Trellis Page 19

  She had so many questions for him but no time to stay. As she started to climb onto the rusty ladder, foregoing the old shaft elevator, she asked him, “Who were the other people that knew about this tunnel?”

  “Each President to take office- that is if he reads his book of secrets, the few that have since died, one janitor that has retired from here, and one military officer that has moved on to serve in the committee of the Band of Influence as an army liaison for retiree benefits. We were sworn to secrecy. I will take it to my grave.”

  ‘No, you will retain it the next twenty seconds’, she thought, ‘and then you will forget about it. Such a waste, and I am sorry.’

  “So Coughlin doesn’t know about this?”

  “That blowhole? No.”

  Well, that put a smile on her face. Schell closed the door behind her, but not before, she took a small flashlight off his utility belt. She wiped this from his mind. Her entire discussion with him and his knowledge of the tunnel was mopped spotless from his memory. She’s not sure it will stick or how powerful zombie-man’s mind-reading ability had gotten, all she knew was that she needed to book it out of there. She had Schell close the brick columns behind her as she descended in to the darkness.

  She never thought she would reach the bottom of the elevator shaft. She climbed until her forearms burned and she wanted to let go of the ladder. Just as she thought she couldn’t descend one more rung, she reached the bottom, a stable flatness beneath her feet that she was happy to plant her feet on.

  She pointed the flashlight around the round, hollow sounding, metal room, and illuminated what could possibly be her final resting place. Then she flashed the light up into the passageway she just climbed down and took a deep solid breath. The mildew stench was thick and she knew it was a smell she would have to put up with for quite a while. The kind of odor that clung to your clothes, hair, and skin.

  ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ She winced.

  Taking note of the all the solid heavy doors, she moved to the third door from the right with the yellow circle trimmed in green on the top left corner, as she was told. She was about to thrust open the door when she had a thought pierce her reality. ‘What if this was the plan? What if they planted the thought in Schell’s head to lead me down here and open the wrong door? What if I was part of some bigger plan to dismantle the gold depository?’

  She breathed deeply and tried to slow her thoughts down and for the first time ever in her life, she hesitated then lifted a small prayer to God. ‘God, help me to get out of this alive.’ Agent Banks seemed to put his trust into this deity, she thought she could try it, too.

  Quickly shuffling over different possibilities about the tunnel in her mind and realized if it wasn’t what it seemed then Schell was really good! She reached up, grabbed the handle of the third door on the right, and slowly gave it a push and it opened up with a click and clank. . .

  ‘No explosion.’ She walked through and shut the door behind her, glancing the second room over with her tiny light she located the first panel of letters and numbers and the second door. ‘Here goes nothing…’

  She found the first letter- W and pressed it in until it was flush with the wall. James Bond would bust a gut laughing at this technology! She continued with each letter until the entire combination had been entered. She heard a latch release and the door move a little, and then it stopped.

  ‘Are you kidding me! It is rusted shut?! Great!’ She breathed deeply and washed her flashlight’s illumination around the doorjamb looking for problems she could fix.

  She leaned on it again with her small frame and gave it a few good rams and it finally opened wide enough for her to squeeze through, ripping her shirt on the metal hinge as she fell into the next room getting wet in a puddle as she landed. She regained her bearings and shut the clunky door behind her, turning the old wheel on the wall resetting the lock on the door.

  She entered into a small round tunnel that was no doubt not meant to have humans in it, just small miner railcars on tracks. A good search-over with her flashlight revealed an impressively long never-ending walk ahead of her.

  The tunnel had at least six inches of cold standing water and it was hard trying not to trip over the rusty old train tracks partially hidden under the stagnant water. Once she had the feel of the rails figured out, her pace was steady and she was hoping she would be out of there in at least an hour or so, all the time listening for brain waves of any form. She was also suspicious of walking into a trap once she emerged from the tunnel at the river.

  Dr. Salvaggi unknowingly trained her for such a mission like this! Idiot. Recalling the many times back at Trellis when she would be woken up from a dead slumber only to be rushed to a small empty dark barrack with fifty or more people standing around the inside perimeter and loud ridiculous music being played over the speakers. She had been introduced to these people at some point over the previous weeks and Dr. Salvaggi would be watching from an undisclosed location on heat sensitive cameras. Each test was pedantically controlled by her doctors and watched by the head crazy Doctor. First, they would tape her eyes shut with medical bandages and she was to walk to whomever they asked her to find with her mind. Then they would spray her with cold water and see if that added element would hinder her ability to find the people they asked her to find. Then they would place shoes on her feet that were fitted with poky hard knobs that hurt and ask her to find more people. With each new test they gave her, they wanted to see if she could overcome outside intrusions and have her focus in on one brain pattern in the large group. The band they placed around her arm that gave off electrical shocks was the hardest to overcome- but she did.

  ***

  The flashlight she took from Schell gave horribly little light, which made it hard to see what was coming in the tubular underground tunnel. All she could do was to hope it lasted until she was out of here, alive. The sound of lone water drops plunking from above would hit the pooled up water below, the single sound was the only noise in the hollowness other than her own clumsiness. There were a few twists and turns along the way and if you were to ask her which direction she was headed, there would be no way she could answer with certainty.

