James Twining - The Black Sun

‘I heard what you both said, and Dominique’s right – we can’t ignore this.’

‘He’s playing with you. Let it go.’

‘I can’t let it go, Archie,’ Tom snapped, before taking a deep breath and continuing in a gentler tone. ‘If you want to stay out of this, fine. But I can’t. This involves my father. And if Renwick’s after something my father spent years looking for, then I’m not just going to stand by and watch him get it first. I’m not having him make a fool of me. Not again.’

Black Pine Mountains, nr Malta, Idaho

5th January – 2.19 p.m.

Viggiano and Bailey set off downhill through the trees as fast as they could, stumbling awkwardly as their legs disappeared into snow drifts or their feet snagged on camouflaged undergrowth. Eventually they emerged, breathless, on the far right-hand side of the compound. Leaving fresh tracks in the snow, they both clambered over the wooden fence and made their way to the front entrance, where they were met by one of Vasquez’s men, his mask and helmet discarded, his face blank.

‘This way, sir.’

He led them through an entrance hall piled high with sneakers and boots and old newspapers. Several pairs of antlers had been nailed to the wall, grimy baseball caps and odd socks hanging off them like makeshift Christmas decorations. Vasquez was waiting for them in the large kitchen. The long oak table was set for dinner, roaches scuttling across the worktops and over a joint of beef that had been left out, its sides bristling with fungus. The air was thick with flies and a heady smell that Bailey recognised only too well. The smell of rotting flesh.

Vasquez nodded towards a door.

‘We haven’t checked the basement yet.’

‘The basement?’ Viggiano frowned as he scrabbled to retrieve the plan of the compound from his jacket. He smoothed it out, borrowing tacks from an out-of-date NRA calendar to pin it to the wall. ‘Look – there is no basement.’

‘Then what do you call that?’ Vasquez threw open the door to reveal a narrow staircase leading down into the darkness below, a blast of warm, noxious air rushing up to meet them.

Guided by Vasquez’s flashlight, they negotiated the stairs. At the bottom was a narrow, unlit corridor. Vasquez lit their way with a series of green chemical flares that he cracked into life and threw to the ground at regular intervals.

Bailey felt himself beginning to sweat as they approached the end of the passage. The temperature was noticeably higher here than upstairs, the smell making his stomach turn. Vasquez signalled for them to wait as he entered a doorway. He re-emerged, grim-faced, a few seconds later.

‘I hope you guys skipped lunch.’

Viggiano and Bailey stepped inside. A massive oil-fired boiler hugged the far wall, the heat radiating off its sides. The stench was unbearable, the buzzing of the flies so loud it sounded like the revving of a small engine. The centre of the room was taken up by a large German Shepherd, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth, its brown fur matted with blood and rippling with maggots. Next to it were two blood-soaked pit bulls and a scraggy-looking mongrel whose head had been almost blown off.

‘Guess now we know why no one had seen the dogs,’ commented Vasquez drily.

He pointed his flashlight down at the floor near where they were standing. The grey concrete was peppered with brass shell casings, their shiny hides glinting like small eyes.

‘M16 casings. Couple of mags’ worth. They weren’t taking any chances.’

‘But where is everyone?’ Bailey asked. ‘Where have they gone?’

‘Sir?’ Another of Vasquez’s men appeared in the doorway behind them. ‘We got something else.’

They followed him back along the green flare-lit corridor into another, smaller room that was empty apart from a desk pushed up against one wall. Here the floor was covered not with dog carcases and shell casings but with small heaps of discarded paper. Bailey knelt to pick up a printout. It was a list of flight times to Washington DC.

He stood and made his way over to the far side of the room. Here, a large architectural drawing had been pinned to the wall, with various parts of the building circled in red. In the bottom left-hand corner was an inscription: National Cryptologic Museum – Plans; Structural Drawings; Heating/Ventilation System – 1993 . He pointed it out to the others.

‘Looks like these were our guys.’

‘What’s through there?’ Viggiano pointed to a rusty metal door set into the facing wall.

Vasquez approached and shone his torch through a small glass inspection panel set into the door.

‘We got ‘em!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re in here. This opens on to a second door which opens into another room. Jesus, they’re squashed in tight.’

‘Let me see.’ Viggiano peered in.

‘Are they still alive?’ Bailey asked.

‘Yeah. One of them has just seen me.’

He stepped back and Bailey took his turn at the window.

‘She’s waving her arms,’ he said with a frown. ‘Like she wants us to leave.’

‘Let’s get these doors open,’ Viggiano urged.

‘Are you sure?’ Bailey asked cautiously. ‘She sure doesn’t look like she wants it opened.’

‘Screw what she wants,’ Viggiano fired back.

‘Sir, I really think we should check it out first,’ Bailey insisted, sensing from the woman’s desperate expression that she was trying to warn him of something. ‘There must be a reason they’re signalling. Don’t you think we should at least make contact and see what the hell they’re doing in there?’

‘It’s pretty goddamned obvious what they’re doing in there, Bailey. Some fucker locked them in. And the sooner we get them out, the sooner we all get a hot shower. Vasquez?’

With a shrug, Vasquez unbolted the first door and pulled it open. But as he reached the door on the other side, a shout stopped him in his tracks.

‘Look!’ Bailey pointed his torch at the inspection window of the second door. It was almost entirely taken up by a scrap of white material on which a message had been hastily scrawled in what appeared to be black eyeliner.

You’ll kill us all .

‘What the hell…?’ Viggiano began, but he was interrupted as Vasquez began to cough loudly, his body doubling over with the effort.

‘Gas,’ he gasped. ‘Get out…gas.’

Bailey grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him towards the exit, his last sight the woman’s face pressed to the inspection panel, her eyes large and round and red. As he watched, she collapsed out of sight.

‘Get everyone out of here,’ Bailey shouted, shoving a convulsing Viggiano back up the stairs, into the kitchen, out through the hall and back outside. The rest of the SWAT team spilled out on to the snow ahead of them.

‘What happened?’ Sheriff Hennessy came running up as they emerged, his sweaty face creased with alarm.

‘The place has been booby-trapped,’ Bailey panted, releasing Vasquez into the care of a team of paramedics, then bending to rest his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

‘Booby-trapped?’ Hennessy looked in bewilderment at the farmhouse entrance. ‘How?’

‘Some sort of gas. It must have been rigged to the door. They’re all still inside. They’re dying.’

‘They can’t be,’ Hennessy cried out in an anguished voice, his desperate eyes wide with fear and confusion. ‘That was never the deal.’

Bailey looked up, his exhaustion and revulsion momentarily forgotten.

‘That was never what deal, Sheriff?’

Forensic Science Service, Lambeth, London