V-Day

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Chloe watched them break from the trees. They looked as small as the shopping bag behind her had looked from up there.

  She wiped her forehead. She was sweating, now the sprint was over and her heart was back to normal.

  It took the pair of them seven minutes to reach her position. Parris dropped to her knees in front of Chloe, swinging a small pack around her shoulders and onto her knees, moving quickly.

  Cristián grabbed Chloe’s face and kissed her, hard and fast, then took the giant ice-cream cone device Parris handed him. He lifted it. “Can I use your shoulder?” he asked Chloe.

  She nodded. He rested his forearm on it, bending to sight along his arm. The ice-cream cone was clear plastic with wire veins threaded through it in squares. In the center was a long stem. The active end of the laser, Chloe presumed. Cristián pointed it at the base, lifting himself above the bag just enough to see.

  Parris was hammering on her keyboard, typing in commands and hitting the enter key in quick succession. She looked up at Cristián and nodded.

  Cristián’s eyes narrowed as he concentrated. His face was inches from hers. She suspected he’d forgotten she was there.

  Then his eyes refocused. For a second, their gazes met.

  His mouth quirked up in a smile.

  Chloe caught her breath.

  His focus pulled away, over her shoulder. She held still.

  “There!” he said, his voice harsh and low.

  “Got it,” Parris said. She hit the enter key with a decisive snap of her finger then slapped the laptop shut and shoved it back in the pack. She took the laser painter from Cristián and jammed it in on top. “In five minutes, this open area will be swarming with pissed Insurrectos. Run like hell, people!”

  She obeyed her own command and turned and sprinted for the trees, threading her arms back into the pack as she ran.

  Chloe cleared the network cache of footprints, disconnected and shoved her laptop in her pack.

  Cristián picked up Chloe’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “Come on.” His tone was urgent.

  “I’ll beat you there,” Chloe told him and took off.

  “No contest,” Cristián said softly, from behind her. “No one beats cheetahs.”

  Just before they reached the trees, Chloe heard a low, deep whistling sound, coming from behind her. She whirled.

  “No, get under cover!” Parris shouted, from among the trees.

  Chloe stumbled up the slope and half a dozen hands emerged to haul her in through the first of the trees, then even farther.

  Cristián grabbed her other wrist and hauled, until she was mashed up against his chest and held still.

  The explosion was shockingly loud and Chloe clapped her hands to her ears as they throbbed. Sparks flittered in her mind. The ground rumbled beneath them. Then the shock wave hit. Hot air pummeled her back, and she turned her head into Cristián’s chest. His arms tightened.

  Her ears rang. Everything was muffled.

  Someone slapped her shoulder. Chloe lifted her head. Locke pointed up the slope with sharp jabbing motions. She nodded. Parris was already moving up the slope, her big pack making her look like a deformed monster from behind.

  The other men had spread out and were climbing the slope with deep, forward-leaning striding motions, their assault rifles cradled in one arm, their fingers on the trigger guards.

  No one was taking their time.

  Chloe hauled herself up the hill, back-sliding and breathing hard.

  The next two hours passed in a haze of exhaustion and effort. She didn’t know where she pulled the energy from, although every time she thought of the pissed Insurrectos behind them, she found the will to keep moving once more.

  She didn’t know where they were going. After a while they stopped climbing up and moved sideways, instead. Sometime later, she realized Locke was pacing her on her right, and Cristián was on her left. Every time she stumbled, one of them caught her arm, held her up and pushed her forward.

  Cristián peeled her pack from her shoulders and carried it in his hand. The removal of the weight gave her another small burst of energy.

  It was mid-afternoon when they stopped for a short moment under the heavy foliage of a banyan tree. They stood between knee-high, foot-thick roots crawling along the ground in radiating lines around the massive trunk. Cicadas clicked and whirred.

  “No, don’t sit down,” Parris said, as Chloe lowered herself onto one the conveniently seat-high roots. “Stay on your feet,” she added, in a less sharp tone. “Odesky?”

