The Council of Ten (26 page)

His mind registered the incongruity with a slight increase of his pulse. He had been looking for something out of place, something that didn’t fit. Perhaps this was it. Clearly he needed a closer look.

Wayman waited until Tumblefig’s tractor was a safe distance away before venturing stealthily out onto the farm. He made it easily to the rear of the barn and then covered the distance to the first of the steel extensions from the ground with a quick dash.

It was indeed some sort of baffle, used in either the intake or jettisoning of air, a steel grating over it to guard against unwarranted entry.
But why here?
Such a baffle implied the existence of some sort of underground shelter. It made no sense.

Staying low, using the baffle for cover, Wayman gazed around him. There were at least three more baffles spread over regular intervals across the fields he could see along with something else; something less distinguishable in the dirt and grass but present nonetheless. Wayman was attracted to its presence by the reflecting sun. Still hunching, he made a quick dash for it.

It was a steel hatch, similar to the kind found on submarines! Again,
why here?
Wayman’s heart picked up its pace. Yes, there had to be some sort of underground shelter contained beneath this farm. But what could this possibly have to do with the cocaine distributed along Trelana’s channel? The answers lay underground.

Wayman pulled a file from his jacket pocket. He knew that such a hatch was constructed under the same principles as a standard door lock, secured by tumblers. He worked the file around the outside until he located the tumblers and then maneuvered it against them, manipulating until the bolt came free. He grabbed the single handhold and lifted, starting to lower himself down before the hatch was all the way up.

Down in the darkness his feet found a ladder and he began to descend, closing and sealing the hatch again. Beneath him was bright, antiseptic light. His feet touched a tile floor. Confused and disoriented, he took about ten steps forward with his back pressed against the wall and reached a huge white corridor that jutted off in two different directions at a right angle.

The air around him should have smelled of damp earth, but instead it was clinically fresh and scented. Obviously this underground structure had its own air supply or at least sophisticated filtration devices; that made sense considering the baffles above. He recalled the prints of the huge construction machinery from the dirt road in front of Tumblefig’s land as he started down the empty corridor before him. The scope of what they had undertaken and accomplished was amazing. But for what purpose? What exactly had he uncovered here?

Wayman heard the echoing of his own footsteps against the tile. No other sounds met his ears. A few more yards and he noticed the doors. They were spaced regularly, equidistant. The scope of this construction job amazed and fascinated him. It must have taken years. An underground bunker beneath a simple Iowa farm. He recalled the layout of Tumblefig’s land. It was isolated and apart, probably the only farm for miles. Yes, they could have pulled it off.

But that didn’t tell him
why
.

Wayman noticed the main corridor was intersected in several places by other hallways, neither as long nor as wide. He was coming up on one when the shuffle of footsteps forced him to backtrack. With nowhere else to go, he tried one of the doors. It gave and the Timber Wolf ducked inside, closing it behind him.

The darkness was total. Wayman waited until the sound of footsteps had passed and then eased the door open to allow light in so he might view the contents of the room he had entered. He frowned in confusion. It was a dormitory of some kind, unmade cots lined one after the other with little room in between. What had he stumbled on here? There were forty beds at least and it seemed reasonable to suspect many more were contained behind the other doors. Yes, he had suspected all along that more than simple cocaine trafficking was involved here, but this? The cocaine was involved somehow, though as merely a part of something much greater. He had to look at it from a different angle to see.

Facilities to house hundreds of people underground. A private air supply. What did it all mean?

The Timber Wolf crept back into the corridor. If answers were going to be found, he had to get out of here. There was no reason to check any more of the doors. Wayman suspected more of the dormitories would lie behind most of them, probably supplies of food and water behind others. The whole place had the feel of a giant, fortified fallout shelter. He shivered at the thought, then dismissed it. Nuclear weapons had nothing to do with what he had uncovered here. They didn’t fit the scenario that somehow involved Trelana’s cocaine. But something else was clearly involved of potentially comparable catastrophic ramifications. And someone was getting ready to protect themselves from whatever these were.

