"Where did you get such a sunny disposition?" Solly said to Epstein before heading out of the house to the waiting Humvees.
And Janice slept on.
Chapter 19
They parked the Humvees around the back of the middle school at Kawameeh Park in Union. DiSanto was visibly uncomfortable at leaving their ride home unguarded, but there was no alternative—every person was going to be needed if they were to have a chance of success.
Each of them took 15KG of explosives, blast caps and a reel of cord. Kuchinsky and DiSanto had twin controllers, either of which could be used to set off the charge. They hid the Humvees as best they could and memorized their location relative to the local golf course before walking in single file along a leaf-clogged road lined by big houses with burned out supercars on their drives.
It was a six and a half mile hike to the airport from here, but they'd not dared drive any closer as the main streets had been cleared, suggesting Lee Corp was expanding in this direction, so Kuchinsky had backed up a little to find a hiding place.
Solly plodded along, scanning the surroundings for any sign of life. For most of the journey here, they'd encountered people, most of them walking away from the city, heading for the illusory safety of DC. They'd seen no evidence of Lee forces, so DiSanto had yet to test his minigun in action, though it had certainly deterred trouble along the way. Even the best equipped group of bandits would shy away from taking on a Humvee with an expertly handled machine gun.
Shading his eyes from the bright sun, Solly noticed the subtle change in the color scheme. Where all had been shades of brown, there was now a suggestion of light green, as if new life were beginning to reassert itself. Now that he was paying attention, he thought he could detect the hint of spring in the air as he listened to the birds hidden in the bushes.
The turning of the seasons. But, if this were to be a world in which humanity—or, at least, free humanity—was to play a part, then they had to succeed in this mission. He found himself wondering whether there were other groups or individuals, also struggling against the evil of the Lee Corporation and their allies. It would be good to feel that he and his comrades weren't the only ones in this fight.
He thought about Janice. She would be beyond angry right now. She'd call it a betrayal. She'd say she could never trust him again. But she'd be alive to say it. And his thoughts inevitably moved on to Bella, Jake and Maddie, and guilt rose like a shroud to darken his heart. He hadn't gone to look for them. Oh, he had good reasons, very good reasons. It would have been irresponsible to run off to Texas once he'd been entrusted with the cylinder that revealed itself as Alison. She was now safely hidden at the farmhouse, awaiting her so far unrevealed purpose in this drama. She was safe, but what about his flesh and blood family?
Bella. Now there was a complicated puzzle. She’d encouraged him to move away to New York City so, as it turned out, she could be with her new lover. Then she’d filed for divorce. They’d barely spoken to each other in the months between that betrayal and the Long Night. And yet, in his way, he still loved her. They’d spent two decades together and he realized, as he pondered his ex-wife, that he deeply wanted her to be alive, whoever she was with, but that their paths had long ago divided. Except as parents and, perhaps, friends. He smiled at that thought.
Solly trudged along the tree-lined avenue that marked the southern border of the park and made a silent promise. If he survived the mission, he would return to Beth-Anne's community and take whatever Janice had to throw at him. Then he was going to head south. He had done enough. It was time to find his family.
They took a ten-minute break in a chapel on Morris Avenue. Adeyemi stood guard at the entrance, standing among the remains of a broken down doorway. Kuchinsky and DiSanto sat consuming their rations and exchanging quiet words with Paul Buchanan while the others clustered together. Except for Vivian. The young woman sat wiping down her rifle, stopping now and again to nibble on something, but otherwise focusing entirely on her weapon.
"I'm worried about her," Epstein whispered.
"What?" Solly said. He'd been wandering the pathways of possibility as he imagined how he was going to repair his relationship with Janice. Their forthcoming mission was still pretty abstract to him, whereas his love for her was something he could grip onto, though the prospect of losing her frightened him more than the Lees. For now.