  Odesky came over to where Chloe stood uncertainly. Her legs were shaking.

  “Lean against the trunk,” he said kindly. “Just don’t take the weight off your feet or you won’t get up again.” He pulled a pack out of his thigh pocket and opened it, selected a flat package, then closed and shoved the pack back into the pocket. He tore the end off the clear package and withdrew a syringe. “Shoulder,” he said, holding it up.

  “What is it?”

  “It’ll keep you going a bit longer.” He grinned. “You will crash big time, when you do stop.”

  “I know it,” Chloe said feelingly.

  Locke held out a canteen over Odesky’s shoulder. “Here.”

  She drank from it. It was the same salty mint liquid as before. She drank more of it than she thought she wanted and it helped.

  Cristián came over to where she was leaning against the trunk, stepping over the roots with his long legs. He held out a handful of jerky and she grimaced. She didn’t like jerky at the best of times and she was getting sick of it now.

  Cristián grinned and balanced a chocolate chip cookie on top.

  “Now you’re talking,” she breathed and took the food. She left the cookie for last, as a reward for eating the protein, which she knew she needed.

  Cristián leaned against the tree beside her. They watched the unit go about their silent business. Everyone seemed to know what to do without being told. It was eerie.

  Parris had one boot on a root, her laptop balanced on her knee, as she frowned down at the screen. Locke moved over to look at the screen, too. He frowned. The two of them looked at each other.

  More silent understanding. With a jolt, Chloe realized this was what the Academy had tried to teach her, all those years ago. This was deep fraternity in action. The way Locke had shadowed her, propping her up. The bag of jerky which was offered every time she was hungry, even before she knew she was hungry. Parris monitoring her exhaustion and doing something about it the moment she could pause. The way everyone got on with things, while also keeping an eye on each other. The group-think they shared.

  Knowing this made it easier to understand why anyone would throw themselves on a grenade. Until just now, the logic of such an action had defied her understanding.

  Parris put the laptop away and moved back to the trunk.

  “News,” Cristián guessed.

  Parris nodded. “The drone circling Washington veered away as soon as the Pascuallita base lost contact with it, heading on a south-west trajectory.”

  “Heading for where?” Chloe asked.

  “And who the hell is controlling it, if the Insurrectos aren’t?” Cristián asked.

  “As far as they can tell,” Parris said, “they think someone planted a secondary directive in its chip, to take over as the primary guidance if manual control was lost.”

  Cristián pushed himself off the tree. “Where is it heading?” he demanded, his voice tight.

  Parris sighed. “Lozano Colinas,” she said. “It’s moving at full cruising speed, best altitude. It’ll be there in seven hours.”

  *

  PRESIDENT COLLINS SLAPPED HIS HAND on the top of the tin desk, making it shudder and rattle. “Who gave the order?” he shouted.

  Everyone in the bunker flinched. No one spoke.

  “Bergen?” Collins barked.

  Rosa shook her head. “I don’t have that level of access, sir, even if I wanted it.”

  Co
llins rounded on his heel to look at his staff. “All of you have the authority to give that order and have it obeyed. There were six of you in my office when I indulged in wishful thinking. One of you gave the order to have the drone turn and fire upon the Insurrectos, thereby breaking about a dozen international treaties, international laws and basic human decency!” His jaw flexed.

  Still no one spoke.

  “Whoever it was,” Richard Collins said evenly, “they had better rescind the order and have the drone drown itself in the Marianas trench where it can harm nothing but fish. I want that thing turned around now. We are not playground thugs!”

  Rosa cleared her throat. “Mr. President?”

  He spun to face her once more. “What?” he barked,

  She held out the flimsy with details about the drone’s course and projected target. “Los Alamitos doesn’t have control of the drone. It switched off its communication module.”

  Collins turned to his staff. “You’re fired. You’re all fired. Get out!”

