Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter 51
Five Days, Twelve Hours, Twenty-Six Minutes
Before the Pentagon's Director of Security Bruce Hammett could order his best men into position, he found his meeting had been interrupted by two of the best from the White House.
"Colonel McGinty," he said, quickly holstering his Glock and extending the hand toward him, "it's good to know that we're not on an island here. Thanks for bringing Match along. You don't mind if we have him suit up?"
The colonel took the hand and gripped it firmly. "No problem, Bruce," he replied, and then he gestured for the Secret Service Agent to lose his sport jacket and don the bulletproof vest one of the Pentagon staffers had offered him. "Get another vest out of mothballs, gentlemen," he added. "I'm here under orders from the White House, so there's no way you're walking into this firefight without me."
"Sir," Bruce tried, "I'm going to respectfully request that you stand down. My men and your suit will take care of this situation."
"Easy," McGinty counseled him. "I'm not here to take your command, Bruce. I'm here to help." The colonel understood perfectly how it appeared: the White House and the Secret Service were storming in like cowboys taking over the corral from the safety of the local ranchers. He hadn't seen active combat – of any type – in quite some time. He knew this was the worst time to re-enlist for action. "You have my word that I'm not taking charge. I'm sure as hell not walking point at my age, but there's far too much at stake for me to sit this one out, either. ... so take it easy. All I want is a vest and a gun. Put me at the back of your squad, for all I care. I'm going in, and I'm leaving everything else – the ops, the tactical, the targets – is your call."
With a knowing smirk, Hammett tried, "Is Campbell still in the big chair?"
"The President is, yes."
Easily, he handed over the Glock. "Then welcome to the fight."
"Over here!"
Parker took up the rear, watching over his shoulder back toward the hallway they had just left, his Baretta up to shoulder height. He traced the path they had come with the muzzle, making sure the business end kept pointing back in the direction all of them had heard the two remaining soldiers break through the elevator and drop to the floor. He didn't want to be caught in a firefight, not with all of these people under his care, but, to his frustration, it appeared inevitable. All he could hope for was that they could lose themselves inside the Catacombs – they were just ahead – before they were trapped.
The Mallathorn led the way, wovering along the corridor, its tentacles lazily trailing behind like wind blown hair. The alien held up one of his thin fingers, gesturing toward the massive sliding door at the approaching conclusion to the dark hallway. "There it is," it said, "as I said it would be."
"You're a saint, Larry."
"Not really, I'm not, Frank."
"It's another figure of speech."
"You really heavily on them, Frank."
"Call it a bad habit."
They reached the door, and Nina – unable to stop her speed as quickly thanks to the cumbersome suit – slammed into the metal, taking hold of its thick horizontal edging to keep herself from falling. Ebdon placed a hand on her back and then, quickly, turned about, pressing his back up to hers, bringing up his Beretta and aiming down the hallway.
"I've got your back, Frank!" he called.
"Thanks, Ebdon."
Parker reached the door, and he glanced at the frame. Following it, he found a control panel – nine luminated buttons with one retinal scanner – on the right side just out of his reach.
"Larry, give me the good news that you know how to open this!"
Leisurely, the alien drifted lower, bringing its eyes in line with the scanner.
"I have good news indeed, Frank," it replied. "All of the subterranean rooms have been calibrated with sensors to recognize my distinct retinal pattern."
"That's good to hear!" Nina chirped.
"Good," Parker agreed. "Get it open, then."
The Mallathorn blinked at the scope. The glow from the conical device turned from red to green, and they all heard the hiss of the door's hydraulics release. Reacting, Ebdon wrapped his hand around his back, snagged Nina's waist, and pulled her away as the door slid aside. Parker felt a wash of cool air as the dark room beyond revealed.
"Holy Hell," he swore. "Will you look at all that kindling?"
The room, he imagined, had to stretch forever. It was a deep as it was wide, with bookcases lined with bound material as far as the eye could see. The lighting was dim – the room was populated with hanging overhead fluorescents – and it was kept as a very cool temperature, one Parker guessed was to the benefit of the stored literature.
"Larry, what is all this stuff?"
