Submerged (16 page)

Janet snapped her handgun from its holster,
but the man didn’t pause. He carried no weapon. Neither did his
companions. “Put that away, Deputy, you’re in enough trouble.”

“I was thinking you were the one in trouble.
Stop where you are.”

The man did as Carl asked, but he also
reached to his back pocket. Perry saw Carl raise his weapon. The
man removed a small leather case that he let flop open. “My name is
Finn MacCumhail, Homeland Security, and you’re interfering with an
operation of national security. You will release my men and arrest
those who attacked them.”

“I don’t like to split hairs, but they
attacked us after attacking a uniformed officer.” Perry took an
immediate dislike to the man. He had met his kind before, men who
hid behind the power of a title.

“They were just doing their job.”

“And I’m doing mine,” Carl said. “These men
are under arrest for assaulting an officer, brandishing weapons,
interfering with an officer in the course of duty—”

“No, they’re not, Deputy Subick. My
department has superior jurisdiction. Push me any further, and I’ll
have you in a military stockade before nightfall.”

“How do you know my name?” Carl asked.

“Never mind what I know or how I know. Your
captain gave specific instruction for you to stay away. You should
have listened to him.”

“So you’re the one who got to him.” Carl’s
eyes narrowed.

“He’s a patriot. He doesn’t need someone to
get to him.”

“Oh, brother,” Jack said.

“Who are you?” Finn demanded.

“Jack Dyson, Sachs Engineering, and think
twice before you imply I’m not a patriot.”

“You in charge of these other men?”

“I am,” Perry said. “Your men got less than
what they deserve. They acted as criminals; they were treated as
criminals.”

“What’s your name?” Finn asked.

Perry told him.

“All right, then, Mr. Sachs, let me explain
it this way. You have attacked and injured agents of the United
States government. For that you could spend a great deal of time
behind electric fences with barbed wire.”

Perry stood firm. “FBI, ATF, and every other
alphabet soup agency requires that their agents carry
identification. Your men do not. Even the military requires their
personnel to show ID.”

“This is a different world now, Mr. Sachs.
Things aren’t like they used to be.” Finn held his hand out, and
the woman to his right handed him a phone with a thick antenna. He
tapped in a number. Perry recognized the satellite phone as being
similar to those they had brought. A moment later he said, “This is
Finn MacCumhail. I have your man here. I suggest you talk some
sense into him.” He handed the phone to Carl.

Carl took it, giving Finn a cold stare. “This
is Deputy Carl Sub—”

Perry stood several feet away, but he could
hear the voice on the other end. The conversation lasted a mere
thirty seconds. Carl handed the phone back to Finn.

Janet looked at him. “Captain Whitaker?”

Carl shook his head. “The sheriff himself.
Release the men.”

Janet hesitated, then took a knife from her
Sam Browne belt and cut the nylon straps of the three men while
Carl removed the metal cuffs from Lloyd. Perry waited for trouble.
Lloyd’s face had become a mask of stone; Carl refused to back
away.

Finn turned to Perry. “Get off the mountain,
Mr. Sachs. Get off now.”

Perry waited until Carl and Janet were in
their SUV and his crew in the Hummer before taking the front
passenger seat. He was furious and had no place to vent.

It didn’t help when Zeisler said from the
backseat, “See, I told you not to come this way.”

Perry said nothing.

Zeisler spoke again. “They’re not following
us.”

“So?” Jack said.

“So, my big friend. I know something they
don’t.”

Chapter16

1974

Henry decided that
there
was no easy way to descend treads designed like these.
He could think of no reason why anyone would use such odd
dimensions and spacing. Odd as the stairs were, the tunnel through
which they ran was stranger still. They all agreed that it was
granite, but the smooth surface, the unwavering direction hinted at
a construction technique unknown to Henry and the others. The
curved walls were not impossible to achieve but required much more
time to create, and time was money. Why grind the surface smooth as
glass unless it furthered some purpose? Perhaps it did serve a
purpose, but Henry couldn’t see it.

