I had a certain feeling that they wouldn’t let us down there when I saw no less than a hundred people waiting for us—a good third of them wearing those uniforms that I’d so come to love.
“Think this was a mistake?” I asked Nate, futilely of course, seeing as we were right in the middle of the trap if they wanted to spring one on us.
He gave a slight shrug, never taking his eyes off the assembled troops outside. “Only one way to find out.” With that, he reached for the door. I braced myself, mentally counting to ten, and followed him.
Chapter 14
The first thing I noticed was that not every weapon in sight was trained on us. A few were, no shit—but a good third of the guards looked bored out of their minds, annoyed with freezing their asses off and obviously not expecting any trouble. Even a bunch of the soldiers seemed ready to troop off to get some hot chow and forget this ever happened. I wondered just how ridiculous they must have been feeling, considering that they easily outnumbered us eight to one—and none of us was stupid enough to go for a weapon.
I might have gone full confrontational asshole on the lot of them, but thankfully, I wasn’t in charge. Since Jason’s people made up half of our group, and we were officially carrying cargo from their settlement, it only made sense to let the man himself do the talking. Like me, Harris held himself in the background, eyeing the guards uneasily but trying not to make a nuisance of himself. Jason, on the other hand, barreled out of the car and into the fray with a good-natured smile on his face, looking like he was exactly where he belonged.
I was a little surprised to see Wilkes himself wait at the front of his people, but the way he kept scowling our way I probably shouldn’t have been. He’d never struck me as the kind of commander in chief who let his underlings stick their necks out if he could do the deed himself. His stony-faced approach got stunted somewhat when Jason not only grabbed his hand to shake it, but drew him into a hug, slapping his back before letting go. “Man, it’s good to see a friendly face!” Jason boomed, looking so at ease that I bought it, although I knew it had to be fake. He’d drilled his people for ten minutes this morning on what to do if shit went sideways. “So good of you to bring people to help with offloading! Minerva called ahead that we have provisions, right?” Or maybe not so jovial, but I had to admit, it was a great opening.
Wilkes had to agree, if grudgingly, giving a curt nod. “She did. And as usual, we are very grateful for the help your settlement is continuing to extend to us.” His eyes zoomed to us—or, more specifically, to Nate—and his face darkened. “You might consider what else you pick up on the road, though.”
Jason shot a quick smirk over his shoulder. “Nah, I think my choices are all right.” His smile had gotten a little more toothy as he turned back to Wilkes. “You going to let us stand out here in the snow much longer? I don’t mind a little brush with the cold, but we’ve been slugging through this shit for the past two days. And we wouldn’t want all that grain to spoil just because it gets wet, right?”
“We can’t let you in,” Wilkes said with a hint of ruefulness in his voice—and this once, I believed it. He obviously didn’t want the three of us here—and his animosity seemed to extend to Harris and his people, interestingly—but he had no quarrel with Jason. That puzzled me, and irked me a lot more than I liked to admit. I got why we might have been on his shit list, at least to some extent, but why the exception? Just because the Chargers were as much a part of the Salt Lake City settlement as their mayor? That bugged me. For once, being somewhat associated with Greene should have come with an advantage—but then, I could see why it didn’t. New Angeles was in direct competition with the Silo, and I’d taken great pains to stress, whenever possible, that Greene and I had, at best, a tentative working relationship. Gita and Tanner likely proved how much I was deceiving myself, but Wilkes couldn’t know that… and since none of it mattered, it was useless to waste even a breath on that.
Jason took Wilkes’s rejection in stride. “No problem. You got housing aplenty aboveground as well. We’d be happy to take over one of those cozy cabins over there.” He nodded toward the newest part of the additions, close to the road, and thus most easily evacuated. “Just get the provisions out of our cargo holds and give us some time to rest up and wait out the snowstorm. We’ll be off your backs in no time.” He paused, glancing my way. “While we’re waiting, our friends here have a small request—“
Wilkes barked out a laugh that betrayed just how sick he was of this game we were playing right now. “I’m sure they do,” he mused, his voice hardening. “Whatever it is, rejected. They should consider themselves lucky that we don’t usher them out, on foot, to freeze to death.”
