Countdown Zero

by Chris Rylander

  “If I do this, you should change my codename to Agent Vent,” I said.

  “That can be arranged,” Agent Nineteen quipped back immediately.

  “Okay, well, never mind that,” I said. “Bad joke. The point is, I’m in.”

  “Me, too,” Danielle said.

  Agents Nineteen and Blue looked at each other, but neither said anything. Deep down, I’m sure they both realized that this was a much better plan than simply trying to sneak their way in despite being outnumbered by fifteen to one.

  They finally faced Danielle and me again, and Agent Nineteen said, “Okay then, let’s get to work.”

  WE WERE PARKED ABOUT A MILE AWAY FROM SNAKETOWN. Agents Nineteen and Blue had departed on foot to do some in-person recon on the compound, to verify the security presence and whatnot.

  Which left Danielle and me sitting inside the truck alone and thinking about the dangerous and crazy mission we’d be engaging in soon. Danielle and I stared at the maps in silence, taking it all in. Memorizing stuff was her specialty. I knew that I’d be in good hands with her along. Just the same, Agent Blue had stressed the importance of us both learning the way in case we got separated or only one of us actually made it inside the vent.

  I tried my best to memorize the path through the vents to the room where the virus was located, but I found myself just trying to mentally psych up for the mission. It was already evening now, and it had been a long day, to say the least. Millions of lives being at stake kept me awake, but I wasn’t sure if it could do much more than that on its own.

  “For all the gadgets, I really just wish there was a coffee machine on this thing,” I said.

  Danielle grinned at me, in spite of all the tension and anxiety crammed inside the truck with us.

  “You don’t even like coffee,” she said.

  “Yeah, but I’m tired. How about a Red Bull then?”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to studying the map. Sitting right there, watching her soak up the information, I suddenly felt like with her help it would all be okay. Having a partner made the whole secret-agent thing at least ten times better.

  “You’ve got the map down already?” I asked.

  “I’m getting there,” she said. “The building layout is actually fairly straightforward. At the center is this massive glass dome where over forty species of snakes are kept housed together in a tropical ecosystem. Some of the most exotic and deadly species in the world are inside, including an eighteen-foot anaconda named Gus. That dome is the keystone of the whole place. Everything else kind of branches out from there, which means it’s got a series of ventilation ducts suspended from the glass ceiling from which you can get to anywhere in the complex.”

  “Let me guess, we’re going to have to pass through the dome of snakes, right?”

  Danielle smiled again. “Why? Are you scared?”

  She was taunting me, but I could tell she was just as scared as I was. But maybe if we both pretended not to be together, it wouldn’t feel so bad.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” I lied again. “I like snakes just fine. They’re basically my favorite animal. In fact, I’d probably own a thousand of them if my mom would let me. I’d sleep on a bed of snakes every night. Snakeman. That’d be my nickname.”

  “Right,” she said. “Remember that time way back when we were, like, eight years old and we were playing in the coulee behind our house?”

  “No, not at all,” I said, even though the truth was that I still had nightmares about it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll refresh your memory,” she said. “You and Dillon and I were playing soccer in the coulee and then Dillon almost stepped on a snake. It was the first time any of us had ever seen an actual snake, in the wild. Do you remember what happened next?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “You screamed and then ran back into the house and hid under our kitchen table crying,” she said. “It took our mom a half hour to get you to come out from under the table. Eight years old, Carson.”

  Yeah, she was picking on me, but I knew it was her attempt to ease the anxiety. And it was sort of working.

  “I don’t like snakes,” I said, shrugging.

  “Ha!” she said. “But you know what, that was the day that I knew I wanted to be best friends with you, as cheesy as that sounds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you weren’t afraid to actually be afraid of something in front of us,” she said. “You weren’t pretending to be something you weren’t just to impress us. You weren’t afraid of being made fun of. It was genuine. You were just you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I just smiled, and Danielle smiled, too.

  “Well, to answer your question about the Snakedome,” she continued, “it looks like all the ventilation shafts pass through there. But don’t worry. We’ll be high above the snakes, safe inside the metal vents, right?”

  I nodded.

  Agents Nineteen and Blue returned to the truck a few minutes later. They were wearing all black and held huge machine guns with scopes and laser sights.

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  “Good news and bad news,” Agent Nineteen said.

