Submerged (17 page)

“Are you guys nuts?” Janet snapped. “These
bozos don’t play around, and that guy was from Homeland Security.
He’s a Fed.”

“Yeah, so he said,” Jack quipped. “I have my
doubts.”

“I’ve got more than doubts,” Carl said. “I’m
not leaving until I find the truth. There’s a man missing up here,
and I intend to find him.”

“Missing?” Perry asked.

Carl explained about the missing fisherman,
Matthew Barrett. “I’ve got a thing about unfinished business.”

“That’s an understatement,” Janet said. “Am I
the only person with a brain here? I’ve been put on the ground
twice in two days and been forced to look down the nasty end of an
M16. Going back there is suicide.”

“I think you both should go home,” Perry
advised. “You stand to lose your jobs.”

“Not gonna happen, Sachs,” Carl said. “If
anyone is going home, it’s going to be you and your crew—and Janet,
of course.”

“We can’t leave,” Perry said. “This is more
than curiosity. It’s . . . personal.”

Carl lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean
‘personal’?”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Perry said. “I’m
not sure I believe in the connection.”

Carl studied Perry, and Perry, Carl. Perry
admired the deputy. He was smaller than most cops, but his heart
was big and his courage boundless. Perry felt a link.

“I want to find a missing man and learn
what’s going on around that lake,” Carl said. “What do you hope to
accomplish?”

“I want to save a life.” Perry offered no
more.

“And all of you are here to help him, is that
it?”

“You got it,” Jack said.

Carl looked at each man, then his eyes
settled on Zeisler. “No offense meant, Pops, but aren’t you a
little old to be involved with all this? I don’t recall seeing you
in all the hubbub.”

“My name is Dr. Victor Zeisler, and I was in
the car during your tea party. And, by the way, I take exception to
being called old and being referred to as ‘Pops.’ For your
information, Deputy, I was here before the lake was.”

“He has information we need. Bringing him was
part of the deal,” Perry said.

Carl smiled. “Understood . . . Maybe these
things are related.” He appeared thoughtful. “We could work
together. I was brought up near here. No one knows these mountains
like me.”

“A guide would be good,” Gleason said. “He’s
a trained officer. I say any help is worth taking.”

“I don’t believe this.” Janet shook her head.
“There must be something in the air, because you’ve all lost your
minds.”

“You came back,” Carl pointed out.

“To find your worthless fanny and drag you
back to where you belong.”

Perry watched the exchange. There was more
here than professional bickering. Carl’s expression softened. “I
have to do this, Janet. I can’t explain it, but I have to go back
up there.”

For a moment, Perry thought Janet was going
to scream. Instead, she lowered herself, mumbled something, then
said, “If you go, I go.”

“I can’t allow that,” Carl objected.

“You can’t stop it. I outrank you.”

There was silence.

Jack broke in. “Isn’t this sweet? It’s like a
family reunion.”

“Back up the mountain,” Carl decided. “We’ll
have to hike it—”

“No,” Zeisler said. “Not up. Over.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to get to the dam. Can you get us
there?”

“Sure,” Carl said. “But not directly. We’ll
have to go back to the base of the mountain and take a service road
back up. But that will only just get us to the foot of the
dam.”

“That will be close enough,” Zeisler
said.

“Going to the bottom of the mountain might be
good,” Perry added. “It will look as if we’re being good evictees
and leaving.”

“It will be dark by the time we make the
circuit,” Carl said.

“Better yet,” Zeisler said. “Now, can we stop
wasting time?”

“Not yet.” Perry cocked his head toward Carl.
“I call the shots. Can you live with that?”

“Why should . . .” Carl began.

Perry stared.

Carl nodded. “I can live with that—for
now.”

Perry caught Janet’s eyes.

“You know, we’ll be unemployed before this is
over, don’t you, Carl?” she asked.

“I know.”

She brushed some dirt from her uniform. “I
guess someone needs to provide some common sense to this mess.
Let’s go.”

As the cars moved back onto the road, Perry
prayed he had made a good choice.