There went nothing. Not that some minor hitch like that had ever deterred me. Breathing deeply, I did my best to make sure that I wasn’t about to succumb to the next coughing fit before I took a step forward and away from the car, drawing attention to me. Just how poised everyone was—even the bored, lazy ones—became obvious from how the tension in the air immediately increased tenfold.
“I need to talk to your scientists.”
The smile Wilkes gave me was little more than him baring his teeth. “I wouldn’t know why any one of them would want anything to do with the likes of you.”
I’d spent a lot of the journey debating how to spin this once I got here, and the air of hostility made it plain that being open and honest wasn’t the way to go. So I went for the next best plausible option. “I’m here for my quarterly checkup.” Wilkes’s brows rose, silently prompting me to explain. Trying to appear at ease as I offered an offhand gesture, I did. “Dom and Sunny told me they’d like to keep up with my vitals, to see if my status has remained the same since last we dropped in here.” Before we’d become personae non gratae, that was. I tried to deliver the next part with a smile, forced as it was. “I’m a little late, but hey, I was a little busy in late summer. Better late than never, right?” Maybe not the smartest thing to remind them all what I’d been busy with, judging from the hostile stares I got, but Wilkes was still hesitating—a good sign. Even better, I decided, when he motioned to one of his people standing next to him to hand over a walkie-talkie. “Oh, and tell them I have a slight cough,” I added, as if in afterthought. Here was hoping that wouldn’t set off any alarm bells. “Nothing serious. Just sneezing a little.”
Wilkes kept eyeing me as if he knew very well that I was lying out of my ass, but barked a short order to whoever was manning the post inside the base. “Get Curran or Gibbons up here, stat.” He didn’t say outright, “And now we wait,” as he crossed his arms over his chest, but that was plain as day. The snow kept falling, fat flakes that landed on us, the cars, the increasingly invisible tarmac. Someone from behind us murmured that it would be good if they got started unloading the cargo, but nobody reacted to that suggestion.
It took a good five endless, tense minutes until the door to the utility shack opened, revealing Dom, bundled up in a thick parka, the fake-fur-lined hood up as he walked out of the single room that housed the elevator leading straight down to the labs. He squinted against the brightness of the snow before looking over to Wilkes, then to me. I felt myself relax when there was surprise on his face but none of the misgivings the others seemed to share. He also shot me an imploring look that I couldn’t answer, even if I had known what to say.
“What’s up?” he asked as he came over, remaining closer to his people than us but not afraid to invade the gap in between.
“You tell me.” Wilkes sounded resolute enough that Dom drew up short, confused. I could practically see the gears spinning in his head. Shit, but I should have found a better excuse.
“This is about her?” Dom guessed, nodding at me. Wilkes just kept staring at him, giving nothing away. Way to call my bluff. I didn’t dare do more than breathe, sure that if I tried to say something, Wilkes would give the order to oust us after all—or maybe shoot me himself. Dom’s awkward motion as he tried to stall was bordering on pa
inful, making me wonder if this really had been worth a shot.
“Ah, right,” he stammered, spending a few moments readjusting his parka when the wind blew back the hood. “This is about her physical, right? Completely forgot to tell you that we kind of agreed that they’d drop in with us for another checkup.”
I wasn’t sure who seemed more surprised at Dom’s stutter—me, Wilkes, or the assembled audience at large. So much for thinking that someone with an IQ breaching genius level couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation—and it wasn’t like Dom and I didn’t share a lot of knowledge that might lead us to jump to the same conclusions. All our visits had, in part, been about that as well. Why had I ever doubted him?
Wilkes’s lips drew into a thin line, clearly disappointed that he hadn’t busted us. He took his time deciding what to do, making Dom squirm as much as I wanted to. It belatedly dawned on me that, had we actually agreed on this, Dom might still get shit for it now.