  Once she reached the final doorway Schell mentioned, she presumed she had reached the end of her trek and that daylight would be on the other side. She found the series of button/panels that had letters and numbers on them. They were much larger than the first set of panels. The entire wall, a ten by ten area completely covered in the lettered panels. She took careful assessment of the panels and looked over the numbers. She located the first capitol letter C and pressed. Simple enough. She continued until she had the whole phrase spelled out, CarpetBaggers8012DeadLock. When the final k was pushed in, she could hear a latch on the tunnel door unbolt. That was it? Really? She felt like Indiana Jones.

  Any other country with this information could splinter what our financial system holds sacred. Why would this tunnel still be available in our generation? She’s not sure she even wanted to know anymore! She wanted out. She wanted Trellis dismantled, Salvaggi locked up or worse, and Coughlin out of her life.

  She emerged wet and disheveled, quickly realizing she was about forty feet from a river and a wooded area. She was certain that she was facing southeast; she shut the door behind her looking at her surroundings for an ambush and listening for any glimpse of a brainwave. Nothing.

  Locating an old looking tree stump that was actually a rusty replica of a tree and lifted it up, locating the wheel she needed to turn, easy enough she guessed. She knelt down and tried to give it a few good rotates until she heard the clicking sound of the door relocking behind her and the panels resetting. As she turned her foot slipped down the wet weeds and she rolled down an incline coming to a stop against what she thought felt manmade. She was looking eye to eye of a large hidden camera lens.

  Punching the glass of the camera hard she injured her fist and she yelped in pain. “You better be part of the disabled cam
era system the guards help dismantle!” She didn’t know it but there would be no video of her emerging from the tunnel ever found.

  Why does she even care at this point? She was muddy, wet, cold, and her shirt was ripped. Her shoes were sloshing water with every step she took and she had an enormous headache. She wondered what bacteria had started to mutate in her shoes and skin. Moreover, to top that off it looked like it was going to storm again. What was with this freakish weather lately! Yes, she’s crabby. YES, she knew she experienced something others will never know about, but it isn’t every day you get chased by a zombie face-eating mind-controller.

  After walking for about twenty minutes along the riverbank, she could hear the buzz of traffic to her right. Finding a large tree she slumped down and watched. She needed to wait for the traffic to die down and a car to pass. She didn’t want to draw attention that a lady hitchhiker was looking homeless on the side of the road. Trellis would comb these woods and no doubt find the access tunnel to the depository and exploit it. With that thought, a clap of thunder cracked and the rain began to pour down. ‘Great…’ She rolled her eyes.

  After some time and long enough for her to be completely drenched by the deluge of rain, an RV moved by and she made the man driving it slow down and stop. Upon climbing in, she noticed a family that was offensively confused by her unkempt appearance.

  “Whatever,” She grumbled, wet and shuddering from the cold. She pulled a wet leaf stuck to her hair and tossed it back out in the blowing rain before slamming the door.

  She washed up and changed into some dry clothes that the family was kind enough to unwillingly give her.

  The driver of the RV headed them in the direction of the camping park where D’s camper was located. She commandeered the TV remote from the small children sitting on the couch watching her. She flipped the cartoon channel that the kids were watching to the news channel. Nothing about Fort Knox. Then a story that pulled her undivided attention flashed across the screen.

  “Two Military retirees, in a small helicopter crashed down on Mt. Washington. The plane has been located but no signs of the men. The CCD’s own Agent Colin Banks who is retired from the Army was on the plane. The owner of the helicopter Jase Furlough also retired Army personnel, believed to have been the only people onboard the plane. The two men served together for years and now may have died together. The search has been stifled from the bad weather and the remote location of the crash. We will report more as it comes in. Near the location of the crash, we have sources that leaked information to us, that more dismembered bodies were found. This doesn’t look good folks.”

  It doesn’t look like she will be driving back to DC tonight. She’s will take the first plane to help locate Banks. Not sure why she cared but he was the only half-normal person she couldn’t mentally read. For some reason she trusted him and hoped was he still alive.

  Chapter Nineteen~

  Ignoring the intercom calling his name, Dr. Salvaggi continued to dissect what looked like a human brain. Sliver by sliver. His hands steady, thick magnifying glasses affixed around his head and pulled down over his irregularly thick glasses, sitting calmly on a small stool hovering over his latest casualty.

  A young medical assistant hurried in to the room and quite nervously interrupted the methodically working Doctor. He was carrying a large binder of photos and nervously was griping the binder tightly.

  Doctor Salvaggi didn’t look up he just prompted the unwelcome guest to lay the book down with a motion of his long finger and continued with his task.

  The assistant gulped, laid the book next to the Doctor’s workstation, and regathered his nerve, “I am sorry, Doctor, but I have another matter that requires your attention. It’s… about… D.”

  Unnerved, the doctor continued slicing the grey brain matter into micro thin pieces. “Are they on their way back?”

