Soul Intent Page 24

  She looked at George, and then she reached out and stroked his cheek. She turned back to me, and I saw tears in her eyes. She nodded.

  We unbuttoned George’s shirt. I felt for a space between his ribs down at the bottom right side, across from the bullet hole. I placed the point of my diving knife on the spot I had chosen. Then I paused and looked at her. “Ready?”

  She nodded, and I wiggled the knife back and forth as I pushed it downwards. It went through George’s skin, but then stopped against something firm. I increased the pressure.

  The knife broke through, and I wiggled it until I had a half-inch slit. I hesitated. “This is going to really hurt him.”

  “Do it!” she cried. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  I twisted the blade, and George let out a yell. His arms flew up and slammed into both of us, and his hands grabbed at the knife.

  I jammed the section of tubing into the hole. Then I forced it downwards until I heard the hiss of air escaping. It sounded like a tire valve when the filling hose first detaches.

  “You did it,” Sue said.

  I pulled out the knife, took a deep breath, and wiped my trembling, bloody hands on my pants. “Now we hope it works.”

  We watched George’s bloated chest slowly subside. He seemed to be taking deeper breaths, and some color returned to his face.

  Sue wiped his forehead and smiled at me. “What you did was amazing.”

  “You’re the one who knew what to do.” I pointed up the stairs. “George still needs help—we need to find a way out of here.”

  She grimaced. “The tunnel was the only way in. How big are those rocks?”

  “I couldn’t move them. We need some tools.” I glanced around the cave. “But the winch is on the bottom, and we have no power, anyway.”

  I heard Val cough, so I crawled over to her. She looked at me and gave a faint smile. “What did I miss?” she asked.

  I swallowed the huge lump in my throat and let out a chuckle. I slid my arm under her shoulder and pulled her into an embrace. “You had me so worried,” I said.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  Uh oh—how long was she without oxygen? “We’re in Dubnik Mine, in Slovakia.”

  She turned her head toward me and kissed my cheek. “No, silly,” she said. “Are we next to the water or next to the radio?”

  Whew. “Next to where George had the winch.”

  She nodded. “Are the two power cables still there?”

  I looked around. “Maybe, but the power’s out. Only the battery LED lights are working.”

  “Good.”

  I pulled back and stared at her. “What makes that good?”

  “We can use the cable as an antenna.”

  “For what? Your cell phone?”

  She shook her head. “The impedance is all wrong for a cell phone. But I noticed that the base station for George’s ultrasonic gear has a sixty kilohertz LF relay. All it needs is an antenna, and we should be able to communicate from this mine.”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled herself up. “George once told me that our communications centers scan many frequencies,” she said to Sue.

  Sue nodded. “They do—at least they used to, before we went digital. Maybe somebody is still listening, and they can get us out of here.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “And Mr. Morgan too—I almost forgot about him!”

  Val looked at me. “A sixty kilohertz signal has a five thousand meter wave.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I once did shortwave. Radio travels at three hundred million meters per second. Divide that by sixty thousand, and you get five thousand meters.”

  She definitely had recovered.

  “Antennas have to be quarter, half, or full wavelength to work,” she said. “A quarter-wavelength antenna would be twelve hundred fifty meters.” Val scrunched up her face. “Where did you say the tunnel was blocked?”

  “Close to the entrance.”

  “Do you think there’s more than three hundred meters before the block?”

  “Yes,” I said. But what did that matter? Then I got it. Two pairs of power cables running up the tunnel meant there were four wires. “You want to string the wires together to make an antenna?”

  She nodded. “A quarter-wavelength one.”

  “Let’s find the cables.” I passed her a wrist light, and we found the base station, its power cable, and the winch’s power cable. I pulled out my dive knife, cut the ends off, and stripped the red and black wires inside each cable.

  Val twisted the two red wires together. “When you get to the far end, just connect each pair of wires, red twisted to black,” she said.

  I needed to trust her on this. “How far up the cable do I go?” I asked.

