Lincoln Child - The Third Gate

“I understand. This has been very interesting, thanks.” More than interesting, he thought. Perhaps I’ll look into this on my own.

All of a sudden, the ground beneath them trembled, as if a giant hand had seized the entire facility and given it a violent shake. In the distance came the boom of an explosion. For a moment, the two men looked at each other in surprise. Then a shrill claxon began to sound in the hallway outside the office.

“What’s that?” Logan cried, jumping to his feet.

“Emergency alarm.” Rush was also on his feet, reaching for the portable two-way radio clipped to his belt. Even as he did so, it began beeping shrilly.

“Dr. Rush,” he said, bringing it to his lips. He listened for a moment. “My God,” he said into it. “I’ll be right there.”

“Let’s go,” he said to Logan, clipping the radio back to his belt.

“What’s happened?”

“Generator two is on fire.” And Rush ran out of the office, Logan at his heels.

They ran at top speed out of Maroon, through the welter of corridors that made up Green, and then out into the large, echoing marina. The piers, which had seemed so sleepy and deserted the day before, were now crowded with people. There was a confused overlap of conversation, shouted orders. Logan could smell acrid smoke in the loam-heavy air.

He followed Rush as he raced down a gangway leading along the far wall and out through the wall of camouflaged netting. Suddenly they were outside, on a narrow walkway that angled into the swamp and disappeared around the corner of the vast pontoon structure supporting the marina. It was three o’clock, and the sun felt like a burning blanket across Logan’s neck and shoulders. Above the netted roofline of the marina, he could see clouds of thick black smoke rising into the blue of the sky.

They rounded the corner of the pontoon and there-some thirty yards ahead-Logan could see the generator. It was a large, hulking structure, suspended above the swamp on floating pilings. Angry flames shot from a grille on its near side and licked upward, coating the metal housing in heavy soot. Men on Jet Skis surrounded the platform, directing streams of water toward it from portable tanks on their backs. Even at this distance, Logan could feel the heat of the inferno come over him in waves.

There was a commotion behind them, and Logan turned to see Frank Valentino and two men in coveralls coming up fast. One of the men held a heavy-duty drainage pump; the other had coils of industrial hose draped over one shoulder.

The three ran past, toward the small knot of workers bunched together at the end of the walkway. “Hurry up with that pump!” Valentino ordered.

Kneeling, the first engineer placed the pump on the metal of the walkway and flung the intake hose down into the Sudd, while the second engineer affixed the other end to the pump’s spigot. Gingerly inching closer to the generator, the man aimed the hose at the flames, while the other pulled the pump’s starter. Its engine coughed into life and a thin stream of brown, viscous water looped toward the flames.

“Affanculo!” Valentino shouted. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s this swamp,” one of the engineers said. “It’s too damn thick!”

“Shit,” Valentino muttered. “Go get a number three filter- hurry! ”

The man dropped the hose and ran back down the walkway.

Now Valentino turned to a tall man of about sixty with thinning blond hair who seemed to be in charge. “What about the methane in-link?” Logan heard Valentino ask.

“I’ve checked with Methane Processing. The relief valves in each wing are closed, the safety protocols fully engaged.”

“Thank God for that,” Valentino said.

Rush had begun walking closer to the knot of people at the end of the walkway, and Logan instinctively followed. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks, as abruptly as if he’d encountered an invisible wall. Without warning, he’d become aware of a presence, hanging over the generator and its immediate surroundings: a foul, malignant, evil thing, ancient and implacable. In the heat of the swamp and flames from the generator, Logan shivered with a sudden chill. The foul stench of a charnel seemed to fill his nostrils. He sensed somehow that the thing-entity, spirit, force of nature, whatever it might be-knew of his presence, of all their presences, and felt a deep and abiding hate for all: a hate almost lustful in its strength and depth. He took an instinctive step backward, then another, before mastering himself.

Logan took a deep breath and stifled this sudden reaction; he had long ago learned that his sensitive gift had the capacity to produce either scorn or fear in others. He concentrated on listening to the conversations around him.

“Christ!” Valentino was saying. “The auxiliary tank!” The chief turned and shouted at one of the men on Jet Skis. “Rogers, quick-go uncouple and float that aux tank free before the heat ignites it!”

The man nodded, put down his hose, and moved his Jet Ski into position on the far side of the generator. But just as he was reaching toward the tank with a boat hook, a massive explosion sent a cloud of thick smoke roiling toward them. The walkway trembled violently, and Logan was knocked to his knees. As he rose to his feet again, he could hear a desperate, ragged screaming. The smoke began to clear and he made out the figure of Rogers. The man was coated in burning diesel, his clothes and hair afire. As a half-dozen workers jumped into the swamp and began swimming toward him, he writhed-screaming-off his Jet Ski and began to sink, still afire, beneath the brown and murky surface of the Sudd.

Lincoln Child

The Third Gate

Oasis was the name of the Station’s lone watering hole. Half canteen, half cocktail lounge, it was located in a far corner of Blue, overlooking the vast, bleak expanse of the Sudd. And yet, Logan noticed as he entered the bar, the windows facing the swamp were covered with bamboo blinds, as if to obscure, rather than emphasize, the fact they were smack in the middle of nowhere.

The lounge was dark, lit indirectly in blue-and-violet neon, and almost empty. Logan wasn’t surprised. In the wake of the generator fire, the mood of the Station had grown subdued. There were no bridge games that evening, no merry chatter in the mess. Most people had retreated to their quarters, as if to deal with what had happened in solitude.

Logan felt just the opposite. The overwhelming sense of pervasive evil he had felt as the generator collapsed in flames had alarmed and unnerved him. His empty lab, his quiet room-these were the last places he wanted to be at the moment.

He walked up to the bar and took a seat. Charlie Parker was playing from invisible speakers. The bartender-a young man with short dark hair and a Sgt. Pepper mustache-came over.

“What can I get you?” he asked, placing a crisp cocktail napkin on the bar.

“Got any Lagavulin?”

With a smile, the man gestured toward an impressive array of single-malt scotches on the mirrored wall behind him.

“Great, thanks. I’ll take it neat.”

The bartender poured a generous dram into a glass and placed it on the napkin. Logan took a sip, admiring the heft of the heavy-bottomed glass, enjoying the peaty taste of the scotch. He took a second sip, waiting for the sharp memory of the fire, the smell of burnt flesh, to ease just a little. Rogers had suffered third-degree burns over 25 percent of his body: he’d been evacuated, of course, but the nearest burn center was hundreds of miles away and his prognosis was guarded.

“Buy a girl a drink?”

He looked over and saw that Christina Romero had entered the bar and taken a seat beside him.