The Eye of Moloch

Chapter 62

Their insider at Garrison Archives was a young mailroom intern who’d been planted in her job months before.

Like most spies, much of her role up to then had involved simply blending in and waiting. Recently, however, she’d been given three important duties to perform for Molly Ross and the Founders’ Keepers.

First, she’d smuggled out a copy of the internal network architecture documents—it was amazing what low-level employees have access to when they’re put in charge of the shredder and the photocopy room. Next she copied down a few key PIN numbers from a security guard’s crib sheet and ordered a duplicate access card for all the inside doors. Once these things had been gathered she’d addressed a padded envelope to Mr. Thom Hollis, care of HomeWorx, Inc., and forwarded it all to a UPS private mailbox in the nearby town of Butler.

Third, she’d intercepted a special-delivery package when it arrived by courier at Garrison—said package having been constructed and sent by some tech-savvy co-conspirators—and after business hours that same night she’d punched a pattern of holes through the outer cardboard of the box and placed it as directed, high on a shelf in a utility room near an open vent for the air-conditioning and environment control system.

And last, at some unspecified time in the very near future, she would be ready to put on a small performance for her coworkers.

Here’s what she was supposed to do: once she’d gotten the go-ahead signal, and when her nose detected a very specific fragrance wafting through her workplace, she was to mention the smell to her colleagues, fake some vertigo and troubled breathing, and then faint dead away on the spot.

The first steps were already accomplished. When an announcement came over the PA system that a threat had been received of a possible chemical or biological weapons attack against the facility—and that this was not a drill—she knew that her final task would be required within minutes.

• • •

Anyone who’s gotten a whiff of actual cyanide gas and lived to tell the tale would confirm that its odor of bitter almonds is quite different from the familiar nutty scent of the supermarket variety. The real thing would certainly bear little resemblance to the cloying, sweet almond scent that would soon begin to show itself in the cool filtered air throughout the Garrison underground facility.

Rooms away from where Molly’s planted intern waited, the package she’d received and prepared came to life as a cell phone inside it received a call.

The ringer electronics of the phone activated a microcontroller-enabled circuit board and the salvaged heating element from a head-shop vaporizer warmed up to a bright orange glow. Servo motors whirred, pistons worked, gears and rollers turned, and at a rate of a drop per second, two ounces of Italian amaretto began to drip with a hiss onto the hot metal.

Moments later, pungent white smoke began to waft through the holes in the box, soon permeating the utility room before being sucked into the recirculating air of the HVAC system.

• • •

The minute the WMD threat had been announced all seventeen hundred employees stopped working and awaited further instructions at their posts and desks. Despite the nationwide alert that was currently in force, no immediate evacuation had been ordered. Garrison was a high-profile and somewhat controversial facility among some elements of society, and such threats were not that uncommon.

Often, after a few minutes of break time the all-clear would be sounded and everything would quickly return to normal. They were protected by many levels of security, after all, and safely ensconced more than two hundred feet beneath ground level in a rock mine hidden under a mountain.

The main Information Services room seated nearly two hundred workers, all arranged in an open grid of rows and columns of identical desks and computer workstations. The space was one of the original dug-out areas of the mine, and while the room was large it also felt somewhat claustrophobic due to a low suspended ceiling overhead.

As the employees waited out the alert period with solitaire games and chitchat, the only person still working seemed to be the mailroom girl. She rolled her cart up one row and down the next, dropping off letters and memos and making light conversation with those who bothered to acknowledge her.

Near the center of the room, the girl suddenly stopped, looking troubled. She coughed a bit, put a hand to her chest, and leaned on her cart as though she might swoon.

“Does anybody smell that?” she called out, and suddenly the room got very quiet.

Some of those near her rose at their desks and acknowledged that yes, there was an unusual odor.

“It smells like—” Her knees seemed to weaken and her voice was strained as she tried to speak again. “It smells like . . .” And with a last guttural gasp she grabbed her throat and crumpled to the floor.

As some came to her aid the clear signs of physical distress began to spread rapidly to others. Another collapsed, and then another, and many covered their noses and mouths with handkerchiefs or shirtsleeves and hurried for the exit to escape the now visible, seeping gas. As fear took hold and threatened to spark a stampede toward the safety of the outdoors, someone with their wits still about them ran to the wall, broke a pane of protective glass, and pulled the big red lever that sounded the general alarm.

• • •

Even before the last of the many hundreds of employees, managers, technicians, and guards had evacuated, those near the back of the crowd saw the leading vehicle of the first-responders speeding up the private road toward the facility.

A series of security barriers that were set up earlier had been pulled aside as soon as the state of emergency within the complex had been announced. All the gates were still manned but they were now standing open so as not to impede the arrival of the rescue workers.

As the first hazmat truck arrived it slowed briefly at the farthest checkpoint and then was waved on through. The lights and sirens of many others were approaching in the distance; police, EMS, and fire departments from all over the surrounding region had been automatically summoned by the internal alarm.

The evacuated crowd parted to the sides of the road to clear the way and the first truck rumbled past them and through the fortified entrance of Garrison Archives.

Once the vehicle had disappeared inside, the remaining stragglers were quickly escorted out to safety and then, oddly enough, the massive double doors of the entrance swung closed.