  *

  “READY TO MOVE?” CRISTIÁN ASKED Chloe softly, as the rest of the unit hefted their packs and settled them on their shoulders.

  Chloe sealed the app, attached it to a text and sent it. “Now I am,” she said, putting away her phone.

  Cristián put his hand to his jeans pocket as his phone buzzed.

  There were similar slaps and reaches as the phones of the unit also buzzed and vibrated and chimed.

  Everyone pulled out their phones and looked at their screens. On Cristián’s phone, Chloe could see the big, gaudy numbers taking up the entire screen.

  6 hours, 32 minutes.

  And underneath it, in glowing script: Get out of La Colinas! It was repeated beneath in Spanish.

  As Cristián studied it, the “2” digital rolled up and a “1” took its place.

  He looked at her. Everyone else was, too.

  Chloe shrugged. “I figure we should keep our eyes on the time.”

  Parris nodded and put her phone away. “Let’s go. The minutes really are ticking now.”

  15.

  THE DOOR TO THE GREEN room where Annamaria and her women were kept didn’t open with a security card. An old-fashioned metal bar braced the other side. It was too heavy to pass a knife or piece of wire through the space between the door and the frame to lift it.

  Annamaria shrugged. “I can make them open the door.”

  While Calli urged the women to dress in street clothes and shoes, and to keep their voices down, Annamaria picked up the wall phone mounted beside the door. She pressed the single button on its face and waited for an answer.

  Then she pressed her hand to her chest. “Oh, god! We need help down here! She’s convulsing! I don’t know what to do! Help us!” Then, with a shake of her head. “No, no, the bennies you said I should use on her. Yes, the blonde! We need a doctor! Jesus Mary Joseph, watch out, she—” Calmly, she depressed the receiver, cutting the call. She dropped the phone and let it swing from the coil.

  Calli nodded. “As soon as the door opens, two or three of you must yank it and haul it backward.”

  Hope and excitement shone from the eyes of the women as they realized their freedom was only a few minutes away. They moved with energy and purpose. Four of them raced to the door and stood to either side.

  One of them whispered, “I think that bastard Florian is on guard this afternoon.” She spat. “Wait until he steps through. Then we can take him.”

  Calli hurried over to them. “It must be silent, whatever you do,” she said. “If we are to get out of here, we can’t fight our way out. We must sneak out.”

  “You’d better be convulsing on a bed,” Annamaria called, “or they won’t come through the door.” She cocked her head toward the door. She was close to it and would hear sounds through it. “Hurry,” she added.

  Calli dropped onto the nearest bed, closed her eyes and writhed, trying to imitate how she thought someone suffering through convulsions would move. One woman grabbed her arm. “Help me,” she called out softly. “Make it look as though we’re only just holding her down.”

  Calli appreciated the woman’s foresight.

  Two pairs of hands grabbed her arms and held her down, just as the bar on the other side of the door scraped against the frame as it was lifted

  The door pushed open. Calli squirmed, lifting herself up and twisting.

  “Mother of god…” a man breathed from the doorway.

  “Come and help us hold her down,” one of the women holding her called. “She’s so strong!”

  “Yes, you must stop her from coming to harm. That is all you can do for seizures,” came a second male voice, softer and older than the first.

  Bootsteps.

  “What on earth…?” asked the older male.

  A grunt sounded. A heavy body hit the floor, although the floor did not vibrate because it was solid concrete.

  Calli stopped moving and opened one eye a sliver to check the door. She saw an astonishing sight. Four women were holding down a man in a white coat—he had one hand lifted in a gesture of surrender.

  Six others were sitting on an Insurrecto, while the remainder of them kicked and punched him. Their expressions were fierce.

  Calli shook off the hands holding her and sat up. “Don’t kill him!” she cried out, trying to keep her voice low.

  Annamaria looked up from the door she was holding open. “Why not?” she demanded.

  “If we kill him, they’ll come after us with more determination. If we just disable them so they cannot follow us or raise the alarm, we may be able to get away,” Calli said.

