Casey moved off like a bloodhound, searching the rooftop, looking at the smallest edge or crack until she eventually stopped and crouched. She raised a hand, and clicked her fingers once. Alex joined her. There was a three-foot square cut into the roof, flush with its surroundings — a trapdoor. Alex ran a hand over it.
“Steel, solid.” A single tiny hole was near one end. There’d be no breaking this door or its lock without alerting everyone within a mile.
Sam finished his reading. “Traces of HRE, higher than background normal, but non lethal… as long as we don’t spend the night down there.” He looked up. “This is the place.”
“Good.” Alex pointed. “That’s a locking mech. Cut us in.”
Sam immediately kneeled at the trapdoor. He pulled something like a thick pen from a pouch on his leg, which he then pointed at the lock. A wire-thin red beam shot out, and the smell of burning steel and oil filled the air. Something popped from inside the lock, and then the door sprang up half an inch, still dripping molten steel.
Sam gripped it with his armored glove and lifted. He stuck his head inside, and then eased back. “Clear.”
They moved in fast. The stairs were metal and new, but the rest of the building was mired in dust and the grease from a thousand cigarettes. There were footprints everywhere, proving recent high activity. Alex motioned with one hand.
“Spread.”
The group sprinted off, searched the rooms, and then came back quickly. There was nothing to report.
“Let’s head down to the ground floor.” Alex led them on.
“Down where all the crazy squiggles are,” Casey whispered.
“Ancient Arabic, and I’m betting it’s incantations.” Sam responded.
Casey snorted. “Yeah, and maybe this is Hogwarts.”
Alex turned to glare, and the silence returned. As they eased down an older flight of stairs, staying close to the wall, Alex felt the tingle of a warning on his neck. He couldn’t sense life, or the feeling he got when there was an enemy combatant concealed close by. This time it was more a sensation of something not being right.
“Stay alert. Something’s down there.”
They came off the stairs on the ground floor, and found themselves in a single large room. It seemed most of the inside walls had been knocked down, and save for a few support pylons, it was a dark, warehouse-type open space. Even the windows were bordered over.
“There was someone in here; we saw movement. Be ready,” Alex spoke quietly as he turned. The huge room was strewn with debris, building materials like stacked cinder blocks and flat iron girders were piled everywhere, indicating ongoing construction work. Against one wall stood a small forklift truck. Other than that the room would have been completely empty if not for the line of five long crates — each around ten feet in length — pushed up against a wall. All were open except for one. There was a table near the long boxes, strewn with paper.
“Give me a count.” Alex swung to Sam, nodding to the crates. He wasn’t sure if there was any form of high energy particle waves coming off the boxes, but he could sense something strange had been in them as keenly as if there was light showing at their edges.
Sam finished at the boxes, and moved around the floor, stopping at the forklift. “This thing is registering a spike — it sure lifted something contaminated.” He half turned. “The nukes?”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “Franks, Moshe, Eli, do a perimeter search.” The three took off in different directions. “Sam, Adira, Jon-Pierre, let’s take a look at what they left us.”
Sam and Jon-Pierre headed toward the crates, and Alex and Adira approached the table. There were scraps of paper, strips of cloth, and maps strewn everywhere. Alex took the maps and Adira lifted the papers, frowning as she tried to read the ancient words.
“Doesn’t make sense. It’s all jumbled phrases and lists of items.” She shook her head. “It looks like a recipe.” She lifted a strip of cloth with more of the ancient Arabic calligraphy on it in red. “Al-Rûm.” She frowned, looking up at Alex. “That’s the ancient name for Rome. Is that where this came from?”
“No,” Alex said, spreading out some of the maps. “Soran, Baghdad, Israel — the Sea of Galilee.”
“What?” Adira came over and looked at the map. Her jaw clenched. “So, this is what they were attempting to do — cross the Gaza Strip and explode their bomb near the Sea of Galilee. It is the largest freshwater lake in Israel — sixty-five square miles of water that Israel needs to survive.”
“I think these are targets, destinations. Look.” Alex turned one of the maps to her. It showed both the northern edge of Libya, and the southern tip of Italy. “Misrata.” Alex pointed. “Seems they start here, and travel here.” The map circled Pachino, in southern Italy.
Adira exhaled, her eyes narrowing. “The Hezar-Jihadi are almost in total control of Libya, then it’s just a few hundred miles of uninterrupted Mediterranean Sea to Italy. Takes less than a day by boat. Pachino was ruled by the Arabs a thousand years ago — they never forget.”
Alex grunted. “Seems they’re expanding out of the Middle East.” Alex looked at the crate, still feeling the tingle down his spine. “Wait.” He held up a hand to stop Sam, who was just bending toward the unopened box. “Let’s all see what’s behind door number one.”
Jon-Pierre stood back as Alex went to one end of the crate and Sam the other. The rest of the team stood watching, curious but alert, guns ready. Both the HAWCs drew K-Bar blades and jammed their chisel ends in to lever up the nails holding the top down tight.
The lid lifted with the sound of groaning wood as it tried to hang onto the metal spikes. It popped free, and they slid it to the side.
“Mon dieu!” Jon-Pierre grimaced, walking backwards.
“Jesus Christ; that is fucking gross.” Casey eased her gun around, her eyes wide.
There was a body lying inside the box, dressed in a flowing shawl. But the figure was far from normal. It was enormous — even spread flat they could see it would have been over seven feet tall.
“What the hell did they do to this guy?” Sam moved slightly to the side of the crate and leaned closer.
The body was heavily scarified, with swirls and script carved straight into the flesh. The wounds were still open.
“Fresh cuts, but no blood.” Adira said. “I think this mutilation was done after death.” She touched the skin and pulled her hand back, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. “Feels like wax.”
“A Traveler,” Alex said. “Just like the thing that strolled into the International Zone.”
“Big fucker. This one must have died before it got its orders.” Casey grimaced as Alex reached into the crate, turning the massive head one way, then the next. Then he grabbed the shawl and ripped it away.
The flowing script was covering its body, but that wasn’t what riveted them. Zippering the body were masses of surgical scars knitting together a patchwork of different skin types. There was darker olive skin sewn to fair, and one huge hairy pectoral, not matching the smooth dark one on the other side of the chest, and a third in the center.
“Notice anything missing?”
“Besides my sanity?” Casey immediately responded. She pointed with her gun. “No belly button.”
“Keep going,” Adira said.
Casey scoffed. “Holy shit, where’s the freaking cock?” She craned her head. “There’s nothing down there. Hey, maybe its not a man after all.”