Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child Read Free Book Online Page A

Archive?”
    Logan glanced at him mildly. “As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Hunt: I’m on administrative leave.”
    The elevator creaked open onto a concrete tunnel with a semicircular roof and a floor punctuated by steel grills. “Follow me, please,” Hunt said, walking quickly down the tunnel. It was very chill and raw. A line of incandescent bulbs in circular fixtures, hanging from the ceiling by slender stalks, lit the way. Ganglions of green-painted pipes ran high up along the walls, snaking deeper into the bunker. Hunt set a brisk pace, apparently no longer disposed to conversation. They passed several branching tunnels, what looked like a dormitory, and a large room with television cameras and a back wall covered by a photo of the Capitol building taken in cherry blossom season, before Hunt veered off the main corridor. He led the way through a room full of electrical control panels to a small antechamber that lay beyond. Sliding away a false wall at the rear of the chamber, he revealed a heavy metal door balanced on massive hinges. Taking a different key from his pocket, he fitted it to the central slot. “The archives lie beyond,” he said. “Please locate the file and review it as quickly as possible. I need to get this authorized with all possible haste.”
    “I’ll be quick,” Logan replied.
    Hunt frowned, nodded. Then, turning the key, he pulled open the door. Air rushed out from the blackness beyond-stale air, dust-laden. The very smell quickened Logan ’s pulse.
    The Omega Archive was precisely the kind of find that Jeremy Logan-for whom the title of medieval scholar was something of a genteel, if accurate, smoke screen-lived for. In the years following the Second World War, the government had taken advantage of the built-in security of the congressional bunker to store secret and top-secret military records. Though the bunker itself had been declassified a decade earlier, it had taken many more years-and much political pressure from historians, journalists, and freedom-of-information advocates-to clear away the red tape surrounding the Omega Archive. And while technically the archive had been declassified as of this morning, standard procedure was for representatives from the security agencies to examine its files-and in the process remove many still deemed sensitive-before allowing general public access. Logan had called in several favors in order to gain brief access before this final vetting process began.
    The space he stepped into was utterly black, but some sixth sense told him it was large-very large. He felt along the wall, found a bank of at least two dozen light switches, and snapped a few on at random.
    With a low boom, rows of fluorescents began flickering into life here and there ahead of him, creating small pools of yellow in a sea of darkness. He switched on additional lights and, finally, the entire archive came into view: row after row after row of ten-foot-tall olive-green cabinets arranged in regular columns, marching back almost out of sight. He stood in the doorway, blinking, gradually accustoming himself to the scale. The space before him was wider than a football field and at least as long. His eye traveled over the banks of files. The amount of potentially fascinating information stored in here-official secrets, scientific pa tents, confiscated cultural and national patrimony, sets of sworn testimony whose contradictions would prove most enlightening-could keep him happily occupied for years.
    A restless movement beside him reminded Logan he was working on borrowed time. With a smile and a nod, he took a fresh grip on his briefcase and strode forward. The file that interested him in particular concerned an event that took place in Italy in 1944. While fighting the Germans for control of Cassino, units of the American Fifth Army commandeered an ancient fortress-the Castello Diavilous. The long-deserted castle had once been home to an infamous alchemist who performed extremely