“If this is, in fact, the drive I wanted to retrieve, I’ll be able to tell if you’ve decrypted it, or copied it,” Gil told him. “If you have, things will be very bad for you. But then, they already are. One moment here, while I…just…decrypt this…”
They all listened to the clacking of the keyboard in the silent room.
The video began to play. The computer’s speaker was tinny, but clear. They heard a sharp smacking sounds. Hands striking flesh. Choked whimpers. Shrieks. Pleading, as the blows continued to fall.
Gil stared at it, as if hypnotized. His face was lit up with the eerie glow of the keyboard, and his eyes had little points of blue. His mouth looked heavy. Slack.
Then he appeared to suddenly realized that they were all there, waiting and watching him.
“Sorry,” he said with a rueful smile. “Just curious, you see. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to see this with my own eyes. Stimulating. I’ll study it later, at my leisure. From what this program tells me, it has not been opened, copied or touched in any way since that day eight months ago when Erasma decrypted it and played it for you. Good for me, but pathetic for you. You’re such a pussy, Louisa.”
She let out a sharp laugh. “You had my brother, you asshole.”
“Love makes you weak,” Gil said. “Or so they tell me. I wouldn’t know.”
He stood up, pulling the flash drive out and tucking it into his pants pocket. “One thing I definitely learned from you, Louisa, after the hell you put me through. Do you want to know what it is?”
“I’m sure you want to tell me,” she said, through gritted teeth. “Spit it out.”
“The next time I pick out a wife, I’ll know exactly what not to look for,” he said. “No more home improvement projects. No saying, oh, but, this one has so much potential. Next time, I’m getting someone who’s camera-ready from the very first day. A real partner. One who’s ready to bring it, at a moment’s notice. Beauty, body, brains. More than you, Louisa. And ambition. That was the crucial ingredient, and you lacked it. Those qualities are even more important than money. You taught me that.”
“Wow, Gil, that’s so deep,” she said crisply. “You taught me a lot, too.”
“I certainly tried to,” he remarked. “God, how I tried. But you are a slow learner.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “But I don’t think you’d ever understand.”
“You certainly were stubborn about all that art nonsense,” he said. “I had to go to so much trouble to squash it. You wouldn’t believe how Herzog pushed back.”
“Herzog?” she asked. “Pushed back how? About what?”
Gil sniffed. “I had to put the thumbscrews onto that bloviating asshole so damn hard to get him to review that silly art show the way I wanted him to,” he said. “He whined like a little bitch. But he did what he was told in the end. Good old Herzog.”
“You…” She sucked in air. “Oh, holy shit. His review? You made Herzog pan my show?”
“Of course,” Gil said impatiently. “I couldn’t have him fawning on you. Feeding your ego and distracting you. I needed your absolute attention. I couldn’t have you knocked off track by silly little hobbies at the very beginning of my political career.”
A low whistle broke the silence, from Nate. “Whoa,” he said. “Dude. I knew you were a prick, but congratulations. You have surpassed my wildest expectations.”
Without even glancing at Nate, Gil gestured at William. “Hit him,” he said.
William smashed his fist into Nate’s jaw. The two men holding him stumbled and reeled to keep their balance.
“Don’t be rude,” Gil said coldly. “Not while I’m still deciding how you’re going to die.” He looked down at Elisa. “He’d be a nice addition to the overdose scene. Two junkies, egging each other on. Right over a cliff. But I think I’d rather watch him bleed and scream.”
Gil and his men were so focused looking at her and Nate, no one saw the strange objects floating down in front of the picture windows—until the red dot of the laser sight appeared on the wall.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Gunfire ripped through windows and walls. The sound was deafening. Glass shattered. She heard screams. They seemed to come from miles away. Men on the ground, writhing. Blood. She twisted desperately, craning her neck to see if any of them were Nate.
“Drones!” someone yelled. “Fucking drones! What the fuck…?”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Then she saw him on the ground. Face first. Shot. Oh God.
