He heard the airlock door squeak and sigh and he turned—to find himself looking down the barrel of a ten-millimeter Sig Sauer caseless handgun. Okay, their equipment isn’t top-shelf, but it’s not all antiques, either.
He raised his hands. The figure—wearing a generic spacesuit that was the same model as his own—gestured him to approach. Trevor did, keeping his hands high. The figure stepped to the left, motioned him past—and slammed him forward against the inner airlock door, the pistol pressed into the side of his helmet. The figure’s free hand roved and snatched at his spacesuit, tugged open the thigh pockets, then pulled him about-face by the shoulder. With the gun now snugged up against Trevor’s neck, his chest pockets and utility pouches were subjected to the same hasty inspection. Then the spacesuited figure stepped back and, gun steady, reached back with his free hand to pull the outer airlock door closed. A moment later, the hatch autodogged and a rising hiss indicated that atmosphere was being pumped in.
So far, so good. There had always been a chance that they would shoot him down the moment they saw him. But that was one of the many operational hazards that there had been no way to avoid.
The inner airlock door swung open—and Trevor found himself staring into yet another muzzle. This one was an antique: a nine-millimeter parabellum MP-5 machine pistol. Almost a century out of date. Okay, they’re definitely not the A-team.
Pushed roughly from behind, he staggered forward and—knowing that they’d have his helmet off in seconds—reasoned that this was the last moment he could conduct a visual assessment without looking like he was doing just that.
And Trevor liked what he saw. The three in the main room were ethnically diverse. None over twenty-seven. All male. All had tattoos, piercings, long—and in one case, grotesquely unwashed—hair. Complete heterogeneity of weapons. The central table was an overcrowded parking lot for used coffee mugs and pots. Several dozen ration-pack wrappers had been discarded on the floor, as well as other trash and—was that a pair of dirty socks under a chair? One of them—the big, sleepy-looking guy with the greasy hair—clearly had track marks on his left forearm. T-shirts, several sporting the logos of Slaverock bands. In short, nothing to imply or even hint at the kind of discipline imparted by any formal training in operations. Terrorists? He smiled. Or gang-bangers?
The “terrorist” behind him grabbed his helmet, popped the side clamp and ripped it off.
The smell of unwashed bodies and stale air almost made Trevor gag.
“You’ve got five seconds to tell me who you are and why you’re here. You give me an answer I don’t like, and you’re meat.”
“My name is—hell, it isn’t important. Call me Trev. I’m just a guy hired by the girl’s family. And I’ve brought money to pay for her release.”
“What the—what the hell are you talking about?”
“Look: I know you’ve got the girl. And all these guns prove it.”
“Yeah—and you’d better prove you’ve come alone or this conversation is going to end. Real soon.”
“You can send a man out to see. You’ll find a pressurized buggy three hundred meters due east. There’s no one in it. But before you send someone to check it, you might want to pick up the aluminum attaché case just outside the door.”
“Why?”
“Because the payment is inside.”
The kidnapper with the machine pistol turned to give an order to the man in the spacesuit. “Scan him.” He turned back. “Now, how do I know you’re not just the inside man for an assault team?”
“Because when you send your man out, you’re going to find that there’s no one in sight—which means by the time anyone could join me here, I’d be dead. Right?”
The one with the machine pistol spent a moment thinking, then his eyes flicked over toward his man with the RF scanner.
Who shrugged. “He’s clean; no signals coming off him.”
“And none will. Take his helmet off. Check for a backup radio. Take his gloves off, too.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Trevor looked around while they spoke. The interior was exactly what he’d expected from the schematic: large primary dome, centered on the “storm room”—a shielded core that provided refuge during solar flares and other radiological anomalies. There was one opening off to the right that led to the installation’s single reinforced corridor, which was the spine to which all the other, smaller expansion domes were attached. No change from the original layout—and no sign of the meteorological and geological monitoring teams that were supposedly stationed here. The last was not a good sign—but, sadly, not a surprise, either.