  “Three hundred and six meters, or three hundred and forty-six yards,” she said. “Approximately. But try to get it as accurate as you can, because we don’t have much battery power, and we can’t afford much signal degradation.”

  Easier said than done. I knew my splayed hand spanned nine inches between thumb and pinky—it was my built-in ruler. I measured out four hand-spans on the bail-out bottle’s tubing. Then I headed up the stairs, using the tubing to measure my way yard by yard along the cables.

  I took my time, knowing I had to get it right. Once I was afraid I had lost track of my numbers, and twice I banged my head on the low overhangs. But after crawling my way up the tunnel, I found the three hundred and forty-sixth yard was about ten feet short of the rock pile.

  I hesitated before I cut the cable. This was our last possible link to the outside. But we’d need to call for help if we couldn’t force our way out, and George and Sue weren’t capable of digging.

  I sliced through the cables and stripped the wires down. I twisted together each pair, then cut two small sections off the tubing and shoved them over the bare wires. Then I crept back down the tunnel.

  fifty-five

  Present Day

  Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

  Sue looked up as I came over. She had a big smile on her face. “He’s awake,” she said.

  I knelt down next to George. “Hey, you really scared us,” I said.

  “I’m still scared.” He gave me a tired smile. “Especially for Mr. Morgan. And Flora and the twins, of course.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Sue told me what you did, and I appreciate it, Scott.”

  I patted his shoulder. “You’d do the same for me.”

  “You betcha.” He raised his hand and slowly flexed it. “Val says you two are rigging up an LF antenna.”

  I nodded. “Does anybody in Sterling still listen in on the low end of the spectrum, or did you guys go totally digital?”

  “We have two offices who never upgraded—Tibet and Siberia,” he said. “Sterling keeps the scanners on for the odd message coming from them.” His voice had faded, and I had to lean in to catch his words.

  “Low frequencies will reach all the way to Sterling?” I asked.

  “They will,” Val said. “That’s why submarines, airplanes, and boats use them. They’re even better than short wave, because their waves are ground-hugging.”

  “You’re going with a quarter-wavelength antenna?” George asked her.

  Val nodded. “That’s all the wire we have. We’ll have to use the ground to reflect the other quarter.”

  “Will that work?” I asked. I knew next to nothing about antennas.

  “It will, but usually only when the antenna is vertical,” George said. “Since we’re underground, we’ll have to hope there’s not too much feedback.”

  “We can make a balun to cut out the noise,” Val said.

  She smiled when he saw my perplexed look. “You’ve seen the magnet rings on some computer cables, right?” she asked.

  I nodded. “My old keyboard had one. That’s a balun?”

  She nodded. “Balun is short for balance-unbalance,” she said. “The radio is expecting an unbalanced signal
over coax, and that long monopole antenna you made is balanced. We can unbalance it by wrapping its close end around a magnet before we hook it up.”

  “Where will you get a magnet?” Sue asked.

  I snapped my fingers. “Speakers have magnets—inside the underwater headphones.”

  Val nodded. “We can use the facemasks. Bring every magnet you can.”

  I retrieved the four facemasks and unsnapped the headphones. I sliced the speakers open with my dive knife and extracted a pill-shaped magnet from each earpiece. Then I brought the eight magnets to Val.

  She stacked the magnets and wrapped eight loops of wire around the resulting cylinder. Then she pointed at the cart rails. “Attach the other end to the rails as a ground,” she said.

  I took my dive knife and slid the blade between one of the spikes and the rail’s lip. I sawed it back and forth as I blew out the rust particles. Then I folded over the exposed black wire from the end of Val’s makeshift antenna and jammed it into the de-rusted space.

  Val shoved her end of the wire into the hole in the middle of the external antenna port on the base communicator. “We have an antenna,” she said.

  “Now let’s hope the batteries last,” George said. He still lay on his back with his feet propped on the rebreather. He motioned for the microphone, and Sue stretched the cord and handed it to him. He looked at each of us, and then he gave us a grin. “Relax—it’ll work.”

