Last Gasp (49 page)

“It’s too soon to know, Colonel. We’ve taken sperm and ovum samples and at the moment we’re trying—hoping—to induce conception in the laboratory. You’ll appreciate that the patients here in Section M aren’t capable of normal sexual activity, and in any case the females lack the equipment for childbearing. That’s why we’re trying for mechanical conception. But if that doesn’t work out we’ll go for insemination of mutant sperm using normal healthy women as incubators.”

“That’s where Lieutenant Skrote should be useful,” said Madden. “He was trained in genetics at the Front Royal Military Hospital in Virgina. He’s been seconded to ASP as scientific-medical liaison officer, and I know he’ll be happy to give what assistance he can.” Skrote nodded rapidly in the flickering room. He was obviously expected to be agreeable. “Yes, of course. Though I should point out, Dr. Rolsom, that I was concerned mainly with the theoretical aspects of genetic engineering. This side of the coin, so to speak, is new to me. Completely. Absolutely.”

“That’s what we need,” Rolsom was quick to assure him. “We’re light on theory. I’ll be glad of any contribution you feel you can make, Lieutenant. Don’t hesitate to pitch right in.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”

He turned his head jerkily to the bank of screens. A myriad of tiny rectangles of Frankensteinian horror reflected in his slightly bulging eyes. Over the headsets he could hear a faint mad gabble of discordant noises, like the tape of a creature in pain played backward.

Waiting for the boat to take them back across the lagoon, Skrote was convinced he must be living in a dream. The swaying palm trees and the white sandy beaches and the little dancing waves gilded with sunlight seemed unreal, like a movie set. The reality, strangely enough, had been left behind in those innocuous white buildings with the rows of tiny barred windows behind the electrified fences.

He didn’t seem to be here; not on Starbuck Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He didn’t seem to be anywhere at all.

“If we can develop new mutant strains ...”

Skrote listened numbly to Colonel Madden’s voice.

“ ... it will be a real achievement....”

Which only compounded the unreality.

“ ... a new breed of human being that can survive in the most hostile environmental conditions. Something with twice the normal lung capacity and inbuilt resistance to chemical pollution.” The voice hardened, became emphatic. “It should be possible. It
will
be possible.”

“Starbuck man,” said the dreamy voice of Major Jones. “Heirs to the New Earth. Two hundred years from now it could be the only species left.”

Rolsom’s voice was more cautious. “Can we be certain the Russians or the Chinese aren’t working along the same lines? They could have advanced even more than we have—”

“No,” said Colonel Madden, not entertaining the remotest doubt. “The Chinese don’t have the scientific expertise and the Russians are concentrating on the extermination plan.” He addressed Rolsom directly. “That’s why the work you’re doing in Zone Two with TCDD is just as important as the work here in genetic manipulation. The Longfellow extermination plan is a vitally important element in our overall strategy. On that we cooperate
fully
with the Russians. Even invite them to look over Zone Two if necessary. Demonstrate our total commitment and cooperation.”

“Zone Two.” Major Jones’s voice. “Not Zone Four.”

“Not Zone Four,” Madden’s voice repeated.

“That’s our baby.” Rolsom’s voice.

“Literally.” Jones’s voice.

The Desert Range missile silo complex straddled the state line dividing Utah and Nevada. Although sited geographically in Utah, part of the labyrinthine network of tunnels actually extended across the border.

Chase and Nick Power arrived at Wah Wah Springs after a seventeen-hour journey by aircraft, bus, and finally diesel-engined jeep. As Prothero had said, the nearest towns were considerable distances away: Richfield one hundred miles due east, Cedar City about eighty miles southwest of the complex. There were a few small settlements— Black Rock, Milford, Lund, Beryl—but none of them nearer than forty miles. Chase had to admit that it was the perfect location.

With Nick at the wheel they drove along a crumbling concrete road with weeds and sagebrush growing in the cracks and gutters. The terrain was bleak. Undulating desert scrub as far as the eye could see, the ground compacted and fissured through lack of rain. There were no signposts—no visible evidence at all, in fact, that this had once been a restricted military zone.