"Your government insists on catalogued several hundred years worth of hard-copy documents," the alien explained. "While everything in here has been fully photographed and indexed visually for review by those with the proper clearance, it would appear that those men and women in charge find it difficult to part with the proof of the documents' existence."
"You can say that again."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Another figure of speech," the chrononaut remarked. "Do you know if these Catacombs have any staff? I'm a walking virus so far as my fellow man is concerned. I'm not going any further if I'm going to expose anyone."
"That isn't a smart choice, son," Ebdon offered, his eyes still locked on the corridor.
"It may not be wise," Parker agreed, "but it's the unfortunately reality. I can't go in there if I'm going to expose any more people, Ebdon. I won't do it."
"We're not leaving you behind," Nina insisted, cupped her palm in the man's elbow.
"You don't have any choice," he told her.
"If I might contribute?" the Mallathorn said. "Frank, so far as I have been told, the Catacombs do not retain any active employees. The clerks who have been assigned to this facility are located through a hatchway that appears at the end of Row K of Section 77. I would estimate that the exit is approximately nine minutes walking time."
"And?"
"And it would so happen that my metabolism, as well as yours, can pose health risks to persons who have not been inoculated with Chronoticin."
Surprised, the chrononaut glared at the alien. "You've got to be kidding me?"
"The effects of exposure are not as severe as those who would encounter you," it continued. "While encounter with you may cause the death of an innocent civilian, an encounter with me would cause merely prolonged flu-like sickness. That is the principle reason behind my containment. Your President – Mr. Campbell – has indeed offered your government's assistance should I wish to return to my people, but I took this post with full knowledge that I would remain here for the duration of my life."
"I sure hope that this story has a point, Larry."
"My point is that, like you, I do not wish to inflict harm on any resident of Earth," it stated. "As a result, I would recommend that we adopt the following strategy: Mr. Finkle and Dr. Welles shall immediately report to the Processing Center at the end of Row K of Section 77. There, they will alert all assigned personnel to vacate the facility. Once inside, Dr. Welles may remove the containment suit. As My Finkle appears immune to the effects of temporal radiation, he may return to the Catacombs, bringing the suit with him when he comes."
The man shook his head. "I don't understand," Parker shot. "Why don't we all go to this Processing Center?" He gestured at the steel panel. "Why not just lock this door behind us?"
"It is only a hermetic seal, Frank," Larnord offered. "The soldiers in pursuit are in possessing of superior weaponry. As a result, someone will need to – as you have said – take up the rear." The alien lifted a few inches in its levitation. "You and I are the logical choice."
"Yes," he agreed, "but you can't fire a gun."
"I am an overwhelming source for moral support, Frank."
"You're always holding out on me, Larry."
"I never cease to amaze," the alien agreed.
Despite Thomkins' objections, Hammett allowed Colonel McGinty onto the first elevator. Together, the three men marched in, the chief signaling for his soldiers to take the adjacent shaft. The door pinged close as the man tapped his security code into the elevator's keypad, and they descended into the underground levels of the Pentagon.
The director of security lifted his head slightly, holding up a hand, gesturing clearly for everyone aboard to remain quiet. He was receiving an update via his earpiece from Security Central. Once the feed died, he grasped the button on his shirt-mike, saying, "Affirmative."
"What's the word?" Match asked.
"The word is that I was correct," he explained. "Video surveillance has tracked the Mallathorn and his companions in Sub-Level Seventeen, Beta Corridor."
"Which means what, exactly?" McGinty tried.
Hammett adjusted his jacket so that the mouthpiece was covered. He wouldn't want to be screaming or yelling if a firefight broke out and inadvertently burst anyone's eardrum. Either that or gunfire could easily suffice over an accidentally open communications line. There were possibly going to be enough surprises that he didn't wish to add to the chaos. "When the Pentagon was selected as housing facility for Larnord, we agreed to provide only a single route for escape. That would make retrieval or support ops like we're doing now much easier as we'd know the terrain and, more than likely, the attackers wouldn't."
"How can we be sure?"
Flippant, the chief cocked an eyebrow. "This is Washington, D.C.; we're at the highest state of critical preparedness in years; and you're joining me to chase the only known living equivalent of a timelord through the secret underground of the Pentagon. I'd say that, with those facts, we can't be sure of anything."
