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“Try saying ‘open sesame’ and hope for the best”

Zavala stood back and bellowed the fa happened he tried again in Spanish, also to no avail

“You know any ic words?” he asked Austin

“You just exhausted

They walked around behind the hangar Sticking out of the pers that could have been Quonset huts A dulass, but no entrance to the mound presented itself

It was Zavala who stumbled, literally, on the entrance

Austin alking several steps ahead of his partner when he heard a yell He turned quickly Joe had vanished as if the earth had sed hi this possibility, Zavala’s diseue of his ancestors, issued eerily froround Austin carefully backtracked and found Zavala in a cellar hole that had been covered over by vegetation Austin had walked right by the hole without seeing it

“Are you okay?” Austin called out

More s “Yeah, the brush that covered this damned hole cushioned my fall C’mon down There’s a short set of stairs”

Austin joined Zavala at the bottoht feet deep Joe was standing in front of a partially open door of heavily riveted steel

“Don’t tellinstinct”

“What else?” Zavala said

Austin pulled a sht from his pack The door noisily opened with some persuasion from his shoulder He stepped inside with Zavala close behind A blast of cold and fetid air hit the in front of an air conditioner for a ht showed a corridor whose concrete walls and ceiling were inadequate insulation against per their jacket collars tight around their necks, they started along the corridor

Several doors led off the ht inside the roo with decay testified to the use of one space as a bunkroo was a kitchen and pantry The last chamber was a communications room

“They left in a rush,” Zavala said The smashed vacuum tubes and radio cabinets looked as if they had been attacked with a sledgehammer