It all fell into place for Duncan. Maddox had experimented on the salamanders but didn’t see the results he wanted. Then Chess Team had invaded the base a few years ago, resulting in the mix of chemicals with the Hydra’s blood being spilled all over the floors in the Labs section. Some of Maddox’s subjects or all of them had been affected by the chemical sludge. Add that to the ambient radiation from the granite all around the facility and in the underground cavern, and the genetic tinkering Maddox had done initially, and you ended up with overgrown mutant monsters. Monsters that could now breed as well. But the hazmat team hadn’t seen them and Eli Jacobs and his research crew hadn’t encountered the beasts. No one in or out of the base in all their trips to and from it and into different portions of it had seen them. Because they were growing underground, in the cavern. And Beck confirmed that the cavern ran further afield than the Labs section of the base.
Tom Duncan didn’t know much about salamanders as a species, but he knew they were amphibians, and they laid eggs in the hundreds. Usually near a water source, which they had available in the form of the Dock. The long underwater cavern leading from the submarine dock to the ocean under 60 miles of New Hampshire had been a geological surprise to Duncan, but now it informed his assumption that the cavern under Labs must somehow connect to the Dock as well. And that explained why the salamanders weren’t around in the tunnel now. They had migrated from the depths of the cavern over the last few months to the Dock. Their home was now being invaded by Gen Y men searching for a viable sample egg. The creatures had gone back to the nest to protect it.
Then the last piece of the puzzle fell into position for Duncan. How would the Gen Y men escape with their prize? They’ll take the submarine. If they can get to it. Opening the underwater door to the Dock, allowing violent mutant monsters egress to the outside world, where they would be free to hunt and kill innocent New Hampshirites.
Duncan pushed the throttle as fast as it would go, racing into the train platform after the last mile of tunnel. The platform was above the rest of the dock itself, and had only a concrete platform with a few offices and a metal staircase that led down to the water, a freight elevator and what Duncan planned to use—metal catwalks that stretched across the entirety of the wide open area above the massive Russian submarine. He turned the dirt bike and drove it straight out onto the catwalk and straight out into hell.
19.
Section Labs, Former Manifold Alpha Facility, White Mountains, NH
Matt Carrack liked Anna Beck. She was pretty, she was fast and she was great with ideas. Explosive violent ideas. If he wasn’t already seeing someone, he would have asked her out. She had led him to a couple of extra crates and boxes in the darkened hangar to grab couple of extra “toys” as she put it, before they had each taken a fresh HDT dirt bike for the journey back to the Labs section.
They had not come across any more salamanders on their journey, but Beck had still wanted to pause on the journey a few time to blast forward down the pitch black tunnel with the flamethrower—just to be on the safe side. But after the first five miles of no amphibian resistance, she had stopped requesting the flamethrower breaks. At last, they came to the thick plastic and Plexiglas bio door. Beck dismounted from her bike a hundred meters from the door—just as the door was barely in the outermost reaches of the headlights from their bikes. Carrack dismounted from his own bike as Beck turned to him and said “Your turn.”
They had discussed the strategies for regaining access to the cavern below Labs. Beck had explained that there were several smaller crevices and tunnels that led off from the train tunnel into the cavern, but she had rejected those as possible means of travel to the floor of the cavern, claiming they were too twisty and would take far too long. He was inclined to agree with her, but he wondered how much his admission to her that Deep Blue had given him free reign to wreak as much havoc as he felt necessary had played a part in her decision.
He unslung the M72 LAW anti-tank rocket launcher from his back and telescoped out the inner tube, by pulling the rear of the weapon backward. He quickly aimed at the distant bio door and launched the 66mm rocket warhead. The rocket deployed its six stabilizing fins as it soared down the tunnel at a rate of 145 meters a second. The rocket hit the door and the explosion echoed back down the tunnel toward Carrack and Beck. The wave of heat and smoke flashed past them and it was over. Beck was already running toward the door, so Carrack disposed of the launcher tube and raced after her.
Beck waited for him at the remains of the ruined plastic door. “Ready?” she asked.
He aimed the LED Flash Bang grenade in his left hand and the Wagan spotlight in his right hand. “Go.”
She pointed the muzzle of the flamethrower through the remnants of the bio door and let loose a burst that lit up the darkened interior of the train platform. In the brief moment that the flames illuminated beyond the beam of the spotlight, Carrack didn’t see anything move. “Clear.”