“You have two days,” Wilkes decided, briefly glancing my way but his focus remaining on Dom. “You can use the deserted lab space right at the very back.” Dom’s mouth dropped open as if in protest, but Wilkes’s warning look got him to remain silent. “Volunteers only.” He then turned to me. “Sgt. Blake here will make sure that you don’t get lost. You’re not allowed to leave the lab space on your own, or venture anywhere close to the common areas. The moment you try, our deal is off.”
I felt tempted to harp on what deal he was talking about, but even I could keep my trap shut if need be. All I did was incline my head. The soldier Wilkes had addressed donned a grim expression—one I was sure I would get very familiar with over the next days.
Wilkes turned to Jason without much of a pause. “Bring your cars over to the gate by the ramp. We will bring up trucks you can unload your cargo onto. Petty Officer Meeks will tell you where you can hunker down for the time of your stay.” He didn’t wait for Jason to acknowledge that but strode a few steps forward, which brought him halfway across the gap to us. Me he ignored. The ire on his features seemed to be reserved for Nate, who, in turn, stood with his back ramrod straight next to me, the line of his jaw jutting out as he was silently gnashing his teeth.
“Don’t think for a second that I don’t know what’s going on,” Wilkes ground out. “Same as I haven’t bought that talk of revolution and liberation that, supposedly, all came from your wife. It disgusts me to think that any man calling himself such would push a woman in front of him just to avoid some flak. This is the absolute last time I want to see any of you miscreants here, understand?” That last part also seemed to include Harris, who took it with stoic calm but was incapable of hiding his surprise. Wilkes snorted when he saw that. “We all saw that video. We know what you did.”
My tongue was burning with the joke that cryptic statements that made absolutely no sense were my life now, but swallowed it. I had my in, better not risk it. Yet the concept of them having a recording from inside Cheyenne Mountain bothered me.
Nate held Wilkes’s gaze evenly, even managing a hint of deference—swaddled in a healthy dose of arrogance—as he responded. “Then you know that Bree and I both walked out through that door without taking a shot. Same as we’re not here to start anything. As far as we are concerned, we have no quarrel with you and yours.” His gaze remained trained on Wilkes, but I was sure that he was itching to stare at the amassed soldiers. “Or with anyone else for that matter. We agreed on a truce, and I intend to uphold it until the other side forces me to break it.” That could have been phrased more diplomatically, but I doubted anyone would have believed him if he had tried. He looked every inch the “You will pry my weapon from my cold, dead hand” that swung in his tone, but at the same time appeared the strong, uncompromising leader Wilkes had pretty much accused him not to be. It rankled that his action pretty much negated my effort in getting us where we were, but this once I could keep my ego in check. Barely, but I managed. Wilkes didn’t seem to buy it, but more than one soldier eased up, as if all it took was a verbal concession from a near-random man to put their worries to rest. Typical.
Wilkes glared at Nate for another moment, then turned on his heel and marched toward the blast doors, his troops falling in behind him, almost scurrying to get out of the cold. Meeks alone remained, not quite happy with the task set to him, but immediately started talking with Jason to work out the details. The absence of the commander’s other aide, Petty Officer Stanton, was a glaring one.
“Come on, let’s not waste any time,” Dom reminded me, gesturing toward the shack. I glanced at Nate but he was still staring after Wilkes, his eyes blazing. I hesitated for a moment, then started unbuckling my thigh sheaths, leaving my handgun and knife in the car before anyone could get the bright idea of stripping me of them. I still had my backups strapped around my calf and at the small of my back, after all. With my silent, hulking shadow in tow, Dom and I made for the shack.
I welcomed the warmth that enveloped us as we stepped into the cargo elevator, Dom activating it to send us down into the bowels of the missile silo. The contraption groaned and shuddered before it set into motion, making me pray for a second that someone had found the manual for it and was doing regular maintenance. No one spoke, making the situation beyond awkward, but with Blake behind us, far was it from me to tip him off that Dom and I both had been lying through our teeth.
