by Ann Simko
This was his Nevada, the true Nevada. Not the neon nightmare most people thought of, but this: the brutal heat and the life that existed despite the odds, and then later the subtle softness of the desert at night, the cadence of a thousand living things that most people never had the privilege to see or hear. After all this time wandering, he knew was home at last. He watched the vultures one by one disappear over a bluff as Montana disturbed his thoughts.
"Dakota, get down here!"
"Why should I? I'm comfortable right where I am."
"Because I need help opening this door."
"Door?" Curiosity pulled him to his feet. "What door?"
Montana shielded his eyes from the sun. "That would be the large metal door that is buried here in the desert floor. You know... The one that's at the end of the blood trail we've been following."
"Ah, of course. That door." He started down the ravine and grumbled under his breath, "Why did I call him? I could be in air conditioning somewhere, with a cold drink." He tried to pick his way cautiously down the loose soil of the steep ravine, but lost his footing two-thirds of the way down, fell head first, and slid the last ten feet on his forearms and hands. After wiping dirt and blood on his jeans, he looked up to find Montana staring at him. He didn't expect any sympathy, and he certainly didn't receive any.
"Took you long enough." Montana gave Dakota a look of disdain for his less-than-graceful approach, and gestured to the desert floor. "Look."
At first, Dakota couldn't figure out what he was looking at. Montana brushed aside sand, dirt, and dead branches, until a defined edge emerged. Dakota helped push aside the debris until all four sides became clear. Montana continued sweeping the metal plate clean, working toward the center, where he uncovered the recessed ring that served as a handle. The door had been painstakingly concealed and still Montana had found it. Dakota would have walked right past it.
"So, that would be a hidden door in the middle of the desert, would it not?" Dakota said.
Montana ignored him, stood to one side, and pulled on the ring. It opened with surprising ease. "This has been used recently." He took off his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket.
Dakota realized that he intended on entering the dark gaping hole. "Hang on a second. We have one missing deputy and two presumably missing campers. Don't you think the reasonable thing would be to call Cal and let him investigate this?"
Montana raised his head and spoke with absolutely no emotion. "Yes, that would be reasonable." He reached under his pants leg, withdrew a .32 caliber semi-automatic Ruger, and handed it to Dakota. "Here. Just in case."
Dakota ran a filthy hand through his hair in exasperation, but he took the gun. He was familiar with weapons; Montana wouldn't have had it any other way. "What about you?"
Montana took the 9mm Berretta in his hand and checked his rounds. "I'm good."
"Um... Montana? What if the bad guys are still home?"
Montana had started down the ladder leading into darkness. He stopped his descent and squinted up. "I wouldn't worry. They probably closed up shop and split after the kid took off."
"Probably?"
"Yeah, sure. Come on."
"You're so comforting," Dakota mumbled under his breath as he turned and tested his footing on the ladder.
Montana jumped the last four rungs and landed at the bottom of the shaft. He pulled a Mag-light from his pants pocket and flicked it on. Nothing but dust showed up.
Dakota followed him down, straining to see in the dim light. They stood at the end of a long hallway. He felt the emptiness, the desolate loneliness of the place, and then the smell hit him. "Oh, Jesus." His hand went up to cover his nose.
Montana raised his brows. "Well, it would seem they left something behind. Come on." He took a step, and then stopped suddenly. "Hold it." He focused his light on a sensor in the ceiling. "Motion detector." He waved his arm under the sensor and nothing happened. "Electricity must be cut. That's a good sign."
Dakota's hand muffled a groan. "Thanks. I feel better already."
They continued down the passage, guided by the narrow beam of Montana's light. The horrific smell grew stronger the farther they walked into the tunnel. The temperature, even though they were underground, was stifling. Sweat trickled down Dakota's back and beaded along his hairline. The only sounds were the scuffling of their shoes on the smooth concrete beneath their feet and their breathing.
Montana stopped suddenly. They had reached the first of a long line of cells, and lying just inside the barred door was a body. It lay on its side with its back to them, limbs splayed out in disarray as if someone had casually tossed it inside.
Montana focused the light on the body and sighed. "I think we just found Tommy."
He pulled the door open on creaky hinges. As he stepped inside, he bent down and trained the beam on the head. "A single shot to the back of the head. Somebody wanted him dead." He turned the corpse over and illuminated the face. Glazed, lifeless eyes stared back at him. "Hello, Tommy."
He shone his flashlight around the cell and found two more bodies in the corner. After a brief examination, he looked up. "One male, one female. Both killed the same way as Tommy. These are our missing campers."
Dakota looked down at Tommy and remembered growing up with the guy. He was a year or two older than Tommy. Their lives had gone in distinctly different directions, and they could never have been called friends, but Tommy didn't deserve this. No one did. "Why? Tommy Lawson wasn't a threat to anyone. Why would someone do this?"
Montana stepped into the hallway. "I don't know, but I have a feeling your Marine might have some answers."
They continued down the narrow hallway and found ten more cells. Each one contained a dead body dressed in military fatigues. By Dakota's reckoning, none of them could be more than twenty years old. His mind struggled to grasp the senseless waste of life. Twenty years old! How the hell did they end up here?
