It had been interesting.
It had been cool.
It had been a huge mistake.
Plumbing, that had been his specialty. He’d spent six years of his life overseeing the installation of pipes and vents and toilets and sinks and showers.
The horror he helped create.
The unimaginable he helped bring about.
There was no forgiving his participation. It didn’t matter that as soon as he and several close friends who were also members figured out what was truly going on, they began planning how to get out. Nor did it matter that Matt had dedicated every moment of his life since to fighting Project Eden.
Blame for the deaths of the billions lay at the hands of anyone who had ever helped the Project.
Lay at his hands.
He knew nothing he could do would ever change that, knew he wasn’t fighting Project Eden to right his own sins. He was fighting them because he had to, because not to fight wasn’t an option.
His convictions could only take him so far, though. The resistance organization he’d built to combat the Project had achieved no more than minor victories at best. Even the destruction of Bluebird had not stopped the Project from unleashing its genocidal pandemic.
But as he’d told Ash, eliminating the previous directorate was a start.
And now Matt had a chance to add to that.
And by God, it was a chance he would take.
__________
THEY PARKED THEIR vehicles near the entrance to the Lowe’s Marketplace grocery store. Matt tasked his men with checking inside and stocking up on any useful supplies.
“Hiller,” he said, before the team leader could walk off with the others.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’d like you to come with me.”
With Hiller beside him, Matt limped his way toward the gas station at the opposite end of the parking lot. Three long days of riding had stiffened up his leg more than usual, and left him with a dull, constant ache radiating from his knee.
If Rachel had been there, she wouldn’t have let him even leave the truck.
His sister. His beautiful, loyal, wonderful sister. What a mess of her life he’d made. She hadn’t been part of the Project, hadn’t known anything about it. He had let her believe he was dead for nearly a year, but it had been the only way to ensure that the Project forgot about him.
And what did he do when he finally contacted her? Pulled her into his madness.
Yet one more thing I’ll never be forgiven for.
As they neared the station, he told Hiller, “Stay here and make sure no one disturbs me.”
“Yes, sir,” Hiller said.
Matt walked past the pumps, pulled the satellite phone out of his pocket, and checked his watch. The correct window of time had just opened up, but, to be safe, he waited another thirty seconds before dialing the number.
The line was answered after half a ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Matt said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” C8 said. “Like why the hell you think you need to come here yourself?”
“Because you can’t do what I can.”
A pause. “It’s an unnecessary risk,” the man said.
“Not to me.”
C8, like most of the Resistance’s other moles, was not someone who’d infiltrated the Project from the outside as Matt had always portrayed it, but a man who’d been a member since when Matt himself had been a part of the organization.
“When will you be here?” C8 asked.
“I’m an hour away right now.”
“What?”
“I told you I was coming.”
“I know…I just…I thought…”
“This is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.”
“I realize that.”
“So you can get me inside?”
A slight hesitation. “Yes.”
“Tonight?”
A much longer pause. “Yes.”
“Where do I meet you?”
__________
MATT WALKED BACK to Hiller, the sat phone once more in his pocket.
“Everything all right, sir?” Hiller asked.
“Yes. All good.”
As Hiller turned to head back to the others, Matt put a hand on his arm.
“One moment,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. If your leg’s bothering you too much, I can go get the truck and bring it over.”
“Thank you, no. I actually need to talk to you.”
“Of course,” Hiller said. “What can I help you with?”
“We’re going to stay here in Alamogordo for a little while.”
Hiller’s brow furrowed. “What about Las Cruces?”
“We’ll get there, but not until it’s dark,” Matt said. “We won’t go together, however. I’ll leave first. You and the rest of the men will follow twenty minutes behind me.”
“You’re going alone, sir? I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand because you haven’t been given all the details. And I’m afraid it’ll have to stay that way for now.” He gave Hiller the directions to a shopping center in the south side of the city. “You’ll wait there in case you’re needed.”
Hiller was clearly uncomfortable with the plan.
“This is a unique opportunity,” Matt explained. “But one that needs to be handled in a very specific way.”
“With you going in alone.”
“Correct.”
“Sir, I can’t lie to you. I don’t like this. Have you talked this plan over with anyone?”
Matt appreciated the kid’s concern, but it was a waste of time. Taking a harsher tone, he said, “If I have or have not talked to anyone about this, it is not your concern. This is what we will be doing. Understood?”
A reluctant “yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” Matt said. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’ve been at this fight a lot longer than you, so don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
“I wasn’t trying to suggest—”
“I know you weren’t.” Matt made a show of looking around the parking lot. “Now, while we’re waiting for the sun to go down, I need you to do something for me.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I need a car.”
