Titan Six Read Free

commented.
    “Not to mention the delivery systems,” said Wallace.  “Like the rockets that could strike enemy targets on other continents if the President gave the green light to NORAD.”
    “Once more unto the breech,” Durangue said.  “Looks like the nuclear chess game may have seen some opening gambits by India and Pakistan.”
    “Maybe poker is a better analogy,” Wallace countered, shivering from both the cold and the thought of a re-armed world.  “I think Iran and North Korea want to be dealt into the hand, too.”
    “Let’s hope somebody raids the game,” Durangue said.  “Meanwhile, let’s poke around and check out the specs on the vault.  You could fit a ten-story building in here.”
    Wallace wandered to the far right of the space until she encountered solid rock.  Weak tungsten lights did little to illuminate the area, but they allowed the pair to see a few tools scattered across the floor, as well as some candy bar wrappers. 
    She ran her hands along the slightly moist walls as she paralleled the rock until her skin detected a different texture beneath her fingertips.
    Wood.
    Wallace grabbed the flashlight hanging from her utility belt — a high-intensity Maglite ML100— and played the beam over rotting gray planks.
    “Come take a look at this, Quentin,” Wallace called.
    Durangue and his partner examined the crisscrossing boards, dusty and coated with spider webs.
    “We’ve seen a few utility rooms, port-a-johns, and niches in caverns like this, but nothing that was boarded up,” Durange remarked.  “Wanna take a look?”
    “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Wallace answered.  “Our job is to survey the tunnels.  Let’s earn our pay.”
    Durangue and Wallace pried away the wooden planks with claw hammers, rotting boards splitting and falling to the ground with almost no resistance.  Wallace shone her Maglite into the gloom beyond, moving the beam rapidly from left to right.
    “A small tunnel,” she said, “but it sure as hell goes deep into the mountain.”
    “Ladies first,” Durangue said, motioning with his hand that his partner should commence the exploration.
    “Thanks,” she said, nervously eying Durangue.  “You’re a real sweetheart.”
    The two scientists proceeded slowly into the tunnel, which was ten feet high and seven feet wide.
    “Why isn’t this tunnel on our maps?” Wallace asked.
    “I imagine for the same reason that it’s boarded up.  The U.S. military is most definitely not a transparent organization.”
    They continued walking for a full minute before coming to an abrupt halt.  The tunnel had turned into a corridor.
    “Must have led to somebody’s office,” Wallace said.
    “Somebody important.  Sealed and completely off the grid.”
    They moved forward tentatively.
    “Place gives me the creeps,” Durangue said.  “My skin feels all prickley, and . . . ”
    “And what?”
    “Like something’s not right.”
    Wallace didn’t contradict her partner.  “Yeah, but we’ve come this far.  This is the kind of thing they sent us to find.”
    They took another twenty paces.
    “Holy shit!” Durangue said.
    “This was a Top Secret area,” Wallace speculated.  “Keypad access.  Red telephones on the walls.  Guards must have been posted.”
    A thin draft of cold air was coming from the other side of a sliding door.
    The pair looked at each other silently.  Do we try to go in?
    “The seal’s broken,” Wallace said.  “We might be able to force the door open.  You take the top and I’ll take the bottom.”
    The door had apparently been stuck for over two decades in a partially open position.  Its edge was two inches from the vertical groove it should have inhabited.
    Durangue and Wallace curled their fingers around the exposed edge and pulled.  The sliding door didn’t budge.
    “The mechanism’s probably frozen,” Wallace said.  “Again.”
    Grunting, the pair applied pressure a second time.  The door slid back