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She hugged herself, as though chilled by the images she was describing. "The Imperial fleet tried to rescue survivors. Pliny the Elder, he was the fleet admiral stationed at Misenum, took his ships across the Bay of Naples to rescue survivors. But he couldn't get close enough to get anyone out. He was trapped at Stabiae instead, rescuing people there, and was killed. His nephew at Misenum, Pliny the Younger—the famous historian—left a really vivid account. He was afraid they'd be killed, once the fiery avalanches started. Took his mother and ran for it. The Bay of Naples isn't all that large. A few miles across, no more. Herculaneum's only about four miles from the volcano's summit."
Charlie whistled softly. "So Herculaneum was wiped out, too. How come nobody ever mentions it, if several cities were buried? And how come anybody was crazy enough to build cities on an active volcano?"
"They didn't know it was a volcano. In a.d. 79, Vesuvius hadn't erupted for at least three hundred years. Almost nobody understood what caused the earthquakes all through the Campanian region, like the one that damaged the Temple of Jupiter in Pompeii in a.d. 62. Not even Seneca, who was something of a naturalist, understood it; although Strabo did guess there had been volcanic activity there at one time." She shivered. "We used to think everybody got out of Herculaneum. We'd never found any bodies, not like we did at Pompeii." She swallowed. "Then we, uh... We found the ancient beach. It's about half a kilometer inland from the modern waterfront. Most of them made it that far."
She looked like she was about to cry again.
Charlie sympathized. "Holy shit."
He didn't know what else to say.
Chapter Eight
The guards at the door wore military uniforms, but they weren't Dan's men. They weren't even Uncle Sam's men. They checked his ID suspiciously, even though he was well known to each of them by now. Four months of this treatment had only exacerbated Dan's temper, whipping him with the need to remain submissive at all cost. At one time, this had been Dan's building, Dan's project. At one time, he'd been able to call his life his own... .
His face went stiff and cold as he thought of what lay beyond these doors through which he'd once passed so freely. Of what they had the potential—and the ruthlessness—to do with it. They'd only begun to grasp what they had hold of. God help the world when they started to figure it out.
And God help him—not to mention Lucille and Da
Dan had been one of the pivotal engineers on this project from the begi
He drew a ragged breath, hating and blaming himself for that, and clung to the fact that they still needed him, needed what he knew, needed him as a screen to hide behind. As long as he still had access, however limited, to the equipment—
He wondered if Lucille would understand that he had to choose. Soon. Guilt tore at him. Awake or asleep, he remembered Lucy's tears, Da
As it was, he was no longer sure which of his people were still his people. The entire communications section definitely wasn't. Crighton had rotated out and subsequently vanished. O'Keefe had died in a car wreck on his way to visit his wife in Juneau... . The finance officer was definitely in it up to his traitorous little ears. Counterfeit pay vouchers for direct deposit payroll slips for people who weren't even in the army were coming through Tenbroeck's office. Dan wondered how they'd gotten to the man. He'd thought Tenbroeck solidly loyal—until Da
"Something strange going on with the MP rosters, sir," Szkolny had muttered in the chow line. "I keep seeing the same dozen or so names pop up for the high-security areas. Come to think of it," he added, glancing at Dan, "that new bodyguard you ordered is always staffed by one of those guys."
"Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Sergeant. I'll take care of it," Dan had answered, trying very hard not to let the man know how very wrong things were on this base. He had not wanted Szkolny's death on his conscience.
Dan thought of Logan McKee and went cold again. McKee definitely wasn't one of his. Nor was Dan certain he was anyone else's. Logan McKee was an anachronism. Ever since McKee's abrupt arrival, Dan had been thinking a whole lot about Dr. Gudekinst's early worries on slippage. And every time he thought about it, Dan began to sweat all over again. If slippage were occurring, severely enough to drop someone through a temporal crack...
Christ—what had these goons been up to? What sort of monkeying around with the time stream had they done without consulting anyone? There were dangers they didn't begin to comprehend. Dangers which—Dan had to shut his eyes and shoulder the guilt which was his alone to carry—dangers which very carefully had not been explained to them.
Explanations would have required revealing aspects of the process which Dan and his physicists had managed so far to keep secret, in the vain hope they could turn this thing into a weapon to fight back. Dan knew the imprisoned scientists were counting on him to stop this madness. He winced a bit. With his wife and son hostages, he couldn't even count on himself.
Dan held fears at bay with less than sterling success and waited for clearance to enter the building. Since Dan was expected this morning, once the scrutiny of his ID was completed, the door guards called for one of their own to escort him inside. The man who arrived was built like a linebacker—or a refrigerator.
Dan hadn't seen this one before. How many of his own people had Carreras brought in by now?
The linebacker confiscated Dan's pistol, then escorted him into an alcove just inside the door. While Dan's bodyguard watched, the man performed a very thorough—and humiliating—body cavity search.
"Satisfied?" he finally snapped.
The linebacker just looked at him. "Get dressed," he said tonelessly.
Dan's fingers shook as he buttoned his shirt and zipped his fly.
He was escorted through a familiar maze of corridors and security devices. An elevator ride dropped them deep into the interior of the mountain which this base skirted. When the doors opened, Dan stepped out into deep pile carpet, as out of place as the man who now inhabited it. Once this had been his situation room. Security monitors were still in place, as were computer linkups to installations across the globe. Inwardly he winced at the thought of the compromised top-secret security installations this room now represented.
The rest of the room had been altered almost beyond recognition. A solid Brazilian rosewood desk at least seven feet long and four feet wide stood opposite the elevator, along one wall of the vast room. Dan recognized some of the paintings. There were ancient marbles, as well, which should have been in a museum, but probably never had been.