“Nate!” she shrieked.
24
Nate hit the floor, twisting to look for Elisa. Bullets strafed the place, punching into walls, tearing through furniture.
“Nate!” He turned to see her scrambling toward him on hands and knees.
“Get down!” he yelled. “On your belly!”
She couldn’t hear him. He could hardly hear himself. He launched himself toward her, rolling, and flung himself on top of her. Her chest heaved, struggling for air, and her body vibrated. He recognized the vibrations as speech, but he couldn’t hear a damn thing through the stuttering gunfire.
Finally the shooting slowed, just enough to make out the words.
“…Nate? Nate! I see blood! Are you shot? Roll off me! I can’t move!”
He shifted, sliding off her. His arm felt sticky, but he couldn’t see it, not with his shoulders hyper-extended. Burning in his upper arm. Blood soaked his sleeve.
“Oh, God, Nate! You’re shot!” She pulled away, lifting herself up.
“Get down!” he hissed, as gunfire roared again. She cowered down against him, her body shaking.
The next time they could hear each other again, she said, “I’m going to grab one of those pieces of glass to cut your handcuffs.”
“Elisa, don’t move!” He lunged after her as she wiggled away. “Those drones will—Elisa! Get back here! For fuck’s sake!”
He couldn’t stop her, but fortunately, she didn’t have to go far. There was no shortage in shards of glass scattered across the carpet. The couch had shielded them from most of it, or they would have been sliced and diced.
Elisa squirmed across the carpet toward him almost immediately, her bound hands in front of her, holding a dangerously large chunk of window glass. She had wrapped her hands in her sweater to protect them. “Roll over. I’ll do your handcuffs.”
He didn’t have time to warn her. Gil reared up out of nowhere into his field of vision, his face streaked with blood, his mouth wide in a scream of primal rage.
He lifted his handgun to shoot at Elisa.
Nate kicked out wildly, sweeping Gil’s legs. The guy screamed as he fell, over Nate, over Elisa. The gun went off, hitting Nate in the chest.
Fuck. Another hammer blow to the body armor over his ribs. Close range, too.
A fresh volley of bullets pounded the walls. Nate struggled to roll over to see behind him. He only caught the tail end of it. Elisa slashing her piece of glass across Gil’s face, laying him open over the bridge of his nose and over his eye.
Blood sprayed. The guy pin-wheeled back, shrieking. Nate kicked up at Gil’s gun hand, hard enough to shatter all the bones in the man’s wrist.
The gun flew, landing several feet away.
They crawled away, Elisa on her hands and knees, him crab-stepping, to get some distance from the horror of Gil, writhing and screaming, blood oozing through his fingers pressed over his face.
“This way!” she hissed. “Come on! I know where to go!” She pulled him around a bank of bookcases to a stairwell. A metal spiral staircase led down into darkness.
Elisa crawled down it, her butt on the stairs, still holding the now bloodied glass shard between her bound hands, beckoning for him to follow her.
Fresh gunfire jolted him into doing so.
At the bottom of the steps, they had only the light that came from the room above. He turned, holding up his hands, and Elisa sawed at it desperately with the chunk of glass, cursing. “My hands are bloody,”
she said. “They keep slipping.”
“Are you bleeding? Let me see your hands.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she muttered. “Later.”
His arms snapped loose, and he turned around and took the glass shard from her, sawing through her plastic cuffs until they snapped loose.
Elisa grabbed his hand and pulled him after her. “Follow me.”
He followed her into what might have been a big, utilitarian utility room. From there, they entered a storage room, with only high, narrow windows at ground level that let in just a little light and showed rows of storage shelves, packed with boxes.
And the very back shelf there was a panel with light switches. Elisa slid the entire panel up, revealing a hidden mechanism behind it. She pressed the button on the smooth metal face beneath. He heard the faint click of a mechanism opening, and she grabbed the entire shelf and tugged it forward.