  Annamaria glanced at the doctor, whose head was just in front of her feet. “He will have drugs in that bag of his which will knock them out for twelve hours or more.”

  “Is he the one who gave you the benzodiazepine?” Calli asked.

  “The local witch doctor.” Annamaria spat.

  The doctor flinched. “I must do as I am told, do you understand? If I do not, they would shoot me and find another who will do what they ask.”

  “Just following orders, huh?” Calli asked. She moved over and looked down at him. The other women had stopped kicking and punching the guard, for he was unconscious. Calli looked down at the doctor. “You sound like every Nazi war criminal who rolled through Nuremberg.” She pushed at the leather bag beside him. “What have you got in there which will knock you out for twelve hours?”

  He considered her, his eyes narrowed.

  “Whatever you tell us, we’ll inject you with, so you’d better get it right,” Calli told him.

  “He might tell us to give him something which makes him ten times stronger,” Annamaria pointed out.

  “He has nothing like that in his bag,” Calli said, her voice flat. “He’s been keeping women subdued in a bordello. Let’s just pick a bottle and give him ten units of whatever we grab first.”

  “No, no! I’ll tell you!” the doctor cried, fear making his voice quaver.

  *

  THEY GAVE THE GUARD THE same dose from the same bottle as the doctor had directed them to give him. When the doctor passed out, they dumped him on a bed and Annamaria squeezed his earlobe between her fingernails. He didn’t move.

  “Well, he wasn’t lying,” she decided.

  Calli zipped up the jeans someone had thrust at her and slipped her feet into the flat pumps they had found. “Quietly, now,” she warned them, taking the security pass Annamaria handed to her.

  Calli eased out into the lounge area with its overwhelming red velvet upholstery and gilded fringing. There were no guards in this area. The fire doors closing off the stairs to the upper basement were shut. They could be pushed open with one hand from the other side, although they were steel-lined and impenetrable from this side.

  Calli moved over to the electronic pass plate and looked at Annamaria. “Now we find out if Ibarra has canceled the old card, or if he’s still trying to figure out where he lost it.” She swiped the card over the p
late.

  An electronic chirp sounded which seemed to stretch for five seconds. The doors unlocked with a solid thunk of turning metal tumblers.

  Annamaria squeezed her hands together, drawing in a deep, deep breath.

  “I think I just peed myself,” someone whispered, behind them.

  Calli smiled and eased the door open and looked around it. The stairs up to the turning were clear. She pushed the door open, looked back at the women and put her fingers to her lips.

  They all nodded back at her, their eyes huge.

  Calli climbed a step at a time up the flight, moving sideways so she could see up the next set of stairs. Those opened on the basement proper. No one lurked on that flight either.

  Moving quickly, Calli turned the stairs and hurried up the second flight until her head would show above the stairs and paused. She moved closer to the wall, her heart thumping. She didn’t know how soldiers stole around enemy buildings as they did without having embolisms from the stress. It was stroke-inducing to think that at any second someone might appear who would send up an alarm. Her nerves were crawling with the uncertainty.

  She took the steps one at a time, scanning the basement area as more of it came into view. This was the basement with the big round columns and the beautiful artwork on the wall she suspected belonged to the Escobedoes. It had been empty of anything else when she had been brought down here with Marisa Roldán.

  Calli spared a thought for the Mexican ambassador. Annamaria didn’t know where they were keeping her and fifteen unarmed women couldn’t search the Palace looking for her. It was not in any of the rooms of the bordello, for Annamaria had searched them all as soon as they had the doctor and the guard immobilized.

  Another step and now Calli could see the opposite wall of the basement. The room looked empty, only there were large areas to either side of the stairs which were not within view yet.

  She climbed to the step below the top and peered out, checking left and right.

  Nothing.

  Her heart still doing funky calisthenics, Calli moved into the basement and beckoned the others. The way to the rotunda was to the left. She walked out to the middle of the room, between the twin rows of pillars marching either side and turned left.