“I know,” Wiley says as he pulls out another explosive. “My brother and I - we’ve lost it all before. It was long before we were rounded up by the State’s thugs. Our parents, our sister, our friends, they all abandoned us when they found out we were among the Faithful. They didn’t understand why anyone would choose to live this life, to throw away all they thought they had in life. I know they’re out there, somewhere, and I hope somehow our message gets to them and changes their mind. But even if it doesn’t, I know of no other way to go.”
“Run,” I laugh as if he didn’t know what to do after he set off the bomb. We duck behind a set of matching pillars fifty paces down the hall.
“We’re going to have to crawl through that hole in the wall,” Wiley complains. “At least we haven’t been overeating lately.”
“Speak for yourself,” I tell him as we get down on our knees. “I had at least two dozen crackers this morning. Went straight to my stomach.”
“Guess you’ll just have to suck it in,” Wiley grins as he goes through first.
I follow, and for the first time since we began, I have to compose myself. The bright lights of the prison hallways leave little room for lurking in the shadows. If Rafe’s diversion didn’t work, we’re dead men.
“To the left,” Wiley says, shaking me out of my glaze. “We don’t have much time. Run, but be quiet.”
“The girls must be safe,” I say mostly to myself. “We haven’t heard anything otherwise. The Elder too, I hope, though we don’t know what he is really trying to do. I don’t know why he kept his part secret.”
“I have a hunch,” Wiley tells me as we reach a set of double doors. He breaks them open in less than a minute with a simple pick from his pocket. “I don’t think we’re gonna like it if my hunch is right.”
“What’s your - never mind, we need to hurry to that door down the way,” I remind him as we pick up our pace for a sprint to the finish.
“That’s it, fellas,” Rafe says in our ears. “You jam the system on the wall there. I’ll see if I can work my magic.”
“Can’t get it open,” Wiley tells me. “Help me with this?”
“Watch this,” I say as I lift my left leg and shove it as hard as I can into the panel. “A little something I learned from my mom.”
“What kind of cooking did you say she does?” Wiley asks me, but his face is too in focus to smile at his own quip. While the rest of his detonations were simple, he only had one shot at making this one work, and it has to be precise. “Hold onto the dynamite while I strap it in. Good. Now we just have to stretch out this cord a bit…and…run!”
It feels good to run. My leg still hurts a little, but it’s little more than an annoyance. We spent months in those cells, nearly left to rot, only brought outside to breathe what was supposed to be our last bits of oxygen. To be running like this, to be joking, to be in the middle of this master plan to free the Faithful…it felt strange, but nice.”
“Team One!” Rafe shouts in our ears. “Team One, this is your chance to smash that button and hightail it out of there!”
“What about us?” I ask Wiley.
“Come to think of it,” Wiley scratches his head. “I don’t think the Elder told us where to go after this…he just said…”
“Trust me,” I remember. “He told us to have faith.”
Then we hear a clang and turn around. Then another, and another, followed by dozens in a row. Every cell door in the entire prison has been opened.
“Attention!” says a voice over the intercom. “Your guards have been isolated and contained. You are free to escape. This is your only chance. Be Faithful until the end.”
“Run!” I yell.
“Where?” Wiley shouts back.
“That way!” I tell him over the sudden clamor. “It leads to the north entrance. Rafe said he sent the guards to the south. That has to be the way!”
Everything becomes a blur to me as we run through the halls of the prison, the place we were forced to call home for so many months, the place where we were hidden until the day they decided it was time for us to die.
We approach the first set of cells. The doors have all swung open. Prisoners have already fled. I can hear them running away in the distance, but I can’t see them. “They’re going to cause a bottleneck at the front gate,” I tell Wiley.
“How many prisoners are normally in here?” Wiley asks. “We didn’t get much walking around time.”
“It has to be…hundreds,” I guess. “Maybe thousands. And we’re going to be last in line to get out.”
“Let’s go,” Wiley says. “We don’t know when those guards are going to get out of whatever trap my brother set for them.”
Wiley turns around and runs toward the exit. I follow a few feet behind him, my legs now getting heavy, my breath getting shorter with every stride, but my eyes wide and focused like never before.
“How much further?” Wiley asks. “I’ve never been down this way.”
“Me Either,” I tell him. “It can’t be too far. It’s…oh no.”
We reach the front doors, which have swung wide open, but the courtyard is filled to the brim with prisoners, not all of whom were political prisoners of the State, and few of whom are of the Faithful.
“They’re in a panic,” I shout over the tumult of those trying to push their way through the narrow gate that leads to freedom.
I look up and see a helicopter coming into view. I look back down and see prisoners escaping by the dozen. They’re going to make it out, we’re all going to escape these walls, but for how long?
“The State already knows what we’ve done,” Wiley shouts. “They’re going to know it’s us.”
“I know!” I yell back as we approach the throngs of people trying to push their way to the front.
“Team One, Team Two, when you get past the gate, take a sharp left around the prison walls. I’ll meet you with the truck in ten minutes. We don’t have much time. This is Rafe signing off.”