__________
THE CLEAR ROADS were a blessing and a curse. Back in the snows of Colorado and Wyoming, following Matt’s group would have been a simple matter of keeping eyes on his vehicle’s tire tracks, but in New Mexico, where the snow was only now threatening to fall, there were no ruts to show the way. So while Ash and the others could travel quickly, they had no idea if the convoy was still in front of them.
“Why don’t you call him?” Gardiner said.
“Do you really think he’d tell us where he is?” Chloe asked.
“Maybe someone else will answer.”
“Not if I know Matt,” she said. “Hell, he probably turned the damn phone off.”
“What about Rachel?” Josie suggested.
“Who’s Rachel?” Ginny asked.
“Matt’s sister,” Brandon told her.
“Maybe she knows where he is,” Josie added.
“I doubt it,” Chloe said.
Ash pulled the satellite phone out of the bag between the two front seats. “Maybe not, but it’s a good idea, Josie. We’ll give it a try.”
He punched in the number for Ward Mountain.
The call was answered with, “Can I help you?”
“Crystal?”
A slight pause. “Yes?”
“It’s Daniel Ash. Wondering if I can speak to Rachel.”
“Captain Ash? Definitely! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you guys for her all day. Hang on. I’ll go find her.”
Ash looked back at Chloe. “They’re getting her.”
“My money’s on she doesn’t know anything,” Chloe said.
Over two minutes passed before Rachel picked up the other end.
<
br /> “Ash. Thank God,” she said.
“Afternoon, Rachel.”
“Please tell me you’re heading back to Nevada,” she said.
“I know that’s what Matt thinks we’re doing, but we’re not. We’re trying to catch up to him, but hoping you might be able to tell us exactly where he is.”
“What?” she said, confused. “You’re with him, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said, surprised by the question. “Matt left Chloe and me with the kids and told us to head to Nevada.”
“And he went to New Mexico,” she said, sounding as if it were inevitable.
“Yeah. Didn’t you know that?”
“He said he was going to go, but I was hoping he would come to his senses.”
“His senses? You don’t think he should have gone?”
“Of course not. He’s in no condition to be out in the field, especially if he’s going inside that damn place.”
“So I take it you don’t know where he is.”
“Somewhere near Las Cruces, I would guess.”
“Yeah, well, we knew that much. We’re hoping to avoid showing up at the wrong time and making things worse.”
“I don’t understand why you guys aren’t with him right now,” she said. “I mean, I get it with the kids, but someone else could have brought them here. You and Chloe should be with Matt.”
“That’s what we thought, too, but Matt was concerned about our injuries. Didn’t think we’d be up for it.”
Dead air, then, “Oh, God.”
“What?” Ash asked.
“Look, I’m…sure he was concerned about your injuries, but I have a feeling that’s not the main reason he didn’t bring you along.”
“Well, then why?”
“Because either of you would have stood up to him, kept him from doing what I think he’s going to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“God, I hope I’m wrong.”
“Rachel, what?”
“I think he’s going into that facility alone.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m sure he thinks he’s the only one who can do this.”
“Why would he think that?”
She hesitated. “Because he’s been there before. And because he thinks it’s his responsibility.”
“Why would Matt have been in a Project Eden base?” he asked.
“It was years ago,” Rachel said.
“I didn’t ask when. I asked why.”
A long pause. “Because he was part of the crew who helped build it.”
Ash put his hand over the phone and looked at Sorrento. “Pull over. Now!”
As soon as the Humvee was at the side of the road, Ash hit the speaker button. Chloe needed to hear this, and, as much as he wished he could keep it from everyone else, there was no other way.
“Rachel, tell me how Matt was involved in the construction of Project Eden’s Las Cruces facility.”
Eyes throughout the truck widened in surprise.
“Please don’t ask me that,” Rachel said.
“Too late.”
A sigh, then in a low, defeated voice, “It wasn’t just Las Cruces. He helped build a lot of different Project Eden bases. That’s why our facilities are so good. He saw what they had done, and tried to create something even better.”
“Was he on an outside construction crew, or was he a member of the Project?”
“Ash, please understand, he didn’t realize what he was getting into. It was a job offer with great pay. When you joined the Project back then, they didn’t always tell you everything up front.”
“He was in the Project.”
“Yes.”
“Is he still?” Ash asked.
“How can you ask that? After all he’s done? After all that’s happened to us?”
She was right. Matt’s actions in the last several years would not have made sense if he were still in the Project. But it was a necessary question, so he wasn’t about to apologize. “When did he get out?”
A few seconds passed before Rachel said, “There was a group of them who figured out what was really going on, and realized they had to do something about it. Most remained in the Project to do what they could from the inside.”
“Your sources,” Chloe said.
“Yes. Many of them.”
“And Matt?” Ash asked.
