was unusual—and dangerous—for Blackburn to mention it in open session.
“Sir, we have identified more, but we cannot effectively close in to investigate. Machinery seems to shut down instantly.”
Blackburn scowled, clearly suppressing his rage. “I want an answer within forty-eight hours,” he said. “We need to get our hands on one of those fucking things and pull it up.”
“Sir,” replied Hollinger, nodding in tight acknowledgement. He was a tall, skinny fellow in his late forties who looked like a cross between a mad scientist and a vicious special-ops soldier—an anomaly in many ways. His weathered skin and white hair, cut long and rarely combed, was unusual enough, but in recent months he had also developed strange lesions on his hands and neck that no one spoke of.
Hollinger was the king of the spooks, as far as the rest of Vector5 was concerned. He was responsible for The Discovery, the most secretive mission the enterprise had ever undertaken—the one established at a depth so low it was scarcely 350 feet above the continental bedrock. No one in the room knew exactly what the Nest’s mission was, or what Blackburn was referring to when he said “those things,” and most of them were glad to be in the dark.
“I’ll have a feasibility breakdown and a timetable in my hands by 0300,” he said.
“Yes, you will,” Blackburn agreed. And with that, he dismissed the team with a gesture and watched in silence as they filed out of the briefing room.
It had been pointless, maybe even foolhardy, to mention Ground Zero in front of the general staff. But he was burning with curiosity and impatience concerning the most recent discoveries they had made down there at the bottom of their deepest shaft. He had to know what they meant, how they were to change the world yet again.
History has already been rewritten, he told himself as the last of his lackeys scurried away. But now the possibilities are literally endless.
Oliver Fitzpatrick was the key. As much as it pained Blackburn to admit it, without Oliver’s cooperation Vector5 would never be able to reach its ultimate goal.
He wondered for the tenth time if Oliver’s son Simon was—or had been—in the vessel. If he had come here looking for his father, or if there was a far larger, far more complex and sinister plan at work.
He would have to make double-sure that Oliver was closely guarded, and that Simon would be terminated long before he reached his father’s side. Oliver lives for the hope of seeing his son, he thought to himself, if he does, I will surely loose him. He will lose all his will to live and impart the secrets that he holds.
“He’s done,” Blackburn said, though there was no one else in the room to hear it. “Done.”
THE NEST
Deep in the earth, barely five hundred feet above Ground Zero, Oliver Fitzpatrick lay in his cell and wished for death.
He struggled weakly against the restraints that tied him to his life-support system. If he could have freed himself, he would have torn the tubes and wires out of his body and simply died, but he could barely move.
He was trapped.
Oliver was almost blind from exposure to radiation. He had developed first-degree burns on thirty percent of his body from contact with unknown chemicals that flowed like polluted water in caverns close by. He drifted in and out of a dream state—wishing for death, fearing rescue, making impossible plans, and remembering—always remembering.
Memories of his son’s childhood kept him alive in his dark captivity. He tried to dream about Simon as a little boy in Oxford. His first step. His first word. Their summer together in Corsica, and the wonders they uncovered together.
Deep emotions swelled in him, and he shivered—in pride or grief, or simply as a reaction to Vector5’s harsh medications, he did not know. What a life they had lived, together and apart. What people they had known, what adventures they had shared.
And it all came down to this. This. And the awful things he had done that had brought him to this place. How could he have been so selfish all his life? What would happen to the memories, the history that man had created? What would happen to those children who knew nothing but love?
Oliver had never been sure about the existence of God. The wonders of the universe seemed too complex; too amazing to be random, but how could God justify this? Vector5 in all its evil vastness, and the things that