Hot Zone (23 page)

"I've certainly never seen anything like it."

At that moment a large black shadow passed over head. They both heard the noise and a loud whoosh of air.

"It's also the perfect place for birds." Jordan said.

"Let's get the hell out of here." Ice added.

His eyes darted around the room looking for another way out. Along the wall he saw a red door. Wherever it led had to be better than where they were, he thought.

"The door, Jordan, nice and slow, keep up against the wall."

Ice couldn't see the giant bird circling above them but he felt its presence. He knew it was up there, eyeing them, ready to swoop down and make them its next meal.

"These birds should not be attacking us, Ice. They haven't seen living creatures for decades, they could only possibly be surviving on the plant life. It's not in their nature to attack us."

Piercing screeches bounced off the walls of the dome. Moments later another, this time a deeper screech responded. Within seconds the entire dome erupted in screeches and howls, it sounded like a mental ward for birds.

And then the mauling began. They couldn't see it clearly, the ceiling being too high but they heard it. The birds were mauling each other. The noise was indescribable to Jordan, the sickening sound of birds eating each other. She then realized how they'd been able to survive for so long down in the depths without any food.

They were the food.

"Survival of the fittest, Ice."

"Huh?"

"Survival of the fittest. The biggest, strongest birds eat the smaller weaker ones. This makes the bigger birds even bigger and eliminates the weaker species. They see us as the smaller weaker birds, that's why they attacked the people here. Oh my god. They created the monsters and the monsters destroyed them."

Reaching the door, Ice opened it slowly, careful not to make any unwanted noise. "You got all of that by those sounds we're hearing?" He asked.

"I guess so, yeah." She said.

"Amazing."

They stepped into the room and closed the door behind them.

* * *

Yanick entered the greenhouse just as the red door closed behind the Americans. He had heard the noises coming from the dome but had no idea what had made them. Moving cautiously, silently, he didn't want to upset whatever was making those noises and even more so, he didn't want to give away his position to the Americans. Right now he knew he was a sitting duck. They were most likely hiding in the dark amongst the greenery and his flashlight was most certainly giving his position away.

Yanick had to hope they had kept running and not prepared themselves to ambush him.

That was his only chance.

He worked his way through the overgrowth, ever aware of the noises above him. He saw ominous shadows pass overhead, yet he resisted the temptation to shine the flashlight skyward to see what they were. Part of him felt that this would make them attack, the other part of him simply did not want to know.

What you didn't know couldn't hurt you!

* * *

Ice couldn't believe his luck. They'd stumbled into the generator room which looked like, if it was still functional, would power the entire facility. He started trying to make sense of the French instructions and labels on the various machines. Unfortunately there wasn't a simple on/off switch but a series of procedures he had to perform in a set order if the generator was going to power up.

"Can you do this, Ice?"

"I hope so, if it works we should have light in here."

"How long?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes. That's
if
it works. No guarantees."

"You can do it. It's got to work."

Focus Ice. Concentrate.

He pushed himself to focus on the jumbled words in front of him. His French was rusty at best, when he had to sort an array of words into a specific order it made it all the more difficult. After all, he had been up for twenty eight hours now and had been on two deep sea dives, those alone took everything out of you. Now to have to decipher old French instructions was almost too much.

He squinted hard, his eyes were seeing double. He couldn't do this.

"Jordan." He said, holding himself up against the wall. "I can't do this, I can't make any sense of these markings."

"Plan B then. What the hell." Jordan said.

She stood up, moved Ice to the side and from left to right started flicking on switches and pressing buttons. Moments later a flicker and then the fluorescent lights in the room
popped
on.

"You did it. Jordan, you did it."

Jordan stood there smiling, nodding her heard. "Yeah, I did." Jordan finally felt as if she'd been useful. She had given her team the one thing they needed to fight the Frenchmen. She felt empowered by her actions and she could tell by how Ice was looking at her that he was impressed.

"So what happens now?"

"Now we stop running from those frogs. Now we take control and get the hell out of here."

"We dive again?" Jordan asked, dreading the thought.

"Let's hope that's an option."

"What do we do about the one that was chasing us? We need a plan. He could be right outside this door."

"We're going to sit for a minute. I think we should read more of the journal. It might reveal something that will help us through here. Study the map more. I just need to clear my head for a minute."

Jordan looked at Ice, he looked tired, he was having trouble focusing, she was going to have to step it up if they were going to get out of there alive. Montoya once had a saying: “
It’s your turn to shine”
, for Jordan, that time was now.

