Chase studied the site layout in the cone of light. The complex was in no immediate danger. Each access point was secure and under guard. Desert Range had been built to withstand all but a direct nuclear strike ... so why was he uneasy? What was bothering him?
What was bothering him, he realized, was that the location of the site had been discovered. This particular group mightn't pose much of a threat, but suppose they sent for reinforcements or spread the word around? The Tomb would become a sitting target for every gun-happy loon within a hundred miles. In no time at all they would be under siege--and it didn't take a tactical genius to realize that this was their one weak point. With their supplies cut off, sooner or later the moles would have to push their snouts aboveground and get their heads blown off.
"Access six in Blue Sector," Chase said, tapping the layout with his finger. "That's about a mile away, right?" He looked at Drew, who nodded slowly, frowning. "I want you to put as many men as you can spare on the surface and have them circle around to cut off the attackers' retreat." He described an arc on the map. "Our men open fire at the same time as we come up through access five. If we time it for daybreak we should be sure of getting them all."
Drew blinked and gazed at Chase, dumbfounded. His Adam's apple bobbed above the white triangle of sweat shirt at the open collar of his dark brown tunic. "You want to wipe 'em out?"
"Every single one. No survivors."
"You think that's necessary?"
"Listen, Sam, if word gets out they'll come back with every piece of heavy armament they can lay their hands on. We've got to stop that before it starts." Chase glanced at the clock. "It's nearly five. How long will it take to get your men in position?"
"Fifty minutes." Drew stroked his chin with hairy fingers. "That should be plenty of time to deploy before full light."
"Let's make it dead on six o'clock to make sure."
" 'Dead' being the operative word," said Drew, looking at Chase as if he'd never seen him before. In a sense he never had.
Forty minutes later they were standing tensely in the concrete cubicle next to the ramp leading up to access 5. Now and then shots could be heard ricocheting off the steel door into the desert air like demented wasps. In the corridor outside six men in combat gear were squatting with their backs to the wall, smoking and quietly talking, automatic weapons propped between their jutting knees.
Buchan was waiting nervously by the periscope control box mounted on the wall. "Beats me what the fuck they want." He gestured vaguely. "None of this scientific stuff can be of any use. What are they
"Perhaps it's the idea of people hiding underground they don't like," Chase said. "Makes them feel insecure. Vulnerable. And when things get really bad out there they'll want somewhere safe to run to. This is it."
"How bad are things gonna get, sir?" Buchan asked. He was sweating profusely.
"Don't you listen to the news bulletins?"
"What, you mean all that stuff in Africa and India and those places? I thought that was a plague of some kind, spread by bad drinking water. Nothin' to do with the climate."
"We don't know for sure what caused it," Chase said. "If anybody does they're keeping quiet." He was about to go on and then found he couldn't. All of a sudden he felt very weary, and it had nothing to do with being hauled from his bed in the early hours of the morning. His fatigue was deeper than that, rooted in every fiber of his being, the effect of climbing a steep slippery slope that got steeper and slipperier, so that however hard you struggled upward you kept sliding down and down into unimaginable, unthinkable depths. With Cheryl and Dan gone, his only lifeline was somewhere out in the Pacific. But the lifeline was no more than a thread upon which the fate of the world hung. If the trials failed and the thread snapped, the slope would become a vertical plunge into nightmare and horror and final oblivion for himself and all mankind.
"Five minutes," Drew said, swiveling his black-haired wrist to look at his watch. "Want to take a gander topside?" he asked Chase.
Buchan cleared his throat explosively and blurted out to Drew, "Sir, I gotta tell you. There's two of our guys out there somewhere--Stu-ermer and Monteith." He gulped, staring at the floor with stricken eyes. "They went out before the alarm, hunting for fresh meat. The guys do that, pick up a rabbit or a prairie fox, and get the cook to put it in the pot. I mean I know it's against regulations . . ." His hoarse voice died miserably.
Drew was standing rigidly, fists bunched at his sides, the cords on his neck sticking out. "You stupid bastards!" He released a long hissing breath. "Did you see either of them when you looked through the scope? Was there any
