There was no one in the tunnel. We walked the entire two miles to the actual bunker back entry without any opposition. The backdoor in—or doors to be exact—were not at all what I was expecting. They were a pair of three-by-three foot steel squares—crawling height barely—with a giant eighty-inch screen on the wall above them. I flipped a switch beside the screen and it came to life—presumably wired into the bunker’s power. The screen displayed twelve six-by-six inch boxes of video feeds—obviously from throughout the bunker. What we saw shocked us. Cheyenne Mountain was crawling with Qi Jia troops.
One of the screens showed a room with seven Americans in a cell. The other screens showed Qi Jia troops sweeping, moving bodies around, eating, working on computers, and coming in and out of the bunker. By the raingear they had on and the wet footprints on the floor, it was clear it was raining outside now. That was great for us in terms of covering our earlier tracks.
“Look,” Eddie whispered suddenly. “Commander Boli.”
The person Eddie indicated as Boli was in a room with two Qi Jia soldiers and an American soldier with his back to us, addressing someone sitting in a chair we couldn’t yet see.
When the standing American soldier turned around, I heard Hayley gasp and Flynn curse. Captain Baker. What the hell is he doing?
“Go figure. My dad is helping them.”
That was obvious. But why? And helping them with what?
Baker and Boli moved enough then to let us see the man in the chair. It was General Niles.
“Niles,” I whispered.
“Who’s Niles?” Hayley asked.
“He’s the general who was begging Baker to come quickly. The guy who essentially put everyone at risk. But he’s also our highest-ranking military officer left, far as we know.” I saw Baker strike Niles across the face. He was clearly yelling at the general. How long has the Cheyenne Mountain bunker been compromised? Before Baker even got here? Or did Baker let them in?
“They had to have promised Baker something,” Blake whispered in my ear.
Sure, but what? I watched Baker turn and leave the room, and I followed him onto another screen, where he was speaking to a group of Qi Jia soldiers and two of his SEALs. I glanced back at the other screen and could see that General Niles was severely beaten. His face was a bloody mess. He must not yet have given up whatever it was they thought he had. Commander Boli shook his fist in the general’s face, and then the two guards in the room came over, unfastened the general, and led him to the cell with the other seven Americans. They threw him on the floor, and a young woman rushed over to tend to him immediately. A young man in the cell pointed his finger at the guards and clearly said something to them. One of the guards pointed his gun at the man and pulled the trigger. We watched the man’s head explode as the shot echoed down the tunnel. He fell immediately to the ground.
The gunshot told me two things. One: we weren’t entirely soundproof where we were. We had to be careful not to make noise. And two: the cell was close by. The gunshot was clear before the echo—like the initial discharge was right next to us. I looked carefully at the screen and considered the angle of the view into the cell with the prisoners. No other screen showed the cell, but I was almost certain the cell was on the other side of the solid steel wall next to us, which made perfect sense. It was the only visible place in the entire bunker to keep prisoners, and only a president or vice president would have the codes to escape from it. There were two steel doors on the sides of the screen that appeared to slide into the bunker walls—essentially pocket doors. I was willing to bet one of them opened directly into the cell holding General Niles and the other seven—six now—prisoners. I huddled with the others and shared my thoughts in a whisper. Then we returned to watch the screens.
Shortly after 4:00 a.m., Commander Boli left the bunker. Captain Baker stood at a map-covered table with several Qi Jia soldiers and his two men. We could see the maps from directly overhead. He was running his finger in circles around the Knights Peak area. Occasionally he would point at the other soldiers and they would nod, but he kept going back to the maps.
“He’s helping them hunt us,” Blake said.
“No,” Hayley replied. “He’s helping them hunt me … and Flynn. He doesn’t know the rest of you are here.”
“He can’t think you blew up that building though,” I whispered.
“You’re right.” Eddie pointed at me. “He must think you are here too.”
That son of a bitch is actually helping Qi Jia hunt us with two of his men—with two other American soldiers! These are SEALs. Where is their honor? Man, if Trigger and Twix were here ... Baker had let Qi Jia into the bunker and handed over our highest-ranked military officer. He’d shot and killed his own son. What can he possibly think he is going to get out of this?
At 5:00 a.m., I knew we had to make our move. Baker and his two SEALs had walked outside. Six Qi Jia soldiers were sleeping on cots in the room with the maps. Four other soldiers were on patrol, two at the front entrance of the bunker and two more beside the prisoners’ cell. This was the lowest number of soldiers that had been there yet.
The problem was the doors. We didn’t know where the other one opened into—the book didn’t say—and we also didn’t know how loud they’d be when they opened. Ideally, we’d know which door went into the cell and open the other, sneak out, and take out as many of the soldiers as we could. We needed to unlock the cell door and at least give the illusion they’d escaped another way than through the back wall of their cell. But that could easily backfire.
I turned back to everyone else. “Okay, here’s the plan. Stop me if there’s anything you don’t understand.” I glanced around at the circle of nodding heads. “Flynn, you’re staying here with Cera.”
“Danny, she’s actually good with a gun.”
