From Area 52 the DTF controlled satellites that maintained constant watch over all of the islands, and they could zoom in close enough to count the freckles on someone’s arm if necessary. This was government prying, spying, and blatant disregard for privacy at its most intrusive level. With the infrared, see-through, and HD optical technology at their hands, they could quite literally watch anyone in Hawaii do absolutely anything—anytime, day or night. But no one even knew about it to complain.
There was one exception to the surveillance web. I had initially requested that Redemption and Ni’ihau be excluded from the spy net altogether, but Barnes had been uncomfortable with that idea. I understood his objection. That was far too much “dark” space for a potential problem to come from.
He was however willing to exclude Redemption Island and the channel around us. He didn’t mind our activities being invisible—since nothing could approach or hide beyond our circle unseen—and Barnes made sure each of the four operatives was clear on that. For insurance purposes, I had Keena—the Pack’s tech expert—learn the system operations and had the operatives set her up with a mobile system she could run from her room in Blake’s house. From there she would be able to access, and scroll through, all of the screens in Area 52. We had nothing to hide, but we didn’t like being watched—who does—and on the off chance the enemy did break into Area 52 at some point, I didn’t want anyone to be able to follow the Pack’s responsive movements. Governor Barnes was placing a lot of trust in me with this—I understood that—but the Pack was technically his Black Ops. He let it go.
I had no choice about the tablets that monitored our dog tags though and didn’t fight that. I understood the significance of that specific connection and security measure. Even if they couldn’t see us from the Hexagon, they needed to know where we were.
While Keena accustomed herself to the ins and outs of the entire system, I led the rest of the Pack up the 3,922 steps to the Shield’s transceiver—the “Eye.” I’d only been up there once before—with Governor Barnes—but the panoramic view of the islands and the Pacific was just as stunning the second time. On clear sunny days like this one, Kaneohe Bay glimmered like a field of diamonds. It was hard to adequately describe, and no wonder so many people had tried to climb up there. I showed the Pack where the backup generator was that could power up the Shield in the event the island or the Hexagon experienced a blackout. In the worst-case scenario, someone would have to race all the way up here—a good twenty-minute vertical sprint—and turn it on manually. As no one had ever done it before, there was no telling what would happen to the person who was up here when the Shield activated, especially if it was wet or— worse—mid storm. Hopefully we’d never have to find out.
Returning to Area 52, I led the Pack down a locked hallway to a giant gray door with a stenciled elephant painted on it. I had decided to take the team into this room—the Elephant Box—and reveal its contents. It was a risk, but there had to be absolute trust between us, and this was my way of showing my investment in that trust—and in each of them.
The Elephant Box was large enough to hold a dozen adult elephants, or two dozen—if you added a top layer—since it was two stories. The walls were dark gray and streaked or cracked—like elephant skin—but they had nothing to do with the name. The architect was merely a Republican. Fortunately he wasn’t a Democrat.
I watched as the Pack took in the contents of the box. “Whoa.” Keena was shaking her head. “Is that the actual Declaration—”
“Of Independence?” I smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is. Pretty much anything the government deemed too important to risk losing is here. The Bill of Rights, the Constitution, money plates, the first version of the Bible in English, the first of each version of the American flag—even the two Mount Suribachi flags from Iwo Jima. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is in that cabinet, as is the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation. Every important document in American history is in this vault.”
Deacon was holding a hat in his hands. “And Lincoln’s top hat.”
“Yes, that too.” I caught it as Deacon tossed it to me. “Blake, Jack’s green jacket from his eighteenth major is in a fire box over there.” I nodded at a wall of black cabinets.
“Seriously?” Blake loved golf. “Whose idea was that? Had to be Clinton’s.”
“No way,” Deacon replied. “My money is on Obama.”
I shrugged. Who knows? “And all those hard drives contain every newspaper ever printed in digital form. There are building plans, instructions on pretty much every invention with all the patents, archives and archives of digitized books—you name it. Pretty much whatever you need to start a country over at some point.”
There was a chorus of “wows” and “holy craps” in response. What else could you say?
“This is crazy.” Blake shook his head. “When you mentioned the Elephant Box, I thought it was going to be just a box—maybe a large trunk or something.”
Keena laughed, and a second later Blake caught his own unintentional pun. “You know what I mean.”
“Well, there was a trunk in here too,” I replied. “Essentially a file cabinet or safe. I took that with me to the island. It’ll go in the vault under Blake’s office when we get that bunker finished.”
“What was in the trunk?” Deacon asked. “Can you even tell us?”
“Sure. It has hundreds of zip drives and packs of books with the design plans and locations for all eight of our government safe houses, plus NORAD and the White House. It had all the codes for our national and space missile silos and carriers—that kind of stuff. Also, there was a giant roman numeral four etched into the trunk, which makes me think there may be a few more of these trunks out there—perhaps in each of the safe houses.”
“Man.” Twix shook his head. “That’s huge. No wonder you wanted to build that damn bunker.”
I laughed. “Didn’t make sense otherwise?”