  “And more good news,” Agent Blue added.

  “Well, that sounds . . . uh, good?” I ventured.

  They nodded and then climbed inside the truck. They were carrying two small backpacks full of gear.

  “Supplies for you guys,” Agent Nineteen said, setting down the bags.

  “So what’s the good and bad and good news?” Danielle asked.

  “Well, the bad news is that we confirmed that it’s very heavily guarded by security cameras and armed guards,” Agent Blue said. “Including more guards near the vent than we originally suspected.”

  “But that’s also good news,” Agent Nineteen said. “I don’t think they’d have the virus so heavily guarded if they planned to release it anytime in the immediate future. Not that that means we can risk waiting any longer. We’ve still got to move. They might be negotiating the sale of the virus as we speak.”

  “Okay, so what’s the last bit of good news?” I asked.

  “After reconning the area in person, we think a modified version of your plan actually has a slim chance of succeeding,” Agent Nineteen said. “Are you ready to hash it out?”

  I nodded.

  Danielle seemed even more anxious to get started.

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  “WAIT, WAIT, YOU’RE CALLING THE PLAN WHAT?” I SAID, NOT sure I heard them correctly.

  “The El Quippo,” Agent Nineteen repeated himself. “The Loudest Quietest Inside-Out Plan in History.”

  I still couldn’t tell if he was joking around. This didn’t really seem like an appropriate time for jokes. As if reading my mind, Agent Blue offered an explanation for the strange name.

  “We just felt that, given the unusual nature of the operation, we’d give it an equally unusual and uncharacteristic name,” he said.

  “So what does Quietest Loudest Outside whatever whatever mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” Agent Blue explained, “that there will be a whole lot of loud action happening on the outside of the building. From our end it will seem like the least covert, loudest plan ever initiated. But on the inside, it might be quiet as a funeral home . . . eh, bad example, perhaps. But the point is, things on the inside, if all goes according to the plan, should go smoothly and quietly. Hopefully.”

  “Why attract attention, though?” I asked. “Can’t we both go for stealth from opposite ends? I mean, that’s what I suggested in the first place.”

  “Because the whole point is to draw as many guards away from the ventilation as possible,” Agent Nineteen said. “To do that, we’ll need to make some noise. There are four guards stationed there, not just two. We simply don’t like your odds versus four armed guards. So our job will now be to draw some of them away.”

  “Couldn’t you just pla
nt some explosives?” I said. “That would be a good diversion.”

  “We could,” Agent Blue agreed. “But the problem there is that random explosives detonating will look like a diversionary tactic.”

  “These guards will be too well trained for that,” Agent Nineteen added. “Which is why we’re going to make our frontal assault look like a stealth mission gone bad, as opposed to simply a direct frontal assault.”

  “If you say so,” I said, knowing that they knew way more about tactical assault missions than I did. Plus, I certainly wasn’t going to argue with any part of the plan intended to draw armed guards away from where I was going to be.

  Agents Blue and Nineteen spent the next ten minutes laying out the plan step by step. It was essentially a more detailed version of what I’d suggested earlier on the drive here. They envisioned the operation working out like this:

  Agents Nineteen and Blue would engage the building security in a massive firefight at the main entrance of the complex. It would obviously be dangerous, but there were several positions where they could stay relatively well covered. Agent Blue even mentioned something about a rocket launcher.

  Meanwhile, Danielle and I would scale the perimeter fence on the southwest side of the complex using two automatic grappling hooks.

  We would use the same devices to scale the side of the main building itself, codenamed Dakota Snakehouse, to get roof access. There were presently nine roof guards including four on that side. But Agents Nineteen and Blue believed the guards would be too busy engaging their offensive attack to notice two small intruders.

  Once on the roof, we’d enter the building through the largest central exhaust vent.

  Using a handheld tracking device and our memory of the layout, we would follow the signal through the vents to the location of the virus.

  Next, we would put on gas masks and use a canister of potent sleeping gas to incapacitate any individuals guarding the virus.

  Then one of us would enter the room with the motorized grappling-hook device, gather up the virus and antidote, and exit the building the same way in which we got in.

  If any of the guards also happened to be wearing gas masks, since they were themselves guarding a lethal toxic gas, then we’d also each have a small tranquilizer gun loaded with enough horse tranquilizer to take down an NFL offensive lineman in under two seconds.

