Part 18 (1/2)
Gregg nodded. ”I have a hunch. Even if I'm wrong, it'll be a good hiding place, because it's the last place they would look for us. And it's close by.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a key chain. ”Master keys,” he said with a smile. ”One of the advantages of being the ex-security chief. Come on.”
Once again they tried to look as natural as possible as they stepped into the eerie salmon-colored lights of the compound. People were running to and fro, and three more people in a hurry didn't raise much suspicion. They walked briskly down an adjoining street and followed Gregg as he dashed toward a doorway that was bathed in shadows. He tried the door, found it locked, and fumbled with his key chain for the magic key. As he did, Ro read the nameplate on the door.
Doctor Louise Drayton, the sign said.
Gregg cursed under his breath as he fumbled with the keys, but he finally got the door open, and they slipped inside. As Gregg had suspected, Louise Drayton was not at home. Too busy playing the new security chief, thought Ro.
Gregg brushed his hand over a panel on the wall and turned on a few lights, then rushed to the only window in the small cubicle and closed the curtains tight. At once, he began moving the bed, couch, and other furniture, searching for something on the floor.
”How do you know Drayton is the spy?” asked Ro. The nasty entomologist would certainly be her first choice, but she had seen no evidence.
”I had my first suspicions when we were aboard your s.h.i.+p,” answered Gregg. ”When we questioned that Klingon who saved our lives on the beach he said something about Balak. I asked who Balak was, and Drayton immediately answered that he was their leader. How did she know that?”
Myra suggested, ”Maybe the boy said that when he was our captive.”
Gregg shook head. ”I was present every time we questioned him, and he never told us anything that useful. My suspicions were confirmed when Drayton turned on us outside the radio room and ordered that Ro's communicator be confiscated.” He sank down to his knees and ran his hands over the floor. ”Now where is that d.a.m.n thing? It's gotta be here.”
”What are you looking for?” asked Myra.
The only other room in the tiny studio apartment was the bathroom, and Gregg Calvert jumped to his feet and ducked into it. Myra and Ro ran to the doorway and peered curiously over his broad shoulders. The bathroom had an ugly brown carpet on the floor that wasn't fastened down, because Gregg grabbed a corner and easily peeled it off. Under the carpet, resting on the cement floor, was a metal plate about a meter square.
”Bingo!” exclaimed Gregg Calvert. He grabbed the chunk of sheet metal and threw it off. There was a gaping black hole underneath.
”Wow!” gasped Myra. ”A tunnel!”
”Yeah,” said Gregg, ”I couldn't figure out any other way she could get past the guards and the wall.” He got down on his hands and knees and peered into the narrow abyss. ”There's a ladder,” he said, ”and what looks like a lantern and some other stuff at the bottom.”
”How did she dig it?” asked Myra.
Ro answered, ”It wouldn't be much problem with a phaser. She could carve it out in a couple of nights if she knew what she was doing.”
”She knows what she's doing all right,” muttered Gregg. ”She's destroying New Reykjavik by pitting the Klingons and the colonists against each other. But why?”
Ro frowned. ”So the Federation and the Klingons will both clear out and leave Selva to the Romulans.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds, mulling over the ramifications of their discovery. They were so silent they could hear the latch turning on the outside door. Ro motioned them back into the bathroom, and they stepped gingerly around the exposed hole. They barely got the bathroom door shut before the small dark woman entered her quarters.
”What's this?” Louise Drayton muttered to herself. ”What happened to my furniture?”
Ro decided not to let her make any more discoveries. She stepped boldly out of the bathroom, one hand behind her back.
”Hi!” said the Bajoran cheerfully.
Drayton gasped with surprise, then a smile crept across her ageless face. Ageless, thought Ro, thanks to a substantial amount of plastic surgery that had turned her from a Romulan into a human.
”Aren't you the cheeky one,” said Drayton with a begrudging admiration.
”Where's the real Louise Drayton?” asked Ensign Ro. ”Is her body buried on some far-off planet?”
