"I know," Serena said, swallowing hard, trying to catch her breath. "Here, take this. We don't have much time."
She handed him a shovel.
42
IT WAS JUST AFTER 7 P.M., the sun setting over the horizon, when the corporal from the Army Corps of Engineers crawled out of the sewer on R Street near the armillary to break the news to Max Seavers, who had the area roped off by his disguised Detachment One Marines.
Seavers, who was hunched over a geological survey of Rock Creek Park in the relative quiet of the playground by the armillary, had noticed the drilling had stopped. "What's wrong, Corporal?"
"We tagged something, but we're not sure what," the corporal said. "So we're tripping right now."
"English, Corporal."
"The casing-er, the tube we dropped down to set off the charges, developed a spur of some kind. So we're bringing the drill bit back up. Once we've tripped the bit back up, we'll send down a mill to bore out the casing. After we retract the mill, the bit will have to be tripped down again."
The only thing Seavers understood was that this was going to cost him even more time. And he had already allowed Yeats too much. "How long is this going to take, Corporal?"
"It's going to cost DARPA about a hundred grand for the new drill bit and about a million for the day as far as the GSA is concerned," the corporal said. "We've got seventy-five men and a lot of equipment down there, sir. This is a massive operation to throw together so fast."
"I didn't ask about the cost, you penny-pinching bureaucrat," Seavers seethed. "I asked how long."
"The trip is going to take about twelve hours each way."
That was 24 hours from now, Seavers realized, just when he was going to be accompanying the Chinese Olympic officials to the Washington Monument.
"That's unacceptable, Corporal. How much further do you have to go?"
"About two hundred feet before we hit what looks to be a cavern, although it's partially collapsed," the corporal said. "But we've hit the harder, more resilient metamorphic rock that's in the way, sir. It's got schists, phyllites, slates, gneisses, and gabbros."
At this point, Seavers knew more about the geology of America's fourth oldest national park than he ever wanted to. Designed for the preservation "of all timber, animals, or curiosities…and their retention, as nearly as possible," the park was 15 kilometers long and almost two kilometers wide, a sanctuary for "many and rare and unique species," according to the act of Congress that created it.
Those species right now included Conrad Yeats and Serena Serghetti.
"Hold on, Corporal," Seavers said, and radioed Landford at the mobile command post. "Where is the NPS in the hunt for our terrorists?"
"Nothing yet, sir," Landford reported. "But they've got all available rangers and police on horseback and foot sweeping the creek area."
Unfortunately, as Seavers now knew, Rock Creek itself ran almost 53 kilometers, and the entire Rock Creek "watershed" covered almost 50,000 acres. Worse, it cut through deformed metamorphic crystalline rocks that were dotted with innumerable sinkholes, caves, and caverns. A quarter of the area was within the boundaries of the federal district, making it a virtual urban Tora Bora in which Yeats could hide for some time.
Seavers looked down at his geological map showing the vast cave systems throughout the area. He was positive Yeats and the nun had followed one of them to wind their way back beneath the armillary. At some point, if he didn't beat them to the globe, they would have to come out, and when they did, he wanted them captured immediately.
But he was taking no chances.
"Corporal, you're done drilling," Seavers said. "We're going to drop a suitcase bunker buster bomb down the casing. It should easily penetrate the remaining two hundred feet of rock to hit the cavern."
The corporal looked shocked. "You drop a mini bunker buster, sir, and you'll probably collapse the cavern, burying whatever it is you're looking for."
"We can always dig it up," Seavers said. "I just don't want it going anywhere."
43
THE WALLS of the ancient well were lined with stone, which made Serena wonder if it had been used for something sacred or ritualistic. It appeared to have been originally constructed with pure Algonquin muscle, probably two or more Indians working side by side. As such it was wide enough to accommodate both her and Conrad. He did the digging while she hauled up the dirt.
"Mother Superior always told me that if you ask God to move your mountain, don't be surprised if he gives you a shovel."
"Did she also teach you to lie and cheat, too?" Conrad asked with a grunt, digging his shovel deep into the dirt. "You knew Brooke was Alignment from the start, Serena, didn't you? But you didn't warn me. You didn't lift a goddamn finger until after I found my orders as Stargazer from Washington."
"What did Brooke tell you, Conrad?"
"That Seavers is going to release a bird flu virus at the Olympic Games in Beijing next month." He tossed a shovelful of dirt into a bucket. "Actually, he's going to release it tomorrow at the National Mall. But the contagion won't start until the Olympics so that everybody will assume it started in China. America gets to give the smart vaccine to its friends and deny it to its enemies at home and abroad. Seavers is just the Alignment's trigger man for the Apocalypse. The globe we're after is what they're going to use to somehow justify the 'cleansing' and their New World Order."
Like a dark shadow the revelation came upon her and she shivered.
"The bird flu," she repeated. "Oh, my God, Conrad. I should have known. As a linguist I should have known."
"Known what?"
"The word influenza comes from the Old Italian," she said. "It means a 'bad alignment of stars.' The ancients associated the outbreak of plagues with astronomical conjunctions."
"Yeah, well, this time the Alignment is going to make it happen."
"We have to stop him, Conrad. But how in the world are we going to get to him?"
"We're never going to find that needle in that haystack," he said, breathing hard. "There are going to be a half million people picnicking on the Mall for the concert and fireworks. And security has never been tighter."
As she watched him redouble his digging, Serena tried to make sense of this new revelation. Suddenly, she said, "I know where he's going to do it."
Conrad stopped digging for a moment, to catch his breath and listen.
"I heard Seavers talking to a Chinese official at the prayer breakfast. He's going to the top of the Washington Monument when all the visiting Olympic officials go up to see the fireworks. We have to call it in to the president and Secretary Packard."
Serena tried her cell phone, but of course there was no signal, not this deep under the earth.
"Like they're going to believe us, anyway," he said, and she heard a definitive clank of the shovel.
She got down on her knees and helped him clear the remaining dirt away to reveal the bottom of the well. She felt her stomach turn over.
"It's not here," she said, desperation in her voice. "The globe is gone. We have to leave and warn the White House about Seavers. We have no choice now."
"No, it's here." Conrad wiped his brow and looked up the walls of the well. "I know it. We haven't gotten below the water table yet. Step back."
Serena moved aside as he lifted his heavy shovel into the air like a man with a sledgehammer at a county fair about to ring the bell and impress his girlfriend. "What are you doing?"
"This is a false bottom." He brought the shovel down on the stone bottom of the well. Sparks flew from the thunder of the blow. Conrad lifted the shovel up again and brought it down even harder, and she heard a loud crack. "Help me lift these out."