Fire with Fire(23)

He eased off the accelerator as he approached: Don’t want to look like I’m in a rush. He heard and ignored yet another page on the radio, thought a moment, then reached under the dashboard and disconnected the unit.

He emerged into the clearing and, as he heard the spatter of loose rock under his tires once again, he realized that the road to this site was more worn, and smoother, than the one to the oil rigs. It either got more use, more attention, or both. Yet it led to the one location that was left off Caine’s itinerary. Whatever Helger didn’t want him to see was here.

He slowed as he came amidst the cluster of prefab buildings: newer and better maintained than the ones out at the oil field. More vehicles, also. But it was the small groups of workers—two lounging against a truck, three more under the awning of an administrative prefab, another two walking slowly past a pile of white and dusty dig spoor—who were the most strikingly different. It took a moment for Caine to see what the difference was, as they looked up briefly over the rims of their coffee cups before resuming their casual chats. It wasn’t their crisply clean clothes, or their neatly groomed hair, or even their alert faces and scanning eyes: it was their postures of relaxed self-assurance.

One or two looked up from their coffee again, matching Caine’s gaze. Christ: don’t stare. Get moving.

He swung his legs out the door port that had been scalloped low into the chassis of the Rover, settled his hat on his head as he looked up at the sun, and then at his watch. He peripherally saw the watching eyes withdraw as he walked with a casual surety that was pure bluff; he only knew that he needed to get to the excavations.

Caine hadn’t been sure what to expect in the way of challenges, but was utterly surprised by what he did encounter: nothing. Slowing to a stroll, he passed compact excavating equipment: caterpillar-tracked backhoes, drills, one small articulated hoist jury-rigged on the back of a large truck. One hard-hatted mechanic emerged from the truck’s cab, stared at him without nodding, went on his way.

And that was it: no Cerberus guarding the gate to whatever buried secret CoDevCo had found here. Caine suppressed the urge to laugh at the anticlimax of the moment, kept walking forward—

—into a litter of chalky white rock. Oval pits dug here and there, one of which was long and narrow. Beyond that was a high berm of loose dirt. Well, might as well start looking—

“Hello there.”

Caine managed not to flinch, turned to face the voice. A middle-aged man, half-a-head shorter than Caine’s six feet, was approaching. He looked more like a librarian than a machine operator: it wasn’t just his clothes—appropriate for a company picnic—but his soft, almost delicate face and bookish glasses. “Yes?”

“Hello,” the man repeated. “Can I help you?”

“You in charge here?”

“Well, I—I have final authority over dig priorities and scheduling, so I suppose—”

“Fine, then I can talk to you. I’ve got to check drainage and pump placement. We don’t have any details on it and the weather stations are confirming a possible hurricane. So I need to see a schematic of your flood-management systems.”

Bookworm blinked several times. “I—but I don’t know about this. I mean, no one told me—”

“It’s okay, I’ll take care of it. No one’s fault, really. Not the responsibility of the excavation crews, and the research teams wouldn’t know to ask about it if someone didn’t mention it. So here I am. Do you have any sump pumps in place?”

“A few down in the main site, near the base of the columns—”

Columns?

“—but only one, just to handle regular rainwater accumulations. This hurricane: could it damage—?”

Caine waved a dismissive hand. “Look: you don’t have anything tall exposed above ground level, right?”

“Right.”

“Then the worst that could happen is that things will get wet.”

“But there might be seepage. The soil we’ve removed was a barrier, prevented any water from getting as far down as the foundation. If there are sealed chambers, then—”

“Okay, I get the picture. We’ll get the necessary machinery out here to take care of it.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Mr.—”

But Caine had already turned, and walking away, acknowledged Bookworm’s hand-wringing gratitude with a lazy wave. He also resisted the choking urge to race ahead, to run everywhere the ground had been torn up, looking, looking, looking. Columns. Foundations. Possible sealed chambers. A little bit more than just a line of rocks in the ground.