Terminal Freeze

17

Marshall mounted the set of stamped-metal steps very slowly. The stairwell was narrow and dark, lit only by a single fluorescent fixture. Lightbulbs were a scarce commodity: even with the film crew on hand, much of the base remained completely dark.

He felt more tired than he had ever felt in his life. And yet it was not a physical weariness-it was total emotional exhaustion. He had seen it in the strained faces of the others, as well. After so much effort, so much buildup, the sudden inexplicable disappearance left everyone stupefied. And over the entire base hung the question: Who did it?

Reaching the top of the stairwell, he stopped at a closed, windowless door. He glanced at his watch: five minutes past eight. Fifteen hours had passed since he’d discovered the missing cat. Fifteen endless, awful hours, full of mistrust and suspicion and uncertainty. And now, just after dinner, an e-mail summons from Faraday: “RASP room, right away.”

Marshall reached for the handle, pushed it open. Beyond lay a long, low room that resembled the control tower of an airport. Windows ran around all four sides, looking out over the limitless icescape of the Zone. The room was as dark as the stairwell, and the dim light reflected off the scopes of a dozen obsolete radar stations, arrayed in regular rows. Ancient screens, each six feet tall, were pushed diagonally into the corners of the room. Before each sat a projection device, dusty and unused for nearly half a century.

This was the Radar Mapping and Air Surveillance Command Post, known as the RASP room, the nerve center of Fear Base and the highest structure within the perimeter fence. As he looked around, he could make out three dim forms seated at a conference table: Sully, Barbour, and Chen. Chen gave a listless wave. Sully, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, glanced up at the sound of the door, then let his eyes sink back to floor.

Three evenings a week, without fail, the team had assembled here for a status meeting. Who’d chosen the RASP room for the meeting was forgotten, but the bizarre location had become a fixed ritual within days of their arrival. Except this was no pro forma meeting: Faraday wanted to talk to them, urgently.

As if on schedule, the door opened again and Faraday came in, a thin folder under one arm. The usual preoccupied look was gone from the biologist’s features. He stepped quickly past the radar stations and sat down between Sully and Chen.

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Barbour cleared her throat. “So. Are we going to have to pack it in?”

There was no response.

“That’s what he told me, you know. That nancy-boy Conti. Him and his storm trooper.”

“We’ve only got another two weeks on the project,” Marshall said. “Even if they do close us up, bureaucracy moves slowly. We can get our work done in time.”

Barbour didn’t seem to hear him. “Pawed through every last one of my drawers. Said it was us, he did. He said we thought we were in it together. Said we wanted the specimen for ourselves, for the university.”

“Penny, forget it,” Sully snapped. “He’s just kicking out at anybody within reach.”

“He just kept after me…and after me…oh, God!” And Barbour buried her face in her hands, her frame suddenly shaking with violent sobs.

Marshall leaned over quickly, put an arm around her shoulders.

“Bastard,” Sully murmured.

“Maybe we could find it,” Chen said. “Or maybe the person who stole it. They couldn’t have gone far. In fact, they must still be here. We’d be off the hook then, they could salvage the special.”

Barbour sniffed, detached herself gently from Marshall ’s embrace.

“We can’t do anything Wolff isn’t doing already,” Sully said. “Besides, he’s not likely to trust us. He made that perfectly clear. I don’t know why he’s so fixated on us-that Dr. Logan seems guilty as hell. You think his arrival just yesterday was a coincidence? And why wasn’t he at the meeting?”

“Why indeed?” Marshall replied. Privately, he had been thinking the same thing.

“While cooling my heels in my quarters I went online, did a little digging into Jeremy Logan. Seems he’s a professor of medieval history at Yale. Last year he published a monograph on some genetic disorder that afflicted ancient Egyptian royalty. The year before, a monograph on spectral phenomenon in Salem, Massachusetts. ‘Spectral phenomena.’” Sully spat out the words. “Does that sound like a history professor to you?”

When nobody answered, Sully sighed and looked around. “Well, this speculation won’t get us anywhere. Wright, what was it you wanted to see us about? It is your latest theory du jour?”

Faraday glanced at him. “No theory,” he said. “Just some pictures.”

Sully groaned. “Again with the photographs? That’s why we’re here? You’re in the wrong profession, you know that?”

Faraday ignored this. “After Evan told us about the theft-after the first hue and cry died down-I went out to the vault. The door was wide open, nobody seemed to care about it anymore. So I took some shots.”

Sully frowned. “Why?”

“Why do I ever take shots? Documentation.” He paused. “Conti seemed to be blaming us already. I thought maybe…well, maybe I’d find some evidence to clear us. I didn’t get a chance to print them until an hour or so ago.” He opened the folder, drew out half a dozen eight-by-tens, and passed them to Sully.

The climatologist shuffled through them quickly, then handed them to Marshall, clearly unimpressed.

The first photo showed a blurry interior of the vault. Chunks and blocks of ice littered the floor, but otherwise it was empty save for the heater in the rear and the large hole between the I beams. Marshall turned to the second photo. This was clearer: a close-up of the hole itself.

“And?” Sully prompted.

“People were saying the thief must have crawled in under the vault.” Faraday removed his glasses, began polishing them on the cuff of his shirt. “Cut out the block of ice with a hacksaw.”

“Yes, we all heard that. So?”

“Did you see that shot of the hole? Look at the kerf pattern.”

“The what?” Sully asked.

“Kerf. The saw marks. If somebody was breaking into the vault from underneath, the marks should go from down to up. But when I examined the edges of the hole in close-up, the marks did the opposite. Went from up to down.”

“Let me see that.” Sully plucked the photos from Marshall ’s hand, examined them closely. “I don’t see anything.”

“May I?” Marshall retrieved the photos, looked at the close-up again. Although the silver paint of the floor reflected the bright light of the vault, he could immediately see that Faraday was right: the wood splinters weren’t forced upward. Instead, they clearly angled down.

“Whoever it was didn’t break in from underneath,” he said. “They sawed their way out from inside.”

Sully waved his hand in impatient dismissal. “Wolff’s gotten to the two of you. You’re seeing things.”

“No. It’s there all right.” Marshall glanced at Faraday. “You know what this means?”

Faraday nodded. “It means whoever stole the cat knew the combination to the vault.”