Power Ch. 02

"Good catch, Norm." I said.

"Not the first time I've seen booby traps like that, sir." said Chow.

"Yeah, me either." said Hugh. "I'll go check them out." He went forward, not tripping the wires, going off the trail and seeing what the wires led to. Meanwhile, I was studying the trail itself.

"Yep, vehicles have come along here." I said. I took a photo of tire tracks with my iPhone. "I'll send this in later, but these look like tire treads typical of heavy-duty vans."

Hugh came back. "They're attached to little fireworks poppers. Kind of like what we used on training exercises. They make a loud noise, flash a bright light. Just warning devices."

"And if they're tripped, whoever comes in later can see they're tripped and know someone was here."

"Cindy," I said, "anything on the map?"

"No sir," Cindy said, checking the dash map. "Not for five miles."

"Do me a favor." I said. "Stay here and keep monitoring. Just blow the car horn if anything comes up."

"Wilco." Cindy said.

We made our way up the road, Hugh marking the taut fishing lines by draping thin pink plastic strips on them. When we got to the wall, we could then see that it was camouflaged, and the camouflage netting above us partially filtered the light from above. I pulled the camouflage back, and could see that there was a large round concrete tunnel, with a huge grate door over it, securing it.

"Wow." said Chow, his dispassionate voice belying the excitement he felt. "Looks like we found the entrance to the Batcave."

"Reminds me of the storm drain under County Jail." I said to Hugh, who nodded. The padlock securing the grate was efficiently picked. I peered inside with my binoculars, but there were no heat signatures.

"Let's go suit up." I said. "Norm, want to come in with me? Hugh, if you'll stay here at the entrance, you can shout at us if someone comes up the road or if Cindy blows the car horn."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hugh already had his armor on and was carrying an M-4. The rest of us put our armor on, and Agent Chow procured an M4 while I put my police gunbelt on, the Beretta M96 in its holster attached to the belt. I got night vision goggles and gave Norm the other set.

"The night vision stuff is only for 'just in case'." I said. I got out what looked like a miner's helmet. It had a six-inch concave mirror-ish reflector, and a very bright LED light. I put the helmet on. I gave Chow the other one, but he did not turn the light on.

I led the way into the tunnel, my heart beating with excitement, and also a bit of fear of not knowing what awaited us. Chow followed me. The very bright blue-white light lit up the sides of the concrete tube with an eerie gray color. There were spots of water on the floor and wet sides at places.

"Yep, vehicle drove into here." I whispered, pointing at the faint tire impressions. "This tube is just large enough for a van to drive through."

We continued down the tunnel, Chow leading the way with his M-4 rifle. I was counting the paces and estimated we'd gone about 150 feet when we saw two metal ladders going upwards.

"I'll check where these go to." I whispered. "Hold here." With that, I scurried up the ladder. My back reminded me that it was not 100%, but I ignored the pain and climbed up to a manhole cover. Pushing it to the side I looked up, seeing that I was inside an empty shed. I climbed up and out, then looked out of a crack between the old wood panels. I could see the sanitarium in the far distance as I looked south (the direction we'd come down the tunnel). I realized I was in one of the sheds in the very back of the property.

Descending back down, I saw Chow looking around just ahead. "This is an intersection." he said. "Goes left and right, and there are other ladders to the surface."

"That's what the sheds are for." I said. "They're hiding the manholes that lead to this tunnel. Someone could go into the shed, and no one would know they were descending below ground." Chow nodded.

We went forward. The tunnel ended, opening up into a wider space. I took off my light and pointed it straight up so that the entire room was illuminated, however dimly.

"Oh my God." I said.

The stench was pretty bad. Looking around the room, there were eight metal frame beds in a semi-circle, the heads of the bed against the wall of the circular room. Next to two of the beds were devices that controlled electricity to the beds, and I could see the jumper cables attached to the beds. Two of the other beds had mattresses. The mattresses were deeply stained with large splotches of blood. The floor beneath the other beds also had large circular spots, which were the blackish-red of dried blood, and there were some droppings of feces on the floor under the metal mesh of a couple of the beds.

And against the wall on the right side were two bolts of cloth... black velvet cloth.

"Mr. Chow," I said, "I believe we have a crime scene."

To be continued.