“Three, five and two to open them up,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Trader asked suspiciously. “You been here before?”
“No. For some stupe sec reason, every one of the redoubts we’ve ever landed in has the same three-figure code. Look, it’s painted at the side of the control panel.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Can I enter it in, Dad?” Dean ran eagerly toward the controls, heels ringing in the stillness.
“When I say. First everyone spread out to both sides. Blasters ready. If I say close it, Dean, then you press two, five and three as the closing code for the doors. And you do it instantly. Understand?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“Instantly.”
“Sure.”
It took only a few seconds for the rest of the party to take up positions. Ryan, Krysty, Doc and Jak on the left of the massive double doors, J.B., Mildred, Trader and Abe on the other side.
“Now,” Ryan said.
The boy carefully punched in the numbered code, stepping back out of the way.
“Moving,” he called. “Can hear it.”
There was the first tiny razor’s-edge opening, letting in a sliver of bright sunshine.
“Least the weather looks like it’s fine out there,” Krysty whispered.
The doors moved back slowly on self-lube runners, vanishing into the slabs of bare rock on either side. The operation was almost soundless.
“Looks like we’re high up,” Trader said, at a better angle to see through the widening gap.
Now there was blue sky visible, with just a few fluffy white clouds.
“What wonderfully clean air,” Doc commented, taking a deep breath. “So bracing.”
Once the gap was wide enough, Ryan moved to it and glanced quickly around. He turned to wave his hand at the others. “Looks safe,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
“New England.” J.B. slowly lowered the miniature location finder, having squinted up at the bright sun through the delicate lens. “That must be the Lantic that we can see over there, so my best guess would probably put us in the south of what used to be called Maine.”
The companions were standing together, grouped like tourists waiting to be captured for a commemorative strip of vid. The main entrance to the redoubt had been skillfully carved from the flank of a mountain, as they so often were, that it was probably all but invisible from the flatter land below. There was what would obviously have been a turning area for vehicles and a small parking lot. But the tarmac had been cracked and rippled as the result of some minor quakes, and the indelible yellow hatched lines wavered like the waves on a shore.
A two-lane blacktop wound down the side of the mountain, diminishing with distance and then vanishing among seemingly endless strands of dark conifers.
“No sign of anyone getting in,” said Ryan, who’d checked the sec doors and their surround for indications of damage. There were the usual scratches and a number of tiny bullet marks pocking the expanse of almost indestructible sec steel. At the right-hand side, waist-high, opposite the recessed controls, there was the dark flare smear of a grenade, but it had made almost no impression on the place.
“No sign life.” Jak shaded his red albino eyes, so vulnerable in the glare of bright sun. “No smoke.”
The expanse of water that J.B. had guessed was the Lantic Ocean was off to their left, rolling away to the smudge of the horizon.
Mildred stood with eyes closed, head thrown back, breathing in the pine-scented freshness. “My Lord,” she said. “After that stinking claustrophobia this is wonderful. Can we go and explore some? It looks like paradise.”
“Sign, Dad!” Dean called. “Just over the edge of the highway.”
Ryan pressed the reverse code and watched the doors begin to slide shut. Only when they’d met at the center did be join the rest of the friends.
“Come on,” Trader snapped. “We don’t all have the words! Can someone tell me what it says?”
Doc clasped the lapels of his tattered frock coat in a theatrical gesture, and began to declaim loudly from the tilted steel sign. “It warns all personnel from the Cadillac Mountain Redoubt that many parts of the Acadia National Park remain open to the general public and that care must be exercised in driving military vehicles at excessive speed.” He laughed. “Pray all take heed that it does not say they shouldn’t drive at speed. Just that they should take care to speed carefully. How typical of the logically illogical military mind.”