I rolled my eyes. One sentence in and Hayley had already interrupted me. “Hayley, it’s not her shooting I’m worried about.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, Flynn you stay here with Cera. Eddie you too. I can’t afford to have anyone know you’re here.” I put my hand on the giant African’s shoulder. “Eddie, that’s important.”
“Understood.”
“Silas, you’re the only one in Qi Jia uniform. We’re going to open both doors simultaneously, and I want you to go out the one that doesn’t go into the cell. Keena, I want you with him. Silas, you protect her and try to keep her hidden as long as you can.
“Keena, I need you to try to get to the computers and kill the feed. Erase all evidence we were here if you can. Then I need you to close the main bunker door. We need to jam it to where it can’t be opened from the outside—ever again if necessary.
“Hayley, I need you behind those two. I’m giving you Blake’s headset and will tell you where the trouble is. You take out who you have to. Your bow is our best weapon because it’s our quietest. There are two alarms in the bunker. If Keena can cut them off, she will. Otherwise, we have to try to keep people away from them.” So far everyone seemed in tune with the plan.
“Listen, guys, I am certain someone somewhere is watching the same feed we can see from here. They will see Silas, Keena, and probably even Hayley.” I handed Hayley my hat. “Keep your heads down. Do not look up. If Keena erases all the recordings, they’re not going to have any still frames to identify us with. That said, once they see you, they’ll be coming fast. Get in and get out as quickly as you can. Blake and I will get the prisoners into the tunnel and reclose our door. Any questions?”
Eddie raised his hand. “Danny, if we don’t leave out the front, they’re going to surround this mountain.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“So how will we get out of here?”
“Honestly, Eddie, I don’t know.” That was clearly a sobering response, judging by the silence that followed my words. “We do have another option. We can sit back and watch, wait for our chance to leave, and then leave. Those prisoners will certainly be dead. The general will pro
bably give up whatever he’s thus far refused to. The bunker will remain open, and Qi Jia will be able to launch whatever missiles remain here whenever and wherever they want. That’s the only other alternative.”
There was a lengthy pause. Blake finally broke it. “Not much of an alternative.”
“I know.” I waited for any other objections. None came. “Okay then, shall we?”
A chorus of agreement followed. Here goes nothing.
FORTY-THREE – Tunnel Rats (Danny)
---------- (Wednesday, August 10, 2022.) ----------
The doors barely made a sound when they opened. They slowly slid into the tunnel wall leaving gaps in the walls where they had been. Given their silence, I elected to close the one leading into the cell, since no one had noticed it open—not even the prisoners. The cell was dark, but I didn’t want to chance the cell guards noticing anything.
Turned out to be a good call. When it sealed shut, we watched—on the screen—as one of the guards stood and peered into the cell. Something had caught his attention, but he didn’t seem to know quite what. He looked around for a minute and then said something to the other guard and sat back down. I turned to Silas and Keena and whispered, “Go.”
Silas crawled out the door on the right—into a storage room. Oddly, we couldn’t see him on one of the screens—which had to be by design. He came into view a minute later on a screen two guards had just passed through. We watched him walk down a hallway after them and then wave for Keena to follow him. She did with Hayley right behind her. Silas appeared on the screen in the computer room. We saw a man at one of the computers stand and stretch. The other guard in that room walked out another door into the hallway—directly into Keena’s knife. She pushed the man back into the computer room—hand over his mouth, knife in his throat—and Silas instantly tackled the guy at the computers. After a brief struggle, Silas stood up and took position by the door. Keena was typing feverishly on a laptop and I watched the monitors around her fill with code and rapidly cycle through screenshots like a slideshow.
I quickly scanned all the feeds on our big screen and saw Hayley enter the one showing the prison cell. One of the guards spotted her immediately, but she was ready for him. An arrow through his throat put him down. The other guard bolted up and turned toward Hayley, drawing his gun, but before he could raise it up, one of the prisoners behind him grabbed his arm, knocking the gun free. With his other arm the prisoner grabbed the guard’s head and slammed it into the bars, rendering him quickly unconscious. Hayley grabbed the keys off the guard she’d taken out and opened the cell door.
The six sleeping guards in the map room still hadn’t moved, and Keena still hadn’t closed the front door. Fortunately, there was no sign of Baker, his men, or any other soldiers. I punched in the code to open the door behind the cell, and it slid into the wall again. The man who had taken the handgun from the guard spun toward us, pointing his gun at Blake as Blake crawled into the cell.
“It’s okay,” Blake said standing up. “We’re here for you. Get everyone in here.”
The man with the gun glanced at Hayley, and she nodded at him. “They’re with me. Go.”
“Ava,” the man whispered at the girl holding the general’s head in her lap. “Get your dad up.”
We helped General Niles slide into the tunnel, and I took another look at the screen. For some reason, the front door to the bunker was still open. Come on, Keena. Shut that damn door. “Keena,” I spoke into the headset. I could still see her but she didn’t reply. “Keena.”
“Danny, you want me to go back and check on her?” Hayley asked through the other headset, since she couldn’t see me at the moment.
“No.” I slipped into the cell with Hayley. “She’s okay.”