Chapter17

“That should do
it.”
Jack had just returned from parking the Hummer behind a
line of trees off the service path to the dam. Carl was with him,
having followed the larger vehicle in his Ford. “It’s the best
we’re going to do here. We can’t eradicate all the tracks. If
someone is tracking us they should be able to find our parking
place without much trouble.”

Perry was slipping a backpack over his
shoulders. Gleason wore one, as well. Jack reached for his. “At
least it will be difficult to see from the air.”

“Had I known that we would be hiding from
armed men,” Gleason said, “I would have brought some camouflage
netting.”

“Judging by the weight of these packs, I
assumed you had brought everything you could find,” Jack
quipped.

“Perry said to be prepared for anything.
That’s a hard order to fill,” Gleason said. “If the pack is too
heavy, maybe Deputy Janet will carry it for you.”

Perry smiled at Carl and Janet, who appeared
puzzled. “Don’t pay any attention to them. They’re like this all
the time. Believe it or not, they’re the best of friends.”

“I can see that.” Janet’s sarcasm was
obvious.

Gleason handed Perry and Jack dark brown
vests. Perry’s felt a little heavy. “These are safari vests,”
Gleason explained. “Each of you has a small knife, a handheld
computer for taking notes, a compact walkie-talkie, a couple of
PowerBars in case you need an energy boost, and a few other odds
and ends. I only have three vests. I didn’t know we’d be picking up
company along the way.”

“These will do.” Perry slipped into his vest,
then turned his attention to Zeisler. “I think it’s time you tell
us what to expect.”

Zeisler had been standing by himself,
examining the curved concrete dam a hundred yards away. “I told
you. We’re going to hike up the old construction trail. There’s one
on either side of the spillway. I imagine it’s overgrown, so it
will be tough going.”

“I mean, it’s time to tell us what to expect
when we get to the top of the dam. I don’t like working blind.”

“Nothing doing, Perry. You’re going to have
to trust me. Your father did. Now, are we going to stand around
jawing, or are you going to lead us up the grade?”

Perry looked at Jack, who just shrugged.

Once again Perry took in his surroundings.
There was a wild beauty to it. Mountain forest split by a gorge
where a river once ran through the valley. Now just a dry riverbed
remained. Before him loomed the curved surface of the concrete dam.
It seemed to reach to the sky. Perry knew it wasn’t a large dam,
not by today’s standards. It was modest in size and in
construction. As an engineer, he appreciated the beauty of the
design, but it would never be a tourist spot like Hoover Dam, many
miles south of them.

“Your dad had a hand in this,” Zeisler said.
“Dams weren’t his forte, and he was opposed to its construction. He
couldn’t prevent it, but he told me he’d leave his mark on it. It’s
a mark that only he and I know—and one you’re about to learn.”

Carl stepped closer. “This is an uphill hike,
old man. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“I’m up to it,” Zeisler snapped, “and if you
call me old man again, I’ll show you what I’m up to doing. Got
that, Deputy?”

“No offense meant, Dr. Zeisler,” Carl said.
“I just spent the night tromping around in this forest, and it wore
me out.”

“Soon you will forget all about that—assuming
we don’t stand around here twiddling our thumbs until Finn
what’s-his-name and his boys show up.”

“Which way?” Perry asked.

Zeisler pointed to his right. “It should be
about fifteen yards into the woods. From there it’s all
uphill.”

“I’ll take the lead,” Perry said and walked
into the woods.

“It has to be here somewhere,” Finn insisted.
He, Colonel Lloyd, and his men stood along the north bank of the
lake. Colonel Lloyd, known to his subordinates as Colonel Ryan
Dean, directed his men to fan out. The three men held metal
detectors that they swung back and forth with metronome precision.
Their weapons hung from straps over their shoulders.

“Thirty-plus years can disguise a location
pretty good,” Dean said.

“They disguised it before they left. Three
decades of forest growth has just added to the problem.” Finn
watched the men. They had been in a sour mood since their run-in
with Sachs and his men. They were itching for a fight, not the
tedious task they had been ordered to do.

“If I may ask, sir,
exactly
what are we looking for?”

“What did your briefing say?” Finn fired
back.

“Not much, sir. We were to arrive at this
site and secure it. We were to stay out of sight, except to run off
anyone who comes here.”

