The bridge had seemed impossibly long when we were swimming across the frigid river below, and now that we were trying to cross back to the other side, it seemed just as long.
We came to a stop in a line of vehicles passing through the checkpoint, and an officer approached the truck in front of us, shining a flashlight.
“Is this normal?” asked Greyson, sounding alarmed.
“I guess it’s their new nighttime protocol,” said Godfrey. “Don’t say anything unless you have to.”
My heart started to pound a little faster, and I clenched and unclenched my hands to release some of the tension.
The beam of the flashlight flew over in our direction, shining through the windshield and making me squint.
I saw the bright white of the uniform outside Godfrey’s window, and the officer motioned for him to roll it down.
“Good evening,” said the officer. It was a woman with piercing blue eyes and a severe look to her face. Maybe her bun is too tight, I thought.
“Hello, officer.”
“Hello. And . . . I’m sorry . . . I don’t recognize these people.”
“New recruits,” muttered Godfrey.
“Woeden, ma’am,” said Greyson.
“Hellmack.”
“Fuller,” I muttered.
The officer shined her flashlight beam in each one of our faces before returning her attention to Godfrey.
“What’s your business in Sector X tonight, Lieutenant?” Her words were clipped and impersonal.
“Transport,” Godfrey grunted.
“Pickup or delivery?”
“Pickup.”
“And may I ask what you’re picking up?”
“I’m afraid that’s classified,” said Godfrey. “Beta unit, you understand.”
The woman smiled, but it was not friendly. “Of course. I just need to verify your identification.”
My stomach lurched. Godfrey hadn’t mentioned that.
He held out his arm, and she flashed him a condescending smile. “Lieutenant, we need to verify your paperwork and cross-reference it with your Citizen Identification. I’ll need to see the order from your commanding officer.”
Godfrey sighed. “Hmm, yeah. Well, as I said, our directives are classified. I can only share that information with the overseeing officer in Sector X.”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I cannot let you through without verifying your paperwork.”
Godfrey raised an eyebrow and leaned forward against the open window. “Do you know who the overseeing officer is, ma’am?”
Her fake smile twitched at the corner of her eyes.
“It’s Captain Elwood. You can certainly call him up and ask for verification, but he has bigger things to worry about than the Sector X welcome committee. You understand.”
The officer’s smile faltered, and she looked angry. “Fine,” she snapped. “But I’ll be radioing ahead to let the exit officers know they will need to see some type of paperwork on your way out. Perhaps Captain Elwood can write you a note.”
“Thank you very much.”
The officer turned abruptly and walked away, and Godfrey rolled up the window. Logan breathed a loud sigh of relief in the back seat, and I sat back in silence, not trusting myself to speak.
We rolled on through the darkness, and I saw the mouth of the bridge with its dozen quivering ID rovers poised to lock in on our CIDs. Four rovers’ lights blinked red, and I saw the tiny light on my CID do the same. I held my breath. If it stayed red, we were done. The officers on the bridge would know we were frauds, and they would arrest us.
After what seemed like several long minutes, the lights on the rovers turned green. We rolled under them, the four of us breathing a collective sigh of relief.
“Lucky bluff,” I muttered to Godfrey.
“It wasn’t a bluff,” he said. “I know Elwood. He doesn’t know we’re about to break in to Isador and steal his son, but neither did she.”
“You know Amory’s father?” I whispered.
Godfrey nodded, narrowing his dark eyes on the road ahead. “Oh, I knew him — from the Marines. We were both deployed to Anbar during the Iraq war. He was an eager son of a bitch, even back then. The constant killings, no sleep — it got to you. But not Elwood. Rose through the ranks very quickly. I didn’t see him again for a while after that, but when I heard he joined up with the PMC, well . . . I wasn’t surprised. They probably recruited the hell out of him, and he was made captain immediately.”
“And you?”
“I was recruited for . . . less honorable reasons. Less for my work ethic and more for my skill set.”
“Explosives?”
He nodded.
“How did you get involved with the rebels?”
Godfrey sighed, and I knew he did not like talking about himself. “I was given an assignment to blow up a building. The PMC had the intel; it was definitely a threat level red. I thought it would be an old factory or a construction site lousy with carriers. Easy in, easy out.
“But I get there, and it’s a shelter for undocumented kids — a bunch of teenagers and a few social workers all holed up off the highway. I couldn’t believe it. Well, of course, Rulon was there making the rounds — recruiting for his little army. Didn’t care much for him right off the bat, to be honest. But Mica was there, too. The place was really for minors whose parents had died or gone north, and they were wanting him to leave. That’s when I fixed him up with Ida. Good kid, Mica.”
He ended his story with a gruff sound, as if he were clearing his throat. Everyone else was silent.
We crossed under the overpass where Max had died, and I couldn’t breathe. It felt as though I had a pile of bricks on my chest.
The last time we were here, all the buildings not repurposed for PMC facilities stood empty. It was a ghost town, but signs of life were still visible. All that had changed.
