The Vanishers (31 page)

We made our way past the straggling protest parade; at last the pavement was empty ahead. Presently the scraggly northern forest died away and we found ourselves in a different kind of country. This was the open Arctic landscape I remembered from my last visit: large vistas of low brushy vegetation broken by scattered islands of gnarled trees clinging to the areas of higher and drier ground, like palmy atolls in a tropical sea, except that they weren’t palms and this wasn’t the tropics. The sodden earth was drained by many little brown brooks and rivulets and, of course, by the Laxfors itself, the Salmon River. It was a rocky stream of moderate size. The road ran along the west bank.

We drove a considerable distance; at last a bridge took us over to the east bank, warning us that we were getting close to the Laxfors installation. I parked so we could study Karin’s map. The Swedes go in for a lot of cross-country hiking; in fact, the schools teach a course, mandatory I believe, in orientation, where the students have to learn to find their way on foot over some pretty wild terrain, not a bad idea. To go with this obsession with the boonies, Sweden produces a lot of good topographical maps, readily available.

Karin’s was an old one, printed before the Laxfors facility had been thought of. I didn’t know whether she was using an obsolete map to save money, or whether an updated version of this particular sheet was unavailable now for reasons of security. The age didn’t really matter, because the basic geography indicated by the contours wasn’t likely to have changed much, and she’d drawn in the new roads, and the boundaries of the fenced area, very neatly, in pencil. Inside this perimeter, shaded blocks represented the buildings. There were three rectangles, perhaps machine shops, storage sheds, or living quarters. They were not labeled, but the largest structure was a carefully drawn octagon of considerable size marked, in block printing:
MÖRKRUM
. I wondered what scientific reason there could be for the odd shape of the so-called Darkroom, but science is not my specialty.

The building was located not too far from the western fence of the headquarters area, which was not very big. To the north was a much larger fenced area, blank on the map, marked only: A
NTENN
. Karin had made no attempt to sketch in the individual antenna masts or towers. I wondered where she’d obtained her information and how accurate it was; but I had a hunch it could be trusted.

“Well, where do you think we should make our stakeout, Matt? That is the proper term, is it not, stakeout?” Karin frowned at the map. “How about that ridge to the west, if it has not too many trees? It is a distance from the fence, but it seems to be the only place from which we will be able to get a satisfactory view.”

I said, “That’s what I’m afraid of. If it’s the only place from which to watch the show, who else are we going to find up there, watching the show?”

“There is really not much choice. Do you have an alternative to suggest?”

“No, but we can be careful making our approach, and make it early. It’s easy from the south; so let’s not go that way. I think we can hike clear around that spread of antennas to the north before dark. We’ll spend a cold damn’ night up on that ridge, but we’ll be in the right position in the morning, ready to spot anybody else who decides to sneak up there to see the fun.”

She sighed. “You are the expert. We will do it your way, no matter how uncomfortable it is.” She put her finger on the map. “I think this little road, here, would be a good place to leave the auto…”

At dusk, I was sitting on the ridge watching the lights come on all over the Laxfors installation, which was laid out before me. Behind me, Karin slept wrapped in a couple of blankets we’d picked up in the course of our shopping spree in Oulu, back in Finland. The fenced area below me was shaped like a pear, a geometrical pear. I was looking at the small end, and could see all the way across it from fence to chain-link fence. This area was well lighted, unlike the large antenna field that extended off to my left, the fat end of the pear. It displayed few lights except high up on the tall antenna masts and at the tops of the seven peculiar-looking black towers, chunky and rather low, that we’d got a good look at on our way in. Not that it had helped much, since neither of us knew enough electronics to guess what function they might serve.

The place seemed to have no defenses except for the fence itself and the distant gatehouse where the road entered the premises from the east. There was a lighted window in the little shack, but I couldn’t make out the watchman inside without binoculars; however, we’d seen him step out, earlier, to admit a couple of cars. We’d made a careful survey with the glasses that we’d also picked up in Oulu, while we still had daylight, and determined that he was the only visible security personnel—which didn’t mean there weren’t concealed batteries of electronic eyes watching every square inch of the area; and a room full of TV-type monitors somewhere; and a hidden, armed protective force ready to spring into action the instant something that shouldn’t be there showed on one of the screens.