The girl named Ava was assisting another prisoner. He too was severely beaten—almost unrecognizable—but I saw the tattoo on his arm as she helped him by. It was distinctively Navy SEAL. One of Baker’s guys? “Get him in, quick,” I whispered to Ava.
The prisoner who had taken the gun from the guard stuck his head into the cell from the tunnel. “Those other three are already dead. Just leave them.”
“Kellen, we can’t do that,” Ava hissed at him. “I won’t leave John here.”
“Ava, he’s dead. He—” A gunshot cut off Kellen’s reply. I dove back into the tunnel and looked at the screen. It was blank. Keena had cut all the feed. We were blind. Crap. I heard shouting and more gunshots. I reached back into the cell and grabbed Hayley’s leg. “Get in here.”
Hayley basically shoved Ava in before her, then slid in as I entered the code to close the door.
It slid into place, and I turned to look at everyone. Ava was standing right behind me with tears in her eyes. “You okay?” I put my hand on her arm. She nodded. I looked at the others then down at the door on the right. We were going to have to close that one in a minute.
“Blake, Kellen, you two go see if you can get to Keena.”
Kellen shook his head. “I can’t leave the general.” Blake, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate. He dove into the storage room.
“Kellen, go.” We all heard the general’s whispered order.
Kellen gave him a questioning look, then nodded and followed Blake through the small square door. I knelt down and watched as Blake opened the door on the other side of the storage room and glanced out. He put his arm out immediately and held Kellen back. They came back to the tunnel.
“What’s going on?” I asked, searching Blake’s face.
“I can’t get to Keena.”
Shit. “How do—”
“She’s in the hallway … Silas too. He’s dead. Two soldiers have Keena—gun to her head. Baker’s in there …”
“Blake, we have to—”
“I’m sorry, Dan.” He crawled past me into the tunnel. “The place is crawling with troops. She must not have gotten the door down.”
I wanted to go see for myself, but Blake seemed to sense that. He was blocking my path. I sighed and punched in the codes to the open door, and it shut tightly.
The loss of Keena was devastating. I was sure Eddie would feel the same about Silas when he connected the dots in a minute. And clearly the Ava girl felt the same about the John we’d had to leave in that cell. To make matters worse, I had no idea what Keena had accomplished in the computer room. Maybe she wasn’t able to do anything at all.
In the dimly lit tunnel, people’s expressions were a mixture of pain, sorrow, and devastation. Kellen was kneeling beside General Niles, whispering to him. Ava was giving the badly injured SEAL some water. Blake and Hayley had moved down the hall a ways, likely to try to find Eddie, Flynn, and Cera. Ava glanced back at me, stood, and approached. “Who are you? And why are you here? How did you find this cave—this place—whatever it is?”
As first impressions went, I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t see her well in the darkness, but she had a stunning outline. She also seemed angry—very angry—and we’d pretty much saved her life. “Take it easy … I’m—”
Kellen walked up behind her. “The general would like to speak with you.” He pointed at me. “With both of you.” He nodded at Ava.
We knelt beside General Niles. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
“What’s your name, son? I feel like I recognize you,” he wheezed.
He was badly beaten, perhaps even had some broken ribs. “Yes, sir, I’m Captain Danny Miner.”
“You were in Hawaii?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Son, I’m not going to make it—”
“Daddy, don’t—”
“Ava, hush. I need you to listen.”
“Daddy.” Ava took his hand.
“Ava, please, let me talk to Captain Miner.”
She bit her lip and nodded, tears pooling in her eyes.
“Captain, I need you to promise me you’ll take care of my daughter.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll do what I can.” I gently patted his shoulder.
“There are no guarantees, sir, but if I can keep her safe—trust me—I will.”
He looked me in the eyes for a minute, then nodded. “You must be someone special if you knew about this tunnel. I guarantee you less than ten living people even know it’s here, and half of them wouldn’t know how to access it—not from the back. So, whoever you are exactly, I have instructed Kellen that he is to fulfill the same duties for you as he would for me. If you get my daughter safely back to Hawaii, the governor is to promote you to major—”
“Sir, that’s not necessary. I’ll—”
“Bullshit Captain, necessary or not, you took great risks to come here, for whatever purpose. Were I not in this state, you would have effectively rescued me. You would—” A coughing fit cut his words short. He buried his face in a towel he held. It cut the noise but appeared to increase his pain.
“Daddy, you need to rest.”
“Ava, I’ll have plenty of time to rest soon enough.” He took her hand with both of his. “I just need a few private moments with the captain here first.”
She nodded and backed away toward Kellen.
“What can I do for you, sir?” I asked.
“How well do you know that other captain?”
“Other captain? You mean Baker, sir?”
“Yes, the one you were fighting with on the conference call.”
“Sir, I’m sorry about—”
“Never mind that.” He coughed again. “There’s no need for apology.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” I thought about the best way to answer. “I don’t know Captain Baker well at all. I know he was in a rush to get here and prove himself.”
“The selfish prick proved himself a traitor, that’s what—” Another coughing fit interrupted him. This time he closed his eyes and slammed his head back against the wall.
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