Block after block after block was flattened to mounds of rubble. Buildings stood in heaps of wood and concrete and ash, great chunks of brick and broken glass scattered everywhere. The few cars parked along the street were covered in a layer of speckled black snow, and the slush in the gutter mixed with the soot raining down.
Logan gasped. “What happened?”
“The PMC is demolishing the city.”
“But . . . why?”
“They’re spinning their wheels,” said Godfrey. “The riots last time happened right under their nose. They’re flushing out any illegals hiding in the city. Rebuilding from scratch.”
Looking up over the felled walls of destruction, I could see silver buildings on the horizon. They stood out like broken teeth against the landscape, looking strangely untouched.
“What are those buildings?”
“The start of a new city.” Godfrey’s expression was grim.
We passed Saint Drogo’s, one of the only buildings I recognized still standing. One wing had been destroyed, but the rest of the building looked as menacing as ever. The steely “XX” mounted at the top of the tower still sent a chill down my spine.
Driving through the destroyed city in the darkness, I felt a sense of foreboding. We were in a war zone with nowhere left to hide, and we were the enemy.
“When did you join the PMC?” I asked Godfrey.
“About five years ago.”
“Five years?”
“What? Did you think the PMC came out of nowhere right before the Collapse?” He laughed. “It’s always been around, and when you’re ex-military, well . . . I saw the way things were going.”
“But why?” asked Greyson.
“It wasn’t always like this, if that’s what you’re asking.” Godfrey gestured at the destruction around us. Despite all the wreckage, the rovers were still operational. They scanned us at every intersection. “We’ve been using independent contractors in this country since the American Revolution. No one ever thought it would be what it is today.”
“Where is Isador?” Logan asked.
“It’s pa
st the main PMC block. We never took it out during the riots, which was a mistake.”
“What do they do there?” I asked, knowing I didn’t really want the answer.
“It’s mainly a testing facility. Research and development.”
“So Amory’s . . .” I trailed off. I couldn’t say it.
Godfrey stared straight ahead. He acted as though he hadn’t heard my question, but I knew he had.
“How are we going to get him out?” asked Logan.
Godfrey glanced over his shoulder at her. “By playing the game.” He stared down the road, eyes darting out of the range of our headlights into the shadows. “Remember what I told you. If we go in there and he’s too far gone . . . we can’t take him with us. You understand?”
Everyone was looking at me. I swallowed. “I can do what needs to be done.”
Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure it was true.
We passed the wreckage from the base, and I felt sick when I remembered the horrible moment standing outside with Amory before the explosion, knowing it was too late to save those inside. Now the granite building was no more than rubble. The marble steps that led up to the front door now stopped at the mound of crumbled concrete, granite, shattered tile, and twisted metal. Stairs to nowhere.
Just past the destroyed base, the streetlights were much farther apart, and there was a fresh dusting of snow on the road. We were entering a part of the city where most of the old buildings still stood untouched by the PMC’s demolition units. These buildings hadn’t been occupied for years. Their foundations were sinking under crumbled brick, windows shattered. Even the graffiti was faded.
We turned down a dark street, and I began to feel a strange prickling on the back of my neck. There were hardly any streetlights, but I could still see the ID rovers winking at every corner.
For a moment, I wondered if Godfrey had led us into a trap; it didn’t seem likely that the PMC would build a test facility out here. But then I saw it.
Sprawled out across a snow-covered courtyard the size of a city block stood a building that did not belong. It was not made of brick and steel and glass. Its smooth walls looked as impenetrable as stone but were constructed from a reflective material that caught the light from our car and illuminated the entire facade.
I half expected Godfrey to pull around back to a parking lot, but he drove right from the street to the wide courtyard. There was no bump of a curb. There were no mailboxes or street addresses or plants outside the building. There wasn’t even a door.
From the perimeter, the building looked like a silvery box sitting in the snow with no way in or out. But as we approached, the ground dipped sharply downhill, and I could see an opening in the lower level just wide enough for a vehicle to pass through. Squinting inside, I could make out the other end of the tunnel on the opposite side of the building, the exit the size of a postage stamp.
A glass door slid open, and we drove inside. It was brighter inside the tunnel than outside, but it was impossible to identify the source of the light. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor all seemed to glow with an eerie white light.
If it weren’t for the exit opening on the other end of the tunnel growing larger in the distance, we might have been sitting motionless. The stark white walls bore no distinguishing features to show our movement.
I felt the seatbelt tighten around my chest, and I could tell we were driving downhill again. The opening in the tunnel grew smaller and then disappeared. The tunnel went dark. We were driving underground.
“There aren’t any rovers,” Logan whispered.
“Don’t need them,” said Godfrey. “Illegals who break into this place don’t come out.”
I glanced at Greyson, who looked uneasy. Small spaces used to give him panic attacks when he was a little kid, and I wondered if his time spent in solitary confinement in Chaddock had brought back his old fears.
Lights flickered on around us, and I saw we were in a parking structure. Godfrey killed the engine and turned back to Logan.
“Got those maps?”
She nodded, pulling the bundle out of her rucksack.
