The Twelve (The Passage 2)

He frowned skeptically. "And you're positive Martinez is down there."

"It all makes sense, sir. Babcock used a cave, too. And El Paso is just a hundred miles from Carlsbad. It's his home turf."

Apgar thought a moment. "I agree, the pattern fits, but how can you be so sure?"

Alicia hesitated. "I can't really explain it, Colonel. I just know."

Peter was seated at the far end of the table. "Permission to speak, sir."

Apgar rolled his eyes. "Fine, Jaxon, go ahead and say what we all know you're going to say."

"I'm the only other person here who's seen one of the Twelve. I trust Lieutenant Donadio. If she says Martinez is down there, he's down there."

"We're all aware of your history, Lieutenant. That doesn't change the fact that we're just playing a hunch here. I don't see risking anyone unless we know for sure."

"So maybe there's another way. All of the original test subjects were chipped, like Amy. We can use the signal to locate him."

"I already thought of that. Just one problem. Radio waves can't pass through rock. How do you propose to get a signal from a thousand feet underground?"

"We don't get it from the surface. We get it from the cave."

Peter drew their attention to the diagram again. "We do like Alicia says, positioning an H2 pack inside the tunnel that leads from the base of the main entrance into the other chambers. The Twelve are big, but in tight quarters that ought to be enough to get Martinez's attention. The package is wired back to the base of the main entrance, where it's connected to the surface by a radio detonator, so we can blow it at a safe distance. Call that Blue Squad."

Apgar nodded. "I'm with you so far."

"Okay, but we don't send a single man down the elevator shaft to meet Martinez on the way out. We send two, with a radio direction finder. Call that Red Squad. The first thing Red Squad does is plant a second pack of H2 near the base of the shaft. We put it on a short timer, say fifteen seconds. Man one proceeds into the cave, using the RDF to locate Martinez, but man two holds his position at the elevator. The trick will be keeping lines of sight to maintain radio contact with the surface, so that's man two's job. He's the go-between. Basically we use a daisy-chain system. Man one is connected by radio to man two, who's connected to whoever's positioned at the top of the shaft, call him man three, who's connected to Blue Squad. That way we can coordinate all the elements of the operation. No guesswork."

Apgar nodded. "Fair enough, but I'm already seeing the problems, Lieutenant. It's a maze down there. What if men one and two lose contact? The whole thing collapses."

"It's a risk, but there's no reason they should, so long as the first man doesn't go any farther than these three junctures." Peter showed them on the map. "It won't give us a whole view of the cave, but we should be able to survey most of it."

"Go on."

"So. We set the two packages, man one goes looking for Martinez, man two waits to hear. After that it's just a question of the timing. Once man one locates Martinez, he radios back to man two, who contacts the surface. Blue Squad blows the hole. Martinez is pissed. Man one beats it back to the shaft, drawing him toward the elevator. Man two sets the timer. Up they go, the second package blows, Martinez is history." He clapped his hands. "Simple."

Apgar considered this. "Not a lot of margin for error there. I know Donadio's fast, but fifteen seconds won't be much to get clear of the blast. I don't know if we can winch anybody up that quickly."

"We won't have to. The shaft itself will offer enough protection. Fifty feet should do it."

"Just to be clear, you're talking about using man one as a decoy."

"Correct, sir."

"Sounds like you've done this before."

"Not me. Sister Lacey."

"Your mystic nun."

"Lacey was a lot more than that, Colonel."

Apgar placed the tips of his fingers together, glanced at the map, then raised his eyes to Peter's face. "Man one is Donadio, obviously. Any idea who this other suicidal character might be?"

"Yes, sir. I'd like to volunteer."

"And why am I not surprised?" Apgar turned to the others. "Anybody else want to chime in here? Hooper? Lewis?"

Both men were agreed.

"Donadio?"

She glanced at Peter-Are you sure about this?-and then gave a tight nod. "I'm good with it, Colonel."

A brief pause, followed by a sigh of surrender. "All right, Lieutenants, this is your show. Henneman, you think two squads should do it?"

"I believe so, Colonel."