  The assistant closed his eyes tightly and tried to calm his stomach, then continued, “Umm, not exactly.”

  Dr. Salvaggi placed the scalpel on the metal tray and pulled off his rubber gloves slowly. His thick bushy eyebrows furrowed together when he slid the magnifying glasses off his head while slowly pivoting on the stool to face the young man. His next words were drenched in his deep Italian accent, “What does that mean?”

  The young assistant nervously rubbed his sweaty hands together and tried once more from the beginning. “When they arrived inside the depository…” He swallowed, “D was nowhere to be found. The new operative we sent swore he saw her go in, but no one saw her come out.”

  Dr. Salvaggi breathed heavily in one long exhale through his nostrils, “What do you make of this?”

  Surprised that Dr. Salvaggi requested his thoughts on the matter made him feel a bit more at ease, “Well, I guess it could possibly mean that maybe D’s mind-reading was stronger than the operative we sent in and maybe she walked out right under the noses of the clones we sent to retrieve her? Or, maybe she is still hiding in the depository?” The naive assistant suggested confusedly.

  Unshaken, Dr. Salvaggi stood up and walked to a glass container filled with formaldehyde carefully lifting the brain he was dissecting up with tongs and lowered it in the jar. Then he turned his attention to the young assistant.

  “No doubt, she has escaped. She is not hiding,” he sneered at the young man. “Perhaps, I need to revisit my tactics. Have the new operative erase Coughlin’s memory of Trellis. We can no longer afford to use the light-pulse brainwashing mechanism on him. Remove our devises from his home and all traces of our communication. He is of no use to us now. It is safe to assume D has an agenda to halt the government’s hold on her and we can consider her a runner. We should also consider Trellis will be a target for her, if we weren’t already.”

  “What does that mean for Trellis? Will we dismantle?”

  “Never. No clone will ever make us shut down. We will adapt. She will eventually come back to me, willingly or by force.”

  Chapter Twenty~

  The flight wasn’t a long flight, but to be honest it felt like hours and hours since all she did was worry about Banks. She didn’t check any luggage, everything she needed was in her carryon, and she was hoping she wouldn’t even be here in the morning to need a change of clothes. She wanted to get to Banks, locate him and his friend, and be back in her own bed by sunrise. She walked past a luggage pick-up when she saw two exceptionally fit men waiting on suitcases having a whispering exchange about a search. These men must have been on a different flight; however, they did look familiar to D. She opened her phone, pulled up the picture that she had taken at Bank’s apartment of him, and his Special Forces brothers. They were a match. She curved her stride towards the men and listened.

  “We will find them.” The tall, straw-colored hair man assured his muscly friend.

  “I’m not saying we won’t. I’m saying that with the discovery of the dismembered body they found, we might need to change our tactics. We could be looking at foul play, Fur and Banks may not be lost they may have been taken.”

  “Let’s get to the search party before we start making assumptions.”

  This would be a good time for her to either follow them, commandeer minds, or introduce herself and erase later.

  “Hello, my name is Sienna,” Then she smiled as femininely as she could. They were not impressed. These two men had a one-track mind right now to find their friends. “Anyway, I couldn’t help but overhear and I am going to the search site too. Can I tag along?”

  They each looked at one another and agreed that she could. Friendly- they were not.

  D followed along as they proceeded to get a rental car and drive to an address that the men had been given earlier. They still have not introduced themselves but she could derive from their thoughts that they didn’t like outsiders. She placed a thought in their head to trust her, that she was part of their team. Next, she began with the questions.

  “Who are you? How do you know the men that are missing?”

 
“Sloan,” the russet colored tattooed Hawaiian man begrudgingly instructed as he pointed to himself and then pointed to the other man, “Harper.” Short and sweet.

  Harper spoke up and answered, “We were under Colin Banks command in the military and served besides Jase Furlong. Now we will band together to bring both of them back. We have one more guy from the old unit coming in soon. We will bring them back.”

  They nodded at each other in resolve.

  She could gather from their thoughts they hold Colin Banks and Jase Furlough in high regard. She also had gotten a little glimpse of some missions they were on together in a dry, hot, noisy, dusty combat zone. They were brothers all right, forged by battle and the necessity to stay alive. Persevering their unit for the greater good had been drilled in to them, grown further by combat and trust. They would be bringing home their brothers and they were unyielding with this steadfast thought. These were the good guys, no doubt about that.

  The new little group of three spoke little on the way to the search party. She was trying to work out every probability that Coughlin could be waiting for her at the search site. She highly doubted it but she couldn’t afford another blunder like Fort Knox. Only by chance did she escape. She had placed the tracking device on Secretary Coughlin back at Fort Knox, however when she boarded the plane to help find Banks she forgot to bring her computer with her. She would be checking his movements when she returned home and had access to the information. More than likely Salvaggi and Coughlin were still trying to figure out where she was and how she got out of that depository. She truly hoped all the reporters and soldiers were safe (zombie-man was another story, she could care less if he was safe).