The scientist smiled. ”I think I'll go tell President Oscaras you're here.”
”Please do,” replied Ro. ”I've got something to show him in the bathroom.”
That wiped the smile off the woman's face. She started to reach into her jacket pocket, but Ro was prepared. She whipped the spray bottle from behind her back and shot a burning stream of ammonia into the spy's face.
”Aaagh!” shrieked Drayton, staggering backward, ripping at her eyes. Despite her bad ankle, Ro charged across the room and smashed her fist into Drayton's face, sending the woman sprawling to the floor. Ro quickly grabbed the phaser from the woman's jacket pocket and leveled it at her. Her hand hurt from the blow she had delivered, but she felt awfully good otherwise.
”Where's my comm badge?” Ro demanded.
”I don't have it,” Drayton muttered. ”Oscaras has it.” She started to get up on one elbow.
”Don't move,” cautioned Ro. ”I haven't checked this phaser, but knowing you, it's probably set to kill.” She checked it and saw that it was, in fact, set to kill. She changed the setting to heavy stun.
Gregg and Myra stepped out of the bathroom, and Gregg's balled fists made it obvious that he wouldn't mind punching the doctor, too. ”What's going on out there?” he demanded.
Drayton blinked. ”You don't know?”
”They haven't exactly kept us informed,” said Gregg. ”What's going on?”
The doctor leapt to her feet and made a dash for the door, but Gregg stretched out a long leg and tripped her. That gave Ro time to paralyze her with a blue phaser beam. Louise Drayton lay crumpled on the floor.
Ro slumped into Drayton's couch and muttered, ”She'll be out at least an hour.”
Gregg shrugged. ”I doubt she would've told us anything, anyway.” He pointed to the bathroom. ”There's our way out of here. Do you still want to take it?”
”We have to,” said the ensign. ”When she doesn't return they'll come looking for her. And sometime they'll figure out we escaped, if they haven't already. But let's take her with us.”
Gregg Calvert was the first to lower himself into the tunnel, and he made a couple of interesting discoveries. ”This halogen lantern will be useful,” he said. ”And here's the costume she used to seduce the Klingons. There's also some kind of whip.”
”Let me see the whip,” said Ro. Gregg handed it up, and the Bajoran admired the peculiar device. ”This is no ordinary whip. I'm not sure how it works, but we need every weapon we can find.” She curled it up and stuck it into her belt, not far from Drayton's phaser. ”Are you ready for me to send down the doctor?”
”Sure,” answered Gregg, turning on the lantern and filling the hole with an eerie green-tinged light.
Ro smiled at Myra. ”Come on, you can help me.”
Fortunately, the diminutive doctor didn't weigh very much, even as a limp body, and Ro and Myra were able to carry her to the hole and lower her into Gregg's st.u.r.dy arms. He had to duck to enter the tunnel with her, but he and the doctor were soon out of sight.
He returned a moment later and called up, ”Let's go! You first, Myra. Ro, will you turn off the lights and see if you can cover the hole?”
”Right,” she answered. The ensign quickly shoved the furniture back into some semblance of order, locked the door, and turned off the lights. She lowered herself into the tunnel, feeling for the ladder with her feet. There was no way she could pull both the metal plate and the carpet over her head, so she opted to cover the hole with only the carpet. If somebody walked in to use the bathroom, they would get a rude surprise, but that couldn't be helped.
Once she had pulled the carpet over the hole and climbed down the rest of the way she felt like a mole in its burrow, despite the green light that emanated from the lantern only a few meters away. She could see Gregg and Myra silhouetted in its strange glow, plus the limp body of Doctor Drayton in Gregg's arms.
The tunnel had not been dug but rather vaporized with a phaser, leaving smooth walls that would have been the envy of ancient tunnel diggers. Nevertheless, a few roots and furry lichens poked their way through the soil, and the smell of damp earth was overpowering. Drayton had made the tunnel for herself, and Ro had to duck to keep from touching the wet things growing over her head.