The Twelve

by Justin Cronin

  The years had scattered the others like the wind. Michael was at the refinery in Freeport, an oiler first class. Greer, who had joined them in Colorado, was in the stockade, sentenced to six years for deserting his command. And who knew where Hollis was. The man they’d known and loved like a brother had broken under the weight of Sara’s death, his grief casting him into the dark underbelly of the city, the world of the trade. Peter had heard he’d risen through the ranks to become one of Tifty’s top lieutenants. Of the original group, only Peter and Alicia had joined the hunt.

  And Amy. What of Amy?

  Peter thought of her often. She looked very much as she always had—like a girl of fourteen, not the 103 she actually was—but much had changed since their first meeting. The Girl from Nowhere, who spoke only in riddles when she spoke at all, was no more. In her place was a person much more present, more human. She spoke often of her past, not just her lonely years of wandering but her earliest memories of the Time Before: of her mother, and Lacey, and a camp in the mountains and the man who had saved her. Brad Wolgast. Not her real father, Amy said, she had never known who that was, but a father nonetheless. Whenever she spoke of him, a weight of grief entered her eyes. Peter knew without asking that he had died to protect her, and that this was a debt she could never repay, though she might spend her life—that infinite, unknowable span—trying to do just that.

  She was with Caleb now, among the sisters, having taken up the gray frock of the Order. Peter didn’t think Amy shared their beliefs—the sisters were a dour lot, professing a philosophical and physical chastity to reflect their conviction that these were the last days of humanity—but it was a more than adequate disguise, one Amy could easily pass off. Based on what had happened at the Colony, they’d all agreed that Amy’s true identity, and the power she carried, was nothing anybody outside the leadership should know.

  Peter walked to the mess, where he passed an empty hour. His platoon, twenty-four men, had just returned from a reconnaissance sweep to Lubbock to scout up salvageables; luck had been on their side, and they’d completed their mission without incident. The biggest prize had been a junkyard of old tires. In a day or two they’d return with a truck to take as many as they could carry for transport back to the vulcanizing plant in Kerrville.

  The senior officers had been in the tent for hours. What could they be talking about?

  His mind drifted back to the Colony. Odd that he wouldn’t think about it for weeks or even months at a time, and then, without warning, the memories would sail into his mind. The events that had precipitated his departure now seemed as if they had happened to somebody else—not Lieutenant Peter Jaxon of the Expeditionary or even Peter Jaxon, Full Watch, but a kind of boy-man, his imagination circumscribed by the tiny patch of ground that defined his entire life. How much energy had he devoted to nurturing his own feelings of inadequacy, manifested in his petty rivalry with his brother, Theo? He thought with wistful pride of what his father, the great Demitrius Jaxon, Head of the Household, Captain of the Long Rides, would have said to him now. You’ve done well. You’ve taken the fight to them. I’m proud to call you son. Yet Peter would have given it all back for just one more hour in Theo’s company.

  And whenever he looked at Caleb, it was his brother he saw.

  He was joined at the table by Satch Dodd. A junior officer like Peter, Satch had been a toddler when his family had been killed in the Massacre of the Field. As far as Peter was aware, Satch never said anything about this, though the story was well known.

  “Any idea what it’s all about?” Satch asked. He had a round, boyish face that made him appear completely earnest at all times.

  Peter shook his head.

  “Good haul up in Lubbock.”

  “Just tires.”

  Both their minds were elsewhere; they were simply filling time. “Tires are tires. We can’t do much without them.”

  Satch’s squad would be departing in the morning to do a hundred-mile sweep toward Midland. It was bad duty: the area was a cesspool of oil, bubbling up from old wells that had never been capped.

  “I’ll tell you something I heard,” Satch said. “The Civilian Authority is looking into whether or not some of those old wells can still be operated, for when the tanks go dry. We may find ourselves garrisoning down there before too long.”

  Peter was startled; he’d never considered this possibility. “I thought there was enough oil in Freeport to last forever.”

