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.