“The motion sensors haven’t detected anything up there since right after the attack, except a few stray anomalies that probably weren’t human. Even those seem to have gone away. The survivors who were left, they’ve either moved on somewhere else or . . .”
“Or died,” Susan finished for him.
“The shape they were in, some of them are bound to have passed away by now,” Larkin agreed.
“What if they just pulled back? What if they’re still close by and see you and the others moving around?”
“We’ll be better armed than they are,” Larkin said confidently. “Chances are, if that happens they’ll steer clear of us. They probably don’t want any more to do with us than we do with them.”
“And you’re sure of that.”
“Nothing in life is certain, babe.”
She glared at him for a moment, then sat down beside him again. He took that as a small victory.
After a couple of minutes of silence, she asked, “Who’s going with you?”
“I’ll have to ask for volunteers, of course.”
“I can tell you who’s not going with you, Patrick.”
“Jill,” he said before she could go on. “Yeah, I already thought of that. She’ll probably want to, but I’m in command of this mission, so I have the final say on who stays and who goes.”
“She’s going to be very angry with you.”
“Hey, she’s been angry with me before. Remember that guy in high school . . . what was his name?”
“Danny,” Susan said.
“Yeah, Danny. She was convinced she was in love with him, and when I told her she wasn’t, she threatened to move out.”
“And then she broke up with him a week later.”
“After breaking his finger when he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Larkin sighed in satisfaction. “That’s my girl.”
Susan leaned against his shoulder. “But she’s still not going with you.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Larkin said.
* * *
The heat and the staleness of the air grew worse over the next few days, though not unbearably so. Rumors ran rampant throughout the project, though, and the level of anxiety was high. Most people didn’t know what was going on, and naturally, most of them assumed the worst.
Without going into detail, Larkin put the word out among the security force that he was looking for volunteers for an urgent, vital mission that might involve a high degree of risk. He didn’t say anything about it to Jill, but he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she got wind of it anyway. She confronted him one day in the Command Center.
“What’s this about some secret mission?” she asked. “If you’re looking for volunteers, Dad, you know you don’t even have to ask.”
“Yeah, I know,” Larkin said. “Which is why I didn’t’t ask.”
Jill’s eyebrows drew down in a puzzled and maybe a little bit of an angry frown. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean you’re not going.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Just like that.”
“Yep. Just like that.”
For a moment she glared at him, then said, “Mom put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t have to. It just so happens I’m in complete agreement with her. You’ll be staying here.”
“Because you think I can’t handle myself if there’s trouble?”
“You know better than that,” Larkin scoffed. “You’re staying here because your mother, your husband, and my grandkids are staying here. I can’t afford to be worrying about them while I’m trying to take care of business on the surface. And I won’t worry if I know you’re down here looking after them. Besides, you have enough medical skills that they might come in handy down here.”
“So you’re just trying to butter me up to get your way.”
Larkin grinned. “Is it working?”
She didn’t answer that. Instead, she asked, “So the rumors are true? You are going up to the surface?”
“A small group. There are some things the project needs, and we’re going to look for them.”
“It’s a scrounging party?”
“That’s right,” Larkin said with a nod. He looked around, saw that no one else was in earshot at the moment, and went on, “We need parts for the generators as well as more gasoline if we can get it.”
“The generators are failing, and that’s why the life-support systems haven’t been working at full capacity?”
“You got it, kid.”
Jill frowned and asked, “Where are you going to find parts? Everything got blown to hell.”
“We were on the outer edge of the blast wave. Not everything was destroyed. Some buildings are probably left, and what was inside them will be, too. There have to be some vehicles around, as well. Generators are basically gasoline engines. We can get some parts off cars and trucks that the engineers can rig to work. That’s what they’ve told Graham, anyway.”
Jill was thinking now. He could tell that by her expression. She said, “You can siphon gas from the tanks of any vehicles you find intact.”
“Yeah. We might even find some underground storage tanks that are still all right, like at that convenience store a few miles west of here.”
“You’re going that far away from the project?” she asked in surprise and a certain amount of alarm.
“We’ll go as far as we have to in order to get what we need,” Larkin told her. “We’ll take enough supplies for a few days.”
“This could turn out to be very dangerous. If you take me along, I’ll have your back. You know that, Dad.”
“I know,” he said. “But like I told you, it’s more important for you to stay here and keep an eye on things.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m not sure I completely trust Graham anymore.”
That surprised Jill, too. “You don’t? But without him—”
“I know, I know. We’d all be dead. Nobody’s disputing that. But he’s said and done some things—” Larkin thought about the way Moultrie had killed those surface survivors who had tried to break through the top of the service elevator. Jill didn’t know about that, and right now she didn’t need to. “Let’s just say that he worries me. Too much power can go to a guy’s head.”
