Pickers 4: The Pick (3 page)

Lucas stepped back from the window and raised the rifle to his shoulder. He stared through the scope, back along the road they had come up, tracing its route back to the town. Gently adjusting the focus, he studied the buildings as far back as he could see.

There was movement. He panned slowly left and right until he caught it again. It was a goat. The one they had startled on the way into town, or a very similar animal.

Stepping back, he moved the rifle to the left, keeping it level. The dark, out of focus wall filled the scope, until he was looking out of the side window. From this position, at the end of the top floor of the building's West wing, he could see some way down the valley. Not far enough for his liking, he wouldn't spot any movement toward them until it had almost reached the edge of town. It wouldn't give them enough time to make a getaway, but that was why they were hiding. And they didn't plan to be here for long.

There were footsteps coming up the stairs. Lucas rested the rifle against the wall beside the window and turned to see who his visitor was.

"We got the wall down." Georges said. "We found some interesting stuff, including this." He unslung the big, cuboid pack he was carrying, and started unzipping it.

"What is that, then?"

"We found something to take over watch duty from you."

"Good, cause it's boring as hell. But sort of tense and stressful as well. Is this what it's been like for them all the time they were out here?"

"Not like our little scouting missions, eh?"

"Always back by bedtime, or we get put under curfew. These last few days have almost made me miss it."

"I'm enjoying it."

"Of course you are."

Inside the bag, there were two devices- egg shaped things atop a complicated tangle of struts and hinges. Georges lifted one from the protective foam, and carried it across to the town facing window. He tugged at some of the struts, and they unfolded into a tripod to support the egg. Lucas watched as he adjusted the legs until the structure was stable, the blunt end of the egg facing the window. Georges stepped back and studied it. "Okay. I've forgotten what comes next. There are instructions in the bag, can you get them."

In a pocket in the top of the bag was a large piece of glossy paper, folded several times to fit. Lucas opened it as he walked it over, revealing step by step image instructions. "You, er.... There's a catch, under there." He pointed at the picture, and Georges found the catch, which released the domed cap and revealed a pair of lenses and a panel of control buttons.

"Press that one." Lucas indicated, deeply involved in the process, even though he didn't know what they were supposed to be doing.

"Go on, you press it." Georges unclipped the radio from his belt. "This is the West wing. We're going to turn the first one on now. Over."

Lucas pressed the button the instructions indicated, and held it for a count of ten.

"West wing. We have images from you. Over." the radio said.

"Okay. We are going to set up the second one. Don't discover anything else cool until we get back. Over."

"No promises. Over and out."

"Well, I suppose we should speed up a bit then." said Lucas, heading for the second camera.

There had been a second wall section behind the one Veronique had marked. Between them was a thick, solidly packed layer of insulation. Hit the wall and you would hear a dull thud, rather than the reverberation that would reveal the void behind it. The section wouldn't feel any colder, or draw condensation, either.

The double layering had drawn some strong language, but they had broken a human sized hole into the first room of the vault. Lights had started coming on as soon as the first brick was pushed through. They had all leapt back from the wall, fearing automated defence systems the plans said weren't there.

Mocking themselves, they had slowly returned to the task, and, not long after, Maxine had wriggled her way through the gap. There was no way they could have stopped her. Justine, also short and slim, had followed a moment later.

The room was really the entrance to a cave. It had been worked, possibly going back centuries, but the most recent tool marks were from when it had been converted into the entrance to a secure vault. The scars of digging and blasting were covered in places by concrete to make even walls and a flat floor. The rear quarter of the space was given over to an entirely man made square arch, wrapped around a gigantic, dark door. The frame of the door had been welded and bolted together from thick sections of steel, then filled with concrete. When it rolled or swung aside, the opening was going to be big enough that both wagons might fit through side by side.

"How did they hide that they were building this?" Justine said, staring up at the mighty door.

"The world was crazy for years when things started collapsing. All sorts of things were missed, or forgotten about really quick. We've chased this all over Europe. The people who made this place were incredibly organised."