Which meant someone was preparing to implement …
something
.

He had seen enough; he had to get out. A feeling of dread fear filled him. Wayman didn’t rush, however. He knew that hatches similar to the one through which he had entered would be scattered throughout the structure.

A sign marked Portal Three with an arrow after it made him swing left down one of the intersecting corridors. He was halfway down it when the soft echo of footsteps found him, coming from the opposite direction. A shadow appeared and then a shape. Wayman froze. If he ran, he’d be made for sure.

He started walking in the opposite direction, ears primed to any change in the cadence of the footsteps behind him.

“Hey!” The shout came before the footsteps had a chance to pick up. “Hey!”

Wayman kept walking at the same pace, walking as if lost in concentration.

“You, stop!”

Footsteps were coming fast now, pounding tile, almost upon him.

“What the hell do you think you’re—”

The man had grasped the Timber Wolf at the shoulder and started to yank him around. Wayman went with the motion and entered into it, cracking the guard under the chin as he did. The man’s head slammed backward into the wall. The Timber Wolf held his chin still and rammed his skull twice more backward. The guard’s eyes glazed and closed.

“Intruder in the bunker! Intruder in the bunker! Sound the alarm!”

The guard halfway down the adjoining corridor had dropped his walkie-talkie and was starting for his rifle when Wayman went into his rush. At the start his plight seemed impossible and was no better when, with the gun sighting on him, he went into a legs-first leap. The resulting collision forced the rifle barrel up as the guard squeezed the trigger and a jagged design of bullets dug chasms out of the ceiling. Wayman landed atop the dazed guard and stripped what remained of his consciousness away with an elbow.

A piercing alarm had begun to sound. The Timber Wolf was back on his feet and charging toward Portal Three. Echoes of footsteps were everywhere when he reached the ladder and started climbing, swinging the hatch open easily when he reached the top.

The grinding sound bubbled his ears. The tractor was coming straight for him, too late for him to duck back down. Wayman pulled himself all the way out from the hatch and rolled, unaware till the last whether he would be crushed or not. The smell of freshly groomed fields and gasoline filled his nostrils. One of the huge tires grazed his shoe. Tumblefig started to bring his tractor around again.

The Timber Wolf had already leaped on the plow attached to the rear, lunging forward onto the main tractor frame. Tumblefig turned just as Wayman cracked him with a kick to the ribs. The farmer was built like iron. The tractor wobbled as the husky farmer turned to meet the assault, a pipe wrench in his hand.

He swung it overhead, but Wayman twisted aside, ramming a rock-hard fist into the big man’s soft ribs. A gush of air fled Tumblefig’s mouth as he grimaced in pain, flailing out wildly with the pipe wrench.

The tractor was rolling awkwardly toward the woods bordering the farmer’s property. The Timber Wolf avoided all his strikes deftly, exchanging each for a slicing punch combination to Tumblefig’s face, afraid to take the time needed to draw his gun. The farmer took a half dozen combos before he crumbled over the tractor wheel as it rolled straight for a tree. Wayman heard the collision when he was airborne, the sickening thud of crunching metal forcing his teeth to grind together. He rolled free into the forest as the bullets started up behind him, chewing tree bark as he scampered into the cover of the trees.

In seconds he was sprinting through the woods away from the farmer’s land. His car, parked on Tumblefig’s private road, was useless to him now. Replacing it wouldn’t be a problem, but leaving it, unfortunately, posed an unavoidable one. The road atlas he had marked was hidden beneath the front seat and the men from the shelter would be in possession of it before long. The enemy would then be made aware that he was on to at least a portion of their plan. Other sites like this one would be altered. People would be warned to expect him.

