The Atlantis Prophecy

16

BY THE TIME Max Seavers arrived on the scene at the old boiler room in the subbasement, a dozen Capitol Police were crowded around the piping entrance.

"What are you waiting for?" Seavers screamed.

But the Capitol Police officer halted his men and pulled out his radio to speak: "Suspect is in a Haz-Mat uniform and has entered the steam tunnels. Repeat, suspect is in the tunnels."

Seavers stared at him: "You're not going after him?"

"We won't even let our dogs go after him," the officer said. "Not down there. Too dangerous. All that crumbling concrete and carcinogenic asbestos. And our phones and radios don't work in the tunnels."

"This is a national security issue! That terrorist could be planting a suitcase nuke to blow up Capitol Hill!"

"That doesn't seem to be the case, sir, based on what we're seeing down here."

"And what the hell do you know?" Seavers said. "It was a CP officer who staged one of the last false alarms here a couple of years back. You know how they knew it was a CP officer? He was so stupid he couldn't even correctly spell out his 'anonymous' warning note."

"Easy, sir," said the CP officer. "The R.A.T.S. are coming."

"Rats?"

"Recon and Tactics Squad," the officer said. "A select group of us have undergone special training to access the miles of utility tunnels underneath the Capitol complex. They're arriving now."

Seavers turned to see the elite unit march up with their navy blue baseball hats, flak jackets that said R.A.T.S., and special night-vision Haz-Mat masks. The laser-sighted automatic machine guns in particular impressed Seavers, as he instantly recognized them to be German-made G36s by their distinctive translucent magazines. Their short-stroke gas system enabled them to fire tens of thousands of rounds without cleaning, perfect for use in the tunnels. And he especially admired the commanding officer's AG36 40mm grenade launcher.

"Well, it's about time," he said.

The knife-thin commanding officer lowered her mask to reveal a young, dark-skinned face. "I'm Sergeant Randolph, sir."

"Have you ever done this before?" he demanded.

She ignored him as she unfolded her classified schematics of the steam tunnels and reviewed choke points with her team.

"We won't have any radio signals down there," Sergeant Randolph said. "We'll stick to light signals. Converge at point C."

Seavers said, "Where is point C?"

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, folding up her blueprints and slipping them inside a hidden vest pocket. "But the Capitol Police can't provide any further details about how we protect the tunnels. You know, national security."

Seavers watched her put on her mask. She motioned a man to widen the open grating and a blast of scalding steam came out. Seavers covered his face and watched Sergeant Randolph and her R.A.T.S. vanish into the pipes.