  “That’s my Georgie,” Sue said. “Always positive.”

  Val turned on the communicator. A loud buzz came out of the speakers, and she frowned and turned it off.

  “It’s still too balanced,” George said.

  Val scratched her head. “I must have miscalculated. I think I need at least a meter of wire on the balun.” She pulled on the antenna to make some slack, then replaced the existing eight loops with thirty new closely-spaced ones.

  “That should do it,” she said. She turned on the communicator. This time only a low hum came out. She smiled and gave a thumbs-up.

  George pulled the microphone up to his mouth and keyed it on. “This is Soul Identity, identifier three-one-seven, calling over a temporary and insecure channel. Does anybody read me?” He released the microphone button.

  We all strained to hear anything more than the low hum.

  George pointed to the display. “The battery is low, so I hope they’re not on a coffee break.” After a minute, he repeated his message.

  The line crackled, and then we heard a voice. “Go ahead, three-one-seven. Soul Identity HQ reads you loud and clear.”

  We all broke out big smiles. Sue reached out and rubbed George’s arm, and Val and I hugged each other.

  George keyed the microphone. “Three-one-seven, requesting remote authentication. Challenge is this—my first name.” He closed his eyes and said to us, “we have to make sure these are the good guys.”

  After ten seconds the voice returned. “Three-one-seven, your first name is George. What can we do for you?”

  “We have a level five emergency. A team of unfriendlies attacked us with deadly force. The EO and the three non-members are now hostages, and eight-oh-four, two others, and I are trapped in a mine. We are wounded, and we need medical assistance as soon as you get the EO to safety.”

  Silence except for the hum. George let his microphone hand fall to his chest. “We just sent them into hyperdrive,” he whispered.

  A minute later the voice came back. “Three-one-seven, I escalated to Mr. Berringer and Ms. Blake. They are headed to the communications center, and I’ll patch you through in ninety seconds.”

  “Thanks, HQ,” George said. He keyed the microphone again. “While we wait, can you pull up an infrared sat image of our location?”

  “I’ll get it ready, but I’ll need the DEO’s authorization before pointing the bird.”

  “You’ll have it.” George turned his head to look at Sue. “Anything else?” he asked her.

  “Activate Mr. Morgan’s tracking device,” she said.

  George nodded. “You catch that, Sterling?”

  “Affirmative. Stand by for the patch. It should be less than sixty seconds. You hang in there, three-one-seven.”

  “Thanks.”

  I thought I could clear something up while we waited for Berry and Ann. “Are you two ex-CIA?” I asked.

  Sue smiled. “No, Scott. We cross-trained with the FBI and NSA, but never with the CIA.”

  “That we know of, at least,” George said.

  The radio crackled. “George? Sue? Ann and I are here,” Berry said. “What’s going on?”

  Sue grabbed the microphone from George. “A hostile group of what we think are neo-Nazis kidnapped Mr. Morgan, Flora, and the twins, and trapped the rest of us inside the mine. We neutralized five of them. We need your authorization to grab some satellite images, and to enable Mr. Morgan’s tracking device.”

  “Authorization granted.”

  “HQ, point the bird,” Sue said.

  “Roger that,” the voice from the communications center said. “We’re acquiring the site now. We’re using the coordinates from your last tracked position at one eight hundred Zulu.”

  “Patch the image up to the communications center,” Ann said.

  “Should be just a minute, ma’am.”

  Berry came back on. “Sue, are you okay? How are Scott and Val?”

  “George and I were both in the line of fire, but we’re stabilized, sir. Val and Scott are shaken but operative. Get Mr. Morgan and then worry about us.”

  “Image coming through now, Mr. Berry.”

  “What are we looking at?” Ann asked.

  “Let me zoom in…there. It appears there are seven people. Four are inside a vehicle. Mr. Morgan’s transmitter has been activated…give me a second to overlay…there. He’s the one with the blinking green dot.”

