time.”
“Which goes to explain why the enemy was so determined to silence you. They didn’t know how much you saw and couldn’t risk letting knowledge of the kidnapping get out.”
“But they failed,” Jenna added. “And now we know someone probably fled from here, too. The only road out of these hills passes through either Mono City or Lee Vining. Both towns have multiple traffic cameras. If we could track the saboteur down . . .”
We might learn what really happened here—and why.
Earlier, Painter had had a full rundown on events back in D.C., detailing the attack on DARPA’s headquarters and the execution of Dr. Lucius Raffee. Someone was clearly trying to erase all ties to this base.
But now they had some hope of getting a jump on them.
Painter scratched Nikko behind the ear.
You have one smart owner.
He leaned to the microphone. “Okay, good job everyone. Let’s get you all home safe.”
6:55 A.M.
Lisa sat in sullen silence as the Hummer descended out of the hills. In her head, she reviewed the protocols for their return to the forward staging area.
At the border, a group of Marines—working with a team from the CDC—had already constructed a makeshift quarantine garage for the truck. After offloading inside there, she and the others would strip and go through multiple decontamination stages. Additionally, the team would be isolated for twelve hours to watch for any signs of contagion or contamination.