Sanders led the group, Nash by his side.
Bringing up the rear was the silent McDermott. Henry felt as if he
were being herded. He knew it was a shared feeling when Zeisler
began to hum “Get Along Little Doggie.” If Sanders or Nash picked
up on it, they didn’t let on.

The light that came from nowhere remained
without a flicker, but it did change. At one point, Henry stopped
and glanced behind the crew. It was dark, the light tapering to
black three or four yards behind McDermott. Looking ahead, Henry
could see the light extended the same distance in front of them . .
. as if they were in a spotlight.

“You noticed that too, eh?” Zeisler
commented. “I wondered when someone else would pick up on it.”

“How is this possible?” Henry asked Zeisler.
“It’s as if someone is watching us and giving us just the amount of
light we need for the moment.”

“It’s not possible. My best guess is that the
light doesn’t emanate from a source we’re used to seeing, but that
the air itself releases energy. Don’t ask me how. I can give you a
dozen reasons why that’s impossible. Still, here we are, bathed in
illumination.”

“It’s following us.”

“Do you know how paranoid that sounds?”
Zeisler quipped.

“Let me rephrase. It looks like it’s tracking
our movement, glowing only where needed.”

“That’s ecologically sensitive,” Cynthia
said. “It’s a great way to save energy.”

“That raises another issue,” Zeisler added.
“What’s the power source?”

“Let’s do a little experiment,” Henry said.
“Hey, Sanders, mind if I try something?”

Sanders and Nash stopped. “What?”

“I want to see how flexible this mysterious
light is. Have McDermott stay put. The rest of us will spread out
so there’s twenty feet between us. There are six of us, so that
will leave five spaces of twenty feet each—a hundred feet.”

“Very well.” Sanders told McDermott to hold
his position.

“Okay, everyone, let’s spread out,” Henry
said. “Monte, come this way until you’re about seven paces from
McDermott. Cynthia, you step off seven paces from Monte, then
Zeisler, then Nash, and Sanders. I’ll take point.”

“Why do you get to take point?” Zeisler
asked.

“Because it’s my idea, and I’m everyone’s
favorite.” Henry gave Zeisler a slap on the arm.

The six spread out in a long chain, and as
they did, the blanket of light stretched with them. “Somehow it
senses our presence.” Henry thought for a moment. “Nash, let me see
that flashlight again.”

“Why? We have plenty of light.”

“Humor me.”

Nash looked at Sanders, who gave a subtle
nod. He handed the flashlight to Henry, who unscrewed the bottom
and removed the size D batteries. “What are you doing?” Nash
asked.

“You’ll see.”

The others gathered close to Henry, and as
they did, the patch of light shrank. It gave Henry the chills. He
leaned forward and rolled the battery down the stairs. It
disappeared into the darkness.

“Amazing,” Zeisler said.

“Henry rolling a battery is amazing?” Cynthia
said. “Seems pretty simple to me.”

“You’re missing the point,” Zeisler argued.
“We’ve established that the light follows us, expanding and
contracting to our position. Henry just proved that it doesn’t
follow motion.”

“Which means, it follows what?” Cynthia
asked.

“Life,” Henry said. “At first I thought that
we were tripping some kind of unseen motion sensors. That would be
pretty straightforward. It seems to be more complex than that.
Somehow the system—whatever that system is—knows that we are
different from an inanimate battery.”

“Pretty impressive, I’d say,” Zeisler
remarked. “Got any more bright ideas, Einstein?”

“Yup,” Henry said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Sanders demanded. “I
want us to stay together.”

“At some point, chief, you’re going to need
to start trusting me. Sit tight.”

“But—”

Henry sprinted into the darkness. He had two
concerns. First, that McDermott would shoot him in the back . . .
but he doubted the man would do anything so rash. At least Henry
hoped so. Second, that he would get his pacing wrong and break an
ankle on the oddly spaced treads. Henry’s goal was to plunge into
the darkness. He never made it. The faster he moved, the faster the
light advanced before him. When he stopped, the light stopped. He
jogged back to the others.

“Well?” Sanders said.

“I don’t know how this is done, but I want
one in my home.”