But to look at, it was a very peaceful scene. The three rectangular buildings I’d seen on Karin’s topo map formed an open square, not uncommon in the snowy north, where farmhouses, barns, and sheds are often grouped around a courtyard for shelter and convenience when the white stuff gets ass-high to a tall giraffe, to quote an old hunting guide of my acquaintance. This court faced south, and I could look into it at an angle. There had been some foot traffic over there earlier, both male and female, but I hadn’t seen any movement recently. However, the windows of the nearest of the three buildings, apparently a residence or dormitory, were one hundred percent lighted on the first floor and fifty percent on the second.

That could all have been part of any government facility. It was the
Mörkrum
that made the place unique. The great octagon had looked curious enough on Karin’s map; it looked even weirder in the flesh, so to speak. It was quite obviously a roof—the roof and part of the topmost story of a tall building sunk into the ground. It looked as if somebody had taken one of those Holiday Inn towers and dug a hole and buried it, all except the upper ten feet. I don’t know how it managed to convey the iceberg impression that there was a hell of a lot more below the surface than showed on top; but I found myself visualizing elevator shafts and emergency stairs leading down into the bowels of the earth. I couldn’t help wondering why, if they were going to make an underground facility, they hadn’t sunk it completely below the surface.

The fact that what showed aboveground was painted dead black didn’t help to explain it, but suggested that there might have been a simple and non-photographic reason for the structure to be called the Darkroom. It was surrounded by what seemed to be a wide safety zone of neatly raked gravel that, in summer, would make an interesting contrast with the green grass, still winter-brown at this time of year, around the other buildings. There was a connecting concrete walk bordered by flower beds, which seemed kind of like putting window boxes on a Sherman tank, but the Scandinavians do insist on having their flowers during the short season that anything grows up there. I couldn’t see the doorway from where I sat; it was on the far side of the structure that faced the other buildings.

Some hint of its function—at least it might have been a hint to someone with a better scientific background than mine—was given by the fact that a sizable rectangular shaft ran up each of the four sides I could see, and three of the ones I couldn’t see now but had glimpsed as we made our approach earlier; all except the wall of the octagon through which people entered the place.

These shafts emerged from the ground alongside the building and terminated a couple of feet above the roof, like large chimneys. I wondered if the Swedes played basketball; it was going to take an accurate throw to put a grenade into one of those things. Why they had to be so big was not clear, since a simple four-inch pipe would have carried the heavy electrical cable that came out of each one, with room to spare. Apparently the seven cables, in addition to needing plenty of room in the conduits that brought them up from their mysterious sources underground, also had to be well separated from each other, presumably for electronic reasons. Each one, therefore, was carried on tall poles straight out from its wall of the building; it then swung around the building at an even distance—some fifteen feet—from its neighbors. I noted that no cable was allowed to cross the walk employed by people. A couple were brought the long way around the building instead, suggesting that there might be energy fields involved that were not entirely harmless. Finally, all seven cables, nearly parallel, marched off together on their poles in a northerly direction to be distributed among the seven peculiar towers in the antenna field.

I was debating awakening my relief, towards midnight, when she roused of her own accord. I heard her putting herself together behind me; then she came up and touched me on the shoulder.

“My turn, I think,” she whispered. “Is anything happening?”

“Nothing has moved for the past hour.” I yawned. “Well, wake me if you see or hear anything you don’t understand.”

“Ha, I do not understand anything I see over there. That strange, buried building! All those tall masts and thick wires and fat little towers with strange saucers on them!” She laughed ruefully. “Good night, Matt.”