“Ten minutes?” I shout. “We’ve got to get through this line.”
Like the others, Wiley and I begin to squeeze our way through the crowd. Unlike the others, we’ve had a few meals in the last couple of days, and we’re stronger than them. We easily duck and dodge through to the front of the line, shove our way through the gate, and gallop around the wall.
“Left!” I remind Wiley, but he was already turning that way.
I see the crowd and they’re heading in every direction. They’re lost, running to and fro without order, desperate to find a hiding place before the State sends reinforcements. I wonder if all this work will be for naught. Have we made things worse in the long run?
“I see the girls!” Wiley shouts. “They made it out!”
They spot us and wave us over to where they’re standing. A truck in the distance is gliding across the dirt layers surrounding the prison. I turn around as I hear two more helicopters joining the first. The sirens begin to sound. They’re coming for us.
“Get in!” we hear Rafe screaming at the top of his lungs. “We have to go now!”
“Where are we going?” I yell over the sirens and helicopter blades.
“The Elder gave me a location,” he yells. “This isn’t over. Not even close. This was only the beginning of the Elder’s plan.”
Rafe speeds off the moment we are all inside.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Maia says.
“So far,” I tell her. “But I…I don’t know what exactly we’ve accomplished. The State’s going to round most of them up within the hour. There are only so many places to run from here. I didn’t see my father inside. I don’t…I don’t know if he’s going to make it out of this alive.”
“He will,” she says. “You have to know that.”
I nod my head instinctively. I don’t know why, but I believe she’s right. My father has always been the bravest, cleverest, most cunning man I have ever known. If anyone can find a way out of this, it’s him.
“We’re headed home,” Rafe yells.
Wiley shakes his head. “Home? You can’t mean…”
“Afraid so,” Rafe yells as we veer into the thick woods that we went through to get back to the prison in the first place.
“What’s home?” I shout. “What do you mean?”
“Did we ever tell you where we’re from?” Wiley asks me.
“No,” I shake my head. “What’s this about?”
“The reason Rafe and I know so much about these things, the reason we have these skills is that we grew up in the capital,” he tells me. “Not just the capital…the presidential palace. That’s why we were caught so easily. The President found out we were part of the Faithful and tossed us in that prison. Our family did nothing to stand in the way. They sided with him. We sided with the Faithful.”
“So that means…” Maia gasps.
“We’re going home,” Wiley says. “And the Elder will meet us there. This was no mere escape. This is our last stand.”
“It was a diversion all along,” Rafe confirms as he maneuvers through a winding dirt road. “The Elder needs an audience with the president and he wants the whole world to witness. We’re going to be right there with him, side by side, to tell the entire world of our condition, of what they have put us through, and why the Faithful will never die.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Technical Malfunction
“THERE IT IS,” Maia says. “The Capitol. When I was a kid, I always wanted to come here, to see how the government was run, to witness law and order take place. I never dreamed…”
She didn’t have to finish that thought. We knew what she meant. I gaze my eyes toward the mansion as Rafe slows the truck down to a less noticeable pace. It’s a truly magnificent set of buildings with white pillars extending high in the air, the State’s flag waving proudly above the dome in the center of the palace itself, a monument built to be the place where lawmakers once protected our freedoms. Now it’s a cesspool for craven politicians who spend their days looking to take ours away.
“There was a time when it was a place worthy of its splendor,” Wiley says, his typical smirk replaced with a scowl. “Growing up, there were good people in that house, people that wanted to do what was right for everyone, no matter what they believed or looked like. I disagreed with many of them on important concepts, but I never dreamed it would come to this. The world changed in a hurry.”
“How are we supposed to get in?” I ask. “Another elaborate series of traps and explosives?”
Rafe brings the truck to a complete halt. “Afraid not,” he says. “You see that gate in front there? The one with a top-level security agent operating the gate?”
“You can’t mean…” I start to ask, but we’re interrupted by company.
“It’s the Elder,” Wiley says.
He’s been waiting for us. I don’t know how he got here or what he’s been doing, but his clothes have seen better days, and his face is stained with drops of what appears to be his own blood.
“Good to see you kids alive,” he tells us. “Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for what?” Maia asks him. “You never told us the rest of your plan.”
“Rafe hasn’t explained it to you yet?” asks the Elder.
“I had only just begun,” Rafe says sheepishly. “It was a bit of a bumpy ride. Had to make sure we got here first, you know.”
“Yes, well, we have little time now,” the Elder says, his words coming out quick and focused. “But first, I want you all to meet my guest…”
The passenger door slowly opens from the truck the Elder had been waiting in when we arrived. A short figure in raggedy prison clothes appears from the shadows. I can’t believe it.