“How much did you say the MX system cost?” asked Nick, lolling back and steering with one hand. The road went straight as an arrow into the far distance.

“Eighty billion dollars, give or take the odd billion.” Chase shaded his eyes. “Altogether they constructed forty-six hundred silos connected by ten thousand miles of roads and two thousand miles of railway track spread across southern Nevada and southwest Utah. They planned to have two hundred missiles with nuclear warheads constantly moving on five-hundred-ton transporters, so each missile had the option of twenty-two available silos. It was a crazy idea and it never worked. They hoped to keep the Russians guessing at which silo any one missile was at any given moment.”

“Christ, a bloody expensive permutation if you ask me,” Nick commented with a weary shake of the head.

“Bloody futile as well,” Chase said. “By the time the system was completed and operational in the mid-nineties, it was already obsolete. You know, it cost three hundred dollars for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And this”—he swept his arm out to indicate the barren landscape—“is what they got for their money.”

“Come on now,” Nick chided him. “You’re forgetting the four thousand six hundred holes in the ground. I bet the gophers were extremely grateful.”

Fifteen minutes later they passed a concrete blockhouse almost completely buried in windblown sand. Chase unfolded the army map supplied by Prothero. The main installations were marked as broken red lines, indicating that they were below ground. The blockhouse was shown as a solid black dot, with the designation GP5.

“Guardpost five,” Chase said, putting the map away. “Not far now. About six miles to the complex itself.”

“How many silos in this one?”

“One hundred and fourteen in an area of two hundred square miles.”

“Hey, Gav”—Nick glanced at him, eyes narrowed, struck by an uncomfortable thought—“I hope to God they’ve removed all the fucking missiles. Have they?” When Chase grinned and nodded, Nick blew out his cheeks. “Thank the Lord for that!”

Aboveground there was only a radio communications tower to be seen, with the antennae and microwave dish removed, held by taut steel guy wires that sang in the wind. Because of the dry desert air the tower and wires were untarnished, without a speck of rust.

Finding the entrance wasn’t easy. They wandered around for several minutes trying to locate it, until Chase happened to come upon a sloping gully that was partly filled with sand, rocks and sagebrush. He gave it a glance and almost passed on before noticing that the shallow bank of sand followed a regular stepped pattern. It was a flight of steps leading down to a studded metal door that was silted three quarters of the way up. After scooping the sand away they were then able, with a little forceful persuasion, to slide the door open.

Chase led the way with an iodine halogen lamp into the musty passages of slabbed concrete, strung with skeins of thick multicolored cables secured by aluminum cladding. The cladding was brightly polished, proving that Prothero had been right about the installation: It was still in remarkably good condition.

The bright circle of light probed walls and ceiling and picked out arrows painted in different colors where the passage branched in several directions. Beneath the arrows, in corresponding colors, they saw:

> 

COMPLEX
88-B

RED DOCK

GREEN DOCK

BLUE DOCK

LAUNCH CONTROL

MASTER ENGINEER

ELECTRICAL STORES

The beam roved higher and Nick said, “I don’t like the sound of that, Gav.”

Above the arrows somebody had written in chalk: Welcome to the Tomb.

“It doesn’t fill me with unbounded optimism,” Chase said, swinging the lamp away and moving on.

Taking one of the wider passages they came upon three enormous freight elevators with their doors yawning wide, big enough to take a truck apiece. Farther on, a wide concrete stairway with the edges of the steps painted yellow led downward. As they descended Chase took careful note of each turning and the number of levels; he didn’t have a plan of the complex and he didn’t fancy getting lost in several hundred miles of tunnels.

Three levels down and ninety feet underground they came to the Launch Control room, row upon row of empty metal racks and faceless consoles, the equipment and instrumentation stripped away. One panel remained intact, its fascia protected by a solidly bolted stainless-steel cover two inches thick. Nick read out the inscription.

“ ‘Silo Door Release Mechanism.’ ” He fingered one of the bolts. “Pity we can’t find out if it still works.”

At the very bottom of the missile silo they were able to gaze up the circular shaft lined with black ceramic heat-deflector tiles to the silo door itself, two hundred feet above them, dimly reflecting the beam of the flashlight.