The elevator came to a sudden, jerky halt at the bottom, the doors grating open slowly. Dom stepped out, briefly glancing both ways before he started off in the direction of the labs, just around the corner. The corridor was quiet, nobody stepping out of any of the doors, not even for a glance. Through the observation windows I could see a few white and blue-clad people working inside, but they were deliberately ignoring us.
“What’s up with that?” I more whispered than said, not to keep Blake out of the loop but because the quiet made it seem downright sacrilegious to speak in anything but hushed tones.
Dom shot me a look that was bordering on condescending, until he realized that I wasn’t being sarcastic or dense. “You don’t know,” he stated, looking pensive as hell.
“Well, I can take a guess,” I grumbled, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. Not his fault, and so far he’d done nothing but be exceptionally cooperative. More so than I deserved, likely. “But seeing as I’m already here, might as well get your version of the story.”
Blake behind us huffed, but we both ignored him. Dom scratched his chin, trying to decide how to phrase it. “Let’s just put it this way. The common theory is that you deliberately sent a walking time bomb into our midst to take our labs out.”
That was unexpected. My sidelong look seemed to portray that well enough, judging from how it made Dom fidget.
“Good to know that, for once, people overestimate me,” I offered with a harsh laugh, ignoring more chuffing—and clearly disbelieving—sounds coming from behind. “You really think that I planned to get captured, starve myself down to a breath above emaciation, run an entire day and night through the zombie-infested wilderness so I’d get picked up by a settlement just so I can get taken hostage by the asshole who, among other things, took great pride in repeatedly raping my former girlfriend, so I could infect him with my blood and send him over here, estimating exactly how long he’d remain alive with the delayed onset of infection and outbreak, and arrange none of your capable soldiers to permanently put him out of his misery so he could die, return, and take out scores of your people? I’m flattered, really.”
A hint of a smile crossed Dom’s face, confirming that I had more of an ally in him than I’d dared to hope. “If you put it like that—“
I didn’t reward that with a reply, but none was needed. I could tell that we were on the same page. In the end, it didn’t matter—much. “Sorry for the people who died,” I offered. “It shouldn’t have happened. None of it, but least of all innocent bystanders becoming collateral damage.”
Dom nodded, his mood somber. “It could have been m
uch worse. Would have been if not for Stanton.”
That made me perk up. “Where is she?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “What happened?”
More disbelief until he realized that I really couldn’t have known. “When she heard about the commotion in the labs, she charged in and managed to shoot the zombie. Pure chance that she happened to walk by that early in the morning. Nobody knew why she’d even come to this part of the Silo; there’s only maintenance tunnels beyond the labs. Guess she needed a few moments of quiet before her shift.” Oh, I had an idea, but wisely kept my tongue. Dom barely paused to let me interject, and when I didn’t, he quickly went on. “They’d just started dissecting that thing when it happened. Stanton saved a good five people, but she got mauled badly.”
Fuck. That also explained why the last message hadn’t come from her. It fit the time frame well. Perfectly, actually, from what I could remember. The tech that had hailed us—and inadvertently sent us into Taggard’s trap—had done so late morning, likely after everything had been cleared up and he’d deemed it safe to call.
“So she’s dead.” No need to question that.
I was surprised when Dom shrugged. “Honestly? We don’t know. Of course we assumed she’d been infected, but she didn’t get sick for three days, and the wounds started to close and heal up normally. But then she got a heavy cold and got worse. Not much we could do for her here, but there were a few soldiers around who—“ He cut off, glancing back to Blake before resuming. “They said they had a research facility still up and running. She didn’t want to leave at first, but you know how it is. If you’ve already given up, no way you can try to survive. That’s the last we heard of her, so I assume she didn’t make it. They promised us they’d give her a proper burial in that case.”
Green Fields (Book 7): Affliction Page 20