"How long?" Montana asked him.
Dakota knew what he meant. Entombed underground as they were, decomposition had been slowed, but not halted. "Tommy and the campers, obviously just since this morning." He looked closer at one of the soldiers. "These guys...longer. A good day, maybe two." The skin had a sick, grayish pallor and the cheeks were sunken by the flaccidity of death. He tried not to look at the gray matter splattered across the boy's features. Fortunately, death had taken his individuality with it when it came; the face could be recognized merely as human.
Dakota followed his brother as he ventured past the dead men and found the remains of a command center. A control desk in the shape of a semi-circle occupied a spacious room at the end of the hallway. Bare wires protruded from the walls. The empty shells of computers lay scattered about the floor. All of the hard drives had been removed and the monitors were destroyed. Nothing that could be remotely helpful had been left, except the bodies.
Montana picked through the debris. "Well, they were thorough. I'll give them that."
They had been underground for nearly an hour, with only the stench of death and decay for company. Dakota had trouble breathing as he turned in a small circle and surveyed the destruction surrounding him. "What the hell happened here? What was going on in this place?"
Montana stood and brushed the dirt off his hands. "The kid's the key. Whoever did this thinks he's important enough to kill thirteen people for."
One thought made it through the confusion. "They're going to try again, aren't they?"
Montana nodded. "Yeah, if they haven't already."
"What do we do?" That thought evolved into the realization that his staff was in danger. Dakota's chest tightened with the need to get out of there, to move, to breathe. His head was fuzzy and he realized he was hyperventilating. He struggled to control his breathing. All he had done was ask one simple question. Who was Michael Ricco?
If he'd known where the answers would lead him, he never would have tried to satisfy his curiosity. As he got a handle on his feelings and
his breathing, he knew that was a lie. An unanswered question was like an unopened door, you had to peek inside. For Dakota it wasn't a choice.
Montana placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Even in the dim light, Dakota could see the muscles of Montana's jaw working. His face might have conveyed nothing to the casual observer, but Dakota saw the tendons in his neck cord and the veins pop out as if he had just done a strenuous hour in the gym. He didn't answer Dakota because he couldn't, not yet.
He pushed past and walked back up the hallway to the still-opened door. Dakota tried not to look at the dark humps, but he couldn't help himself. Who were they? he wondered. Who mourned them? They once lived up there in the light. They loved, they laughed, but they died alone and nameless down here in the dark. As he followed Montana back up the ladder and into the fresh air, he vowed he would change that. He would give those men their names back.
The stark beauty of the desert seemed surreal after what they had just witnessed. The sun was close to the horizon and shadows had lengthened. Time had moved on while they surveyed death in the dark. The air temperature had dropped down into the high double-digits, and the breeze felt cool in comparison to the bunker beneath them. The air smelled sweet, but it did little to wash the stench of death from their nostrils.
While Dakota sat on the ground and tried to deal with what he had just seen, Montana pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched a pre-programmed number. "Hey, I need a favor." He walked a few yards away and spoke too softly for Dakota to hear. After several minutes, he put the phone back in his pocket and strode back to where Dakota sat. "Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"I put a man on your Michael Ricco. He should be there in about twenty minutes."
"A man? What do you mean, like a guard?"
"Okay."
"Will you stop with the 'okays,' and just tell me what's going on, please?"
Montana leaned on a boulder and for the first time let his emotions show. He had yet to put the ever-present Ray-Bans back on and Dakota caught a glimpse of something pass over his eyes. Dakota knew that his brother thought being strong meant never letting his feelings show, never losing his self-control. At that moment, he knew Montana was on the verge of doing both. Anger, grief, despair, and confusion all fought for a way out before Montana pulled the dark glasses out of his shirt pocket and forced them back into hiding.
He looked away as if he were thinking. Dakota let him believe he had managed to hide the overwhelming emotions threatening to overpower him. "All right, Dakota." Montana spoke to the horizon before turning back toward him. "You wanted my help, now you've got it... All of it. Here's the deal. Someone tried to kill your boy, and then they killed all these people to cover their tracks." He pointed at the open door. "We weren't meant to find that bunker or those bodies. Whoever was that desperate is not going to let Michael Ricco live to tell any tales. They are going to find him, and they are probably going to kill him."
Montana caught Dakota's attention and held it. "And anyone else who gets in their way."
It took Dakota a second to realize who he was talking about. "You mean me?" His thoughts froze. "But why?"
"Because you couldn't let it go. You asked questions."
Dakota looked at the sun sinking behind the buttes. The brilliant light of day had muted to blended orange and rose hues painting the once neutral sandstone and giving it life in the fading of day. The beauty of the moment was not lost on him. He was alive to witness the sight, Tommy wasn't. "I got Tommy Lawson and those campers killed." He turned back to Montana. "Didn't I?"
Montana shook his head. "Don't put that on yourself. You did right. And don't worry about Ricco. My man is armed, he won't let anything happen to the kid or anyone else. Trust me on that."
Dakota took a deep breath. "Okay, so now what do we do?"
