And exactly why her father had a hot tub in his house.
“Colin! Gabe!” she called as she began to scrabble through the rubble near the ground around the cedar stage. The door was there, easy to find now that the tub had melted and become deformed.
It was a door, a cellar door, not unlike the one Dorothy’s Auntie Em ducked into when the tornado was bearing down upon them. Hidden under the base, the door flipped up to reveal a ladder than dropped into nothingness.
“I’m thinking there might be some clues down here that weren’t burned to a crisp,” Marina said, gesturing to the hole as Gabe jogged up, leaving the slower Bergstrom scrambling through the rubble behind him.
“Well screw me blind.” He pulled a flashlight from the clip at his waist and beamed it into the darkness.
Excitement and apprehension pumped through her veins. “You can follow me down,” Marina told him, moving purposely past him to step onto the first rung.
“Wait. You don’t know what’s down there.”
“I’m going.” Marina gently but firmly pulled away and descended into the darkness.
He swore, but kept the light trained so she could see where she was going while he clanged down the metal rungs. Gabe wedged the flash under his arm and slipped his Smith & Wesson from its holster.
But when he got to the bottom, he slipped his gun back into its place before Marina noticed. She’d found a light, and with the flip of a switch, fluorescent bulbs hummed white noise, then sputtered on.
It was a small room, blinding with its white-painted concrete block walls and floor. No more than ten by ten feet. And rigged with more communication equipment than an air traffic control tower: two computers with flat-panel monitors, a satellite radio, a printer, a sat phone, and another radio. Plus some other equipment that Gabe didn’t recognize. Boxes that looked like electronic components, and a six-foot machine that looked like a massive metal detector. Wires and boxes with buttons and lights.
Marina had already begun to move through the room, touching the computers, turning them on, resting her hands on every item as if to prove to herself that they were real. Gabe figured she must be in some kind of shock, finding out that her father had a secret life.
At least, he assumed that was the reason for the blank expression on her face.
Marina didn’t speak; she pulled open drawers and flipped through files. Gabe should have sat down at one of the machines to see if there was anything helpful, but he watched her instead.
Marina had paused at a drawer. She sank onto a nearby chair and pulled what looked like a loosely-bound book from its depths. Gabe stepped closer to look over her shoulder.
It was an odd book — if you could call it a book; it was more like plastic pages tied together. About six by six inches, the pages had a dull, plastic sheen to them. But it wasn’t until Marina opened the book that he realized that it wasn’t going to be found in just any library.
The pages had writing on them; writing he didn’t recognize and couldn’t translate. Skaladeska language. It had to be. And the pages looked like the homemade paper arts-and-crafts types made using paper pulp and twine and fibers, but they were shiny, and looked laminated. Translucent. They looked like a textured shower curtain liner with writing on it.
He reached over Marina’s shoulder to touch the book. The ridges of swirling texture, like heavy linen, felt smooth and cool. It was dull cream color, definitely looking homemade … thick but translucent.
“Can you read it?” Gabe asked, watching the way she stared down at the page.
“It’s in Skaladeska.”
“Can you read it?”
She hesitated, closed the book. “Maybe. It might come back to me.” Then she pointed across the room. “I bet there’s another passageway over there.”
Gabe saw nothing but a blank wall. He looked back at her, but she’d risen, tucking the book under her arm, and moved toward the wall.
“I’m sure there’s a door here — if you help me, we can find it.” She was moving up and down and around, running her fingers all along the wall like some kind of expert at finding hidden doorways. It hadn’t slipped past him that she’d been vague about her ability to read the book. She certainly appeared to be reading it. Why would she lie?
In the end, it was a small hidden panel that tripped the switch. A door slid open, revealing a yawning tunnel of metal. Dim yellow recessed lights studded the ceiling in a line disappearing out of sight. Marina was already moving down the hallway, and Gabe didn’t bother to warn her about a potential hazard. But he did pull his Colt from its holster once again.
Although Gabe had fairly well guessed that the tunnel was heading toward Lake Superior, when it finally ended, a surprise awaited. Another door slid open, and he and Marina stepped into what could only be called a fish bowl. He and Marina being the fish.
All three sides of the chamber were made of glass, or some heavy duty plastic. The dark green waters of the depths of Lake Superior surged against the walls, covering them to the ceiling, and, as Gabe realized, likely well above the ceiling. They were in an underwater chamber.
An antechamber to some type of underwater craft that was missing.
20
“What the hell is this?” Vince Bruger snapped, looking at a lump of black metal sitting on his desk. A long, metal rod crossed over a messy stack of files. Dirt clung to each end. A young woman dressed in blues, with a shiny badge and a name plate that read BURNETT, startled to her feet.
“All right, Dr. Everett. I should be at your house in less than an hour.” Walking in Bruger’s footsteps, Helen Darrow flipped her cell phone shut with a flick of her thumb as she entered the chief’s office. She glanced at wide-eyed Officer Burnett who looked like she’d just gotten out of the Academy. Yesterday. Maybe this morning.
“We found this approximately five miles from the epicenter of the earthquake,” Burnett explained. “Knew Agent Darrow was going to be here and figured she’d want to see it.”
“On my desk?”
Helen had to give the newbie credit. Even though Bruger looked like he wanted to jump down her throat, Burnett’s response came out smooth and steady. And loud enough to be heard.
Helen stepped toward the desk, her fingers tingling; a sure sign that something was about to give. The last time she’d had that powerful feeling, that singing, twitching in her fingertips, she’d apprehended Mad Melia, a nurse who liked to help her patients into their afterlife earlier than their maker intended, after nearly missing her hiding in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. A woman’s instinct, she had learned, was never to be ignored.
At last. Something.
Just the kind of thing she’d been hoping for.
After her conversation two days earlier with Dr. Everett, Helen had been convinced that he was right — the earthquakes were no quakes at all, but underground explosions. So she’d had to turn her team’s attention to finding out how they’d been caused.
She and Bruger poked at the box and the long rod. A small screen and two dials were the only break on the smooth metal surface of the box. No other markings or identification at first glance.
“This could be a drill of some kind. Like they use for oil.” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to have to leave for my meeting with Everett right now. I’ll have Mingo start looking at these in the mean time; but I’ll see if Everett will take a look and confirm whether they’d be used for this kind of operation.”
Bruger growled his agreement. The poor man looked like she felt: dead tired and stressed. But Helen at least had the advantage of makeup to hide her secrets.