"Brief Lieutenant Dodd and put a detail together to outfit the portables. And let's see about that RDF. I'd like to move on this within forty-eight hours." Apgar looked at Peter again. "Last chance to change your mind, Lieutenant."

"No, sir."

"I didn't think so." He lifted his eyes to the room. "All right, everybody. Let's show Command what we're made of and kill this bastard."

Two nights later, they made camp at the base of the mountain. A pair of portables, twenty-four men sleeping on racks; they awoke at dawn to prepare their ascent. The ground around the portables was littered with tracks in the dust, the nighttime visitors, drawn by the scent of two dozen dozing men, a grand feast denied by walls of steel. The mountain was too steep for vehicles, the path winding. Anything they brought they would have to hump on their backs. Without the portables to protect them on the mountaintop, there would be no second chance. In the bright light of morning, the terms of their mission were starkly defined. Find Martinez and kill him, or die in the dark.

Henneman was the senior officer-an irregularity. Rarely did he go outside the walls of the garrison. But he had made his way, over the years, to this position of relative safety by doing just the opposite. Tulsa, New Orleans, Kearney, Roswell-Henneman had ascended through the ranks on a ladder of battle and blood. No one doubted his capabilities, and his presence meant something. Peter would lead one squad, Dodd the other. Alicia was Alicia: the scout sniper, the odd man, the one who didn't quite fit and seemed, by and large, to answer to no one. Everyone knew what she could do, yet her status was a source of unease among the men. No one ever said anything that Peter was aware of-if they spoke of their concerns, it wasn't to him-yet their discomfort was evident in the way they kept their distance, the cautious glances they gave her, as if they could not quite bring themselves to meet her eye. She was a bridge between the human and the viral, situated somewhere between: where did she fall?

They set out just after dawn. Now it was a race against the hours. They would need to set the charges and have everybody in position before sunset. The cool desert night had yielded to a scorching sun, its thrumming rays hitting their backs, then their shoulders, then the tops of their heads. There was no time to rest; rations were passed down the lines as they climbed, Alicia leading the way, occasionally doubling back to confer with Henneman. By the time they reached the mouth of the cave, it was late afternoon.

"Jesus, you weren't kidding," Henneman said.

They were standing at the cave's mouth. The western sun lit the interior, though its rays traveled only so deeply; beyond lay a maw of blackness. The amphitheater with its curved stone benches, the spaces between them littered with dry leaves and other debris, was inexplicable; if an audience sat here, what did they watch? Metal banisters framed a curving trail that switchbacked down into the cave. They had three usable hours of daylight left.

They reviewed the plan a final time. Dodd's squad would set the charges at the base of the cave. According to Alicia's map, the switchbacks ended two hundred feet belowground, where a narrow tunnel descended another three hundred feet to the first of several large chambers. The charges would be laid inside this tunnel, wired to a radio detonator with a clear line of sight to the cave's mouth. The explosion would shoot a compression wave through the tunnel, its destructive force magnified exponentially by its trip through the narrow space-in theory, sending whatever was down there running toward the elevator shaft. Once the charges were in place and Dodd's men had returned to the surface, Peter and Alicia would commence their descent. The elevator car was resting at the bottom, seven hundred feet below the surface, held in place by its counterweights, which were lodged at the top. A winch would lower Peter and Alicia by rope to the base of the shaft and pull them back up when they made their escape.

Dodd and his team set out. Fifteen minutes later, he radioed from the bottom. They'd made it to the mouth of the tunnel.

"Creepy as hell down here," Dodd said. "You've got to see this for yourself."

They would, soon enough. Dodd's squad had three hundred feet of cable to connect the detonator to the package. A five-minute silence ensued; then Dodd's voice returned. The bomb and the cable were laid; his team had begun their ascent. Peter and Alicia were waiting at the top of the elevator shaft, which was located a quarter mile away, in a structure that once had housed the park's offices. The winch was in place. The time was 1700 hours; they were cutting it close.

Dodd's voice on the radio: "Blue Squad, good to go."

