Kane strode along the catwalk, trying to keep his eyes on the two people below, following them at a distance of a hundred feet. The noise from the generator smothered the sound of his footfalls.
The catwalk abruptly became a stairway, and by the time he, with the others trailing him, reached the bottom step, the figures were nowhere in sight.
The vast, dim room was strangely bare. Scars and gouges in the gray concrete floor indicated heavy objects had been dragged and moved about some time in the not too remote past.
Kane looked toward Brigid. “Now where?”
“The floor plan wasn’t like this. There’s been a lot of changes.” She looked around, turning her head very slowly, trying to reconcile their surroundings with the layout she had memorized.
Brigid stepped carefully forward, putting out her hand as though feeling her way along an invisible wall, reaching out for a vanished doorway. Kane and Grant followed her. She turned left after so many steps and again moved in a straight line. Finally she halted in a broad area surrounded only by shadows. Round holes in the floor showed that some large piece of heavy equipment had once been bolted there.
Craning her neck, she looked straight up. The men followed her gaze. Attached to a length of frayed cable, a photoelectric-eye device dangled overhead. Extending an arm, Brigid passed her hand in front of her in a right-to-left arc.
Inches from her feet, a square section of flooring began to turn over with a grating of stone and creak of metal pivots. It rolled up and stopped on edge, revealing a dim passageway leading below. The air wafting up from it was dank and laden with the acrid odor of chemicals.
Brigid said, “A disguised entrance, so the uninitiates of Overproject Excalibur wouldn’t stumble over the real fruits of their labors.”
Grant eased to one knee, studying the yawning opening. “What do you mean?”
Brigid’s lips moved in a half smile, and she gestured theatrically to the square hole in the floor. “Welcome to Nightmare Alley.”
Chapter Thirty-One
A short flight of stairs brought them down into a low-ceilinged anteroom. Another photoelectric sensor registered their presence, fed the signal to the portal and the square of concrete overhead rolled back into place with a crunch. Kane tensed, waiting for the brief wave of claustrophobia to pass.
“You okay?” Grant’s voice was an anxious whisper.
“I’m grand,” Kane responded in the same low tone.
Brigid shushed them into silence. She eyed the door at the far end of the room. It was of simple, innocuous wood. A push button was screwed into the frame with a small plastic sign above it.
‘”Ring For Attendant,'” she read aloud. “Should we?”
“I hope you’re joking,” Grant snapped.
“I am. I don’t think the peopleor whateverwho took over this place still observe the predark security procedures.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Kane, the Sin Eater filling his hand.
The door opened easily at the turn of the knob. They gazed down a tile-floored corridor, lined on either side by machines shrouded in plastic dust covers. Some were very large and bulky. As they walked between them, Brigid was able to identify much of the equipmentfluoroscope, an oscilloscope, centrifuge, evaporator, distillation tanks, a chromatograph.
“Old medical machines,” she said softly. “Must have been moved down here when the facility was reactivated. Guess there wasn’t much use for them anymore.”
At the word “reactivate,” Kane mechanically consulted his chron. “We’ve got one hour and seven minutes left.”
“I’ll track the time,” Grant offered, “or we’ll get stuck here.”
Kane gave him an okay sign, then grimaced. The tart scent of chemicals was very strong, almost cloying, but they smelled and could almost taste a worse odor, the taint of death.
A set of sheet-metal double doors divided the corridor. Kane toed aside the one on the right, and Grant pushed open the left. Another corridor lay beyond, very long and nearly twenty feet wide. The ceiling was still low, lit by an arrangement of red bulbs, though the wattage seemed higher. The walls were composed of sheets of glass, all canted at forty-five-degree angles. The chromium frames glinted dully in the muted illumination.