It opened on a hinge, but only far enough for one person to slide through a very narrow aperture sideways. Beyond it was a narrow stairway leading down.
“What is this?” he asked, his voice hushed. “Another panic room?”
“The ultimate panic room,” she said, sliding inside. “It’s a bunker. Not for burglars, though. More for global thermonuclear war. Come on, we need to get this door closed from the inside, and it’s heavy.”
Nate forced himself through the door. It was touch and go for a while. Bulked up with the Kevlar, he barely made it through. He dragged the heavy door closed, stifling the howl of pain in his ribs.
The door shut with an ominous ‘click,’ and he stared into the darkness, considering a question he should have asked before. “There’s another exit, right?”
“Yes, Nate.” Her voice came from too far ahead of him, so he hurried to catch up. “There should be light in this passageway at all times, supplied by the solar collectors. But it’s been a long time since we’ve done maintenance. This was dad’s obsession, not ours, so after he died, we let it go. But let’s see if…yeah. Here we go.”
A muted ‘click’ and pale, eerie light flooded the tunnel, which was lined with cinder blocks and reinforced with cement columns. The air was stale and damp, and smelled of earth and mold. Cobwebs were draped over everything.
Elisa gave him a reassuring smile over her shoulder and continued on ahead.
He followed, as the tunnel switched and curved, and they came up to a large armored door, with a panel beside it that had a number key. A light on it glowed red. He figured that any kind of light being still on was a good sign.
Elisa entered a long string of characters into the keypad, and hit ‘enter.’
They both held their breath. The light went green. The door popped free with a sigh. Elisa grabbed the handle. Nate reached out, his hands covering hers, and they dragged the heavy door open together.
Nate looked around in amazement as the room lit up for them. It was big, high tech. The air was clearly filtered, climate controlled. No mold or humidity in here, the temperature was regulated. Machinery hummed softly. Screen displays and LED lights were everywhere.
There was a bank of security monitors, each screen showing a different vantage point of the property. Others showed the public rooms in the house, including the garage, each side of the deck and the grounds right behind the house. It was like the bridge of a spaceship.
In the back of the room was a series of cots, piled with plastic-wrapped pillows and blankets. There was a utilitarian kitchen, a table.
Elisa went to the keyboard in front of the security monitors and clicked on a few of the boxes. The audio switched on, and they heard the rattle of gunfire in the speakers. Men screaming. Explosions. Glass breaking.
She looked back at him. “There are more supplies in here,” she said. “Food, water, gas, propane, food, medical equipment and supplies, solar cells, replacement parts. Everything my dad could think of.”
“For how long would the supplies last?”
“Years,” she said. “This was my dad’s ultimate panic room. His favorite one. There’s another tunnel that comes out in a cave about a quarter of a mile from the house. But there’s an armored door to that exit, as well. Nobody gets in here.”
“Does Clemens know about this place?”
Elisa shook her head. “I never told him about it,” she admitted. “When Dad was still alive, I felt a little self-conscious about it. I didn’t want Gil to judge him, or to think that Dad was crazy and paranoid. Even though he kind of was. Then Dad died, and Gil started to, well…change. And I just stopped telling him anything .”
“Good survival instincts.” Nate looked around, impressed. “Wow. This place is amazing. Your dad would have gotten along with the people up at GodsAcre.”
“I’ve thought that myself,” she said. “I’m just grateful that Gil picked this house for whatever awful plan he had for me. That was lucky. But who the hell was that, anyway, shooting at the house? Were those the Trasks?”
“Nope,” he said. “That was Kimball.”
Elisa’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Nate. What did you do?”
“What I had to,” he replied. “Gil said come now, or you die. I took him at his word. The Trasks were in no condition to mount any kind of offensive on the fly, not with Fi and Anton down and Eric gone.”
“And Josh?” Her eyes were wide and fearful.
“I got a text from Mace as I was coming here,” he said. “He and Clint and Mitch are fine. They’re at the Granger Valley Hospital. I told them to stay away, but I doubt they’ll listen. Still, I don’t want them to walk into that clusterfuck.” He gestured at the screen, just as a car sailed up into the air and exploded.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. Some of them were burning.