“I mean … I don’t know … not really.” Twix smiled. “It’s a lot of work for a room full of rope and guns.”
“And an ATV.” Blake playfully shoved Twix.
“Oh yeah, I forgot the ATV.”
“You said eight safe houses?” Royce asked, ignoring the conversational detour.
“Yes, though I believe there are ten if you count this, the White House, and NORAD.”
“So where are the other seven, Danny?” Deacon asked.
“I haven’t looked up specifics, but I can tell you their names from the book—Wrigley, Anaheim, Mackinaw, Alcatraz, St. Louis, Orlando, and Brooklyn.”
“Do you think they have this kind of stuff in those places too?” Keena gestured at all the artifacts. “Or people—other survivors?”
“People? Maybe.” I shrugged. “But I think this is essentially the treasure chest. This entire wing was built for presidents. None of them used it, but it was always going to be the safe house—the Camp David—for presidents when they came west on vacation. The government was in the process of moving all its defense systems and the rest of our national treasures here to the Hexagon before the attacks.”
It made sense.
Clearly there weren’t many people who knew about these rooms—these bunkers—but the vice president had known, so there were probably others who knew. Was it possible the general at NORAD knew about the vault in this bunker? Was it possible he knew about the other bunkers? There was something out of place with this entire NORAD scenario. I was convinced we were missing something critical—that we didn’t have all the relevant information on this end.
--------------------
Danny had also found a map of Area 52 and detailed descriptions of its operational capabilities in the Elephant Box, and he kept those documents in a wall safe at the tree house—concealed by a secret panel behind his headboard. When everyone else who had stayed on Redemption went down to greet the first plane coming back from Oahu, one person stayed behind, snuck into Danny’s room, and moved the bed.
It had taken several hours of searching the room, over many limited opportunities, to even find the safe. But now, having finally found the safe a few days earlier—and having cleaned the keypad then—the person shone a blue light across the keys, revealing prints on the numbers that had last been touched. After three failed attempts, the safe clicked open on the fourth. The only item of interest in there was one specific book.
The book contained far more than just the information on Area 52 and the Stairway to Heaven. It had access codes for the Cheyenne Mountain bunker and launch codes for all its missiles, as well as the location of every other highly classified government safe house in the country. It had scheduled password changes for every military room and facility in Hawaii, as well as the codes needed for making security badges and connecting to communication grids off the island. Whoever had this book could pretty much keep everyone here safe or—just as easily—they could put everyone on the planet in jeopardy. There was more to be discovered in the remaining pages, but voices were approaching the tree house. Carefully replacing the book in the safe and sliding the panel and bed back in place, the person quietly turned to leave the dark room but stopped short at the sight of a little girl standing in the light of the doorway.
“Reagan, what are you doing?” Abbey asked.
Shit.
SEVEN – Eighty-Three Days
---------- (Wednesday. July 20, 2022.) ----------
Fort Morro Prison. San Juan, Puerto Rico.
There was one guard Eddie didn’t hate. Eddie only saw him on Sundays. For months he’d tried to get the guard to talk to him, to answer a question¸ to say anything at all, but he never did. A little over a week ago Eddie had learned why. As the guard brought him toilet paper and a bar of soap last Sunday, he stopped at the base of the stairs and pointed up at the ceiling then quickly at his eye. Then he walked over to the bars and slid the supplies through. Eddie got the message. Someone was watching them. Someone was watching him!
The camera was well hidden, and Eddie knew better than to look for it. He was certain he wasn’t supposed to know it was there, and he figured the guard would get in trouble if they ever realized he’d revealed its presence. But that raised even more questions in his mind. Where were they watching him from? And who exactly was watching him? What was all this about? And why had the guard told him about the camera, likely risking his own life? Eddie easily could have let it drive him crazy. Instead, he reasoned there was something he hadn’t yet figured out. That fueled him. He needed to stay mentally sharp, not starve himself or get himself killed another way. He needed this curiosity to rejuvenate him. Eddie began working out again—sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups. If the people watching him were hoping to watch him crumble, Eddie wanted them to get frustrated. Eddie wanted them to get angry.
Apparently it worked. Here they were, only ten days later, and for the first time someone was coming to visit him. Eddie heard the helicopter whir in and land hard on the roof of the fort directly over his head. Dirt and chunks of rock dropped onto his floor from the ceiling. Eddie was certain the visitor would be General Roja, but he was wrong. A half dozen armed soldiers came down and opened his cell. A few minutes later the Libyan commander strode into his cell, followed by another half dozen soldiers, including the guard he didn’t hate.
Commander Boli kept his distance, pacing a full circle around Eddie. “Do you know why I’m here?”
Eddie didn’t reply, which clearly irritated the commander. There was a time Eddie would have considered this man his friend.
“Do you know why I’m here?”
Eddie still didn’t answer, but this time he took a nightstick to the back for his silent defiance. Eddie grimaced but stood his ground. He was tempted to take the nightstick from the fool who had hit him and shove it through his eye, but he took a deep breath and stared down the commander instead.
