He had to get out of this place. Security would be tight above because of this alarm. If he was found missing from his post there would be questions for which he would have no good answers. It took him three tries before he was able to leap high enough on the wall to grasp the opening and pull himself back up into the duct, slightly cutting the ring finger of his right hand in the process. But he was too frightened, too intent on what he was going to have to do to realize that he had left a smudge of blood on the concrete wall just below the duct opening, and again inside the air duct itself and on the back of the louvered panel. He managed to pull the panel back into place and, holding it with one hand, used his special tool with the other to refasten the screws.
When he was finally finished he allowed himself just a moment to catch his breath. The nausea was steadily increasing in his gut., Nerves, Vladihe mumbled to himself” Nothing more You’re scared shitless, that’s all” He turned himself around in the narrow air duct and started back the way he had come, moving as swiftly, yet as noiselessly as he possibly could. Now he was feeling not only the sickness, and a sense of dread, but he was feeling claustrophobic. He had been underground too long. He had to get out. Fuck your mother, but he didn’t like this. The main airconditioning duct ran roughly east and west, the secondary lines branching off it. At three points the intake shaft ran straight up to a secured room on the surface from where fresh air was pulled in. It was the second of these shafts that was fitted with metal rungs down which Tsarev had come. His duty post was fifty feet away at the end of the intake building. Reaching the first shaft he nearly fell in his haste, and he was so weak with fear that it took him several minutes to calm himself enough to continue to the second shaft and start up.
Above he could see light, and now he could hear the sounds of sirens. He had to stop often in his climb. The distance up was equivalent to a thirty-story building, and he was afraid of heights. His fingers were numb and greasy with sweat on the ladder rungs. The arches of his feet ached. Near the top he thought he heard someone calling his name, but he wasn’t sure and it was not repeated. If they had come to his post and found it deserted they would be looking for him. What would he say?
Two figures dressed in thick white environment suits, big hoods over their heads, oxygen bottles strapped to their backs, stepped off the transport elevator and through the first door of the laminar lock. When the outer door was closed, they cycled the air pressure, which took a half a minute. When the pressure was equalized they opened the inner lock and stepped out into the main loading and washdown antechamber. The door to the main vault was fifty feet down the broad, low-ceilinged corridor, a red alarm light flashing above it. This part of the chamber was clean. They hurried down the corridor where the one in the lead put down the piece of electronic equipment he’d been carrying and opened a metal panel beside the massive steel and lead door. He flipped a switch and above the door a television screen came to life with a wavering, imperfect picture. Both men could see the downed technician and beyond him the accident that had caused the alarm. Because of the absolute secrecy of this place there were no monitor leads to the top side.
Nothing that could be discovered by a snoopy referee from the International Regulatory Commission. Security was tight, but their response time to accidents such as these was of necessity very slow.
“Poor bastard” Lev Potok said. “Dead” the other figure, Abraham Liebowitz, asked, his voice coming over the intercom units built into their suits. Potok was manipulating the camera controls to scan the entire vault. “Looks like it”
“It shouldn’t have happened that fast. He should have had time to get out. The levels don’t seem that high in there”
“High enough” Potok said. “Be my guess that he inhaled the fumes.
Probably burned out his lungs” Potok continued the scan. “Anything else”
“Doesn’t look like it. I’ll do a spot wash and we’ll get him out of there. You’d better call for some help” Liebowitz turned and went back through the laminar chamber, and telephoned from the elevator while Potok cycled the vault door. It took half a minute for the four-foot-thick door to ponderously swing open, and he stepped inside.
The technician lay on his face, his right arm outstretched. He’d gotten this far, and with the last of his strength had pressed the alarm button, and then his fingers must have brushed the vault light control, because the chamber was in darkness except for the flashing light. Potok flipped on the main overhead lights and then bent down over the technician and carefully turned the man over on his back. His name tag read ASHER. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and his tongue was swollen and black and filled his entire mouth. Potok had been correct in his assessment of what had happened here. Asher had made a mistake and had paid with his life for it, though it still wasn’t clear to Potok what the man had been doing down here in the first place. From a locker beside the main door he took out a containment kit and gingerly approached the spill. He sprayed a foam over the entire spill area, then laid three layers of lead film over that. It would do until the cleanup crew arrived. Potok went back to Asher’s body. He looked down at the man. He’d seen plenty of battle casualties in his forty-one years. This one looked no better or worse than many. It was war, he told himself grimly. What had Asher been doing down here?
Potok was ostensibly an Emergency Management Team leader. But he also held the rank of major in Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service.
He was a suspicious man by nature, and very good at his job of seeing anomalies, glitches in the fabric of human endeavor, the little out-of-place details that escaped most observers. He turned after a moment and walked along the tracks between the storage racks. There was no evidence that anything else had been tampered with. Asher was here, had begun what might turn out to be a routine service check, and had made his fatal mistake. But it had not been a routine check. Not at three o’clock in the morning. And not alone. Potok took out a powerful flashlight from his suit pocket and switched it on. As he walked slowly along the tracks he shined the light over the racks, and the units they contained, as well as the floor and walls beyond. Nothing. Everything except the spill site was clean. At the end of the long chamber he started back, shining his light on the opposite racks and wall. He stopped halfway, his light flashing on one of the intake air ducts. A moment later the four suited figures of the cleanup team appeared at the vault door. Liebowitz, who also worked for Mossad, was right behind them. Potok motioned for him. Liebowitz said something to the cleanup technicians, and hurried down the tracks. Potok switched off his suit intercom and Liebowitz did the same. Leaning close so that their hoods were touching, they could talk to each other without anyone overhearing their conversation. “What’s the word topside” Potok asked. “No one knew he was down here other than security where he signed in”
“No one questioned him”
“He’s one of the senior techs on the maintenance crew”