“I wouldn't laugh if I were you; I already have a list of things for you to help me with,” Fitch said, his eyes twinkling when he looked at Cowan.

The elevator opened onto a short hall. They passed through a thick steel door. It was currently open but it could be shut to seal the hall off. They reached another closed door. This opened, again without an electronic palm scanner and they stepped out into the central tunnel where they'd first entered the mountain. Cowan noted they were considerably farther down the tunnel than the entrance where Lieutenant Parker had first led them through.

“So far, everything you've shown us is down from here; is there anything up?” Travers asked.

“The elevator you first came down in will also travel upwards. There are two unfinished conference rooms and a big space which I plan to make into an off-duty lounge. There will be some personnel quarters there too. I'm not certain how many, it all depends on how much they can tunnel out. There are also several passages to the top; they carry cables for antenna arrays, radar, and environmental scanners. There's also a small crawl space which leads to the top for maintenance of those systems.”

Fitch led them out through the wide mouth of the tunnel to where easily a hundred men and women worked on constructing a building which resembled a large hotel. “I ordered this work to begin the day I got here, and they're moving at a decent speed. We'll be tripling the number of workers on the underground complex at least, and we need somewhere for them to stay. As soon as this building is complete, they'll be starting an identical one beside it.”

Travers noticed that work was being done on the permanent helipads and the large lights that would make for safe night landings. Because she had previously flown helicopters for the Army, this immediately caught her attention.

Returning to the tunnel, they walked about a third of the way down its length before stopping. Giant recessed double doors stood on either side. Fitch went to the ones on the left and they entered a long hall. At two locations along the hall, there were huge open doors that when shut, would completely seal off the hall. The last doors at the end opened into a massive cavern, easily the size of four football fields and perhaps fifty feet high.