Page 82 of When the Silence Breaks

Ryder and Sarah moved closer together. “Ready?” He glanced her way.

She shook her head. Right. Neither was he. His feet were starting to ache from the cold.

After a soft pop, the hatch angled open and Smith stepped back and away. Dr. Kepler motioned for Ryder and Sarah to go first.

Of course.

He entered first, crouching and then stepping inside the fuselage, preparing himself mentally for breaching a crypt. He turned to assist Sarah in, and she took his hand. Once inside, he took in the surroundings. Since he breathed through an oxygen tank, he couldn’t smell anything and had to wonder what the inside of this plane smelled like. He imagined stale metal, old oil, or something chemical. Just how many had been in the plane on its failed mission? He turned on the small tactical light that was clipped to his SCBA harness, and the light flickered across the space, landing on crumpled jump seats and skeletal remains. The usual bench seat one would expect on this kind of transport lined the walls. Most were twisted from the crash. Ryder had to turn to shine the light where he needed and wished for a flashlight. Sarah carried one and flicked it on.

He spotted a rusted ammo crate on its side, the contents long frozen. Old canvas straps dangled like limp arms. Dr. Kepler followed Sarah inside, and he carried a small portable floodlight, which he set up.

“Kepler, what are we looking for, exactly?” Though he thought he had an idea.

“That reinforced container,” Kepler said, moving toward the case at the back, leaning on its side where the warped flooring had twisted beneath it, the straps holding it in place despite the wreckage. Even in the hazmat suit, Kepler had a bounce to his step. Weird. Was the guy excited about all the possibilities of his discovery? Kepler had to be some kind of mad scientist.

Ryder followed him, unsure why he and Sarah were even made to come inside. On the container, stenciled markings could barely be read through the thin crust of ice clinging to it.

A circle with a tilted X—one arm jutting past the rim.

Faded letters.

Alpha-X.

His pulse skyrocketed as he read the rest.

Alpha-X Transfer Protocol. Authorized Personnel Only.

Holt had told him, forewarned him. Kepler had confirmed the terror inside. This was it, then, the container they were never supposed to find. Heart jackhammering, Ryder backed away slowly, urging Sarah to do the same.

“Dr. Kepler, what exactly was your plan?” he asked. “That container is likely sealed. It could be pressurized. Could be toxic, if everything inside is broken. You can’t open that in here.” And yeah, maybe he was insulting this man, but he didn’t trust anyone involved in this operation.

“Open it.” A new voice resounded behind them. Reid Maddox.

Maddox pushed past Sarah and Ryder, making his presence known. He’d donned his own suit. He obviously hadn’t trusted any of them to get the job done, so he was a hands-on kind of man.

“Dr. Kepler, here’s the canister you’ll need for the transfer.” Maddox handed a canister over to the mad scientist.

Kepler examined it as if disappointed in the size. “What happens to anything that remains?”

“We bury it.”

“It was already buried, and we found it. That isn’t good enough,” Dr. Kepler said.

“Then we destroy it.”

“We don’t know the safest way to destroy it yet,” Kepler added.

“Open it now or step aside,” Maddox said.

Backing toward the exit, Sarah nearly stumbled over skeletal remains, and Ryder caught her elbow. “Steady.”

She nodded, her eyes wide with fear, darting around the plane as if searching. He suspected that, like him, she was continuing to try to formulate an escape plan, and now they were actually in the dragon’s lair, the worst place they could be or—at least at this moment—imagine.

He glanced toward the front of the plane that appeared like a narrow tunnel. His headlamp pierced the darkness that remained in the forward shadows despite Kepler’s lamp. The light bounced off the frosted, cracked windows. Snow and ice blocked that path and made an escape impossible. This place was a frozen time capsule. Sarah’s grandfather had been on this plane and escaped somehow ...witha vial. That made no sense, considering the containment protocol. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and the man they only knew as Walter Ellison had gotten proof—and did nothing until his last days.

Ryder couldn’t remember feeling so completely trapped and useless ... except ... that one other time, and the thought scrambled his brain. Tormented his mind because he was here, so close, so ridiculously close to the same place where a rescue team had to climb to save a guy. Oh, they’d saved himfrom his foolish climb, and Ryder’s father had paid the price. That urgent need to press his palms against his eyes, pinch his nose, scratch his chin—anything to chase away the anxiety—overwhelmed him in this helmet that prevented his action.

But that was the past, and this was happening now, and Ryder had a chance to make a difference.