by Tom Isbell
“Huh?”
“Extend your hands.”
I absently did as he commanded, and Cat began slicing the ropes with a knife.
“You believe us?” I asked Heywood.
His eyes traveled between Cat and me. “It’s not that I believe you, but after the last twenty years, I know enough not to disbelieve you.”
“Thanks, I think. So where’s the army? Are they on their way up the mountain?”
This time he shared a look with Cat alone.
“What?” I said.
“I may think you’re onto something,” Heywood said, “but that doesn’t mean anyone else does.”
“Wait. Are you saying—”
“Your friend Dougherty was able to convince the president to give us some troops, but not nearly enough. They should reach the Eagle’s Nest sometime tomorrow.”
“But the inauguration’s at ten. That’s when Maddox’ll fire the missiles.”
“I know. The troops are hurrying, but—”
“And the capital?”
“Not evacuated, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But they’re all going to die.”
“That’s what we’re hoping to prevent.” He glanced at his watch. “Assuming there’s time.”
The knife cut through the last of the ropes, and I rubbed my wrists. After being tied up all day I was grateful to be free, but it was tempered by the fact that the president didn’t really believe our warnings, and all the citizens of New Washington were in harm’s way.
“There’s a vehicle downstairs,” Heywood said. “I can get you to town. From there, you’re on your own—until backup arrives.”
The cold, harsh reality sank in. The soldiers might very well be too late. It was up to Cat and me—and Hope, if she was still alive.
“Thank you for believing,” I said.
“Don’t thank me. Just be right.”
46.
THE BROWN SHIRTS TRAIN their weapons on the tram as it nears the mountaintop, and once it jolts to a stop, the soldiers swarm it from every angle. One looks inside the tram. Two climb to the top and search the roof. One soldier even checks beneath it.
Nothing. No one.
The commanding officer, a short, grizzled man with a plug of tobacco in his cheek, runs a hand through his thinning hair.
“Still nothing from below?”
A soldier stands with a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. “No, sir. No one’s answering.”
The officer shoots the wad of tobacco into the snow, then squints into the dark.
Dangling from the cable forty feet down the mountain, Hope sees and hears it all. At the last minute, she squeezed out the window, clambered to the top of the tram, then jumped to the other cable. It was a miracle she found it in the dark—and an even greater one that she’s able to hold on.
When the officer turns and speaks to his soldiers, she begins to work her way up the cable, one hand over the other. When he turns back, she stops. Talking to soldiers—climb. Turning back—stop. This could take a while.
The cable is icy and cuts into her fingers. Blood oozes from her palms and trickles down her wrists. But when she thinks she can’t hold on another second, the smug smile of Chancellor Maddox flashes in her mind … and she moves again.
Fifteen feet from the station she stops, realizing her next movements will bring her into a pool of light. She dangles above the snow. The commanding officer takes most of the soldiers with him and they go marching off. That leaves two … which is still two too many. They both wield automatic rifles.
Hope begins to count.
On three, she releases her right hand so that she’s only hanging on by her left. Her free hand races to her neck and fumbles for the necklace—the good-luck charm with the photographs of her parents. She yanks it off, and then her hand lunges for the cable, the necklace pressed inside the palm. The cable sways. She breathes heavily.
Don’t let go, she tells herself. Hang on.
Once more she counts, and on three she drops the right hand and tosses the necklace. It sails above the soldiers’ heads and clatters against the back wall of the tram stop. Both soldiers turn and raise their weapons.
Hope inches up the cable—right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand—until she’s nearly to the platform. With trembling arms, she repositions herself, takes a breath, then lifts her legs and extends them forward until they wrap around the neck of the nearest soldier. She squeezes her thighs together until they go tight around his throat. The Brown Shirt’s face purples as he struggles for air. He drops his gun and reaches for her legs, trying to pry them off.
The other soldier hears the commotion and turns. Hope kicks the strangled soldier in his direction and they both go toppling down. She leaps onto the platform, whips out her knife, and presses it against the second soldier’s neck.
“Don’t even think about it,” she hisses. He has no choice but to drop his gun.
As she gags and binds them, her mind races. She’s made it up the mountain. She’s gotten past the soldier at the bottom and these two up here. But there are still many Brown Shirts left, and the clock continues to tick.
The tunnel stretching from the tram stop to the elevator is long and dark … but not dark enough. She removes a slingshot from her back pocket and deftly takes out the few remaining lightbulbs. Smash, smash, smash.
The tunnel is now completely black. If she should pass any soldiers, she’ll be nothing more than a dark shape moving in the gloom.
All goes according to plan until the elevator doors slide open and a rectangle of light falls on the stone. A Brown Shirt emerges and takes one look at the darkened tunnel.
“Doesn’t anyone change lightbulbs around here?”
“Tell me about it,” Hope mutters, lowering her head.
She tries to walk past him, but there’s enough glow from the elevator to illuminate her.
“Hey, wait a minute—”
Hope sends an elbow smashing into his windpipe. He grabs his throat and buckles over, and she finishes him off with a well-placed kick to the groin. He collapses in a heap on the stone.