The blast tore through the door's hydraulics easily, and the metal buckled angrily under the stress. It whined as the steel wheels cracked on their runners, the plate dropping heavily to the floor, and the supports couldn't hold the weight. Toppling, the door ripped through the wall frame, smacking hard on the floor, the clang echoing loud in Parker's ears.
He closed his eyes, listening hard for the footsteps. He didn't hear anything right away, but, after several protracted seconds, he heard the faint ticks of military boots on the concrete floor. The two remaining soldiers had breached the room, and they were moving cautiously in his direction.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he casually reached his head out from the alcove of the bookcase – he was lying on the third shelf down from the top – and craned his neck. He couldn't see them yet, but he trusted they were coming. At this end of the massive warehouse, there was only a single aisle – it ran down the center of several long industrial shelves – so the men had no other choice.
Parker could only trust that the Mallathorn would be in place. He had never served with the alien, so he couldn't guess at the alien's instincts. However, thus far, it had worked in complete cooperation with the rest of the group. He couldn't be certain, but Parker imagined that the being actually 'thrived' on the experience. After sitting for a few years in some Pentagon basement, it could be hungry for the excitement, but overzealousness could easily be turned against them without notice.
"You'd better be right about this, Larry," he mumbled.
He stared down the lane, watching and waiting for the soldiers to appear. The moments seemed to tick off endlessly in the wait, Parker shifting slightly to try and remove a volume from pressing into his spine. Still, he ignored the pain, his view fixed on the same spot where he guessed the men had to appear at any moment. He could no longer hear their footsteps. He guessed that the two men had gone into a complete stealth pattern, edging down the long aisle one after the other, one case at a time.
Then, he saw him.
The first man – he wore a face-hugging oxygen mask – poked his face into the darkness of the lane, glancing quickly down one way and then the next. He held his position, his stare now straight ahead, and ...
Parker saw the second man.
"Now, Larry, now!"
Both men dropped to the floor, craning their heads in the direction of Parker's scream. The lead man brought up an assault rifle, aiming down the corridor. A flashbulb lit up on the tip of it, and the chrononaut suddenly found himself squirming to stay clear of the beam of light.
As he struggled, he knocked several volumes off the shelf and onto the hard floor.
"Dammit!"
The first one slammed into the floor, and he heard the angry rattle of machine-gun fire. Shredded, the volume exploded into the air around him, raining down in a paper shower all over him and the other books.
"Hey!" he screamed. "That was probably some Medieval bestseller!"
Parker shoved the Baretta into the open air and fired. The gun shook in his hand, bucking with bursts of light, lead, and heat, and then he pulled back.
"Any time now, Larry!"
A volley of gunfire tore into the volumes on the bookcase across the aisle from him. The books bounced around helplessly, spilling open, splitting into pieces, snapping apart at the seams, flying into the air. The soldiers were good. Instead of concentrating their fire on him – he was certain that they weren't that interested in taking him alive – they were only intent on flushing him out, making him have to defend himself, wasting time and ammunition in the process ... all the while Frank Parker tried to squeeze further and further into a bookshelf, his only hope for survival.
"Larry!"
He reached out into the lane and fired two more shots.
"LARRY!"
Parker felt the breeze first on his arm. As he hastily tucked it back for safety, the wind blew on his arm and face. He shielded his eyes against the rising strength of the gale, and, before he knew it, the lane was filled with a virtual tornado, a gust of hot air tearing every sheaf of paper from the shelves, every volume from its resting place, and throwing them into the open.
"Sonuvabitch!"