Chase’s ghostly voice echoed upward. “They had to keep the missiles at a constant sixty degrees Fahrenheit and thirty percent humidity. The air-conditioning plant in just one of these silos is enough for a one-hundred-twenty-room hotel.”

Nick said, “And if it’s radiation-proof, which it must be, it’s got to be airtight as well. It could have been custom-built.”

They looked at each other, their faces bathed in the penumbra of the upturned beam, the same thought in both their minds. The silo and adjoining control rooms were a self-contained sealed enclosure. They could provide protection and life support irrespective of the conditions outside. There were over a hundred such silos in this complex alone, connected by two to three hundred miles of tunnels. Desert Range was perfect.

On the way back up, pausing for breath on one of the landings, Nick said, “Has it occurred to you that the joker who christened this hole might have been a prophet as well as a cynic?”

Chase frowned at him. “Christened it?”

Nick gestured upward, his expression lugubrious. “The Tomb.”

A few minutes later they were climbing over the sand and windblown debris that had spilled through the door. Chase switched off the lamp, squinting in the daylight. A shadow rippled down the sand-covered steps, and Chase stopped and stared at the figure of a man, the clear blue sky behind him so that his face was in shadow. All that Chase could make out was spiky blond hair, and recognition came to him instantly, without effort; the time of their last encounter telescoped so that it might have been yesterday. Chase’s throat was parched dry. He was thirsty and he was also afraid.

Sturges turned and disappeared from view. Nick stumbled up the shallow slope behind Chase. “Who is that?”

A six-wheeled square-bodied van, painted silver, with large rectangular smoke-blue windows was parked not far away. Attached to it was a long streamlined silver trailer, rounded at both ends like a bullet. Van and trailer bore an embossed motif in the shape of a golden conch shell.

Sturges stood by the open door of the trailer. Under the full glare of the sun his eyes were screwed tight and hidden in a slit of shadow beneath a tanned, deeply lined forehead and shaggy brows. He waited impassively, a glint of gold at this throat and wrist.

“I don’t get this,” Nick murmured in Chase’s ear. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

“I think we’re about to find out.”

Chase walked across, past Sturges, and up the three open-mesh aluminum steps into the trailer. Close behind, Nick gave Sturges a narrow stare as if he might be the devil incarnate.

After the harsh desert light the interior seemed pitch black. Then they were able to discern a sheen of greenish light reflecting off curved metal. There was a panel of green dials set in gleaming steel casings and an impressive layout of silver switches and red and black dials with white calibrated markings. Taking up most of the space in the middle of the trailer was a bulky cylindrical shell, metal at the far end,
t
ransparent at the end nearest them, connected by flexible silver tubes to a coil from which came soft bubbling and swishing sounds, rhythmical and sinister.

Now they could see the foreshortened shape of a man inside the metal-and-plastic shell. He was bald and gaunt-cheeked, his rib cage clearly outlined in the emaciated torso.

The door of the trailer clicked shut behind them. Sturges unhooked a pencil microphone from the wall and thumbed the button. “I have them, Mr. Gelstrom. They’re here.”

Chase saw pale skeletal fingers inching toward a keyboard that was positioned vertically, allowing Gelstrom to view it without lifting his head on its stalk of a neck from the foam pillow. The fingers tapped and on an angled screen above the shell a moving white dot spelled out:

IS THE SITE SUITABLE, DR. CHASE?

Sturges handed the microphone to Chase. The pump gave a long-drawn-out aaaaaahhhhh as it evacuated the spent air.

Chase released his clamped jaw. His voice was tight and hoarse. “Nobody said anything about the JEG Corporation being involved in this project.”

The fingers touched the keys.

MY STIPULATION TO PROTHERO. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD REFUSE OUTRIGHT. EMOTION OVERCOMING RATIONAL BEHAVIOR. BUT YOU HAVE ACCEPTED AND AS I’M FUNDING THE PROJECT PERSONALLY I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW YOUR VERDICT. SUITABLE OR NOT?

The trailer was cool and yet Chase could feel pinpricks of sweat between his shoulder blades. “Yes, it’s suitable.”

GOOD. ARE YOU WILLING TO GO AHEAD?