Epstein stabbed him with her finger. "Vivian, over there! She hasn't said a word since we got out of the Humvees and she wasn't exactly talkative before that. I'm warning you, Solly, she's flaky. We'd better hope she finds some Lee Corp goons to kill before she loses what little self control she still has."
Kuchinsky squatted down beside them. "We're going to have to be more careful from here. Adeyemi, DiSanto and me will scout on ahead and then, if the way's clear, we'll signal for you to follow. We'll stay in the line of sight, but we're getting close to the airport now and we're bound to run into security at some point if we're not careful."
They hid among the rotting cars on an overpass off Highway 1 that gave a view over the northern perimeter of Newark Liberty International. Paul Buchanan had suggested that any fabrication plant would have been built at this end of the airport, ideally placed as it was for access to the runways. They'd seen no planes taking off, but Solly had no doubt the Lee Corporation was capable of long range flight and the last thing he wanted was for Reapers to be shipped across the country.
Of course, it was possible they were too late to stop at least some drones from being deployed. After all, it was unlikely that the one they'd seen in DC was the only unit in existence, even though Scott said it was probably an early model or prototype.
"If I was building a factory," Buchanan said, as they crouched behind a disintegrating pickup, "I'd do it there."
He was pointing at a huge white United Airlines building.
"Self contained and easy to secure," he said.
"I don't see any signs of movement," Kuchinsky said, peering through his binoculars at the base of the building. "At least, not on this side. Looks deserted to me."
Buchanan shrugged. "Maybe you're right. I'm only saying what I would do. I'm not Lee Corp."
"No, you're not batshit crazy," Becky Epstein mumbled. "Though coming along with us would probably qualify you for therapy at the very least."
"We've got to get inside the perimeter somewhere. It might as well be here, surely?" Solly said. "Looks as though we can get pretty close under cover. The south side has been cleared completely."
Kuchinsky called them together. "We'll split into our two squads now. Corporal DiSanto and Private Adeyemi will accompany Miss Richards and Scott. Paul, Solly and Mrs. Epstein will be with me. We will operate as a single unit unless this becomes impossible, at which point you are directed to focus on the mission aim."
"We need to find the CCM Suite," Paul said for what felt like the hundredth time. The Computer Controlled Manufacturing room contained the brains of the automated production line the Lees had developed in the years before the Long Night. It seemed extremely unlikely they'd introduced a new fabrication process in the last few months, so the plant below would contain equipment moved from outlying factories to the airport.
"Right, we got it," DiSanto said. "Find the computers, blow them up, then get the hell outta there."
Paul smiled and shrugged. "That's about the size of it, Corporal. It'd be nice to get out alive, of course."
"Oh, I plan to," he said. "Me and the lad." He thumped Adeyemi on the arm.
There's another of us who's barely holding himself together, Solly thought, and he wondered why Kuchinsky had chosen to put both Adeyemi and Vivian in the same group. Self preservation, perhaps?
They crept along the overpass as it swept down to run parallel to the United complex. The closer they got, the slower their progress as they flitted from car to car until, outside the airport perimeter, the road had been cleared completely so they were forced to hide in the shadows while Kuchinsky scoped
the way ahead.
"Still nothing," he said, dropping his binoculars. "This is beginning to feel like a wild goose chase.
"No, we're in the right place. Can't you hear it?" Vivian had appeared alongside him and was cupping her ear.
One of the first things Solly had noticed on the day after the Long Night was the silence. It wasn't just the loss of the obvious sounds of cars revving up and trucks reversing, it was the absence of the background hum that was the signature tune of human civilization.
He strained to hear anything now. There were no birds here, but the wind slipped between the pillars of the overpass and he couldn't detect anything else. The wind dropped and there it was. "I hear a hum," he said. "She's right."
Adeyemi nodded, but none of the others could be sure. Becky Epstein hadn't bothered at all; she just looked at Solly and said, "Tinnitus. My ears are never quiet."