“And the way he changed the food rationing without any warning was kind of, well, harsh.” Jill nodded slowly. “I guess I see what you mean. All right. I don’t like it, but I understand. I’ll stay here to guard against any more trouble. But you have to promise me you’ll be careful up there.”
“Of course. Just like I always promised your mother.”
“And you didn’t mean it then, either, did you?”
Larkin couldn’t argue with that.
* * *
A day and a half later, Larkin had his team assembled. He was taking eight men with him, so that three of the hazmet suits could remain down in the project if they were needed. He had only male volunteers, but if anyone gave him any trouble about that, he could honestly say that Jill was the only woman who had offered to come along. And if they wanted to accuse him of patriarchy, they could go right ahead and do so. He didn’t give a damn.
To keep more rumors from spreading, they assembled in the middle of the “night” when most of the project’s residents were sleeping. They would use the service elevator to reach the surface. Ruskin and the other survivors had gotten in that way, so it stood to reason Larkin and his team could get out.
He looked around at the other eight men in the hallway. Graham Moultrie was there, too, with his hands in his jeans pockets and a solemn expression on his face.
Larkin wished the hazmat suits weren’t made of bright yellow plastic. The colorful outfits would make them easier to spot on the surface, especially in the gray, overcast environment. That was what Moultrie had on hand, though, and the protection the suits offered was important, at least until Larkin could determine what the conditions were up on the surface.
They were taking along ins
truments that would allow them to monitor the air quality and radiation level. If those things were close enough to safe, they would remove the hazmat suits and stow them in the packs they were taking along. If they ran into trouble, it would be a lot easier to move around in a hurry without the bulky suits on.
Larkin had put some thought into selecting his team. Two of the men were engineers whose normal job was maintaining the generators and life-support systems. They would be able to tell what was needed and what they could make work. Larkin had had a long talk with them to make sure they were aware of the dangers they might encounter on the surface. Both men were willing to run that risk.
The other six members of the team were, like Larkin, members of the security force. Three of them carried pump shotguns. The other three were armed with AR-15 s, as was Larkin. Each man, including the two engineers, also had a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist, over the hazmat suit. With the protective gloves they wore, handling the guns wouldn’t be as easy as it would have been otherwise, but until they determined what the surface conditions were, they were going to err on the side of caution.
Unfortunately, caution had some inherent trade-offs, as Larkin well knew.
As they gathered in front of the service elevator, Moultrie said, “On behalf of everyone here in the Hercules Project, I want to express our appreciation to you men. This is a dangerous mission on which you’re embarking, but one that’s vital of the survival of everyone here.”
“We know that, Graham,” Larkin said, his voice muffled by the plastic helmet of the hazmat suit. It sounded odd to him in his own ears. “We’ll stay in touch as much as possible, but we may wind up going out of range of the walkie-talkies.”
“Do what you need to do,” Moultrie said with a grim nod. “Just bring us back what we need to keep going.”
Larkin returned the nod. There was nothing left to say. The group had gone over the plan, such as it was, until everyone knew exactly what they were doing. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, there were simply too many unknowns to take into account.
They were going into hostile territory, and they would have to play things by ear until they saw what it was like up there.
Even through the suit, Larkin heard the rumble that told him the hatch at the top of the shaft was opening. The elevator door slid back. The nine men trooped into it, carrying their weapons and packs.
Earlier, Larkin had had dinner with Susan, Jill, Trevor, Bailey, and Chris. The kids didn’t know what he was going to be doing, but the adults did. Even though Larkin didn’t intend it as such, there was an unmistakable feeling that this might be the last time they would all see each other. It had always been like that when men went off to war, he supposed, no matter how far back you went in history.
Later, when the two of them were alone, he had held Susan for a long time, each drawing strength and comfort from the other.
Then he had saddled up, figuratively speaking, and left to do the job that had fallen to him.
Now the eight men turned to face Moultrie, who gave them a smile of encouragement. Larkin pressed a button on the elevator’s control panel. The door closed, and with a slight lurch, the elevator started up toward the surface.
Chapter 43
The elevator opened in the rear wall of a large basement that had been used for storage when this place was a missile base. On the far side of the space was a broad ramp where trucks had backed down into the basement so they could unload. Larkin wasn’t clear on how the giant Nike Hercules missiles had been loaded into their launch silos, but at this point it didn’t matter. The tops of those silos had been sealed up and covered with tons of earth, so no one could ever go in or out that way.
When Larkin stepped out of the elevator, holding the AR-15 ready in case of trouble even though sensors reported nothing moving around up here, he couldn’t resist the urge to tip his head back and look upward. The building above this basement had mostly collapsed into it, leaving piles of rubble everywhere and open air above.