Alicia and Peter clipped into their harnesses; Henneman wished them good luck. They balanced at the edge of the shaft and pushed off, dropping into the blackness like coins into a well. Portable fluorescents clipped to their vests bathed the walls in a yellowish glow. Peter's mind was clear, his senses acute. There was a kind of fear that deepened awareness, bringing focus to the mind; his was that kind. The temperature dropped swiftly, prickling the hair on his arms. A hundred feet, two hundred, three, their downward passage swift, their weight suspended by the harnesses, as if they were descending in two cupped hands. The elevator's cables-a thick trunk of twined steel and two smaller lines wrapped in plastic-flowed past. A dark shape emerged below: the top of the elevator. The cables were bolted to a plate on the roof. They landed with a soft thunk.

"Red Squad down."

Alicia pried loose the hatch, and they dropped inside. The doors of the car stood open. A feeling of immeasurable space beyond, as if they were standing at the entrance to a cathedral. The air was damp and cold with a strong earthen smell, vaguely ureic. They scanned the space with the lights of their rifles, their beams volleying into the immense blackness. All around were strange, organic-looking forms, as if the walls were made of crumpled flesh.

"Flyers, get a load of this place," Alicia said.

Alicia had removed her glasses; she was in her element now, a zone of permanent night. By the glow of the fluorescents, she knelt and removed two objects from her rucksack. The first was the explosives pack-eight sticks of HEP wired to a mechanical timer. She gingerly placed this on the floor of the cave. The second was the radio direction finder, a small, boxy object with a directional antenna and a meter to register the strength of an incoming signal at 1432 megahertz. She flicked the power switch and stepped from the car, holding the RDF before her to sweep the space beyond. It began to issue a faint but regular beeping. The needle nudged to life.

"Gotcha."

Peter radioed the surface: the target was present. He'd had no cause to doubt Alicia's claim, yet suddenly the situation had acquired a more potent reality. Somewhere in these caverns, Julio Martinez, Tenth of Twelve, lay in wait.

"Tell Dodd to stand ready and wait for my signal," Peter told Henneman.

"Acknowledged. All eyes, Lieutenants."

The moment had come. A final look passed between Peter and Alicia, freighted with meaning. Once again, here they were, the two of them poised at the precipice. There was no need to acknowledge this with words; all had been said. Neither could exist without the other, yet the distance between them could never be crossed. They were who they were, which was soldiers at war. The bond transcended all others but one, the one thing they could not have. Alicia was wearing, as ever, her trademark bandoliers, but she'd given up the cross for an M4 rifle with the fat tube of a grenade launcher fixed under the barrel. Martinez would receive no mercy from her, no final benediction.

"See you soon."

She faded into the darkness.

At the mouth of the cave, Satch Dodd's squad had formed a firing line along the lowest tier of the amphitheater. The sky had begun a discernible darkening, an enrichment of its colors as day spilled toward night. Dodd was clutching the detonator. Its signal, transmitted to the receiver at the base of the cave, would close a simple electric circuit, sending a jolt of current down the wire to the bomb.

Even at this distance, it would make a hell of a boom.

Though it was nothing he could let his men see, the journey to the bottom of the cave had rattled him. Dodd had never experienced any place like it in his life-an unearthly world of alien shapes, strange colors, and distorted dimensions, pockets of darkness everywhere he looked, spiraling down into nothingness. The trip down the tunnel had felt like crawling into his own grave. In the orphanage, Dodd had learned about hell, a realm of everlasting gloom where the souls of the wicked writhed forever in agony. Although the idea had initially terrified him, something about it had struck him, even then, as faintly unbelievable. Though only a boy, he'd sensed that hell was just a story the sisters had concocted to keep the children in line, not unlike the fables they read the children to teach simple moral lessons. Dodd's status as the youngest survivor of the Massacre of the Field had always afforded him a slightly elevated rank among the children, as if this experience had somehow made him wise. This, of course, was completely misplaced-having never really known his parents, he did not feel the loss of them, and he remembered nothing of that day-but under the spell of his playmates' admiration for the imaginary mantle of his grief, Dodd came to see himself as a boy with special powers of perception, especially where the sisters' mystical proclamations were concerned. God, okay, Dodd was good with that, it made a kind of sense. Heaven was a pleasant idea he was happy to go along with, since believing in it cost him nothing. But that was as far as he was willing to go. Hell: it was pure nonsense.