She drags him out of sight, realizing that the last time she was up here, she wore a uniform and cap. But this soldier’s clothes are way too small. So she’ll need to avoid the light if she wants to reach Chancellor Maddox. She lets the elevator doors whisper closed without stepping in … and then heads for the lone door tucked in the corner. She gives it a yank and sticks her head inside.
It’s a steep stairwell—a series of metal steps that switchback up four hundred-some feet to the top. Hope realizes she’d have to be crazy to climb all these stairs. Or desperate. She takes a deep breath and begins.
The stairway is lit, and there are no exit doors. If someone were to enter from the top, she’d have to turn around and scamper back to the bottom. The sooner she can get out of here, the better.
Hope is in good shape, but there are over seven hundred steps. She’s winded before she reaches the halfway point. Her heart is slamming against her chest, like some wild animal trying frantically to escape a cage. She wants to rest but then remembers her parents and her sister—and the woman responsible for their deaths.
She keeps walking.
Despite the damp cool of the stairwell, sweat runs down her jaw, her sides, the small of her back. Keep going, she wills herself. Don’t stop now.
When she finally nears the top, her hand tightens around the knife handle. She presses her ear against the door, listens, then eases it open. She is shocked by what she sees.
She figured the fortress would be on high alert, but she didn’t expect to see so many Brown Shirts. They’re everywhere, in battle gear and fully armed. Locked and loaded and ready for what comes next.
But there’s something else she picks up on, too. Although they move with soldierly efficiency, it almost seems like they carry a sense of dread. As though they’re not all that enthusiastic about unleashing a fatal dose of chemical weapons on New Wa
shington and its citizens.
Hope glances at her watch. One forty-five a.m. The inauguration starts at ten. Just over eight hours to prevent the slaughter of thousands of innocent people.
Four soldiers go running past, and Hope tucks herself in the shadows. She waits for the echo of their footsteps to evaporate before easing back out. Her gaze lands on the enormous structure that looms above the fortress: the towering white cylinder. She is convinced that’s where Maddox is.
Which is why Hope turns around and promptly walks the other way.
47.
ONE LOOK AT THE empty tram booth told us everything.
“Hope,” Cat and I said in unison.
We followed the footprints in the snow and found a soldier, bound and gagged in a back alley.
“Definitely Hope,” we said.
Our gazes reached up to the distant yellow glow atop the mountain. If she was up there, would our joining her help or hinder? We didn’t want to do anything to mess up her plans.
“I don’t know that we can pull this one off, Book.”
It was one of the few times Cat thought a problem was bigger than a solution. And on the surface of things, I agreed. It was downright foolish to think we could waltz into an enemy fortress, stop the missiles, and rescue Hope. Utterly ridiculous to even consider it.
But then I remembered the night Hope reached out a hand and tried to touch the stars. There was no way I could abandon that person.
“I have an idea,” I said, and took off running.
The barrel of the gun poked my ribs.
“Okay, I get it,” I said.
“Hey, I gotta practice.”
Cat wore the uniform of a Brown Shirt—courtesy of the soldier now lying in the alley—and it was creepy how authentic he looked. Of course, if he hadn’t escaped the Young Officers Camp when he did, these would be his daily clothes.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
“Can you think of any other way?”
We stepped into the tram, and when it jolted to a start, I realized there was no turning back. We were headed up the mountain—a lone tram carrying two Less Thans. Below us, the snow sparkled in moonlight.
For the longest time neither of us spoke. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was the thought that there was really no good way we could get out of this.
“What do you think it’s like?” Cat asked, breaking the silence.
“The Eagle’s Nest?”
“No. Heaven. Hell.”
I’m sure my eyes widened in surprise. It wasn’t like Cat to suddenly start philosophizing.
“I’m serious,” he said. “What do you think it’s like?”
“Well,” I said, “I see it like a road. A long, dusty road in the middle of nowhere. And on this road are other people who’ve died before, and they walk with you.”
He shook his head. “That’s not how I see it.”
“How do you see it then? Angels and stuff?”
“Not hardly.”
“Well then?”
He didn’t answer at first. When he did speak, his voice was barely a whisper. “Frank’s place.”
He turned to me. His blue eyes were piercing.
“That’s how I see heaven—like Frank’s place. A tiny oasis in the middle of nowhere. In the mountains. On a lake with fish. Plenty of game nearby. A garden. A wife. Everything he needed, all right there.”
I was surprised. I didn’t know Cat had a soft side. Here I figured he considered Frank’s cabin just another stop on the way. A resting place with a roof. I had no idea it meant more to him than that.
“There’s a library in there,” I said.
“I know.”
“Would you keep it?”
He shrugged. “In heaven, I might start to read. Stranger things have happened.”
What could I say? It seemed like Cat was turning over a new leaf. But then I realized: What did it matter? Because there was the Eagle’s Nest right there, and the closer we got, the more helpless we were. We might as well have put our heads on a silver platter.
The cables shrieked and groaned as the tram slowed to a stop.
48.
HOPE DOES A QUICK tour of the Eagle’s Nest, not stopping until she locates the rocket launchers. They’re positioned at the southern edge of the fortress, snuggled against the castle walls. There’s no way in the world Hope can get anywhere near them; soldiers are everywhere.