"But, how did they keep it secret from the people in town? Where did all the stone they removed go?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if most of the stone went into bits of the cave that they didn't use."

Justine shook her head. "And you've found more of these?"

"Only one near to this scale. But we've found plenty of places where people holed up as the world went to shit. Still, this is the biggest. Even this bit here is more impressive than what we usually find."

The space was barely wider or taller than the door it led to, made narrower by racks of shelving. They would need to clear out this storage before the wagons could come through, so, as the sounds of hammering started up again, they worked their way along either side of the cave, digging for treasure.

There was defence equipment in the room, but none of it was deployed. This was a bounty for a recovery team- everything they would need to set up a high tech perimeter while they went about their work. Just like the vault in Spain, everything was robust, and there was a power source somewhere deep below them that had kept batteries charged and ready.

By the time the hole was large enough to step through, Maxine and Justine had discovered the sentry cameras, and were seeing what they could hide behind to escape the heat sensors. There was a booth full of screens to view the camera feeds on, loaded with technology that made Veronique weak at the knees.

Now, they had cameras set up to watch the valley, and Veronique had a second tablet, which flicked between views as movement was detected. She kept checking it, but her attention was on the door. In the end, Tony took the new tablet from her- she didn't like relinquishing technology- so that she could concentrate on the plans and blueprints on her old tablet.

The whole crew was arrayed before the door as Veronique walked back and forth, studying it. There were metal plates held in place by bolts all the way around the arch. Some of them were remnants of the frame that had been used to hold the concrete in place as it set. Two hid the mechanism that released the door. Veronique tapped one to the right of the door and another to the left. Remy and Fabien stepped up to release the panels.

The panels each hid three large bolt heads with deep hexagonal slots in them. They had fashioned keys for them before leaving the Valley. "Clockwise on the right. Anti-clockwise on the left." Veronique instructed.

The bolts turned easily, with just enough resistance that they knew they were moving something. Thirty revolutions later, the first bolts stopped moving, so they started on the next ones down.

When all six bolts were drawn back as far as they would go, there was silent anticipation in the cave. It was as if they expected the door to open all by itself. When it was obvious that wasn't going to happen, it was Fabien who stepped up and pushed the right-most edge.

The door opened slowly and silently as Fabien pushed it. Lucas joined him, but it could have been a one person job. There was a loud clang as the door settled against buffers in the wall. The sound echoed around the even larger space that was revealed, eventually being swallowed up by the collection of vehicles parked within.

Around the edges of the chamber were a selection of small vehicles- pickups and fork lifts to move things to and from the deeper chambers. But they were insignificant next to the main show. Parked in the centre of the space, dominating it, was a huge vehicle. It was a beast, and made it clear why the door was so large. Veronique and Maxine both turned to their father. He didn't need to make a sound for them to know he was in love with the giant truck before them. He nodded and grinned.

Remy forced himself to turn away from the truck. "Okay. Georges, Lucas and Fabien, can you get the rest of the wall down and the vehicles in. Veronique, you had best stay near the surveillance centre. Can you and Sarah start on the shelves so they can get in. Maxine, you take Justine and Amandine deeper. Find the seed stores, but don't open them until we're ready to move stuff. I am going to stay here and see which of these vehicles we can use."

Remy had walked around the articulated truck twice. It was so large he thought they should qualify as treks. The tractor unit itself was as long and tall as one of their wagons. The bonnet section was as long as the cab, the front curved and rounded in a nod to aerodynamics. The massive bull bars on the front, however, made a mockery of any attempts to carve through the air. Skirts covered the wheels from the side. Remy tapped one and knew it was armoured

The long, long trailer had three axles at the back. The side panels were solid, and hinted at armouring, and skirts extended over the wheels as well. They were complemented by low slung bars hung from the frame of the trailer which would keep smaller vehicles from getting trapped under it.

There were steps up to the cab doors, and handles either side to help. Remy clambered up and tried the handle. The door opened, and he swung easily into the driver's seat. The back wrapped around and extended forwards, providing support in the unlikely event the truck performed a sharp turn. There was another seat by the other door, what seemed like a very long way away, and a third, behind them and mounted high. This seat was held in a frame suspended from the roof. Whoever used it would have to stick their upper body through the hatch above it and look out from the cupola on the roof. No doubt they could mount a gun up there as well.