The chrononaut saw the rising column of twirling books – a funnel cloud of hard and softbound literature – as it swirled angrily up, gaining momentum as it ripped down the open lane and into the aisle, where the books pummeled the two soldiers who had risen from their positions to gain a better bead on what was happening. The first man – the one who Parker guessed was the better shot – took a thick volume in the facemask, his head thrown backward violently, and then another book crashed into the side of his skull. He dropped his gun and brought his hands up to protect himself, but, before he could, he was buried under the wall of raining material, the thuds of books striking him now loud enough to hear over the howl of the wind. The second man turned, trying to flee down the aisle to whatever safety he could find, only the dancing menace – the approaching pillar of air-bound briefs – stepped on him as easily as if it were a towering ogre smashing down on a helpless ant. He fell to his knees, letting go of his rifle, and the weight of the storm overtook him, driving his legs, hips, and sternum hard to the floor, cracking his collarbone, sending him into a deep sleep from which he feared he would never awake. The train rolled over him, and he lost consciousness.
As gradually as the column had built, it dispersed. The books slowed, they listlessly drifted in a variety of direction – angry leaves in Autumn's last dying storm – and they smacked into the other bookcases, the other books, and the floor. Parker listened as the thuds died out, and he climbed out of the shelf.
"Holy Hell," he whispered.
"I believe that's the second time I've heard you say that today, Frank."
He lifted his head, and he watched as the alien slowly levitated itself to the ground, taking a position next to the tall man. Then, it glanced down the lane, studying the destruction his skills of levitation and telekinesis had wrecked on the library, and Larnord sighed in disappointment.
"I do like books so," it said.
"What was that?" Nina asked, stopping in her tracks.
Finkle turned. "Whatever it was, I don't want it to catch us." He prodded her nearby arm. "Come on, Nina. Let's keep moving."
"Frank could be hurt."
"He can take care of himself."
"But, Ebdon ..."
He stopped. Taking her by the arm, he whirled her around and put his face near the protective helmet. "Young lady, we're too far ahead of them to be of any use now. If you want to help the two of them, then we'd best keep moving ... let's get to that Processing Room ... or whatever Larry called it ... and let's get some help."
Refusing to move, she stared at the man. She didn't want to leave them back there – in fact, Ebdon almost had to drag her kicking and screaming when they heard the first strike on the door – but Parker had insisted. She never liked the idea of bringing someone out of danger and then sending them back into the thick of it, but Parker had made a living out of doing the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the impossible. If anyone could do it, she tried to convince herself, he could ... alone with his smaller snake-headed friend from another world. But she didn't have to like it.
"You're right," she finally agreed. "Let's go."
They ran hard, their legs pumping. She realized that she might be moving to fast for Ebdon. He was, after all, an old man, but he had been surprisingly agile throughout the whole affair, from the moment they had rushed into the Mallathorn's antechamber, into the elevator, and now through the Catacombs. She was sweating, weighed down by the containment suit. She couldn't wait to get it off. It had been awhile – for too long – that she had breathed unprocessed air, and she didn't have the heart to tell Frank that – back there, in the elevator – she had short-circuited the suit's rebreather. For the last thirty minutes, she was breathing contaminated air. So far as she was concerned, she might as well have abandoned the suit. It had very little meaning. Professionally, however, she convinced herself otherwise. She ignored the cold, hard reality that she had been exposed to the chronoaut's lethal radiation, and she hadn't been inoculated. To make matters worse, she didn't know if any Chronoticin was available in Washington, DC. She assumed it was – hadn't Jennings mentioned that there was a supply here at the Pentagon? But the truth was she didn't know. Her research had demonstrated that different people reacted differently to exposure. The only conclusion she could reach was that, as a person's metabolism was almost as unique as that person's fingerprints, each victim would respond differently ... however everyone responded the same – in death – if Chronoticin wasn't available and administered eventually.
She didn't know how long she had before the effects would begin to take their toll, but she was certain the first symptom – weakness – would arrive soon.
They reached Row K of Section 77, and they turned. Halfway down the lane, they could see the clearly marked exit – another steel door with an adjacent control pad. Next to it, there was a window. They'd be able to pound on the glass, to attract the attention of whoever worked inside. He'd let them out of the Catacombs. He'd quite possibly faint at the sight of her in the containment suit, but the fact remained that they'd get out. There would be others, and those people would contact Security. She'd explain their situation, and help would soon be on its way.
Then, much to her surprise, the door hissed.
Someone had seen them coming!
The metal slid out of the way, and the man – gun raised – stepped into the chamber. He aimed at them, and shouted, "Stop right where you are!"
END of Chapter 51
