All heads turned to follow Eggy's open-mouthed gaze. The bus had crested a rise and in front of them, at the other side of a flat, dry valley, was a ridge of low, rocky hills. The side that faced the bus was a fairly steep escarpment. What had surprised Eggy was that someone had carved what, from a distance, looked like a giant mailslot right in the hillside. It was, however, a mailslot that could swallow a light cruiser, even if it was set sideways. The bottom edge of the vast, rectangular, manmade cave was level with the desert floor. All round the edge the living rock was reinforced with massive expanses of forbidding gray concrete. It was flanked by two enormous buttresses. Parkwood, who'd been standing up to get a better view, abruptly sat down.
"You all know what that is, don't you?"
Debbie's voice was awed. "It's a bunker, a nuclear survival bunker."
"I never realized they were so big."
"There's like as not a whole small city under those hills."
Vickers hoped that he looked as amazed as everyone else. Fortunately, no one seemed to be paying him any attention. Eggy was instantly suspicious but it was all directed at the distant bunker mouth.
"Why the fuck should they bring us to a survival bunker?"
Fenton grinned. "Maybe they think we're worth saving."
Vickers decided that it was time to ease naturally into the conversation.
"I doubt that."
"So?"
"Don't ask me. I gave up trying to make any sense out of all this when I left Las Vegas."
As the bus eased closer it became possible to make out more details of the approaches to the bunker entrance. A geometric system of roads and rail tracks fanned out from the giant cave. They ran through a complex, almost urban landscape of pillboxes, watchtowers, high wire fences and clumps of the squat pylons that enclosed electronic dragon's teeth. Vickers couldn't remember when he'd seen a place so heavily defended. He counted no less than twelve multiple launchers, each with its full complement of four Elisha surface-to-surface missiles. This wasn't to say that there weren't many more concealed in underground silos. Vickers didn't particularly want to think what might be lurking just below the surface. He knew it would, without a doubt, make the stuff that they had strung around El Rancho Mars look like a kid's Fourth of July fireworks show. He scanned along the top of the rocky escarpment. He could just about make out more structures that almost certainly housed SAM batteries. He covertly glanced around the bus. The others were taking similar stock of the formidable layout.
A number of heavy freightliners were moving along the road system, all heading for the bunker entrance. Squat, magnetic shunts were moving lines of boxcars in the same direction. A number of smaller, military-style vehicles rolled slowly along the roads as if on patrol. It was, though, like no other military installation that Vickers had ever seen. There was not a trace of either the all-pervading army green or even the dull tan favored by some desert forces. Everything here was the same mushroom gray as the uniforms of their guards.
The dirt trail along which the bus had been lurching wasn't in any way incorporated into the bunker's road and track system. In fact, by the time they reached the perimeter highway, it had been graded out of existence. The bus finally bounced onto the outer road in a less than graceful cloud of dust. It was clear that no volume of traffic had ever been planned between the bunker and El Rancho Mars.
The concrete under the bus's wheels was still a novelty when they were intercepted. Around this place, security apparently wasn't taken lightly. A jeep with a small rocket launcher, a Samurai armored car and a four-man motorcycle squad surrounded them and ran them to a halt with an air of accepting no argument. The driver was required to climb down from his cab and produce no fewer than four cards that were run through a data point on one of the bikes while a burly motorcyclist held the man's hand firmly down on the machine's sensor plate. All through the identification process the other three cyclists stood off with leveled M90s.
"They don't even trust their own 'round here, do they?"
The passengers had all moved to one side of the bus to watch the proceedings.
"I swear to God, they have the prettiest soldiers around this place."
"No shit."
Debbie was absolutely correct. As with the guards on the bus these new examples of the bunker's troops were turned out with an almost unnatural, parade-ground immaculacy. The motorcyclists were particularly flamboyant. In addition to the standard mushroom gray, they sported two-tone helmets, with opaque sun visors, flyaway wings on their epaulets, heavy black leather utility belts hung with a variety of offensive objects and mirror-finish black riding boots. Eggy seemed to find them particularly offensive.
"I hope nobody thinks they're going to get me into one of those monkey suits."
"No?"
"You better believe it. The one thing I don't do is uniforms. I hate uniforms."
Fenton glanced at him. "All those cops who beat you up as a kid when your brother was burning money?"
Eggy snarled. "Shut your mouth, Fenton."
"Anything you say."
The bus was allowed to move on. The patrol seemed to be satisfied that the driver wasn't a dangerous enemy infiltrator, but this single check wasn't the end of precautions. They were halted at two more static inspection points and also buzzed, and probably scanned, by a Dominator helicopter. Finally they pulled into a circular, walled area that might have been a rather odd parking lot, except there wasn't another vehicle in sight and there were armed guards pacing slowly along the top of the wall. The bus halted. The driver killed the engine and dismounted, as did the guard at the front. The guards in the rear moved forward, shepherding the passengers in front of them.
"Okay. This is as far as we go. Everyone off. Collect your luggage from the outside of the bus and then proceed through the red door in the wall in front of you."
"What about our weapons?"
"Those will be returned after the period of orientation."
"What the fuck is a period of orientation?"
"I can't answer any more questions."
Nobody said anything. There was no plausible fuss that could be caused in these fortifications. Nothing to do but go right on doing what they were told. Grudges, however, were being stored for later. The reception committee was waiting behind the red door. Its leader was possibly more exquisite than the motorcyclists they'd seen on the way in. From his polished boots to his gold-trimmed forage cap, he was the complete military dandy. As well as flyaway epaulets he also affected a considerable fall of red braided lanyard.
"I'm Deakin and I will be in charge of you during your period of orientation."
Deakin was short. Five four and he hated every inch of it. He attempted to inflate himself in compensation. He even strutted on his toes, a puffed up little bantam rooster who would play martinet to the point of mania if the air wasn't let out of his tires. Vickers made a note to do exactly that as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
"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."