"So where do we go from here, Deakin? We've been bouncing across a goddamn desert for too long and we need a drink and a place to stretch out."
Deakin indicated two much larger men in red coveralls with the word INDUCTION stenciled on the left breast pocket.
"You've been assigned to a temporary holding area; these gentlemen will take you down." He then fixed the group with a hard stare, which he probably believed was authoritative. "A point of information. I am Major Deakin. When you address me, you call me sir."
Vickers shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm a civilian and I don't call anybody sir. In fact, Major Deakin, I'm a contracted executive of Global Leisure and I don't even call Herbie Mossman sir."
Debbie giggled and clapped a hand to her mouth.
Deakin's eyes threatened to burst. As well as the two gorillas in red, he also had a four-man squad of regular soldiers. Three with M90s and one with a .50 cal. frag gun. For an instant, he looked as though he was going to turn them all loose on Vickers but then he wrestled himself under control and managed a strangled snarl.
"You have a lot to learn."
"Maybe we all have a lot to learn."
There was nothing now between them and the entrance to the bunker except a wide expanse of bare concrete that shimmered in the sun. The sheer size alone was enough to conjure a genuine awe. The bunker entrance had the same breathtaking scale of a major dam, the largest of bridges or maybe the pyramids of Egypt. Vickers couldn't be certain on the last count. Despite the time he'd spent in the Middle East, he'd never seen the pyramids. He was, however, aware that the common factor was a relentless permanency. All were built with no concession to artiface, simply to last forever. The huge slot in the hillside was, in fact, the head of an enormous elevator shaft. Six huge platforms, like the ones used to bring up planes on an aircraft carrier except many times the size, were arranged side by side. Each of them could accommodate six large tractor-trailer transports. The closer they came to the cavernous entrance, the more clearly they could hear the deep rumble that reverberated constantly from the multiple shafts. As the platforms moved they also released blasts of chill metallic air that cut through the hot desert afternoon like the breath of some cold alien. The escort was moving the five new arrivals at a brisk pace toward a single platform that was empty apart from a stack of multicolored plastic freight containers and a pair of Jeep Commanches still in their original crates. One of the Gorillas in Red coveralls stretched out a hand to help Debbie across the yards of rubber and steel seals that separated the platform from the loading dock. She coldly ignored him. Debbie also seemed to be establishing relative positions as fast as possible. For a few minutes the new arrivals and their escort stood around waiting as more freight and more people came aboard the platform. The wait considerably reduced the new arrivals' sense of importance that had been so inflated by the elaboration they'd come through to get to this place. They didn't even merit an instant elevator. They were just five more items to be ferried down into the bunker. Vickers passed the time looking at the only piece of visible decoration. Like everything else, it was big. Maybe fifty feet across, mounted on the rear wall of the elevator, a massive slab of symbolic bronze, a stylized bird, uncomfortably Nazi in its simplicity, with flames bursting out and around it. Vickers looked enquiringly at one of the Gorillas in Red.
"What's that thing?"
"That's our symbol, our logo if you like, the Phoenix." He indicated the same symbol on the shoulder of his coverall and on the soldiers' helmets.
Vickers nodded.
"I suppose that's apt but why isn't there a Contec logo up there? I thought this was a Contec bunker."
Parkwood's head turned slightly. A twinge in Vickers' stomach told him he'd made a really stupid slip. How the hell did he know it was a Contec bunker? Nobody had said a word about it. Fortunately only Parkwood seemed to have noticed. The Gorilla in Red just shrugged.
"I guess all bunkers have their own logo. It's a good for morale and stuff."
There was a muffled and somehow depressing sigh from somewhere far below and Vickers again felt a puff of the cold alien breath. The giant platform began to sink. As they descended slowly into the elevator shaft, Vickers experienced a moment of claustrophobic near panic. It was followed by an intense forboding. Debbie must have sensed something.
"What's wrong?"
"I was just wondering when I'd see the sky again."
FIVE
"AND I'M TELLING you I'm not fucking wearing that and it's going to take more than you two fucks to make me! Okay? Okay?"
Eggy was poising on the balls of his feet. His hands were flexing and clutching in the first feints of a particularly simian and probably bone-crushing martial art of his own devising. It wasn't enough, however, to faze the two Gorillas in Red. They stood their ground, rocklike and scowling. One held up the mellow yellow coverall with the phoenix on the shoulder and the word INDUCTEE stamped on the pocket that they seemed determined that Eggy should wear. The other laid back a pace with his hand resting protectively on his sidearm.
"It's the rules, pal. We don't make 'em, we just see that they're carried out. Every inductee gets color-coded yellow and that's it. So are we going to do it easy or does it have to be the hard way?"
"I told you, asshole, I'm nobody's fucking inductee. I'm a contract player and nobody color codes me."
Vickers took a slow step forward. He was glad that the four soldiers had been ditched along the way.
"He's got a point, you know."
"Are you refusing to wear a uniform too?"
Vickers nodded. "Uh-huh. Like he says, we're contract players. We may be on a covert assignment but there's certainly nothing in my contract that allows me to be automatically inducted into any uniformed force. I imagine it's the same for everyone else. If I've got to go back into the army, I get to keep my rank and I wind up a major."
In fact, Vickers was bluffing. He'd never had an opportunity to look at his Global Leisure contract and he didn't have a clue what they could make him do. Also, he'd never risen past captain but he was certain that the Gorillas would be ignorant on both points. They certainly seemed impressed enough to adopt a placating tone.
"Why don't you all go along with it for now and then sort it out later?"
"No way."
"So what do you want to do?"
"We get a bunch of lawyers down here and let them sort it out. Right now."
The Gorilla's lip curled. "Where do you expect to find a lawyer in a nuclear survival bunker?"
Parkwood laughed. "If there aren't fifty lawyers it's the only place this size in the Western Hemisphere where there aren't."
The second of the Red Gorillas began to look less than happy.
"We could be getting out of our depth here, Charlie. Why don't we punt this upstairs?"
The first Gorilla thought for a moment. On one hand, he wanted to see Eggy humbled but also didn't want to drop himself into official manure in the process. Finally he hung Eggy's coverall on the rack next to the four others. There had been coveralls for all.
"You keep an eye on this bunch, I'll go and get Deakin." He nodded toward Eggy. "If he tries anything, shoot him."
This descent into the bunker was something of an anticlimax. When the platform had reached the second level, the Gorillas had indicated that they should get off. The second level was far from impressive, a vast freight handling area with about the same air conditioned, white-light ambience as any mainline superfactory. Robot forklifts moved mountains of colored plastic containers and dumped them on wide, massive conveyors that carried them away and out of sight. As early as this, Vickers concluded that someone in the bunker's planning stage had suffered from an obsession with rank, insignia and color coding. The facers and handlers who moved in among the automated chaos as token human supervisors wore blue. By far the most overwhelming feature of the whole area was the newness of everything. Paint was new and slickly gleaming. Nothing was scraped or scuffed, the concrete floor was scarcely stained with oil leaks. The air was still full of the smell of packing grease and thinner. It was so new but so ordinary that it was almost unnerving. Vickers almost said as much to one of the Gorillas. The Gorilla sneered knowingly and gave a curt and cryptic answer.