Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [94]
Nina shot him a sharp look. ‘When was it built? For that matter, why was it built?’
‘They started construction in 1954,’ Kern told her. ‘It was designed as a way to ensure that the United States had a second-strike nuclear capability – no matter what the Soviets managed to achieve with a first strike against us, we’d have a backup bomber force able to be launched against them from a hidden base days or even weeks later. Problem was, by the time Silent Peak actually came online both sides had put ICBMs into service, making long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. So the base became a strategic reserve.’ He indicated the aircraft across the hangar. ‘Basically, it’s a storage facility.’
‘Lark the boneyaahds in Arizonah,’ said Eddie, referring to the huge desert ranges filled with mothballed planes.
‘Not quite – the vehicles there are just as likely to be scrapped or stripped for parts as returned to service. Everything stored here at Silent Peak can be made combat-ready within forty-eight hours, if needed. You’ll see our inventory on the way down.’
Nina looked ahead past lines of trucks and Humvees, but didn’t see anything that looked like a ramp or elevators, only a large black square on the hangar floor. ‘How do we get— Oh.’ Her eyes went wide as she realised what she was looking at.
The square wasn’t on the floor, but set into it, a separate entity. A gigantic elevator shaft.
‘Isn’t that something?’ said Kern, pride in his voice. ‘It’s two hundred and sixty feet on a side, and can bring a fully laden B-52 up from the lowest level in under five minutes. So I’m told, anyway. I’ve never seen it move anything that big myself – I only took command here last year.’
‘That’s . . . quite a thing, yes,’ Nina agreed. She wondered what future archaeologists, as far removed from the present as she was from the heyday of Atlantis, would make of Silent Peak. Would they have any comprehension of its original deadly purpose and the ideological conflict that spawned it?
She put such musings aside as Kern steered the buggy towards one corner of the open shaft. A metal cage marked a section roughly ten feet square. ‘Passenger elevator,’ the colonel explained as he pulled up alongside it. ‘There’s one at each corner of the shaft. It can be a bit unsettling, but it’s a lot easier than taking the emergency stairs. Okay, step aboard.’ The trio dismounted from the buggy, Kern opening a gate in the cage and walking through on to a platform with handrails round its edge. Once Nina and Eddie were on the platform, he closed the gate and went to a control panel. ‘The repository is on the lowest level.’
‘The depths of the earth,’ Nina remarked.
‘Yeah, you could say that. Some people say that if you listen hard enough, you can hear Satan himself at work underneath.’ Kern laughed briefly, then pushed a button. ‘Okay, here we go. Hold on.’
The platform dropped from the cage into a massive vertical shaft that fell away into oblivion. Nina instinctively recoiled from the edge, vertigo rising.
‘Don’t worry, Dr Wilde,’ said Kern. ‘It’s perfectly safe. Nobody’s fallen down it – at least, not on my watch!’
‘I think I’d still prefer more solid railings,’ she said. ‘Or, y’know, walls . . .’
The lift continued its journey. Great vertical tracks ran down the shaft’s sides; guides for the as yet unseen main elevator platform. At widely spaced intervals below were bands of light in the darkness marking the entrances to the base’s other levels. From the look of it, the repository could be almost half a mile underground. Even in the vastness of the shaft, the thought gave Nina a claustrophobic shudder.
The first level was approaching. ‘Take a look at that,’ said Kern, gesturing towards the hangar as it came into view.
It was full of aircraft. Bombers, the long, sinister charcoal-grey forms of a dozen, two dozen, more, B-52s packed into the space like lethal sardines. The eight engines of each plane were shrouded, the sleeping giants awaiting a new call to action.
‘That’s . . . that’s a lot of planes,’ Nina