  “There’s forever and forever. In theory, yeah, there’s plenty of slick down there. But sooner or later everything runs out.” Satch squinted at him. “Don’t you have a friend who’s an oiler? One of your crew from California, wasn’t it?”

  “Michael.”

  Satch shook his head. “Walking all the way from California. That’s still the craziest story I ever heard.” He placed his palms on the table and rose. “If you hear anything from upstairs, let me know. If I had to bet, they’ll be sending all of us down to Midland to wade in the slick before too long.”

  He left Peter alone. Satch’s words had done nothing to cheer him; far from it. A half dozen enlisted clomped into the mess, talking among themselves with the rough-edged, profanity-laced familiarity of men looking for chow. Peter wouldn’t have minded a little company to take his mind off his worries, but as they moved from the line in search of a table, none glanced in his direction; the tarnished silver bar on his collar and the poor spirits he was radiating were evidently enough to ward them away.

  What could the senior officers be talking about?

  To abandon the hunt: Peter couldn’t imagine it. For five years he had thought of little else. He’d signed on with the Expeditionary right after Roswell; a lot of men had. For every person who’d perished that night, there was a friend, or brother, or son who had taken his place. The ones motivated solely by a need for revenge tended to wash out early or get themselves killed—you had to have a better reason—and Peter had no illusions about himself. Payback was a factor. But the roots of his desire went deeper. All his life, since the days of the Long Rides, he’d longed to be part of something, a cause larger than himself. He’d felt it the moment he’d taken the oath that bound him to his fellows; his purpose, his fate, his person—all were now wedded to theirs. He’d wondered if he’d be somehow less himself, his identity subsumed into the collective, but the opposite had proved true. It was nothing he could speak of, not with Theo and the others gone, but joining the Expeditionary had made him feel alive in a way he never had before. Watching the soldiers eat—laughing and joking and shoveling beans into their mouths as if it were the last meal of their lives—he recalled those early days with envy.

  Because somewhere along the way, the feeling had left him. As campaigns were waged and men died and territory was taken and lost, none of it seeming to amount to anything, it had slowly slipped away. His bond to his men remained, a force as abiding as gravity, and he would have sacrificed himself for any one of them without a flicker of hesitation, as, he believed, they would have done for him. But something was missing; he didn’t quite know what it was. He knew what Alicia would have told him. You’re just tired. This is a long slog. It happens to everyone, be patient. Not wrong, but not the whole story, either.

  Finally Peter could stand it no longer. He exited the tent and marched across the compound. All he needed was some pretext for knocking; with any luck, they’d let him inside, and he could glean some sense of what they were up to.

  He needn’t have bothered. As he made his approach, the door swung open: Major Henneman, the colonel’s adjutant. Trim, a bristle of blond hair, slightly crooked teeth he showed only when he smiled, which was never.

  “Jaxon. I was just going to look for you. Come inside.”

  Peter stepped into the shade of the tent, pausing in the doorway to let his eyes adjust. Seated around the broad table were all the senior staff—Majors Lewis and Hooper, Captains Rich, Perez, and Childs, and Colonel Apgar, the officer in charge of the task forc
e—plus one more.

  “Hi, Peter.”

  Alicia.

  * * *

  “There are two entrances I could find, here and here.”

  Alicia was directing everyone’s attention to a map spread over the table: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO. Beside it was displayed a second map, smaller and faded with age: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, CARLSBAD CAVERNS.

  “The main opening to the cave is about three hundred yards wide. There’s no way we can seal it even with our largest ED, and the terrain is too rugged to haul a flusher up there anyway.”

  “So what are you proposing?” Apgar asked.

  “We box him in.” She pointed to the map again. “I scouted another entrance, about a quarter mile away. It’s an old elevator shaft. Martínez has to be somewhere between these two entrances. We set off a package of H2 at the base of the main entrance, inside the tunnel that leads toward the shaft. This should drive him toward the bottom of the elevator, where we position a single man to meet him on the way out.”

