Odnośniki
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
deserted, and empty of any hint of civilization had abuilding on it! It was
mind-blowing.
Luke put his finger to his lips. Then the two of them crept down the length
of the structure. Cautiously, they turned the corner and found themselves
facing a gray metal front with a door and two windows. A rusted sign, faded
Page 47
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
and barely legible, read: united states army air corps.
"An Air Force base?" Luke breathed. "In the middle of a jungle?"
Ian pointed to the sign. "Army Air Corps. They haven't been called that for
fifty years. This area could have been clear back then, and the jungle just
grew up around it."
Luke sidled up to the streaked and smeared window and peered in. The jungle
was growing in there too, blasted up through rotted floor planking. There was
no one inside.
"Let's check it out," he whispered.
They opened the door someone had recently oiled the hinges and slipped
through. Desks, chalkboards, filing cabinets. Yellowed old papers and file
folders were scattered everywhere.
"Look!" exclaimed Ian.
Sleeping bags were spread out on the old benches. A few beer bottles, empty
food cans, and dozens of cigarette butts littered two desks that had been
pushed together. The place smelted of stale smoke.
This was the traffickers' camp, all right. This what was it? Military,
definitely. Old and abandoned, for sure. But a base? It was more like an
office.
Ian touched Luke's arm and pointed to a bulletin board suspended from one of
the curved walls. Tacked up there was a faded diagram of a hut exactly like
the one they were standing in. Two other huts, much smaller, stood behind it.
These three buildings seemed to be the extent of this installation.
"Did they have bases this small?" Luke asked.
The younger boy shrugged and drew Luke's attention to something else on the
board a map of the Pacific. Tiny pins representing boats and planes were
stuck all over the chart. Fallen ones lay on the floor in front of it.
"World War Two," he noted.
There were a couple of private offices and, farther back, a barracks room
with lines of bunks. Luke wondered why the smugglers were sleeping on hard
benches when real beds were right here. Then he got a closer look at the
mattresses. They were ripped to shreds and alive with thousands of bugs. He
shuddered and returned to where Ian was flipping through file folders.
"Find anything?"
Ian shook his head. "Requisitions for toilet pa-per and shaving cream. They
needed a part for their movie projector in 1945 " He picked up an envelope
marked TOP secret that had once been closed with an important-looking seal. A
dozen or so stapled pages were inside. The first line caught his eye:
Re:Deployment of Junior .
His eyes widened like saucers. "Junior!"
"Junior?" repeated Luke. "Who's Junior?"
The sound they heard next drove every other thought from their minds the
Page 48
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
barking of a dog.
They ran for the door. Gruff voices outside. The men were right there! Luke
grabbed Ian and spun him around.
The terror was plain in the younger boy's eyes. He mouthed the words, Back
door?
As they sped to the rear of the building, Luke knew that the answer to that
question would mean the difference between life and death.
Heart sinking, he faced the back wall. No door; just two windows. Jammed and
warped, the first one wouldn't budge.
The smugglers clattered in the front door, accompanied by their barking dog.
"Shut up, mutt," came an unfriendly growl.
The second window moved only an inch before seizing up against a thick vine.
Ian began to shake.
That was when Luke looked down. The metal wall of the hut had come away from
the decaying floor about eight inches. It was their only chance. Desperately,
he shoved Ian into the gap and followed. The two wriggled through to the
outside and crawled off into the jungle. There was no running. The foliage was
far too thick. But however slow, it felt like escape desperate movement,
propelled by panic. And when the underbrush thinned, they sprinted headlong,
tripping and falling, and getting up to run some more.
They were halfway home before Luke managed to get his hands on lan's
shoulders to slow the boy down.
"Ian!" he panted. "What was all that back there? Who's Junior?"
Still clutching the top-secret envelope and papers, Ian struggled to catch
his breath.
"A bomb," he wheezed finally. "An atomic bomb."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Day 9, 3:40 P.M.
Luke stared at him. "An atomic bomb?"
Ian nodded fervently. "It was all in this documentary on the Manhattan
Project, where they invented the first nuclear weapons back in World War Two.
They were supposed to build three bombs, code-named Fat Man, Little Boy, and
Junior. But the war ended after Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped. So Junior
never had to be built." He waved the envelope in Luke's face. "That
installation was going to be used to launch Junior, the third atomic bomb."
Luke looked doubtful. "And the Air Force justforgot this place?"
"It wasn't a real base," Ian reasoned. "There were only bunks for about
twenty or thirty people. All they needed were a couple of planes and someplace
to land them."
"The concrete!" Luke exclaimed. "That was their runway, right? And it just
Page 49
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
got busted up and overgrown after fifty years?"
"Probably," Ian agreed. He looked scared. "You don't think they're going to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plblacksoulman.xlx.pl
|
