Greg Bear - Quantico

‘Not very tidy,’ Watson said.

‘They didn’t get a chance to clean up everything,’ Griff observed. ‘Maybe we moved in faster than they expected.’

But they had been burning trash in barrels all week…

The power outlets had been masked off with duct tape and gummy spark-stop plastic. They would inspect all this in detail later, after they had found the girl. Watson took the lead down the broad aisle between the rows of stalls. She called out, ‘If there’s anyone in here, you need to come out. We got to evacuate this barn, honey. It could be dangerous, you hear me?’

The bot stood frozen in the middle of the aisle. Mounted to posts on each side, at knee level, were two fryers. Watson bent to inspect the bot. Griff put his hands on his knees and stooped to look at the fryer mechanisms. His helmet light played over them. They resembled wind-up toys with burned heads. The posts had been charred by the heat of their small charges. They were home-made, possibly with German or Italian parts. The whole world was mad against authority.

He rose and said, ‘You got that?’

‘Got it,’ said Andrews’ voice in his ear. ‘Are there any more?’

‘I don’t see any.’ Griff nudged the bot with the toe of his boot. It slumped like a freshly killed spider.

Watson stood gingerly, hands pushing on her thickly padded knees. ‘He’s dead, Jim,’ she said.

Griff’s heel scraped aside some straw. Beneath the straw, a thin strip of metal tape had been stretched between the posts. He pushed aside more straw. Not only did the tape connect the posts-and the fryers-but a longer strip almost certainly ran the length of the barn. He continued scraping for a few feet to make sure. The tape took a zig-zag course between the stalls.

‘Got this?’ he asked Andrews.

‘Simple enough,’ Andrews said. ‘Bot crosses the tape, sets off the fryers.’

‘And what else?’ Rebecca asked.

The stalls were the right size for horses, with metal gates that provided good views of the interiors. One contained large bales of straw wrapped in what looked like oil cloth or some sort of rubberized fabric.

Buffers for observing explosives from a safe distance.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Watson asked.

Griff nodded. ‘Tell the boys back home.’

Watson explained what she thought the bales might be.

‘Right,’ Andrews said.

Everything they did here was chancy. If the barn was ‘alive’-if any more devices carried sound or motion sensors-then they were probably already dead, though still walking around.

The possible presence of the little girl lent some small assurance. Unless, of course, she had entered the barn against express orders. Children were capable of that. Griff wondered what sort of punishment the families meted out to their kids. Perhaps they were caring and gentle. He hoped so. Even bigots loved their children.

He could feel his testicles drawing up, his scrotum shrinking as they approached the last of the stalls. They had found little so far. Maybe the Patriarch and his sons had wired things in the hayloft or up in the rafters. High above, birds flew in and out through the beams and struts, their cheeping faint through his helmet.

Maybe the little girl had come to the barn to watch the birds, to spy out nests. Griff scraped aside more straw to confirm that the tape ran the entire length of the building. It did, in slow, loping curves. Very clever.

Griff pictured taking long lines of clever people with many different faces and expressions, and whacking crowbars over their pointy little heads. Oddly, he included Jacob Levine in that lineup, just because he had ID’d the Patriarch, thereby confirming their suspicions and placing them right here in this barn.

Alice Watson once more called out for the little girl. He could hear Watson’s breath in one ear, slow and steady. ‘I don’t think there’s any little girl,’ she said. She had an odd, appealing accent caused by the stiffness in one side of her face. Funny he hadn’t found it appealing before now. ‘I think we’re chasing spooks.’

‘We’ll see,’ Griff said. He was looking ahead three or four meters to a trap door half-covered with old straw, at the end of the aisle in the back of the barn. To the left was a rustic wooden Dutch door leading into what at one time might have been a feed or tack room. To the right, a vestibule that still held an old tractor. Behind the tractor was another door, shut and padlocked from the inside.

‘Want to start up that tractor, Alice?’ Griff asked.

‘I ain’t going near it,’ she said.

‘They could use the tractor to haul that Calliope outside,’ Griff said. ‘I’m wondering why, though.’

‘Fireworks,’ Watson said. They slowly turned to face each other. ‘Shit,’ she added, grinning.

‘I should have thought of that.’ Griff held up a thickly gloved thumb. ‘Hey, listen up, guys. Alice just set off a little light bulb.’

‘We heard,’ Andrews said. ‘Watch for devices triggered by bright ideas.’

‘Well, why didn’t we think of it earlier?’ Watson asked. ‘Portable fireworks launcher. Atta girl,’ she added quietly. Then, ‘Why?’

‘Any theories, Becky?’ Griff asked.

‘Keep looking,’ Rebecca said.

Griff had reached the trap door. It was off its hinges, if it had ever had hinges, and was pushed to one side, leaving open a knife-shaped triangle. He estimated that the door was light enough he could push it aside with one boot if he had to.

At this end of the barn, and probably the other end as well, the floor was made of wood. In the middle, he had been pretty sure he was walking over concrete. At some point, no doubt many years ago, the barn had been expanded on both sides.

Beneath the trap door Griff could make out a wooden ramp leading down into the darkness under the floor. The long strip of metal tape had been glued to another strip that ran down the middle of the ramp.

A small child could have crawled through the gap. But a small child would not have needed a piece of metal tape to guide her.

Temecula, California

The trip west into the hills lasted several hours. Sam drove smoothly and steadily. Tommy slumped in the passenger seat wearing a fixed look of light concern. He chose his faces with care and often wore them for some time.

They approached the winery by a gravel road as the sun dropped below the oak-crowned hills. The air was hot and dusty and smelled of dry brush. The old vineyards stretched to their left, undulating rows of stakes and dead gnarled vines almost covered with grass and weeds-well over eighty acres, left to rot.

Sam turned the El Camino up the long, tree-shaded drive. Half-dead ivy covered the northeast side of the single-story, Spanish-style stucco house. Recent rains had greened some of the overgrown front lawn. Tommy’s aunt had placed plaster gnomes out front and they grinned amid the grass and weeds like happy dwarf guerillas. The house’s big picture windows were marked by rivulets through a thin layer of dust.

Behind the house rose three winery warehouses and equipment sheds, their gray steel sides catching the last of the daylight.

Tommy turned to look at Sam. ‘I’m sorry. I overreacted, Sam. I didn’t “think” .’ He fingered quote-marks in the air. ‘I was taught to be polite, really, but I’ve been alone for so many years. You know that.’

‘I know, Tommy.’

‘I’m supposed to ask, “ were you hurt?” ’

‘Not really. I skinned my knuckles.’

‘That’s good. If you’re okay, then we don’t have to go to a hospital. That will save us some time. I’m sorry.’

‘We’re fine, Tommy. Both of us.’