She notices the crates, the ones she saw back at the launch facility. They lie scattered across the ground, their contents now armed into the missiles.
She hurries back the other way, finding the garage she saw that first day. There’s only a lone Brown Shirt keeping guard, half asleep. He takes deep drags from a cigarette, his face cocooned in a chaos of smoke. She reaches him just as he’s stubbing out his cigarette and gives him a swift chop to the neck. He collapses to the ground.
Hope searches his pockets until she finds what she’s looking for, then makes her way to the gas pumps. The metal handle is icy cold, and she draws it as far from the pump as the rubber hose allows. She places the metal handle on the ground, then squeezes the lever until gas starts gurgling out. She locks the lever in place and backs away.
The gasoline spreads across the stone pavement, reflecting stars and moon like a calm and placid lake. The pungent odor wrinkles her nose.
She opens the soldier’s box of matches, removes a lone match, and strikes it against the side. It flares. When she tosses it forward—whoompf!—night is turned to day and the ground crawls with the jagged crowns of blue flame. Hope turns and runs, her shadow dancing on the walls.
49.
THE CLOSER THE TRAM got to the platform, the harder Cat jammed the pistol into my ribs. The tram jolted to a stop, and we swayed a moment, waiting for soldiers to whip open the door.
No one did.
We stood there, unsure of what to do. Finally, Cat stepped around me and slid open the door.
There was no one there. The platform was empty.
“What’s going on?” I mouthed.
Cat shrugged and gave his head a shake.
We stepped out onto the platform, and that’s when we heard the sirens. Loud, screeching klaxons emanating from the fortress above us. We shared a look. Hope.
“Come on,” Cat said, and we hurried toward the tunnel.
Water dripped from the ceiling as our footsteps echoed against the stone walls. Our feet crunched on broken glass—a shattered lightbulb by the sounds of it. We didn’t say a word, fearing a Brown Shirt would appear at any moment. When we reached the elevator, we looked down the black tunnel behind us. Still no one in sight.
Cat pressed the brass button, and when the doors slid open, a rectangle of yellow light fell at our feet … and a soldier stood by the control panel.
“What do we have here?” he asked. A sweep of blond hair covered half his forehead.
“Less Than,” Cat said, disgusted. “Caught him down below.”
The Brown Shirt’s face hardened. “Why’d you bring him here? You know the directive. No more prisoners, especially tonight.”
“Thought Dr. Gallingham could try out some of his new medicines,” Cat said. “One final time.”
Judging from the Brown Shirt’s smile, it seemed he liked the idea. “Come on in. I’ll take you up top.”
Cat gave me a rough push and I stumbled forward, slamming into the elevator’s back wall. The operator laughed.
The doors whisked shut, and the elevator jerked upward.
“Probably wondering why you got an operator,” the Brown Shirt said.
“Crossed my mind,” Cat said.
“Something’s going on up top. Big fire by the garage. The president-elect put the place on lockdown. Everyone’s a little jumpy.”
“Yeah, the guy at the bottom said people were on edge.”
We were silent. The elevator hummed upward.
“The sentry at the bottom of the mountain told you that?” the soldier asked, absently sw
eeping a hand through his hair.
“That’s right.”
“Funny, ’cause he’s not answering his phone.”
“Probably dozing. The guy was half asleep when we talked to him.”
“We?”
“I,” Cat corrected himself.
More silence. Even with my jacket on, I could sense the tension from Cat’s muscles spilling into the gun, which in turn pressed into me.
“What’d you say your name was again?” the soldier asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Didn’t think you did, but it says right there, doesn’t it?” He pointed at the badge on Cat’s chest. “Dawkins, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“I always thought Dawkins was taller. Heavier, too.”
“Went on a diet the first of the year. Musta done the trick.”
“Yeah. Musta.”
The elevator inched skyward. I kept my head bowed, not daring to make eye contact with either the Brown Shirt or Cat. Which was why I heard but did not see the soldier whipping his pistol from its holster and training it on Cat. At the same time, Cat swung his own gun around until the two faced off: pistol against pistol.
“Now why don’t we cut the bullshit and you tell me who you really are,” the soldier said.
Cat’s jaw clenched. He didn’t speak.
“Nothing? All right. But we’ll be up top in another couple of seconds, and I’m sure my CO would love to hear your explanation. And if you try to shoot me before then, you know damn well I’ll pull my trigger at the exact same time.”
I believed him. I didn’t know about Cat, but I sure did.
The elevator slowed. In another second, the doors would slide open and we’d be marched straight to the soldier’s commanding officer. And who knew what would happen then?
So I did the one thing I could do: I lowered my shoulder and rammed it into the Brown Shirt. His gun went off—wham!—and a bullet lodged in the ceiling. The explosion was deafening, the sound waves bouncing off the elevator walls like a rubber ball. I turned myself around and pressed the red Emergency button; the elevator jolted to a stop.
At the same time, Cat took the butt of his gun and cracked it across the soldier’s chin. The Brown Shirt went stumbling into the far wall, out cold.