“Not likely. If you’re finished, we’ll
continue on.” Sanders moved to the front, Nash on his heels.

“Some people just don’t appreciate mystery,”
Zeisler said. “That was pretty creative thinking, Sachs.”

“I try to make my mom proud.”

The stairs ended, and Henry couldn’t have
been happier. One of the things that kept him going and prevented
any complaining was Sanders’s contention that the stairs ran for
two miles. Henry couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Two miles
later he had been convinced.

At the end of what Cynthia had dubbed “the
grand staircase” was another room, identical to the one they had
left at the top of the stairs.

“How deep are we?” Grant was breathing hard.
“The air seems thick.”

“We’ve traveled just over two miles, but our
depth is just over thirty-five hundred feet below the upper
chamber.”

“That’s over half a mile,” Grant
exclaimed.

“Feels ten times that,” Zeisler said. “My
back is killing me.”

“Try not to think about the hike back up.”
Cynthia sat on one of the stairs and began to rub her calves.

Henry eyed Sanders and Nash. Both men looked
wearied. He turned his attention to McDermott, who seemed
unfazed.

“Couldn’t you have just taken pictures and
showed those to us?” Zeisler asked.

Sanders nodded. “I could, but you would have
missed this.” Sanders turned and walked to the stone wall at the
far end of the chamber—and walked through it.

Cynthia released a small scream and shot to
her feet, Grant and Zeisler released some very untechnical
language, and Henry took a step back.

Sanders’s head reappeared, a wide grin
plastered to his face. A moment later, the rest of him
materialized.

“You, um, you should go on the road with that
trick,” Zeisler said.

“Anyone familiar with holography?” Sanders
asked.

“A little,” Grant admitted. “That wall is a
hologram?”

“Yes. Fully dimensional and in full, natural
color.”

Grant shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“I’ve heard of holograms,” Cynthia said, “but
I don’t know much about them.”

Zeisler cleared his throat. “Holography is a
type of picture, but where all photos are two-dimensional, a
holograph is three-dimensional. The word comes from the Greek
holos
, meaning ‘whole,’ and ‘gram’ from
graphos
, meaning ‘to write or to make a
message.’ The theory was worked out by a British physicist named
Dennis Gabor in 1947, but the first hologram was produced in the
early sixties, so they’ve been around for a decade or so, but . .
.”

“But what?” Grant asked.

“Holograms require a laser and film. It’s a
way of rendering a three-dimensional image on film. There’s no film
here, and the color, the impression of reality is nothing like what
we’re looking at. Most experts don’t think there will be a
full-color hologram until the eighties.”

“Yet,” Grant said, “there it is.”

“It’s a projection,” Sanders explained,
“although we can’t find the projector. It seems to operate like the
light source.”

Henry stepped to the wall that wasn’t there
and studied it. It looked as solid as the walls of the corridor. He
placed a finger to the image and felt nothing. No change in
temperature, no sense of electricity, no . . . anything. The
corridor was puzzling enough, the light was mind boggling, but this
was beyond imagination.

“So,” Sanders said. “Are you ready for the
really impressive stuff?”

Henry said he was, but he was becoming more
uncertain with each minute.

He took a breath and did what his mind said
was impossible—he walked through the wall.

For the first time in Henry’s life, he was
speechless.

Three miles down the dirt road, the sheriff’s
vehicle pulled to the side of the road. Perry watched as Carl
Subick slipped from the car. Janet did the same. “Let’s see what
they’re up to.”

Jack parked to the side and behind the SUV.
“I wanna know what we’re up to. You haven’t uttered a peep since
you got back in the car.”

“I was thinking,” Perry said.
And trying to regain a little composure.

In the space between the front of the Hummer
and the back of Ford, six people held an impromptu meeting.

“I want to thank you again,” Janet said. “I
was beginning to lose hope.”

Perry nodded. “Glad to help.”

“I assume you’re headed back to town.” She
smiled. “Carl and I would be happy to buy your dinner.”

“Thanks, but we’re not going back to town.
We’re staying on the mountain.” Perry waited for the reaction.

“Me, too,” Carl chimed in. “I’m not done
here.”