  “He’s in the vehicle,” Berry said.

  “Affirmative. Those white spots on your screen appear to be some sort of campfire.”

  “So they’re right outside the mine?” George asked.

  “At least Mr. Morgan is. And I can confirm he’s still alive, with a slightly above-normal heart rate, and a body temperature of ninety-nine point five.”

  “Do we have any other assets in the area?” Sue asked.

  “Checking, eight-oh-four,” said the operator. After a minute he returned. “The closest team is four hours away. In Budapest.”

  “Mr. Berringer, I recommend authorizing their deployment,” Sue said. “We don’t know the hostiles’ intentions.”

  “I agree, Sue,” Berry said. “Ann?”

  “I concur,” Ann said.

  “Authorized,” Berry said. “Get them out there, and keep us informed.”

  “Roger that, Mr. Berringer, we will—”

  “Hold on, what’s happening?” Ann cried. “What are they doing to him?”

  “What do you see, Ms. Blake?” Sue asked.

  Berry jumped in. “It looks like they’ve pulled the four out of the car and toward the fire. Now they’re, oh God, somebody hit Mr. Morgan, and he’s fallen down.”

  Val came and stood by me, and I put my arm around her.

  “Those bastards are still hitting him!” Ann said. “Operator, how is he?”

  “Increased heart rate, rapid breathing—”

  “They stopped,” Berry said. “Now somebody’s picking him up and…”

  We waited.

  “The four are back in the car,” Berry said. “Mr. Morgan is slumped over.”

  “Is he okay?” Sue asked.

  “He’s alive, but it seems he’s fallen unconscious, eight-oh-four. His heart rate and breathing have dropped to low levels, and—”

  The voice was cut off, and I noticed that the hum in the line was gone.

  Val walked over to the radio. “The battery is dead,” she said after a minute.

  “We’re cut off.” Sue slumped back on the ground. “It’s up to the Budapest team now.”

  “I
hope they hurry,” George whispered.

  fifty-six

  Present Day

  Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

  After sitting for ten minutes with my arms around Val and listening to George moan in his pain and Sue weep in her frustration, I stood up and walked around the gallery. I pointed my wrist light into the shadows by the stairs and walls.

  “Are you looking for something?” Val asked.

  “Yeah. The four dead guys. Where could they be?”

  Sue blew her nose and said, “I shot them as they reached the top of the stairs. They fell over the side, close to where you are. Can’t you see them?”

  I walked over into the shadowed corner and found them. I played the beam of my light over the twisted bodies of four young men. They each lay face down. Their hair was cropped short. Each of their green uniforms had a large blood-rimmed exit hole in the middle of the back. “Found them,” I called.

  “Are they all dead?” Sue asked.

  “They’re not moving.”

  “Could you make sure?”

  Great. I dropped to my knees and felt the neck of the one on the bottom of the pile. His skin felt cold, and I could detect no pulse. Same with the two middle ones.

  But the guy on top felt warmer. And when I grabbed his shoulders and turned him over, his blue eyes caught mine and darted away. I looked down. He held a pistol, and he had it pointed at my head.

  I dove to the right just as he fired. Then I kicked at where I hoped his chest was.

  The soldier let out a faint cry, and I spun around and grabbed at the pistol. The barrel was hot, and I struggled to hang on to it and point it up and not at me.

  He fired again, and I winced as the flame from the barrel burned my hands. But the bullet whined over my head, and I climbed on top of him and forced his arm further back, pushing as hard as I could.

  His other hand grabbed at my face, and I bit his thumb. He yelled and tried to pull back, but I had become a bulldog. I ground down until I felt my teeth slice through his knuckle.

  He screamed and jerked his hand away, leaving me with the top joint of his thumb and a mouthful of blood. I spat it onto his face and pushed harder on his arm. He fired again, but I had his arm back far enough that the bullet slammed into one of the bodies with a thud.