Both women faced Hammet. He knelt, unsheathed his knife, and jabbed the tip of it into a chunk of ice growing along the bottom-right of the door. After three strikes, the ice cracked and fell free to reveal a panel similar to the one that allowed them access to the Underworld. He reached around to one side and popped open the lid.
Inside was another red button.
Zahra gave him a nod.
He pressed it.
The oversized door
When it was over, everyone looked at one another. Hammet stood, shouldered his rifle, and took point. Zahra went next. Yana brought up the rear, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the elevator behind them.
The door slid back into place, moving without a sound.
“Um…”
It was all Zahra could say.
The inside of the anomaly was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. The Underworld had been remarkably constructed, but nothing that couldn’t be replicated today, given enough time and money.
But this was totally different.
“I feel like we just stepped into the future,” Yana said.
“Or
“Same,” Hammet agreed. “This is troublesome. This makes it that much more imperative that we bury this place.”
Zahra couldn’t agree more. The corridor on the other side was wide, sleek, and the color of night. Everything was black. Every surface also held a touch of transparency. Circuits and wires could be seen just beneath the surface. And they were everywhere. It was as if the entire structure was one giant supercomputer.
Hammet started off. “Come. Follow the cables.”
While a couple of them had hooked up to the door, most of them continued through the wall and down the passage. They made it fifty feet when they came to an unremarkable intersection. The cables turned right, and so did Hammet and Zahra.
“Stop,” Yana said. “Turn off your lights.”
Zahra and Hammet did as they were told. When they did, Zahra was surprised to find that they weren’t cast into complete darkness. There was a pinprick of golden light at the end of the hallway behind Hammet and her. It’s what Yana had noticed.
“Okay,” Zahra said, “let’s see what the Sixth Seal has been hiding all these years.”
The trio hefted their rifles up and moved forward, unaware of what they might find down here.
Henri’s boots touched down inside the largest aircraft hangar he’d ever seen. The planes were clearly B-29 Superfortress bombers, and they’d been modified with a camouflaging technology he’d only heard about in shadowed whispers.
“The
“You knew about this?” Luka asked.
Henri shook his head. “Just rumors.” He glanced at the young man. “Stick around long enough, and you’ll hear similar tales.”
The Ghost bombers had been nothing but fanciful stories to Henri until now. At best, he had thought of them as far-off ideas that had never been brought to life. He had first heard about them shortly after being recruited. A small group of similarly young soldiers had been talking about them one night. To Henri, it was only science fiction — stories that inspired Wonder Woman’s invisible plane. One of his fellow recruits had sworn that he’d heard a Sixth Seal elder mention it while on a phone call.
That intrigued recruit had disappeared a few days later.
That was when Henri learned to watch his back, even when only surrounded by his own people.
Secrets were what the Sixth Seal was built on. No one within the organization was above that. There had always been questions that Henri had wanted to ask, answers he desired. Ever the faithful soldier, he had kept his mouth shut over the years and did his job.
But the Underworld
Rage built within Commander Vogel.
Krause knew a lot more than he’d led on, and he’d kept his most faithful men in the dark for his own personal gain. That was the real reason he kept his secrets. It wasn’t because of the fear of betrayal. It was selfishness.
It was about control!
