Spiders from the Shadows

FOUR


Offutt Air Force Base, Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command, Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska


Brucius, the former Secretary of Defense, sat before the electronic console. The command post was almost quiet. Designed to allow a group of thirty or forty technicians and military officers to monitor the strategic situation in a time of national crisis, primarily during a time of nuclear war, most of the tactical screens around him were blank, the work desks empty. A huge computer/television monitor was mounted on the front wall with six smaller screens beside it. The largest screen showed a picture of the aircraft in the sky along the eastern half of the United States. The number of aircraft was amazingly low—frighteningly low—fewer than forty or fifty in all, and all of them military. On a normal dayhat are you thinkingllShe really didn’t know. before the EMP attack, there would have been five thousand or six thousand aircraft in the sky. There was no better indication of the death of the nation than the utter lack of civilian airliners in flight. Brucius watched a trail of European Airbuses flying across the ocean from England, guessing, but not certain, that they were laden with relief supplies. Where they were coming from, where they were heading, what they were carrying, he didn’t know. Raven Rock was calling the shots entirely and had been for several days now, choosing not to advise or even pretend to take the counsel of the war planners and military officers at Offutt. Which was fine with Brucius. Let the men in Raven Rock ignore them. Maybe they’d forget about him, too.

Practically the entire world thought he was dead. Fewer than a dozen military officers knew that he was here. It was a very tight secret, kept completely on a highly compartmentalized, need-to-know basis, for it was critical that they protect him until they were ready to act.

Ignoring the large monitor on the wall, Brucius concentrated on the computer screen at the desk where he was sitting. He was waiting for a message and he shot a quick look toward the digital time on the lower corner of the computer screen. 7:12 a.m. A little more than a day since James Davies had left.

They should have heard something from him. They should have gotten the signal before now.

James had been in Raven Rock for six or seven hours by this time.

Brucius waited. At his side, a young officer waited with him. A couple of senior non-commissioned officers worked the communications console four rows back. Behind the non-commissioned officers, at the back of the room, behind a thick pane of one-way glass, the others waited. Some of them paced. Some of them slept in their chairs. A couple of them ate, picking at the salads and sandwiches the cafeteria had sent down.

All of them were nervous, but none of them were nearly as fearful as Brucius.

* * * * * * *





Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania


The first thing they did was to take James Davies’ clothes and burn them. Then they stripped him down, searched every inch of his body, sent him through an X-ray machine to check for implants, and left him in the room to wait, naked, cold, and scared.

It was pretty clear that he was not among friends, and it was just as clear that they didn’t trust him. They didn’t trust anyone any more. Anyone outside the coven was the enemy, and there was no way for James Davies to invite himself in without raising deep suspicion.

So they left him in the interrogation room off the entry into Raven Rock while they decided what to do.

Time passed. Hours? A day? He didn’t know.

Waiting, James got angry. It was one thing to be careful. This had nothing to do with that. To leave him there for hours, naked, without the dignity of something to even cover himself with, had nothing at all to do with security. It was part of the mental handicapping to bring him under their control, part of the psychological intimidation. “You’re in our world now,” was their implicit statement

More time passed. He grew colder and angrier. A small metal chair was the only furnishing in the room. Sitting on it, he glanced in the upper corner, staring at the security camera. “A little clothing here would be nice!” he called angrily toward it, knowing they were watching. He turned to the wall where a couple of nondescript dime-store pictures had been mounted, know double glass doorsro fingering there were cameras and microphones concealed there as well.

Realizing he was in for a long haul, he did the only thing he could think of. Having been subjected to the most humiliating search, naked, shivering, hungry, and exhausted, he stood up, walked to the corner, lay down, curled up, and fell asleep.

* * * * * * *

The doctor watched the intruder on the television monitor. Although he was middle-aged, the civilian psychiatrist was easily intimidated because he was new, having been recruited to work at Raven Rock just a few weeks before the EMP attack. The military officer standing beside him had three silver stars on his shoulders, but there was something about him that the doctor didn’t like. For one thing, he was far too young. How old could he be? Mid-thirties? And yet here he was, a general? The doctor shook his head. Yeah, things were in upheaval, and tens of thousands of senior officers had been killed in the nuclear attack on Washington, D.C., but come on, who was this kid? And who in the world had made him a three-star general? And his age wasn’t the worst of it. It was the pride and arrogance that bothered the doctor the most.

He had been in Raven Rock only a couple of weeks, but he didn’t understand military protocol at all.

The general watched the closed-circuit monitors for half a minute. It appeared James was asleep. “You’re certain he’s not contaminated?” the general demanded of the doctor.

“Nothing, general. He’s clean as the day he was born.”

“The X-ray?”

The doctor held up a couple of dark monochromatic radiographs. “Nothing, sir. Nothing implanted under his skin. I assure you, he’s not carrying anything. If he had any covert reconnaissance or tracking devices, we would know.”

The general didn’t answer as he watched the screen. The doctor had better be right. They couldn’t take the chance with this man. They knew far too much about James Davies, and there was no way they were going to let him into Raven Rock without being absolutely certain he wasn’t there to plant a tracking device or reconnaissance bug. And the stuff the FBI had now, the tiny, secret, and amazingly effective bugs—and yes, bug was the perfect word to describe them—forced them to take extraordinary measures to be sure.

Extraordinary precautions, yes. But to leave the intruder in the interrogation room for hours without any clothes, that had been his decision. A surge of emotion ran through him, the power of the moment tingling in his veins. This was, after all, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the most powerful law-enforcement agency in the world. Yet there he was, sleeping naked in his cell.

The problem for James Davies, a problem he apparently didn’t know about, was that he’d been replaced. He wasn’t the FBI Director any longer. He was nothing but a civilian in a world that didn’t appreciate men like him anymore. President Fuentes had put his own man in as Director. James Davies was soon going to find out that he’d lost his job, as well as all of the privileges and protections that had come with his former position.

The general snorted to himself. In an hour or two, James Davies was going to find himself on the road that led away from Raven Rock without so much as a ride to the nearest town.

If he was lucky.

And the general didn’t believe that much in luck anymore. Far more likely Davies would be killed here double glass doorsro finger. Which was fine w whispered.