02. The Shadow Dancers by Jack L. Chalker Read Free Book Online Page B

stationmaster must be kept somewhere safe and it was the easiest and safest point at which we could modify the place and install such a thing without ripping the old building down."
    "Yeah, but so what?" Sam said a little cynically. "Even if you had some way of getting somebody in there with him, somebody who could take Vogel-and I'm not sure you can-then what? You can't get him out. I'm sure the place has no windows. So, anybody would have to take the leader out the only door, and all he'd need to do was give some signal, some indication, and you were dead."
    "Give us some credit. We weren't going to build a place like that where the stationmaster, in a crisis, couldn't get put before it all blew. There's another door-an exit only, in the floor. Not even Vogel can use it to get in-it's booby-trapped and designed to jam and trap somebody inside who tried it. One way only. An emergency exit. It leads down through the walls to the basement area, then into a tunnel that runs out back of the house and all the way to the station, coming up here, near the control room stairway. The final defense is very simple, really-a bunch of rods that support a particular part of the tunnel ceiling. Even try opening or blowing your way through from the station end and the rods collapse-and so does half the tunnel. From inside, though, you only have to throw a few levers to move the rods to a safety position, allowing the door to open. When it closes again, the rods slip back into place. One way only, as I said."
    This was suddenly gettin' interestin', although I still wasn't too sure I liked where it was goin'.
    "What we propose is this," Markham went on. "Two separate actions both timed to the second. One is a diversionary attack on the wall from outside. That'll draw security's attention and most of the security personnel. At the same time, our team will use a command force from the Labyrinth to enter the station even if it's not operating. With the gate open, we can tap whatever power and forces we need. We'll be in our element. We could hold that place for an incredible length of time, even against direct bomb hits and worse."
    "How long?" Sam pressed. "If you need a diversion it means they'll know they've been had even if they can't get to you. How long can you hold it before you'll have to withdraw or risk being blown up?"
    "I doubt if they'll blow up the whole complex with an external attack jeopardizing their escape routes, but we figure thirty, maybe forty minutes tops."
    "Uh huh. And what about Vogel? He's not going to know there even is an attack if he's as isolated as you say, but if he does learn it, he's also going to know that it's the Company because they have the station and he's not going to exit that way. He'll hotfoot it out of there a different way and make for a hidden substation just like Cranston did."
    "No, it won't be as easy for Vogel as it was for Cranston, who built one of his houses over a weak point and assembled a substation there. This isn't Oregon, it's Pennsylvania -central Pennsylvania. The nearest weak point he could make for that would be accessible to him would be hundreds of miles away at either a point near Asheville, North Carolina, or even further away up in Newfoundland. Des Moines is too small, and too well covered inside. You're right, though. He'd try and get out overland to one of those points somehow if he knew the station was taken, but he won't know. We egged on and supported an overambitious major-I think his name was Ryland-to move against Vogel, and we studied the drill. If they're attacked and Vogel isn't in the Safe Room, he goes there immediately. If he's in there, he stays there, and gets sent a blinking light alarm. Then he can plug in a phone that connects through a direct wire to security in the basement and get the details and decide on a course of action from almost complete safety."
    "Neat," I said. "This Ryland-I guess he didn't make it."
    "His people got a pretty fair way, but