  “A single man,” Apgar repeated. “Meaning you.”

  Alicia nodded.

  The colonel leaned back in his chair. Everyone waited.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant. I know what you’re capable of. We all do. But if this thing is anything like the one you saw in Nevada, it sounds to me like a one-way trip.”

  “Anybody else will just slow me down.”

  He frowned skeptically. “And you’re positive Martínez is down there.”

  “It all makes sense, sir. Babcock used a cave, too. And El Paso is just a hundred miles from Carlsbad. It’s his home turf.”

  Apgar thought a moment. “I agree, the pattern fits, but how can you be so sure?”

  Alicia hesitated. “I can’t really explain it, Colonel. I just know.”

  Peter was seated at the far end of the table. “Permission to speak, sir.”

  Apgar rolled his eyes. “Fine, Jaxon, go ahead and say what we all know you’re going to say.”

  “I’m the only other person here who’s seen one of the Twelve. I trust Lieutenant Donadio. If she says Martínez is down there, he’s down there.”

  “We’re all aware of your history, Lieutenant. That doesn’t change the fact that we’re just playing a hunch here. I don’t see risking anyone unless we know for sure.”

  “So maybe there’s another way. All of the original test subjects were chipped, like Amy. We can use the signal to locate him.”

  “I already thought of that. Just one problem. Radio waves can’t pass through rock. How do you propose to get a signal from a thousand feet underground?”

  “We don’t get it from the surface. We get it from the cave.”

  Peter drew their attention to the diagram again. “We do like Alicia says, positioning an H2 pack inside the tunnel that leads from the base of the main entrance into the other chambers. The Twelve are big, but in tight quarters that ought to be enough to get Martínez’s attention. The package is wired back to the base of the main entrance, where it’s connected to the surface by a radio detonator, so we can blow it at a safe distance. Call that Blue Squad.”

  Apgar nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  “Okay, but we don’t send a single man down the elevator shaft to meet Martínez on the way out. We send two, with a radio direction finder. Call that Red Squad. The first thing Red Squad does is plant a second pack of H2 near the base of the shaft. We put it on a short timer, say fifteen seconds. Man one proceeds into the cave, using the RDF to locate Martínez, but man two holds his position at the elevator. The trick will be keeping lines of sight to maintain radio contact with the surface, so that’s man two’s job. He’s the go-between. Basically we use a daisy-chain system. Man one is connected by radio to man two, who’s connected to whoever’s positioned at the top of the shaft, call him man three, who’s connected to Blue Squad. That way we can coordinate all the elements of the operation. No guesswork.”

  Apgar nodded. “Fair enough, but I’m already seeing the problems, Lieutenant. It’s a maze down there. What if men one and two lose contact? The whole thing collapses.”

  “It’s a risk, but there’s no reason they should, so long as the first man doesn’t go any farther than these three junctures.” Peter showed them on the map. “It won’t give us a whole view of the cave, but we should be able to survey most of it.”

  “Go on.”

  “So. We set the two packages, man one goes looking for Martínez, man two waits to hear. After that it’s just a question of the timing. Once man one locates Martínez, he radios back to man two, who contacts the surface. Blue Squad blows the hole. Martínez is pissed. Man one beats it back to the shaft, drawing him toward the elevator. Man two sets the timer. Up they go, the second package blows, Martínez is history.” He clapped his hands. “Simple.”

  Apgar considered this. “Not a lot of margin for error there. I know Donadio’s fast, but fifteen seconds won’t be much to get clear of the blast. I don’t know if we can winch anybody up that quickly.”

  “We won’t have to. The shaft itself will offer enough protection. Fifty feet should do it.”

  “Just to be clear, you’re talking about using man one as a decoy.”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done this before.”

  “Not me. Sister Lacey.”

  “Your mystic nun.”

  “Lacey was a lot more than that, Colonel.”