“Father!” I yell, jumping out of my seat and through the back gate. “Father, you’re alive! I thought you might have…”
“Niko!” he cries, embracing me, his arms thin and weak. He’s fragile, even compared to the rest of us. “You made it. You made it. I’m so proud of you.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask him. “How did…”
“It was the plan from the beginning,” the Elder interrupts. “You must understand now why I didn’t tell you. We couldn’t afford for you to be distracted from your own part of the mission. I know you would have insisted on coming with me, but I needed you to assist Wiley without your mind on other things.”
I don’t care anymore. All that we’ve been through to get here. None of it matters now. My father is alive, but weak, and I must get him to safety.
“I am so happy to see you, Niko,” my father tells me, his hands quaking as he holds himself up by my shoulder. “I didn’t know if my eyes would have such joy again in this life. But we have no time to bask in this moment. The Elder has informed me of his plans and we must continue this course while we still have time.”
“I understand, father,” I tell him, though I wish it weren’t true. I had not been in his presence, except for when we awaited the gallows, since the State stole us from the streets. “But what is the rest of the plan?”
“First we must wait,” the Elder tells us. “But not long now. The minutes are winding down before the media gets word of what has happened at the prison.”
“The media is run by the State,” Maia says. “They’re going to cover this up like everything else. They’ll say they were running a drill undone by a technical malfunction.”
“They can’t cover this up,” says the Elder. “This wasn’t a small group of escapees fleeing toward the border. It was the entire prison. Yes, many of them were quickly contained, but the others are still in the streets and hills, wandering around, some looking for freedom, others for trouble. Remember, they weren’t all among the Faithful.”
“But the media will still take the State’s side of things, won’t they?” I ask. “That’s who pays them. And they don’t want to be the next ones to end up like us.”
“Of course they will,” says the Elder. “But they still have to ask the questions for the State to answer, and the President will have to come up with an answer, so the people will know what has happened.”
“But the people always believe the State,” Maia complains. “They blind their eyes to the truth because they see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.”
“That’s where we come in,” says the Elder. “We need to make the people see what they have become. They must know what the State has been hiding from them, give them a chance to change, to see the truth.”
“How do you know it will work?” Maia asks.
“I don’t,” the Elder says. “But this is where my life among the Faithful has brought me, and it is all I can do to make up for my failure.”
“Look,” Rafe says. “Here they come! I’ve never seen the media swarm in like this, not even on Independence Day. I didn’t know they had so many reporters.”
“The State has never needed to cover themselves for something so big,” the Elder says. “The earthquake that freed you kids, that was an act they could not have controlled. It was the planet revolting against them. But this…this was a security breach they allowed to happen right under their noses. The State, in their arrogance, has gotten lazy. That’s how I knew we could beat their system. Now they’ll need to answer to the citizens. The word of a prison break has certainly filled the streets.”
“What do we do now?” I ask. “What’s our plan?”
“We wait until it’s our time,” says the Elder. “Look now, the media is all surrounding a stage set on the front lawn. A microphone is placed in front of a podium. And now…look…the President is making his way toward the stage with his bodyguards. He will be making a hastily written speech. He will condemn our acts, tell the world of our evils, and assure the people that they are getting things quickly under control.”
“And what are we going to do about it?” I ask.
“Time to walk,” my
father says. He had been quiet this entire time, and I am quickly reminded of how he always led. He has never been one to waste words, always waiting for his turn to speak, then he would get straight to the point.
“We’re not going to bust our way through?” I ask.
“We’d be dead before we got to the gate,” the Elder scoffs. “No, we aren’t going near that mess. We’re headed over the hill where we will be out of sight.”
It is only now that I see the wisdom of the Elder’s plan. We were never going to overrun the Capitol and push the President out of the way to get our message to the people. They have too many guards, too much protection. We never would have gotten through the gate.
Instead, we begin a short walk to a line of trucks that had just arrived, filled with broadcasting equipment powerful enough to reach the entire world. The media have all made their way to relay the President’s address.
“Wiley, do you have anything…let’s say…discreet?” asks the Elder.
“I have just the thing,” Wiley responds with a smile, surely as relieved as I am that we aren’t storming the castle. “What’s our target?”
“The big white one with the large antenna on top,” Rafe interjects. “It’ll take me a minute to get into the system, but it’s the only one strong enough to get our signal as far as we need it to go.”
Wiley doesn’t waste any time. He quickly slides a small device out of his pack, slips it onto a side door, and watches as it makes a tiny spark and falls off.
“That was easy,” Wiley says. “Get in, brother.”
Rafe slides the door open and hops into a chair that operates a command center reminiscent of the one underneath the prison. His hands work deftly and smartly as I witness him manipulate screens and dials while the rest of us pack in behind him.
I look into the Elder’s face and see a man who is ready, but I’m not sure how he plans to convince the entire world that the same group who just released hundreds of prisoners, and is now hacking into the government’s media system, is a group worthy of their trust. I pray he’s as ready as he thinks he is.
“We’re in!” Rafe says, clapping his hands as we watch the screen flip back to us. We look awful. A group of escaped criminals, malnourished, worn thin by time and misadventure.
The Treasure Map Page 17