36

The greenhouse exploded in wave of light. Yanick stood frozen in the soles of his boots like a deer in headlights. He couldn't help but look up, the shock of the light demanded it.

That's when he saw them.

There were seven in all. Giant black birds, easily the size of him, their wingspans had to be six feet, maybe more. Large bright yellow eyes, evil eyes with black holes in their center. To him they looked like sea gulls. Black sea gulls. He waited for them to attack, instead they shrieked and writhed in pain.

They were reacting to the light. Two of them fell from their perches with a thud. The others gawked and screeched as they battled something they had not ever experienced.

Light!

Yanick took this opportunity to cut his way through the overgrowth, passing one of the fallen birds on his way. Not wanting to tempt fate, he didn't dare stop for a closer look. He continued until he reached the other side of the dome and rushed himself out through a door way that lead to yet another tunnel.

Yanick continued to run. He wanted to get as far away from those birds as possible. If he caught the Americans in the process it was a bonus.

He couldn't help but feel a little sorry for himself. Hours earlier he was practicing on the firing range in a blue oasis. He had never been on an ocean dive before, never been in a combat situation before and certainly never been in the presence of such hideous creatures as the ones behind him. He didn't understand how it was he had ended up here.

The only thing he cared about now was self preservation.

* * *

Roo and Jansen were in the living quarters when the lights came on. To Roo this meant one thing: Ice had found the primary power source. It also meant he was still alive down here.

With darkness no longer a factor it took Roo and Jansen little time to find the medical bay at the end of the main corridor in the living quarters. In there they found enough medical supplies and pain killers to do rough surgery on Ghost and with the help of god, save his life. Roo's concern now was how much blood Ghost had lost. There was nothing he could do for that, except stop his bleeding.

As Roo picked the medical bay apart, Jansen took in his surroundings. Everything in the medical bay was written in French. Everything in the place reeked of military—top secret military.

It all started clicking in Jansen's mind. French, underground, mining equipment, ocean, One thing.

Nuclear testing.

This must have been the old preparation site for nuclear testing back when they first started their experiments in the sixties. How it got to the bottom of the ocean was another story.

"Jesus. That's what this place is. I know what this is Roo. I know where we are?"

Preoccupied with his search for medical supplies and having trouble understanding the French labels, Roo said "Huh?"

"It's a French nuclear testing bunker. This is where they prepared and planned their tests in the sixties. This is where it all started."

"Then this is where we'll end it. But first we gotta get back to Ghost. Take these." Roo passed packets of gauze and morphine injections to Jansen while he carried the equipment needed to help seal up Ghost's wound. He only hoped he made it back there in time.

"Time to go. We head back out, take a right at the end and hope we see something familiar." Roo said.

"What if we go back the way we came? Through the fire. Jesus, mate we might never find our way back to him going down a tunnel we don't know. I know it's risky but I'm up for it."

Roo pondered the idea and then asked: "You sure? I can't ask you to do it, Pete."

"You all risked your lives for me, Ghost included, I should return the favor. What the hell."

The two men bumped fists and were off.

* * *

Grosjean and Claude couldn't believe it when the fluorescent lights in the mining cavern flickered on and off several times before the bulbs caught a flame and illuminated the cavern bringing their world into the light.

They had been eyeing both entrances, ready to fire at anyone who tried to come into the cavern. Grosjean approached the fallen American. He was unconscious, surrounded by a small pool of blood which continued to drip slowly from his side. The arrow still firmly stuck in place.
He wasn't dead yet, but it wouldn't be long,
Grosjean thought.

"Claude. We must leave. We have to get back to our dive gear and make plans for the remaining Americans. Come quickly."

Together they moved quickly but carefully along the tunnel leading to the main dive pool. When they had arrived in the compound they had been forced to discard their dive gear quickly. It was scattered around the cavern and surrounding tunnels. Grosjean wanted to make sure they gathered it and hid it well so what he had done to the Americans equipment would not happen to his.

What they found was a massacre.

Jean-Paul had been torn limb from limb. Pieces of him were still floating in the dive pool. The water, tainted pink. Grosjean was mortified by what had become of his youngest and most skilled recruit.

They paused for a moment's silence before collecting up whatever they could carry of their dive equipment. Grosjean lead Claude out of the cavern to the smaller cavern two hundred yards away that also had a dive pool. They neatly stocked their equipment in one of the rock caves in the cavern so it was completely out of sight and then left in search of the remaining Americans.