It wasn’t the most comfortable night I ever spent out; but it was by no means the worst, either. The ground was damp, of course, but we had no rain or snow to contend with, and not much wind. I was running pretty far behind on my sleep, so I managed to doze off all right; but towards morning I found myself awake and reaching for my gun, although I wasn’t aware of having heard anything disturbing. I lay listening for a while. Nothing moved along the ridge or, if it did, it was very good at moving silently.

Karin started when I touched her. “Oh, you are awake. Good, I hated to disturb you, you were sleeping so well, but I am having much trouble keeping my eyes open.”

“Anything to report?”

“I have seen and heard nothing. Except that they changed people in the
Mörkrum
at midnight, right after you went to sleep. Eight men and two women went in; four women and six men came out. They were all dressed in white overalls. Overalls? Coveralls?” She shrugged. “And another man in uniform relieved the one at the gate.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

I said, watching her shadowy face, “It’s your show, but I wonder if it might not be a good idea for me to make a little scouting expedition along the ridge just to see if anybody’s managed to sneak up on us.”

Karin was silent for a little, then she spoke carefully: “No, Matt, it would not be a good idea.” After a little pause, she went on: “You are a very clever man, and very good at what you do, but I do not want you to be so good and clever tonight. Just sit here and be a good boy while I take a nap, please.”

“You’re asking a lot. I haven’t had much practice being a good boy. But I’ll give it a try.”

After she’d settled down in the blankets in the small hollow above and behind me, I sat there listening, but there was really nothing to hear. I just knew they were out there, and so did Karin. She’d practically admitted it, and ordered me to leave them alone. I wondered who they were, and how many, and what the little girl thought she was up to…

Well, it would probably all become clear in time. I let my mind drift through memories unpleasant and pleasant, mostly of a sexual nature, as a man will. The girl sleeping nearby, who’d found me lacking in warmth if not in experience. The somewhat older woman in whose arms I’d performed quite passionately, perhaps even overdoing the virility bit; but she hadn’t seemed to mind. There was really no use in thinking about her, however, because we obviously had no future together. She had her country and I had mine and never the twain could meet, although it might be better for the world—certainly for us—if they did.

Then they were there. I was aware of distant shadows drifting along the outside of the Laxfors fence, approaching from the south, from my right, the easy way we hadn’t come. There were a good many of them, half a dozen or more. That was the main force. A smaller group, by the sound, was already in among the trees of the ridge. They were still well off to my right but angling towards me, moving more stealthily than the others; but it was difficult terrain for the silent sneak, with plenty of rustling brush and loose rattling rock. I stole back up to where Karin slept.

“Company coming,” I whispered.

She sat up, shoving back her blankets. “How much company, Matt?”

“The hostiles are infiltrating the area in two waves,” I whispered. “Or are they friendlies? Whose sides are we on, anyway? I can’t tell the players without a scorecard. Anyway, six or seven or eight—it’s hard to count shadows—are approaching along the fence. I assume they’re heading for the place closest to the Darkroom, with penetration in mind. Two or three or four, more than one anyway, are coming up the ridge at a slant, presumably for purposes of observation. They could even be aiming for this lookout spot of ours.”

“Well, why should they not?” Karin asked. “We decided that it was the best place from which to watch; preliminary scouting could have brought them to the same conclusion.”

“We’d better pull back to the crest,” I said. “Let me have those blankets… You haven’t left any monogrammed compacts, or signet rings with the family crest? Okay, let’s go. Take it very easy.” I’d already, like a good commander, selected a vantage point to which we could retreat if dislodged from our first position. “Okay, now keep your face down… What the hell is
that
?”

A sudden blare of sound had broken the stillness of the morning. It was distant, but it was obviously choral music and we could even make out the words:
Vårt land, vårt land, vårt fosterland, ljud högt o dyra ord…
Somebody had obviously set up a PA system over by the gate; but the record or tape being played was reinforced by the singing of flesh-and-blood people, quite a large number of them. They were belting out the Swedish national anthem at full volume: “Our land, our land, our native land, sound high, oh, precious words…” Okay, so anthems don’t translate Very well. Try “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Swedish sometime. Or those amber waves of grain.