  Apgar placed the tips of his fingers together, glanced at the map, then raised his eyes to Peter’s face. “Man one is Donadio, obviously. Any idea who this other suicidal character might be?”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like to volunteer.”

  “And why am I not surprised?” Apgar turned to the others. “Anybody else want to chime in here? Hooper? Lewis?”

  Both men were agreed.

  “Donadio?”

  She glanced at Peter—Are you sure about this?—and then gave a tight nod. “I’m good with it, Colonel.”

  A brief pause, followed by a sigh of surrender. “All right, Lieutenants, this is your show. Henneman, you think two squads should do it?”

  “I believe so, Colonel.”

  “Brief Lieutenant Dodd and put a detail together to outfit the portables. And let’s see about that RDF. I’d like to move on this within forty-eight hours.” Apgar looked at Peter again. “Last chance to change your mind, Lieutenant.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He lifted his eyes to the room. “All right, everybody. Let’s show Command what we’re made of and kill this bastard.”

  Two nights later, they made camp at the base of the mountain. A pair of portables, twenty-four men sleeping on racks; they awoke at dawn to prepare their ascent. The ground around the portables was littered with tracks in the dust, the nighttime visitors, drawn by the scent of two dozen dozing men, a grand feast denied by walls of steel. The mountain was too steep for vehicles, the path winding. Anything they brought they would have to hump on their backs. Without the portables to protect them on the mountaintop, there would be no second chance. In the bright light of morning, the terms of their mission were starkly defined. Find Martínez and kill him, or die in the dark.

  Henneman was the senior officer—an irregularity. Rarely did he go outside the walls of the garrison. But he had made his way, over the years, to this position of relative safety by doing just the opposite. Tulsa, New Orleans, Kearney, Roswell—Henneman had ascended through the ranks on a ladder of battle and blood. No one doubted his capabilities, and his presence meant something. Peter would lead one squad, Dodd the other. Alicia was Alicia: the scout sniper, the odd man, the one who didn’t quite fit and seemed, by and large, to answer to no one. Everyone knew what she could do, yet her status was a source of unease among the men. No one ever said anything that Peter was aware of—if they spoke of their concerns, it wasn’t to him—yet their discomfort was evident in the way they kept their distance, the cautious glances they g
ave her, as if they could not quite bring themselves to meet her eye. She was a bridge between the human and the viral, situated somewhere between: where did she fall?

  They set out just after dawn. Now it was a race against the hours. They would need to set the charges and have everybody in position before sunset. The cool desert night had yielded to a scorching sun, its thrumming rays hitting their backs, then their shoulders, then the tops of their heads. There was no time to rest; rations were passed down the lines as they climbed, Alicia leading the way, occasionally doubling back to confer with Henneman. By the time they reached the mouth of the cave, it was late afternoon.

  “Jesus, you weren’t kidding,” Henneman said.

  They were standing at the cave’s mouth. The western sun lit the interior, though its rays traveled only so deeply; beyond lay a maw of blackness. The amphitheater with its curved stone benches, the spaces between them littered with dry leaves and other debris, was inexplicable; if an audience sat here, what did they watch? Metal banisters framed a curving trail that switchbacked down into the cave. They had three usable hours of daylight left.

  They reviewed the plan a final time. Dodd’s squad would set the charges at the base of the cave. According to Alicia’s map, the switchbacks ended two hundred feet belowground, where a narrow tunnel descended another three hundred feet to the first of several large chambers. The charges would be laid inside this tunnel, wired to a radio detonator with a clear line of sight to the cave’s mouth. The explosion would shoot a compression wave through the tunnel, its destructive force magnified exponentially by its trip through the narrow space—in theory, sending whatever was down there running toward the elevator shaft. Once the charges were in place and Dodd’s men had returned to the surface, Peter and Alicia would commence their descent. The elevator car was resting at the bottom, seven hundred feet below the surface, held in place by its counterweights, which were lodged at the top. A winch would lower Peter and Alicia by rope to the base of the shaft and pull them back up when they made their escape.