The other distribution points were stored in his memory. Another road atlas in his hand and he’d resume his search for the pattern he knew existed, albeit with much new to consider. Thirty locations scattered across the country from coast to coast. Wayman cringed at the thought that each held an underground shelter like the one he had just left. Who would be taking refuge in them? And, more importantly, what would they be taking refuge from?

The answers, perhaps, would be at his next stop. Bullets still marking him from the rear, the Timber Wolf churned his legs faster through the woods.

Chapter 23

“IN PREPARATION FOR OUR
landing in Miami, please extinguish all smoking materials and make sure all seatbacks and tray tables are in their upright, locked positions… .”

The view of the night lights surrounding Miami International created a brief surge of security through Drew. He had made it this far. Yet, it meant nothing, for there was still so far to go if the killers of his grandmother were to be brought to justice.

He stowed the small airline bag under the seat before him reluctantly after clutching it close through the duration of the flight, never letting it leave his lap. Inside was the bag of white powder he’d extracted from the apartment in downtown Nassau.

The final minutes prior to landing brought it all back to him, everything since his leap off Paradise Island Bridge had led to a chilling swim to Cable Beach. He reached the sand cold and uncomfortable, shivering from fear as much as the night waters. First, the natives had tried to kill him, then the giant with the hook for a hand. In both cases he had narrowly escaped death. Having time to consider that reality made the fear even worse. He had walked down Cable Beach toward his hotel, longing only for a hot shower and relief from the deep scratches along his back and chest inflicted by the hook. Then reason broke in, the practical considerations of the situation at once before him.

On Potters Cay the yellow-eyed leader had told him that a bag of the white powder was located in the kitchen of his apartment under a set of false floorboards. By tomorrow the apartment would certainly be under watch. He had to act now while the opposition was in disarray if he wanted to obtain the mysterious powder. And the powder had to be the key, he saw that now, the key to everything both he and Trelana were after. There was more than drugs involved here; there had been all along.

Steeling himself to the task, he returned to the run down section of Nassau where the apartment was located. His memory eluded him for a time, but it came back well before panic set in. He located the small shop that formed the apartment front, but waited several minutes before entering, worried that more of the local men, like the bald-headed big one, might be inside. At last he entered with his breath held to find the apartment deserted. It took only a few moments to locate the false floorboards and the bag of powder beneath them.

Of course, the problem then became one of getting off the island. The enemy knew him and where he was staying. They would be watching for him, waiting for him to leave an opening in his strategy they could seize. He needed a plan, a means of safe flight.

The answer came to him with surprising ease. The enemy’s only means of picking him up again was waiting for his return to the hotel so, quite simply, he wouldn’t go back. He found an all-night shop in downtown Nassau where he purchased a change of shirt, a pair of sandals to replace the shoes useless to him since he’d lost one, bandages and antiseptic for his wounds, and a tote bag to store his white powder. From there he checked into the smallest motel he had passed and left a call for seven
A.M
.

He called Trelana’s contact number before retiring to report that he would be coming in the next day. His instructions were to call again upon arriving in Miami. Plans would be detailed to help him reach safety. The white powder, whatever it was, was not mentioned.

Drew similarly figured that the airports would be under close watch, so he ruled out planes as a means of exit—at least planes that departed from Nassau. Freeport was another matter. The next morning a taxi deposited him at the main Nassau pier where boats were chartered. By eight-thirty
A.M
. he was settled beneath the hot sun on a pleasure yacht with nine other people bound for Freeport.

It was a long trip but a safe one, and Drew reached Freeport only to make straight for the airport and the next available flight to Miami. It took off just before eight
P.M
. Finally, he was on his way, his suitcases abandoned at the Cable Beach Hotel since there was no way to safely retrieve them or have them forwarded. He was running short of the cash Trelana had provided him and he hoped that wouldn’t begin causing problems as well.

He would be arriving at Miami Airport at a busy enough time to have plenty of other travelers to use for camouflage. In any case there was no way the enemy could watch every flight from every terminal. The first pay phone he saw would be used to reach Trelana’s people and then he would be home free.