"Let's go," Kuchinsky said. He set off at a crouching run, followed by DiSanto and Adeyemi. Solly watched them as they crossed the road and then squatted down on the edge of the road, looking painfully exposed.
After a few seconds, Kuchinsky waved at them to follow and, as Solly and the others complied, he moved into the parking lot of the blue rectangular building next to the United hangar.
There was no doubt about the sound now, and it was coming from somewhere close at hand, but Solly could see that Kuchinsky was troubled.
"This ain't right," he said. "Sounds as though it's right here, but there's no guards, not a living soul."
"Maybe they're short handed. They're fighting DC, after all," Scott said.
Something was tugging at Solly's subconscious, something that was triggering his monkey brain and telling it to run. He fought back. He was just nervous. Perfectly understandable. He followed Kuchinsky along the blue steel wall, his carbine held at the ready, safety disengaged.
They slipped left at the end of the building, heading toward the squat white rectangle of the hangar. The humming was now obvious even as they ran, but the further he went, the more his hind brain wanted to run away. They stopped for a moment halfway along the shorter side of the blue building and Solly tried to calm his hammering heart. He took deep breaths, but it was as if his subconscious was trying desperately to make him aware of something deadly. As if he were creeping into a nest of vipers, unaware of the dangers hidden in the hissing sound.
As the others caught their breath and checked their weapons, Solly did nothing but listen. There was the hum, just as they'd heard it from across the road, only louder.
And then he knew. Hidden in the hum.
"We've got to go!" he said, grabbing Kuchinsky by the arm.
"Hold steady, Sol. Now's not the time to bail," Kuchinsky said, not unkindly.
"You don't understand, you weren't there last time," he said, aware that he sounded like a lunatic.
He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Becky Epstein looking at him, her normally cynical expression replaced by obvious concern. "Calm down, Solly. You can do this. We'll get it over with as quickly as we can, alright?"
Solly spun back to Kuchinsky. "Joe, I know why there are no guards."
"What? Why?"
"Because they don't need them. They're building their own security."
Right on cue, a black shape floated around the corner of the building, weapons leveled.
"Run!"
They scattered. Just as Kuchinsky turned to lead them back the way they'd come, Vivian made a break to the right, heading toward the white United building. Not knowing why he was doing it, Solly ran after her, keeping low like a prey animal. He caught up with her as she reached the foot of the hangar and slipped around the corner.
Grabbing her arm, she spun around and something sharp whistled through the air. A hand appeared and grabbed Vivian by the wrist.
Becky Epstein pushed the girl backwards. "We're not the enemy, sweetheart."
"S…sorry," she said, panting and wiping the sweat from her forehead. She was a small, lithe woman with short dreadlocks and a much paler face than her brother. She didn't look dangerous until you caught the look in her eyes. It was the expression of someone living only for revenge.
Gunfire erupted from around the corner as Kuchinsky and DiSanto fired up at the drone. Their carbines did nothing more than deflect the Reaper, and then Solly saw its barrels spin and pushed Epstein and Vivian away. "There's no point trying to help them, all we can do is decide whether to run for it or try to complete the mission. They may only have one drone."
"I'm goin' in," Vivian said.
Solly nodded. "Yeah. We've come too far to back down now."
Epstein sighed. "Who am I to stand in the way of a bona fide death wish?"
They rounded the corner of the hangar and looked down the long runway. "They're coming," Solly said, pointing along the asphalt. There, in the distance, vehicles could be seen moving. "We've got very little time."
The hangar was closed, but it looked as though it had been raided before Lee Corp had taken control and the lock on the steel door had been shattered and not replaced. Solly kicked the door down and Vivian slipped inside before he could stop her.
"Viv!" he hissed. "We've got to stick together. We need all the explosives."
"In case you hadn't noticed," Epstein snapped. "We haven't got a controller."
"Then I suggest you go get one!"