“They didn’t tell you why?” Finn knew the
answer, because he was the one who had called for the special team.
Still, he wanted to know if his orders had been followed.

“No, sir. We go where we’re told, when we’re
told, and do what we’re ordered to do without question.”

Finn nodded. Very few people knew of the
military’s special domestic enforcement team. They came from the
various branches of the military. Each had been tested in adverse
situations; their trustworthiness and unquestioning loyalty had
been proven. Unlike the rest of the military, they answered to a
special department of the Pentagon that now worked in conjunction
with the Department of Homeland Security. Finn himself had served
in the role now held by Colonel Dean. He was recruited out from the
Zero Detection Service, or ZEDS as they called themselves. The name
was purposefully innocuous.

“Shortly before you were ordered to this
location,” Finn explained, “an NSA satellite picked up an
unidentifiable signal from this location. As you know, the National
Security Agency monitors all broadcast mediums in the country and
around the world. That triggered some questions. The NSA had a
record of events that happened here three decades ago. Those
records matched with secret military intelligence from the same
period. That information was passed on to me. I ordered you
here.”

“Yes, sir. Proud to be of service, sir.”

Good man,
Finn
thought. Dean had asked his question, but he wouldn’t push for an
answer. “I’ve read the file, Colonel, and I don’t believe it
myself. If it wasn’t buried so deep in the files and if the signal
hadn’t been real, I’d say that someone was playing a joke on us.
This is going to be one of those seeing-is-believing
operations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“To answer your question, Colonel, we’re
looking for a large metal hatch, about the size of a manhole cover.
We are to find it, open it, and make entrance.”

“Entrance into what, sir?”

“If the reports are to be believed, into
Wonderland, Colonel. Into Wonderland.”

“Sir!” One of the soldiers shouted. “I’ve got
a hit. Something big.”

Thirty minutes later, Finn stood over a
large, round, metal hatch. A two-key lock secured the hasp. A thick
plastic jacket coated the lock.

“Knife.” Finn held out his hand. Dean handed
him the military version of a folding utility knife. Finn opened
the four-inch blade, squatted over the lock, and cut away the
protective plastic covering. He closed the knife and tossed it back
to Dean, who caught it with one hand.

Finn removed two keys from his vest and
inserted them in the lock. He twisted them and the lock sprung.
Finn stood and took a step back. “Colonel, choose a man to
accompany us. The other two will remain to guard the entrance. You
will be with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tuttle, you’re with me,” the colonel
said.

“Yes, sir!”

Finn knew the other men were disappointed.
They were part of this group because they loved to be where the
action was. They were also part of the group because they never
questioned orders.

He peered down the dark hole. “We’ll be out
of radio contact. Hold the fort until we get back.”

“Will do, sir,” one of the men said.

“Shall we?” Finn asked Colonel Dean.

“I’ll take point,” Dean said. “Tuttle, you’re
on my six. You can follow Tuttle, sir.” Dean approached the
opening, sat on the ground, and dangled his legs in the black maw
of the tunnel. “Rock and roll, gentlemen.”

Perry set a steady pace, trying to conserve
his energy, as well as not driving Zeisler to a heart attack. He
could hear the man’s labored breathing behind him, but the old
electrical engineer never complained.

“Pretty steep grade,” Perry said.

“It’s not bad. If you knew the other way,
you’d be thanking me.”

“What other way?”

“Trust me, it’s not pleasant.”

Perry shook his head. Zeisler loved his
secrets. Perry would have preferred spending some time learning all
there was to learn before proceeding, but Zeisler controlled the
information. Perry knew a few things, but Zeisler knew it all, and
he wasn’t talking. It was his ace in the hole, Perry figured.
Perhaps the older man feared Perry leaving him behind if he
divulged everything.

“If you need a rest, just let me know,” Perry
said.

“If you stop, I’ll climb right over you.”

“Okay, okay, you win.” Perry focused on
placing one booted foot in front of the other, making certain that
he didn’t slip on the bed of pine needles. The path was clear.
Trees decades younger than those to either side broke through what
had once been a gravel trail.