Dan scuttled backward and cracked his shinbone on a sharp corner. He cursed through clenched teeth, unslung his rifle, and then he paused. Feeling behind him his bare fingers touched concrete. It had to be the edge of the parapet, almost completely buried in sand. A shot whistled over his head and the nearest white shape fell over with a tiny plaintive cry. Good old Jo was keeping them at bay, so now it was up to him.
Belly-down he slithered into a shallow depression, feeling the edges of the steps beneath the sand. He slid further down, the edges scraping his stomach and thighs, and began scooping desperately at the windblown sand. He'd found the entrance, but could he get in?
As he burrowed deeper the soft sand sucked him in until he was almost completely submerged. He reached behind him for the rifle and after a struggle was able to use the butt to dig his way through. Holding his breath and flailing away with all his strength, Dan felt the metal butt guard strike steel--he was through, but now he had to get the door open. Christ, if it was welded--
In this position it was almost impossible to exert any leverage, and in a panic he wondered whether the door was hinged or sliding. He pum-meled the door in a frenzy now, but the clogging sand frustrated his efforts and dulled the blows. He could feel his strength failing and he was breathing in as much sand as air as it cascaded down on top of him. Finally there was movement and the creaking protest of hinges, and then he was down in a long cool slide on a pillow of sand, gasping and choking as he fought to keep his head clear.
A moment later he struggled to his feet and waded knee-deep through the half-open door and crawled up the steps, cautiously poking his head above the concrete emplacement.
At the absence of all sound Dan's heart contracted. Jo had run out of ammunition. The white shapes had closed in on her. He called out her name in a rusty whisper, spitting out a mouthful of grit.
"Jo, it's here, I've found it!"
Silence.
"Jo, where are you?
A white shape rose up inches in front of his face and he gagged in fear. A clammy hand closed on his wrist and Jo's voice, thick with pain, said, "One of the little bastards got to me before I got him ... bit me . . . can't walk."
He dragged her over the parapet and got a firm grip around her waist just as a dozen white shapes materialized from the darkness, uttering little mewing cries like babies demanding to be fed.
Chase looked up sharply as a siren welled through the peaceful laboratory. For several seconds everyone stood frozen, heads raised, eyes locked in their sockets. Threats from outside were something that everyone had learned to live with, a fact of existence, yet it still caused a tremor of shock whenever the alarm sounded.
Everyone knew the drill: Return to living quarters for essential personal belongings, account for members of the family, and assemble in the mess hall on Level 2. On average there were three or four alerts a year, usually false alarms caused by an animal triggering the electronic warning system.
Chase hurried to the operations room, worried because Dan's party was still outside and might have run into trouble. It wasn't the first time they had failed to meet the deadline, though this time the alarm made him doubly anxious. The duty officer told him that they had an unauthorized entry in one of the sealed tunnels. Somebody had located an access point and was approaching the Tomb underground from the west.
"How near are they?"
"The last sensor to be activated was here"--the duty officer put his finger on the map--"about a mile from the enclosure." He traced the grid to an area shaded in orange. "If they keep to the same tunnel they'll come up against a sealed entrance down on Level Four."
That was one of the lower levels no longer used, a warren of empty corridors and rooms, once the living quarters and dormitories. "Is that entrance permanently sealed or is there access?" Chase asked. Some of the tunnels spreading out into the wider complex had been filled with concrete blocks, while others had steel doors.
"There's access."
"Have you posted men there?"
"Yes. We'll be ready for them."
"Tell them to identify the intruder before taking any action. It could be one of our parties." Chase paced up and down, kneading his hands. The duty officer watched him circumspectly and raised an eyebrow at one of his colleagues; under normal circumstances the director would have left security to the men whose responsibility it was, but now he was clearly agitated.
Chase stopped pacing and said abruptly, "I think we ought to send somebody out to investigate. If it is the reconnaissance party they might need help."
The duty officer shifted uneasily to another foot. "That'll mean opening the doors. They're our last line of defense."
