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to do so.
"This door is legendary," Stewart said. "Omega was one of the first clients
and yet no one entered the vault for half a century. Then one day, like five
years ago, someone came."
Ukiah turned to him sharply as it jarred wrongly. "Five?"
"Yeah, I had just started working here. In 1999. We made end of the world
jokes about it."
Ukiah glanced at Rennie. "
Alicia said ten years ago was the last time Hex was in.
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"
"
We might be too late already.
"
"Did they take things out of storage?" Ukiah asked the guard.
"Well, they came with a U-Haul truck. Said they wanted stuff from storage. I
locked up, though, and everything looked the same as when I unlocked the
vault. I'm not sure what they did."
Stewart slotted the key into the door and turned it, opening the heavy steel
door. The air was stale and cool. The room was basically ten by twenty feet
deep and twenty feet high. The guard leaned in to turn on the lights, and
fluorescent lights flickered on. There was nothing cavelike to the room,
squared off, drywalled, and painted white, it seemed like any aboveground
chamber except for the dry chill. In the far back corner sat four wooden
crates of equal sizes, almost surreal in contrast, aged battered wood in the
otherwise empty, stark room.
They were antique shipping crates, Ukiah recognized, from Wells Fargo when
freight was moved by railroads and horse wagons The wood still had traces of
shipping labels from a hundred years ago
.
.
The four were now strung together via yellow plastic DO NOT TOUCH ribbon.
"No one has been in here since 1999?" Rennie asked.
"Well, we get in to check safety equipment." Stewart pointed up at the
sprinkler system that ran the length of the room. "And check the lighting and
such. We don't touch items in storage."
Ukiah and Rennie stalked across the room to the crates. They were larger than
Ukiah expected most likely the crates had layers of packing material
protecting the equipment.
"If they're still inside," Rennie murmured.
"Is something wrong?" Stewart asked.
"Perhaps," Ukiah examined the box without touching it. At one time the lids
had been nailed into place with old-fashioned rectangular-headed nails. These
had been mostly pried up, leaving behind
gaping rust-coated holes. It appeared that the lids now rested lightly on top
of the crates instead of being attached. "I would think they would have nailed
the lids back on if they just opened to check on them."
"Or taken the box," Rennie said and stilled as he focused on the box.
"What do you remember about the people that were here five years ago?" Ukiah
asked.
"What? You think they weren't Omega employees?" Stewart walked over to join
them. "They wore Omega uniforms."
"Uniforms?" Ukiah asked. The Ontongard wouldn't have bothered with that deep a
deception.
"Hmmm, you're right!" Stewart said. "The lids are just lying on." He reached
out to lift the nearest one up.
Ukiah felt Rennie start to move, accompanied with a wordless roar of protest,
his motion intending to check Stewart. Ukiah was in Rennie's way, and the Pack
leader changed his intent even as
Ukiah turned, trying to carry out Rennie's plan. The smell of C4, released by
the opening of the lid, hit him along with the awareness that this was
Rennie's darkest fear, a trap. Later he would be able to step through the
memory, finding the click of the trigger released even before Rennie's shout.
At that moment, he was aware of only Rennie jerking him off his feet and
dragging him backward even as he reached for the unsuspecting guard.
Then there was noise: a massive, bone-deep sound.
It struck him microseconds before the flame and shards of wood and a hard hand
of displaced air.
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Rennie's initial movement took them halfway to the door. The slapping hand
smashed them the rest of the way. They hit the ground hard, Rennie on top of
him, shielding him from the worst of the damage. Their clothes were burning
and their flesh writhed, trying to escape the agony. Ukiah rolled to his
knees, realized that Rennie was unconscious or dead, and picked him up. There
was another deep bellow as the second crate exploded, set off by the first. He
raced the oncoming wall of flame out into the tunnel. A hundred running steps,
and he flung himself at the wooden door guarding the lake.
The door shattered, spilling him and Rennie into the shockingly cold water.
The third bomb went off while they were submerged. The shock wave slammed
through the water, a stunning roar. Ukiah floundered on the brink of
unconsciousness.
What an irony, to drown in the middle of fire.
He hit bottom, though, and pushed off and found the surface in the cave
darkness. Sirens wailed from somewhere in the tunnel system Flames and black
smoke shot through the open door, and Rennie
.
stayed an unmoving weight in Ukiah's arms
.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Iron Mountain
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Ukiah's full panic dropped to only partial terror when Rennie groaned softly
in pain. The fact that he didn't have to smuggle a dead body out of the
high-security facility helped relieve some of his fear.
Ukiah slogged ashore as the Iron Mountain's fire team dealt with the fire with
surprising efficiency. Black smoke coiled around the ceiling, and the great
roaring fan beside the lake had reversed, sucking out the smoke.
An employee spotted him and shouted, "We've got wounded here!"
"I'm fine, but my friend is hurt." Ukiah dodged the man's effort to stop him
and carried Rennie to the Cherokee. "I need to take him to the hospital."
"We'll call for an ambulance," the employee said.
Ukiah juggled Rennie's limp body to get the Cherokee's passenger door open.
"No, no, it will be faster if I take him. I think he's dying."
The head of security came out of the smoke, coughing. "You! What the hell
happened?"
"I'm not sure. Someone swapped our stuff out and left bombs behind," Ukiah
said. "I don't know who. I don't know why. Rennie is hurt bad; I need to get
him to a hospital."
"Where's Stewart?"
Ukiah squinted at him in confusion until he remembered that the guard with
them had introduced himself as "Mark Stewart." Ukiah looked back at the flames
licking out of the chamber. "Oh, shit! He's still in there!" He flashed back
to the moment before the bomb went off. "He opened the crate and triggered the
bomb. He took the blast full on."
Most likely the poor man had died instantly.
"How did you get out?"
"My friend carried me out. He shielded me from the worst of it." Ukiah
motioned to Rennie. "I've got to get him to the hospital. I think he's dying."
The head of security looked at the heinously burned Rennie and swore.
"Let me take him to the hospital. I can get him there in the time it will take
an ambulance just to get here."
"Fine, fine, let me get you through the front gate."
***
His mothers' home was the nearest safe harbor. The house was empty and still.
Ukiah carried
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