“Fine. You don’t want to talk to me. Chain him up.” Four guards jumped at his command and chained Eddie to the pole in the middle of his cell. “Bring her in.” Commander Boli snapped his fingers at a man standing in the dark hallway.
Eddie swallowed hard as two more soldiers escorted his wife, Mali, into his cell. She looked terrified. “What is she doing here?”
The commander smiled. “I thought you would be happy to see her.”
Eddie was relieved to see she was alive, but he knew her presence here wasn’t good. Eddie suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. “What do you want from me?” he gasped. “Please don’t—”
“You know exactly what I want. I have been patient enough. Too patient. It’s time you pay me for my time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Eddie twisted against his chains. “What? What am I supposed to do? What are you waiting for?”
Eddie’s questions went unanswered. The commander snapped his fingers again at one of the soldiers and held up two fingers. A soldier stepped up and punched Mali hard in the stomach. She grunted and doubled over, and the soldier punched her again—this time in the face. The force of the blow spun her around, blood and saliva flying from her mouth. She dropped to the floor. Eddie screamed at the first punch and lunged against his chains at the second, cursing the soldier. Another soldier beat him with a nightstick until the commander waved him off.
“You touch her again and I’ll kill you!”
“Unlikely.” Boli sneered at him. He pointed at yet another soldier and snapped his fingers, this time holding up three fingers. Eddie watched helplessly as Mali tried to push herself up and the soldier kicked her in the face. Her head snapped back and she flopped unconscious onto the floor. Eddie watched for any signs of life, but there were none. Commander Boli knelt down and felt for a pulse. “You’re lucky. She’s still alive. Barely.” Boli stood back up. “Now give me what I want!”
Tears ran down Eddie’s face, and he slid down to his knees. “Mali … I’m so sorry …” He didn’t look up at the commander, but it was clear he was addressing Boli. “I don’t understand. How can you do this to me? How can you beat a woman? How can you do this to your own people? I don’t even know what you want.”
The commander laughed and gestured for two of his men to remove Eddie’s wife. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Eddie stood up again. “Please, what do you want? You have to tell me.”
The commander stopped at the stairs and turned back to look at him. “You and your brother knew what was at stake. Don’t pretend you do not know what I want.” As the commander climbed the stairs, he hollered back, “You have only eighty-three days left.”
Eddie went silent—stunned. What was that supposed to mean? Eighty-three days for what? He counted it out in his head—the twelfth of October. That would be two years since the Qi Jia invasion. So what was he supposed to do by then? What was he missing? And what did his brother have to do with any of this?
EIGHT – Truth and Consequences
---------- (Wednesday. June 20, 2022.) ----------
Redemption Island, Hawaii.
“Sorry, Lazzo, with those curtains closed and the light off I thought you were Reagan.” Abbey laughed, backing out of the dark room. “I don’t know how. Clearly you don’t—” Abbey looked around nervously. “Uh … I thought she and Tara were here.”
Lazzo followed her out. He didn’t like the look on her face. She looked terrified. “They—they went down—” he stammered. “I thought you went down to the docks with them—she’s down there.”
“Of course. Sorry.” Abbey’s voice cracked slightly. “I knew that.”
“No. Sorry. My fault for startling you.” Lazzo’s heart was pounding so hard he didn’t know how she couldn’t hear it. He closed the door to Danny’s room. “I thought I’d heard someone in there and knew Danny and Kate were both gone.” He walked toward her. His excuse was terrible. “But everyone’s probably still down there.”
Abbey nodded. “Thanks, Lazzo.” She took off running and didn’t look back.
“Great,” Lazzo muttered. He had ha
lf expected her to scream, but she hadn’t. He listened to her footsteps fade away. Maybe he was reading too much into her expression. He had no idea how long she’d been standing there, or how much she had seen. One thing was for certain: he’d been quite careless. If she had been pretty much anyone else, he didn’t know how he would have explained himself.
He paced back and forth in his room and looked at the handmade calendar on his wall. Eighty-three days until the two-year anniversary of the attacks. He had eighty-three days to get that book to Denver. That was the agreement he’d made with Commander Boli back in Denver. But then, nothing had gone as planned in any of this.
The same day Eddie had gone to talk to the captain in Colorado Springs about the NORAD bunker, Lazzo had gone to the Libyan commander’s office. He’d told Commander Boli everything Eddie had shared with him about his suspicions regarding the Americans communicating with Vice President Moore in the camp before he died. Lazzo told him about the tracks in the VP’s tent and the slice in the canvas. He also told him about the Russian commander being up at the Alpine Visitor Center and running the interrogation of the vice president. Eddie had been correct about that too—none of the other commanders knew anything about it.
At first Commander Boli was angry they hadn’t brought this up before, accusing Lazzo of treason and threatening to confront the Russian immediately. But Lazzo reasoned with him to wait, to understand where they were coming from, and to consider instead how he could use this information to his own advantage. After hearing him out, Commander Boli clearly agreed. This could be big for him.
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