Epstein froze for a moment, looked Solly in the eyes, and nodded. He watched her go, wondering if he'd sent her to her death. She was no soldier. But then, neither was he. And the chances of any of them getting out of there alive were decreasing by the second.
"Where do we go?" Vivian asked.
"Follow the noise," Solly responded, swinging his carbine over his shoulder and drawing his Ruger. The stray thought that, a few months ago, the closest he'd have come to this sort of situation was playing Call of Duty swam across his mind before being swatted away. "Let's go."
The hangar's vastness swamped the fabrication plant which was surrounded by metal fencing. Figures were moving inside and Solly could see people gathering at a gap in the barrier. They weren't armed, but were watching Solly and Vivian run toward them, obviously unsure whether they meant harm or not. As Solly reached the gap, a black uniform emerged from the crowd and brought its gun to bear. A double crack and red exploded in all directions as Vivian overtook him and plunged inside past the body of the guard.
"Are there any more guards?" Solly asked a terrified looking man whose filthy overalls were covered in a bloody splash.
The man shook his head.
"Where's the computer control unit?" he asked, cursing himself for forgetting what Paul Buchanan had called it.
With a wave, the man pointed along the short side of the rectangular enclosure.
"Get everyone away from here," Solly said as he called Vivian and ran along the access path that enclosed the manufacturing plant. "Get as far away as you can! It's going to blow!" If we get a controller.
Vivian got there before him and was trying to open the metal doors that protected the CCM Suite. Together, they shouldered their way in and found themselves in a server room, surrounded by quietly humming machinery that was not only controlling the assembly line but, if Paul was to be believed, also cloning the operating system onto each drone.
Vivian began firing rounds into the server bays, but the bullets simply ricocheted off their casing. "Come on, let's lay the charges."
"We don't have a detonator!"
"We'll run the cord across the hanger. That'll give Becky a bit more time."
"Becky's dead," Vivian said.
"No she's not! Now come on!"
They had two charges each and they pressed them against the base of four server units before inserting the blasting caps and cord.
Solly began running the cord along the floor when they heard the sounds of gunfire outside.
"They're coming!" Vivian said, before grabbing Solly by the wrist. "I'll set the explosives off."
"How?"
"I'll stick the two ends of the cord into a power outlet."
"You can't do that! You'll be blown to kingdom come," Solly said. "And how do you know it would even work?"
She shrugged. "Gotta try somet'ing. It's gotta be better than your lame plan. And anyway, I don't care about meself. I have lost everything."
He pulled his wrist out of her grip and wagged a finger at her. "That's enough, do you hear? We're getting out of here together, because if you really want revenge on the Lees, you should be alive to enjoy it."
Without another word, he ran the cable out of the server room, along the side of the plant, and they then scurried across the space between the plant and the fire escape. There was just enough wire to reach as they stumbled through.
"Solly!" Vivian pointed along the building to where the floating shape of a Reaper turned to face them and, with an accelerating hum, spun up its magazine.
Chapter 20
"Put your weapons down." The voice emerged from the drone as a man in a black uniform and peaked cap walked casually around the corner of the building and came to a halt beneath the floating machine. A dozen or so armed figures scampered after him and raised their weapons.
The ice that had seized Solly's insides when he'd seen the drone seemed to drain him of all hope as his Ruger clattered to the ground, followed by Vivian's.
"So, our friend Khaled succeeded in his mission after all," the man in the cap said, stepping forward a little. "At least, in part. We have been searching for Scott Lee's creation ever since the incident in Seattle. I guess you are the mysterious man who cared for it and who managed, somehow, to evade our Reaper in DC. What a poisoned chalice that turned out to be. Wrong place, wrong time."
Solly didn't flinch from the man's cold stare, he merely returned it with interest. If futile defiance was the only card he had in his hand, by heaven he was going to play it.
There was movement behind the man as someone was dragged through the surrounding guards and thrown down.
The Long Night Box Set Page 64