“We can’t leave with Amory the way we came in. Not unless we want to shoot our way out.”
He spread out one of the maps on the middle console, dragging his finger from the block we were on to one of the highlighted routes.
“This is a little bit of a gamble because no one has been in Sector X since the riots except through the main bridge, so we don’t know for sure what security will be like. But —” He stopped, tapping his finger on the map. “One of you will take Amory and leave through this old tunnel. It’s been out of service for years, but you might be able to get through.”
“I’ll go,” I said quickly.
He nodded. “Memorize this route. The rest of us will go the way we came and say our pickup wasn’t ready yet, but we left you to push the exit paperwork through. If you run into trouble, don’t try anything stupid.” He looked at me, and his eyes were serious. “You won’t win in a shootout with the PMC. Just lay low until we can come back in and get you.”
My hands tingled with nerves. The thought of being stuck in Sector X was terrifying.
Godfrey circled a block on the map and scribbled down an address. “Most of our old safe houses within the city have been destroyed, but this one’s not far from here. You can stay there for a few days until we come for you.” He looked up at me. “Memorize this. Can’t risk taking the map in case you’re captured.”
I stared at our escape route and the four numbers of the safe-house address, burning them into my brain.
I could feel Greyson’s eyes boring into the side of my head, but I didn’t want to meet his gaze. I knew what he was thinking: There was a high likelihood Amory and I would get caught.
“You don’t have to go alone, you know,” he whispered.
His show of solidarity warmed my heart.
“Oh yes she does,” Godfrey grumbled. “It’s suspicious enough that I’m leaving with one fewer officer than I came in with. Now take off those helmets. You look ridiculous.”
Before anyone could argue, Godfrey was out of the car, reloading his gun. Logan followed, looking pale.
She came around to my side of the car, and I saw that her eyes were glassy. “If anything happens —”
“Don’t hug,” said Godfrey, not looking up. “There are cameras everywhere.”
Logan’s lip trembled, and she looked very young. I decided the uniform did not suit her; it stole everything about her that was vibrant and unique, and it melted away her self-assurance.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “This is Amory we’re talking about. I went back for Greyson, and I would do the same thing for you. We’re not the rebels,” I added in a whisper. “We don’t leave people behind.”
She nodded once, and I saw the strength and determination in her eyes.
I grabbed my gun, and the three of us followed Godfrey to an entrance blocked by a glass door. There was no lock and no handle, but a rover above the doorway scanned each of us, and the glass slid back. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. Someone somewhere was watching us on the cameras.
Crowding through the entryway, we emerged into a small, sterile-looking white room. It was empty except for a single station with a half-moon head scanner and a raised glass table. There was another rover and a security camera over interlocking elevator doors.
Godfrey stepped up to the station, put his head up to the scanner, and placed his palms flat on the glass surface. Three low beeps followed by a single high tone illuminated a green light over the station, and the elevator doors slid open. Godfrey shuffled into a chamber just large enough for one person, nodded at me once, and disappeared.
I glanced at Greyson, not daring to say a word. The security camera jerked in my direction, and I took that as a signal to step up to the station. Discreetly wiping my sweaty palms on the stiff polyester pants, I placed them on the gl
ass table and waited. A ripple of white light moved through the glass, scanning my fingerprints.
Reluctantly, I leaned forward and placed my forehead against the half-moon scanner. A light flashed, scanning my retinas, and a feminine tone sounded from tiny speakers near my temples.
Please state your full name.
“Rebecca Fuller,” I said, parroting the fake name Godfrey had assigned me.
Please enter your Citizen Identification pin.
I looked down and saw a keypad illuminated in the glass. I punched in the code and heard the same sequence of beeps that had followed Godfrey’s identification.
The metal doors swung open again, and I hurried inside. I looked wide-eyed at Logan before the doors snapped shut again and I was thrust into darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
My stomach flew up to my throat as the elevator plummeted down. I had the wild fear that the PMC had identified me as an impostor and was dropping me to my death instead of taking me to Amory.
But when the doors of the elevator swung open, Godfrey was already waiting, standing against the wall in a long white hallway. With his bushy black beard, ruddy complexion, and wrinkled uniform, he definitely looked out of place.
He didn’t say anything when I emerged, and I took his silence for a confirmation that there were still security cameras watching and listening to everything we said.
A moment later, Greyson appeared, closely followed by Logan. He looked unnerved by the process, and I hoped no one was monitoring the security footage that closely. Anyone would be able to spot his pale face and darting eyes.
Godfrey led us down the empty corridor in silence. There were steel doors spaced every few feet, but none of them had locks or handles. Four-digit numbers were punched into the metal, but Godfrey did not glance at them once. Reaching the end of the hallway, we rounded the corner. This passage had no doors, but up ahead, I could see another elevator — a larger version of the one we had just taken.
The rover over the doors jerked from side to side, reading each of our CIDs. The doors flew open, and we all piled inside. The panel next to the door had dozens of numbered buttons, but Godfrey selected the button near the bottom labeled “A.”
Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) Page 4