Elisa turned away from the screen. “Call them,” she said. “Tell them to stay away.”
“I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Clemens’ guys took them.”
Elisa turned to the counter in front of the monitors, pawing through all the stuff scattered there, and picked up a big, heavy black device out of a substantial charging cradle. She held it out to him. “Here’s a satellite phone.”
He punched in Mace’s burner number. Mace picked up on the first ring, but didn’t speak. He just waited.
“Mace?” he asked. “It’s Nate.”
“Holy fuck!” Mace exploded. “Nate! What happened? Where are you? We’re still about twenty minutes out from the coordinates you gave us, but we—”
“Stay away,” he said. “Turn around. Get off the road. Wait for my signal before you get anywhere near this place. It is seriously fucked up.”
“But what happened? And where are you?”
“Kimball’s guys are hammering Clemens’ people. Elisa got me into a bunker underneath the mountain, and I think we can wait it out in here. When it calms down, and they leave, we’ll call you. Don’t come now. It’s a death trap.”
Mace waited for more. “How the fuck did you get into a bunker?”
“Elisa,” he said. “She is a serious bad-ass. She saved me when the drone opened fire. Slashed that prick Clemens’ eye with a glass shard. She cut me free. And then she dragged me into a tunnel and hid me in her dad’s luxury end-times bunker.”
Elisa leaned toward the phone. “You should know that he’s exaggerating,” she called out.
“Fuck me,” Mace said, clearly impressed. “You’re lucky you have that woman to protect your sorry ass, dude, because you are bat-shit crazy.”
“Yeah,” he said distractedly. “Whatever. Please, stay away. Do not engage with Kimball. He’s got drones that strafed the living fuck out of this house.”
“Shit,” Mace muttered. “I had my heart set on to tangling with that bastard.”
“Not this time. You’ll lose. And you’ll die.”
Mace let out a sharp sigh of frustration. “If you’re sure you two can ride this one out. You’re not fucking with me, right?”
Nate looked at Elisa. “I don’t think so.
If we have any chance at all, I think that hiding in here is probably that chance.”
He closed the call, and he and Elisa studied each other silently as the deafening soundtrack of battle, distorted by the speakers, came into the foreground of his consciousness. Her eyes were so clear. So deep and direct. Holding him.
She seized his bloodied hand. “You came for me,” she said.
“Of course,” Nate said.
“It was a crazy thing to do,” she said. “It was suicide.”
“No, not really,” he said. “What life would I have if I’d left you with him? What would the point of that be?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it would still be life. Any kind of life. A different life.”
“I had one more shot,” he said. “One more random chance to shake things up. So I took it. I fucked with Kimball, just to see what would happen. Told them I was taking the virus to sell. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And look—we’re both still alive. Somehow. For a little while longer. It’s good enough for me. Just to see you again. No matter what happens.”
“Oh, Nate.” Her lips were shaking. “You’re so damn stubborn.”
He shook his head. “Saving you is like saving myself. And if I lose you, I lose everything.”
They came together into a hug that made his soul shake. It was charged with all the fierce brightness of hope. Hunger for tomorrow. For more life. More of each other. A lifetime of it.
“I don’t know for how long we’ll hang on, but fuck it,” he muttered into her tangled hair. “I want to be there for all of it. A single moment with you is worth any fucking price to me. Anything, Elisa.”
She could barely breathe, she was so tear-fogged, and she didn’t care. She laughed through her sniffles. “You know what? You are very big and hard and stiff in this vest.”
“I can take it off,” he offered. “Anytime. Say the word.”
“Oh, no! Not yet. Not until we’re safe. That vest took bullets for you today. I saw it happen.”
“Yeah,” he said ruefully. “I felt that. Every time. Think it cracked a few ribs.”
Heedless: The Hellbound Brotherhood Book Four Page 20