Behind the gunner's seat there were two bunk beds and lots of storage. A rack under the bottom bunk was full of ammunition boxes, for high calibre rounds. Maybe the gun to go with them was back there somewhere as well.

Remy settled into the seat, and rested his hands easily on the steering wheel. The controls were similar to those on the wagons, from the basic accelerator and brake on the floor, through to the twist control to balance which wheels provided the most drive. There was an added level of complexity, the wheels on the trailer could be driven as well, which would make for interesting speed runs or tight manoeuvres.

"It doesn't matter how powerful and clever it is. That thing is never going to make it back over the route we took." Veronique said from somewhere far below.

"No, it isn't." A meter on the dash said there was power in the truck's batteries. There had been cables running to it from a panel in the floor. Remy found the key in the ignition, and turned it one click. Read outs and lights flashed up across the dash, previously hidden by the smoked finish of the panel. There were three fuel tanks, and they were all full. What with, the display didn't say, or what state the liquids were in.

"If it's got a turbine, don't go firing it up in here. The last thing we need is this thing pumping out carbon monoxide in an enclosed space."

"There is battery power. We'll use that to move it out of here so the wagons will fit in."

"And then you'll fire up the turbine and want it even more."

"Maybe."

"Father, I can see the plan you're plotting. And it's crazy and dangerous."

"So was coming here at all. Humour me."

"Later, maybe. How about you drive something smaller for a while."

"How much smaller?"

Veronique pointed to the utility vehicles along the wall, tiny by comparison. "The shelving is modular, and set up to be lifted by one of those fork lifts. How about helping me get it all through here and into a corner."

"Okay. Those little things look like fun."

"People lived in here." Amandine looked around the room, an open plan kitchen, dining room and lounge. There was more than a little wonder in her voice.

"It stands to reason." Maxine said. "It would take an age to build this place, and it would have been too obvious if all the workers came in and out every day."

"People died here." Justine said, quietly. She had opened one of the doors off the communal room, and was staring at what had been revealed when the lights clicked on.

Amandine and Maxine bustled over to look. Justine stepped aside, and they studied the bedroom. There were a dozen alcoves, six along each wall, each the size of a small dormitory room. Curtains were pulled across the fronts of some of them, but the nearest on each side were open. In the bed on the left, there was a body shape, covered by a blanket. On the right, the body was on top of the sheets.

Maxine walked over to the exposed body, and knelt down beside it. The dead woman's skin had dried and tightened, showing the outline of sections of the bone beneath. Her eyes had shrivelled up and sunk back into the sockets. Her left arm was laid across her chest, and her right drooped over the edge of the bed and, barely, still clung on to a glass tumbler. There was a bottle of brandy on the bedside cabinet, cork out so that the contents had evaporated long ago. A smaller bottle was beside the brandy. Brown, with a dropper in the cork, and a rubber bulb on top, it almost certainly contained poison.

Just as in the Spanish vault, the inhabitants had decided to kill themselves. They had gone more quietly than those in Spain, by the look of it.

Down between the bed and cabinet, Maxine spotted a book. She pulled it out, carefully, and studied it, a cloth bound diary, with a little pen in the clasp that held it closed. "Maybe this will tell us why they killed themselves. I'll read it later. We should check that there's a body in every bed, so we can know whether to expect any surprises further down."

Amandine faltered at the entrance, spooked by all the bodies. When Justine moved to look under the sheet of the nearest body, she steeled herself and took the necessary steps.

One bed was empty, but another held two bodies, in a final embrace. As they were walking back out, Amandine stopped and looked around. She pointed at the lights in the ceiling. "How.... How are these powered?"

"The last one had a mini nuclear reactor buried under it." Maxine answered.

"Nuclear? Isn't that dangerous. Might it explode?"

"It shouldn't, so long as we don't mess with it. That's why they bury them."