He was looking up at the sky, Larkin thought. For the first time in almost a year, he was gazing at the heavens again, as man had done from time immemorial.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a damned thing to see. For one thing, it was night, and for another the thick overcast that had hung above the earth for months was still in place. The gloom was thick as mud. There was too much debris down here for the team to move around safely without any light, so Larkin let the others emerge from the elevator, then said, “We’ll wait right here for morning.”
That was part of the plan they had all gone over ahead of time, so no one was surprised. If the others were anything like Larkin, they were eager to get out of here and back onto the surface, but they all knew it would be better not to show any lights that could draw attention to them.
The engineers, doubling as environmental techs for this mission, busied themselves taking readings, gathering their samples, and then going back into the elevator to check them so the lights they used to see the instruments wouldn’t show. Larkin tried not to hover over them, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How does it look?”
“The air quality has a slightly higher particulate level than usual,” one of the men responded. “That’s probably due to the massive quantities of ash that were lifted into the upper-atmosphere as a result of the nuclear explosions. That ash has been circling the planet, carried by the upper-level winds, but slowly settling back to earth ever since.”
“It wouldn’t have all come back down by now?”
The man shook his head. “No, it may take a couple of years, maybe even longer, before the so-called nuclear winter is over. By this point, you probably won’t be able to see what’s in the air, but if your helmet was off, you could smell it, like you were in the vicinity of a big forest fire.”
“And that ash is radioactive,” Larkin said, trying not to sound dispirited.
The other engineer said, “Yes, but a lot of things in our normal lives were radioactive. It’s a matter of how much. By now the radiation from the contaminants in the air, as well as in the soil and the debris that’s left, has decayed to the point that it’s not extremely hazardous.”
“You’re saying we can take off these suits and breathe the air?”
“Well,” the man said, shrugging, “short-term exposure should be fine. If you were to spend years living in these conditions, your risk of developing cancer or some other form of radiation-related sickness would be somewhat higher than the normal, everyday risk in our old lives, before the war. But probably not dramatically so.”
“But don’t go taking off that hazmat suit just yet,” the first man said. “Give us a chance to take some more readings once we’re actually up on the surface, just to be sure.”
That made sense, Larkin thought. Again, they were going to be careful instead of reckless . . . although a big part of him wanted to yank that helmet off right now.
The three hours or so until dawn were some of the longest of Larkin’s life. And when morning finally did arrive, the blackness faded to gray at such a gradual pace it was almost indistinguishable. Only when Larkin realized he could see the piles of rubble in the basement did he understand that the time had come to move out.
The men were more than ready. They had sat down in the elevator, but when Larkin told them to get ready, they scrambled to their feet as quickly as they could in the bulky suits. He studied the wreckage in the basement and picked out a path through the rubble to the ramp, which appeared to be intact. Turning his head a little, Larkin said to the others, “Follow me.”
He led the way across the basement, up the ramp, and into the open. Setting foot on actual ground, rather than steel or concrete or tile, made another thrill go through Larkin. He paused and looked around while he waited for the rest of the team to climb up out of the basement.
Larkin had seen the aftermath of numerous wildfires in his life, and that was what the scenery around the Hercules Project reminded him of.
Gray, barren hillsides met his gaze no matter where he looked. The scrubby trees that had covered so much of the landscape around here were all gone, except for a few twisted trunks with dead branches extending from them like skeletal fingers.
The buildings had been flattened by the concussion of the nuclear blast twenty miles away. Here and there a small piece of cinder-block wall stuck up from the charred ground. The brick wall along the perimeter, which should have been visible, was nowhere to be seen. Larkin looked in the direction of downtown Fort Worth, but in the persistent gloom the horizon quickly faded to a hazy nothingness.
The clouds overhead were thick and gunmetal gray as they scudded slowly along, driven by a chilly wind. The sealed suits protected the men from that wind and retained their body heat, keeping them comfortable. Right now, though, Larkin wouldn’t have minded feeling the cold on his face. It would remind him that he had climbed up out of the ground and was walking on the earth again like a man.
He turned to the two engineers, who were studying their instruments. “How’s it look?”
“The readings are consistent with the ones we took down in the basement,” one of the men reported. “I think we should stay suited up for a while, though, just to be on the safe side.”
A surge of recklessness welled up inside Larkin for a moment. He had survived the greatest disaster to hit the planet since that asteroid had come along and wiped out the dinosaurs. He was sick and tired of playing it safe.
However, the more pragmatic part of his nature won out. He nodded and said, “We’ll keep the suits on while we take a look around.”
Larkin could tell where the main road leading into the project had been. Some of the asphalt was still visible. He led the men along it toward the county road. As they came closer, he saw the rusted hulks of hundreds of cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs along the route where people had tried to flee. Some of them were overturned and lay on their tops or sides. Others were scattered haphazardly in the ditches, as if a giant hand had picked them up and flung them around. The blast wave had done that, Larkin knew.
The Doomsday Bunker Page 28