(Wrath-09)-Spiders From The Shadows (2013) Read Online Free PDF Page B

screen. 7:12 a.m. A little more than a day since James Davies had left.
    They should have heard something from him. They should have gotten the signal before now.
    James had been in Raven Rock for six or seven hours by this time.
    Brucius waited. At his side, a young officer waited with him. A couple of senior non-commissioned officers worked the communications console four rows back. Behind the non-commissioned officers, at the back of the room, behind a thick pane of one-way glass, the others waited. Some of them paced. Some of them slept in their chairs. A couple of them ate, picking at the salads and sandwiches the cafeteria had sent down.
    All of them were nervous, but none of them were nearly as fearful as Brucius.
    * * * * * * *

Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
    The first thing they did was to take James Davies’ clothes and burn them. Then they stripped him down, searched every inch of his body, sent him through an X-ray machine to check for implants, and left him in the room to wait, naked, cold, and scared.
    It was pretty clear that he was not among friends, and it was just as clear that they didn’t trust him. They didn’t trust anyone any more. Anyone outside the coven was the enemy, and there was no way for James Davies to invite himself in without raising deep suspicion.
    So they left him in the interrogation room off the entry into Raven Rock while they decided what to do.
    Time passed. Hours? A day? He didn’t know.
    Waiting, James got angry. It was one thing to be careful. This had nothing to do with that. To leave him there for hours, naked, without the dignity of something to even cover himself with, had nothing at all to do with security. It was part of the mental handicapping to bring him under their control, part of the psychological intimidation. “ You’re in our world now ,” was their implicit statement
    More time passed. He grew colder and angrier. A small metal chair was the only furnishing in the room. Sitting on it, he glanced in the upper corner, staring at the security camera. “A little clothing here would be nice!” he called angrily toward it, knowing they were watching. He turned to the wall where a couple of nondescript dime-store pictures had been mounted, know double glass doorsro fingering there were cameras and microphones concealed there as well.
    Realizing he was in for a long haul, he did the only thing he could think of. Having been subjected to the most humiliating search, naked, shivering, hungry, and exhausted, he stood up, walked to the corner, lay down, curled up, and fell asleep.
    * * * * * * *
    The doctor watched the intruder on the television monitor. Although he was middle-aged, the civilian psychiatrist was easily intimidated because he was new, having been recruited to work at Raven Rock just a few weeks before the EMP attack. The military officer standing beside him had three silver stars on his shoulders, but there was something about him that the doctor didn’t like. For one thing, he was far too young. How old could he be? Mid-thirties? And yet here he was, a general? The doctor shook his head. Yeah, things were in upheaval, and tens of thousands of senior officers had been killed in the nuclear attack on Washington, D.C., but come on, who was this kid? And who in the world had made him a three-star general? And his age wasn’t the worst of it. It was the pride and arrogance that bothered the doctor the most.
    He had been in Raven Rock only a couple of weeks, but he didn’t understand military protocol at all.
    The general watched the closed-circuit monitors for half a minute. It appeared James was asleep. “You’re certain he’s not contaminated?” the general demanded of the doctor.
    “Nothing, general. He’s clean as the day he was born.”
    “The X-ray?”
    The doctor held up a couple of dark monochromatic radiographs. “Nothing, sir. Nothing implanted under his skin. I assure you, he’s not carrying