“He and a couple others volunteered to leave the Project so they would be freer to fight it. No one just leaves the Project, though. To get out, they would have to die. Matt’s death was the easiest, from what I was told. With the help of others who were remaining behind, he set it up to look like he was killed in a construction accident at one of the facilities. The other two were going to fake a plane crash, only something went wrong and they both lost their lives.
“Matt lay low for a while to make sure no one suspected anything. While he was doing this, he obtained a new identity, the one you know him by, and had some plastic surgery done so he could walk down the street without being nabbed. Once he was sure they weren’t looking for him, he started up the Resistance.”
Ash wasn’t sure what to say. It made sense, of course. How else would Matt have known so early about the Project’s existence and the need to stop them? What bothered Ash wasn’t that Matt had been a member of Project Eden, but the fact he’d hidden it from everyone.
“What about you?” Chloe asked. “Were you part of the Project, too?”
“No. Never. I didn’t even know what it was until…well, until Matt came back from the dead. That’s when I gave up my old life and promised I’d help him. And that’s all I’ve done since then.”
No one in the car said a word as they absorbed what Rachel had told them.
Ash finally broke the silence. “How’s Matt planning on getting into the facility?”
“I don’t know specifically. C8 will get him in.”
“C8?”
“That’s his inside contact.”
“Does C8 have a real name?”
“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know what it is,” Rachel said testily.
“I should have phrased that better,” Ash said. “I apologize.”
Rachel made no reply.
“All right,” Ash said. “So he’s going in alone with this C8 guy, and will try to take out the principal director. Have I got that right?”
“Yes,” she said. “But, Ash, you’ve got to stop him.”
“I’m not sure I want to stop him. If he really can accomplish what he told us he’s planning on doing, I don’t think that’s an opportunity we can pass up.”
“He can’t do this alone. You’ve got to keep him from going. We can find another way.”
“We could find him and convince him, forcibly if necessary, to take Chloe and me with him.”
“I guess you could,” Rachel admitted. “Not a great answer, though.”
“We still have our original problem,” Chloe said. “How are we going to find him?”
Ash thought for a moment, then said, “He’ll have to leave the others somewhere.” He turned to Sorrento. “Hand me that New Mexico map.” The driver gave it to him and Ash opened it up. “Where exactly is this base?”
“A few miles north of Las Cruces,” Rachel said.
“Off the interstate?”
“Not far from it.”
“Seems likely that Matt’s won’t want to chance putting the others right next to the base. So he’ll probably keep them in a town where they can blend in and hide if necessary. Las Cruces itself is an option.” He studied the map. “If he’s coming in from the north, maybe he’ll park everyone in Truth or Consequences, and if from the east, um, Alamogordo. So we have three choices.”
“What if they’re not in any of them?”
“One step at a time,” Ash said. “Rachel, we need to get moving here. We’ll contact you again as soon as we find them.”
“Please do.”
After the phone was stowed away, Chloe sai
d, “So where do we start?”
“Truth or Consequences,” Ash said, pointing at the small town on the map. “We’re already heading that way. If they’re not there, we’ll backtrack north a bit and cut over to Alamogordo.” He showed both routes to Sorrento.
“Got it,” Sorrento said.
Chloe looked like she wanted to say something but was hesitating.
“What is it?” Ash asked.
She nodded discreetly toward the children.
“Right,” Ash said.
“Right, what?” Brandon asked. Apparently the nod had not gone unnoticed.
“I think we can find something here in Albuquerque to keep you all occupied.”
“Dad, no,” Brandon said.
“Uh-uh,” Josie agreed. “We’re staying with you.”
“Not this time,” Ash said.
“We’re not kids anymore,” Brandon said.
“Maybe not, but you’re still my kids. And this time, you’re staying here.”
WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA
1:03 PM PST
RACHEL HAD FELT the others staring at her as she talked to Ash. Maybe she should have cleared the room again, but by the time the idea came to her, it was too late. It was probably better this way anyhow. It was time people knew the truth. Besides, it shouldn’t change anything.
At least, she hoped not.
After the call disconnected, she looked around at the disbelieving faces.
“Yes,” she said. “Matt was in the Project. I’m sorry you weren’t told before, but there it is. You can ask all the questions you want later. Right now, there’s still work to be done.”
28
CALIFORNIA
US 101 SOUTHBOUND
2:27 PM PST
BEN’S JEEP WHIPPED around another abandoned car without slowing.
She’s going to get herself killed, Martina thought for the millionth time.
In the three hours she had been following her boyfriend’s car, the brown-haired woman had kept the Jeep’s accelerator pressed to the floor. Only once had Martina been able to get close to the vehicle. That had been near the beginning of the chase. When the woman noticed her, she jerked the vehicle into Martina’s path, missing the front tire of the motorcycle by only a few feet. After that, Martina decided the better tactic was to stay several car lengths back and wait for the woman to eventually stop.
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