"What did they find?"
"Dunno. They never came back."
Gant pressed, "Sure, okay, but what information did they relay?"
"Nothing."
"No radio communication?"
"None — and that’s one of the problems here. The walls, flooring, and bulkheads of this base were designed to shield electromagnetic radiation. The idea, I guess, was to keep the president and his Pentagon friends all snug when the nukes went off. Nasty electromagnetic pulses could have disrupted all of the fun. So when I told you that Briggs’s message was the last from the quarantine zone, I meant it. Internal communications to the contained area were severed, plus no radios, no phone calls, no UPS deliveries. Nothing."
He ignored her quip, his mind already thinking ahead, wondering if tactical headsets would work in that environment. Communication was the key to the success of any mission, that and intelligence. It appeared they were going to be sorely lacking in both areas.
Lieutenant Colonel Thunder dropped that folder and picked up another.
"At 4 p.m. on the day of the accident, after no word came from the Hazmat team, a security detachment went in. A full squad with light armaments. They, too, fell off the face of the planet. Again no word, again no communication. Nothing."
Liz opened another folder.
"On June 26 the brass mustered a heavily armed squad of special forces as well as a five-man biohazard containment unit. They opened the door, went in, closed the door behind them, and were never heard from again. Starting to get the picture?"
Thom dropped his sandwich and leaned back in his chair. Any hope he might have harbored that this was going to be just another mission disappeared as neatly as all those soldiers and scientists who had entered the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility’s lower levels.
"Some sort of virus or biological agent that immobilized the teams through their protective gear?"
"Nope," she answered. "They’ve been analyzing air samples from the quarantined section for years and there’s not a single molecule there that shouldn’t be."
"Unless it’s something our equipment can’t detect."
"Not likely. They filled rooms with air taken directly from the quarantined area via the ventilation system and it had no effect on test subjects. Besides, what happened next was a lot worse than some new bio weapon."
Thom altered his balance and leaned forward. He realized he had lost his appetite and apparently so had she; their sandwiches were shoved to the corners of the desk.
"I have a whole bunch of incident reports, and if you thought the stories about the entry teams were weird, well, you haven't seen anything yet. On June 29 a researcher attempted to break quarantine. He was restrained by the guards. The commanding officer described him as being under some kind of outside influence starting with a trance state at first, then all but stark-raving mad, as if he would die if he didn’t get that door open."
"Outside influence? What do you mean by that?"
Thunder held him at bay. "Let me give you a few more examples before I try to explain. On July 10 a group of armed soldiers attempted to forcibly break quarantine. A grenade was used to stop them. Three were killed, five more injured, including the CO. With the commanding officer out of commission, our friend General Harold Borman took charge. Major Borman had been serving as a liaison between the DOD and The Tall Company. In any case, it didn’t get any better. The next day Borman had to initiate a weapons lockdown as these mental influences caused what he called ‘great distress’ among the soldiers and personnel on site."
"You keep saying ‘influences,’" Thom said. "It sounds as if you mean some sort of hysteria or madness."
"No. I’m talking about influences. Mental influences. Mental control. As if something from inside the containment zone coerced these people to take action they otherwise wouldn’t have."
Liz glanced at her wristwatch, then said, "I never had my morning cup of coffee, and a soda just isn't doing it for me. How about we take a walk and grab one?"
Thom did not really want a cup of coffee, but he did have the urge to get out and move around. The more they sat in that office reading from the files the more it felt like ghost stories around a campfire.
"Sounds good to me."
Lieutenant Colonel Thunder walked around her desk, opened the office door, and led him into the hall. She then pulled the door shut with plenty of force and after pausing to be sure the latch caught, the two strolled in the direction of the elevators.
She changed subjects for a moment, asking, "So your team comes from across the spectrum, is that right?"
"I'm a Marine myself," Gant answered. "So you can imagine how happy I was when I joined a task force that operated under army rules and regulations. Why, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary."
"A real step down for you, I'll bet," the army officer quipped.
"When I realized I had no choice, I got used to it. You know the drill."
They reached the elevator that offered transport between the surface level and sublevel one only. Liz used her key card to summon the car.
"The rest of your men?"
"From all over," Gant answered. "Rangers, Delta, we even occasionally get some CIA paramilitary types, not to mention a lot of civilians from contractors or other government agencies. My tactical detachment is really just a small part of the bigger whole, but we are the ones out on the front lines."
She asked, "How do you manage to make it all work? That is, the different backgrounds, the different services."
"We threw out the book," he answered with a smile, considering that that part of his assignment had been the most enjoyable. "We have made up a lot of our own rules. As long as we get the job done, no one seems to care. But if push comes to shove we follow the army's handbook."
The elevator opened and they stepped on. A moment later they exited on the first floor and made their way to the lobby, passing the lone soldier on guard duty.
Along the way she said, "So with all your team has dealt with, I'm surprised it's taken this long for you to end up here."
"I must admit to a little confusion on that matter," he answered as he remembered seeing General Friez arguing on the phone right before giving Thom orders to come to Red Rock. "I have the distinct feeling that there are some Pentagon politics at work."
"That would be nothing new, I suppose."
"Makes me wonder who else has had a crack at this place," he prompted.
"According to the files, eventually they brought in a psychological warfare expert to evaluate the situation. He stuck around for a couple of days, interviewed people, analyzed the place, and so forth."
"Sort of like what you’re doing here all over again, right?" Gant asked.
"Yes, I guess."
"And what did this shrink have to say?"
"Interestingly enough, he suggested there was some sort of intelligent mental telepathy coming from inside the quarantine section."
"Mental telepathy? I find it hard to believe that our government would give in so quickly to such a far-out idea. I’m surprised they didn’t blame it on work-related stress, a lack of oxygen in the sublevels, or something like that."
They walked through a set of double doors and into the small cafeteria or chow hall, as the soldiers called it. With a black-and-white checkerboard floor and rows of rectangular collapsible tables with attached plastic round stools, the place reminded Gant of his grade school cafeteria. Glass sneeze guards protected a serving line in front of an open archway leading to the kitchen. A handful of soldiers ate and laughed in a corner, and a military cook stood behind the line reading a magazine. The place smelled like overcooked corn with a slight hint of stewed cabbage, although he doubted anything like that would be on the menu.