Montana pushed himself away from the boulder and gave Dakota a hand up. "Now, we go talk to Michael Ricco. I have a feeling he's got one hell of a story to tell us."
Chapter 6
The first thought that entered Michael Ricco's mind on opening his eyes was Run! But his body refused to cooperate. Confusion, fear, desperation, and hopelessness crashed down on him, keeping rationale thought at bay. He should be dead. He wanted to be dead, but for reasons he had long ago stopped trying to figure out, he kept breathing.
They'd taken him again. He couldn't remember how, but the holes in his memory were not new. All he knew was they had found him, and he knew from long experience, there would be worse than hell to pay for what he had done.
His blurred vision cleared, and he looked around him. Something was not right. He didn't recognize this place. He had seen amazing changes and advances over his years of captivity, but nothing like this. He lay in a bed that was a technological wonder. The side rails were covered with illuminated symbols that he had no hope of deciphering. Attached to him were wires and tubes that did look familiar, but the single thing that just didn't register was the fact that he wasn't restrained. As Ricco tested the boundaries of his mobility, he learned why. Pain, sudden and intense, nailed him to the bed without the need for restraints.
A small hiss escaped his lips despite his best efforts to conceal it, and alarms above his bed started bonging. Feeling lightheaded, he let his eyes close and heard someone enter the room. Bracing himself for the worst, he opened his eyes and confusion took hold.
A young woman, no more than twenty years old, with shiny brown hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, stood over his bed with a stethoscope casually hung around her neck. She smiled at him and reached up behind the bed to silence the alarm. "You're okay. You want something for the pain?"
He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. Is she kidding? Something for pain?
Maybe he was dead. Then he felt his heart flip in his chest. Nope, not dead. He focused on the man who had entered the room behind the nurse. He could have been carved out of solid black marble. Dark, mirrored glasses hid his eyes, but Ricco knew they were focused on him. Well-honed reflexes had him sitting up, while pain forced him to lie back down. The monitor alarms started their klaxon once more.
"Take it easy, Michael." The nurse lowered the bed rail and took Ricco's hand. "No one's going to hurt you." With her free hand she gently touched his cheek.
Ricco flinched at the contact. It was an involuntary response. The only time anyone touched him was to cause him pain. She didn't seem to notice, or if she did he couldn't tell.
She reached up and did something with the monitor, and then gave his hand a little squeeze. "I'm going to get you something for pain." She turned to leave, but Ricco held her there.
"No," He said, barely above a whisper. He wasn't sure she heard him over the alarms that were sounding again. "No. No pain meds."
The nurse wrapped her other hand around the one that gripped hers. "You're hurting. I can give you something to help. Come on, you don't have to play the tough guy with me."
He just shook his head, but he let her hand go. He didn't want to. It was so soft. He had forgotten how soft girls could be. He had forgotten a lot of things he wanted to remember, and he remembered a lot he wanted to forget.
At that moment, the man who had been standing by, quiet and motionless, reached up and silenced the alarms, which brought an immediate and scathing reaction from the nurse. While Ricco had brought out a caring, almost motherly side to her, the man seemed to elicit her wrath. "Hey! Your job is guarding him. My job is everything else." The tiny woman was in no way intimidated by the walking mountain. She narrowed her eyes and pointed. "You don't touch anything in here. Got it?"
Ricco was in admiration of anyone standing up to that. He wasn't sure who he should be more concerned for, the nurse or the object of her annoyance.
The guard gave her a crooked grin and canted his shiny, bald dome. "Yes ma'am."
She turned back to Ricco and switched on her smile once more. "You sure honey? You really look like you could use something."
She sighed and gave his hand a reassuring pat. "Okay, but you're allowed to change your mind. If it gets to be too much, just push this button." She clipped a cord with a bright red button to his gown. "I'll be right down the hall if you need me." She gave him the thousand watt grin again, and then turned and frowned at the guard. "Hands off."
He held his hands out in feigned innocence as a sparkling white smile spread across his face. He waited until she had walked out of the room, and then turned his shaded eyes back to Ricco. "Don't think she likes me." A deep rumbling laugh filled the small room.
Ricco couldn't take his eyes off him. He could see the slight bulge of a well-concealed weapon holstered under his left shoulder.
The guard must have noticed Ricco's concern. His face softened, as much as rock allowed. "Relax, Michael. I'm here to protect you, not hurt you."
Michael. It had been so long since anyone had called him by his given name, and now, he'd heard it twice in the space of a few minutes. It had been Ricco or Private for as long as he could remember, so now the sound of his own name nearly brought tears to his eyes. Despite the uncertainty of his situation, he gathered up his courage and decided to ask a few questions of his own. After all, if the guard started getting physical he could always call the nurse back in. He wrapped his hand around the call light, his thumb hovering over the red button. "This isn't the base?"
His guard shook his head. "Hospital."
So it wasn't a dream—his run through the desert, the scattered fragments of memories, a dark-haired doctor with a kind face, the overwhelming panic. He had nearly convinced himself it was all a hallucination. He almost didn't believe he had made it out. He allowed himself one moment to relish in the victory before realty came crashing down and the panic he had felt on waking returned with a vengeance. "They'll find me."