  No radio contact with Agents Blue and Nineteen would be maintained due to the possibility of signal interception, and so all parties could maintain the utmost focus on their mission objectives.

  The rendezvous point was the UPS truck MBU, located seven tenths of a mile due east of Snaketown. The rendezvous time was precisely forty minutes after mission initiation.

  “Easy peasy, right?” Agent Blue said at the end of the briefing.

  “Yeah, right? I mean, what in the world could go wrong?” I said. “It’s airtight like spaceman food sealed in tinfoil baggies.”

  “Your sarcasm is noted, Agent Zero,” Agent Nineteen said. “And we can’t disagree that this is an intricate plan with too many steps left open to unpredictable variables. I can’t lie to you, we’re as nervous as you likely are. But at the same time, the situation warrants immediate action using the resources most immediately available. The fate of the world truly depends on what we all do right now, right here. And, might I remind you, this was your idea.”

  “Yes, it was,” I agreed. “And I’m ready to go and get this virus back.”

  AGENTS NINETEEN AND BLUE WERE DEFINITELY RIGHT ABOUT one thing: The outside part of the plan definitely had to be one of the loudest covert operations conducted in the history of spy missions.

  The sounds of gunfire and explosions were so deafening, so present around Danielle and me as we hid in the forest behind the southwest perimeter wall of Snaketown, that even as far as we were from the action, I could almost feel every one of them vibrate inside my bones. Who knew two guys could wreak so much havoc?

  Danielle and I scanned the rooftop of the main Snaketown building, codenamed Dakota Snakehouse. Before the action had begun, there were several armed guards pacing all along the south and west sides of the roof. Once Blue and Nineteen had initiated the diversion, several of them broke away to join the other guards on the perimeter while two remained behind.

  As the diversion escalated, and Agent Blue began firing missiles into the compound walls, the other two guards also disappeared from view, likely to provide more backup to the others.

  “I guess it’s time,” I whispered. Danielle nodded. “Are you ready for this? Nervous? Scared?”

  She nodded again. I wasn’t sure which of those she was saying yes to, but if she was feeling anything like I was, it was all three.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  We ran from the cover of the trees to the base of the tan safari-themed wall that ran around the perimeter of Snaketown. It was at least ten feet high. Thankfully, we had two mechanized grappling hooks like the one I used back at Mount Rushmore. We fired the grappling parts toward the top, secured the motorized pulley parts to our belts, and hit the switches.

  The tiny pulleys easily lifted us to the top of the wall and slowly lowered us down the other side. We hit the grip-release buttons to retrieve the grappling hook ends, ducked behind a nearby maintenance shed, and then reassessed our situation.

  There was no sign of any guards on this side of the complex. We could see the top of the Snakedome sticking up above any other structure. On the other side of it, there was a particularly loud explosion and a few seconds later shards of plastic and pink cotton wall insulation came raining down all around us.

  “Man, they need to be careful not to blow up the whole building.”

  “I’m sure they know what they’re doing,” Danielle said. “Come on, we should go while the coast is still clear.”

  We ran toward the southwest corner of Dakota Snakehouse. It was only one story, but the roof was still easily thirty feet above us. I wasn’t sure what the maximum range of our grappling hooks was, but I figured it had to be at least that high. Agents Nineteen and Blue wouldn’t have given them to us otherwise.

  Or so I hoped.

  “Come on, let’s go!” Danielle shouted next to me.

  With the diversion happening just around the corner, we both had to shout in order to be heard. Danielle had already secured her grappling device to the edge of the roof above, and I did the same. Then we hit the switches and started ascending.

  As the little mechanized pulleys lifted us slowly toward the roof, I dug inside my backpack for the tranquilizer gun. I wanted to be ready, just in case any of the guards had stayed behind to watch the entry vents.

  But, as it turns out, we didn’t need to even wait to get to the top to find out. Because when we were about ten feet from the top, a man’s face peered down over the side of the roof at us. He scowled and pulled out a knife.

  He slipped the massive blade under Danielle’s grappling wire and cut her line with one quick swipe.

  WE WERE JUST A FEW FEET FROM THE TOP WHEN THE guard cut Danielle’s line. So the fall shattered half of her bones. Or, I mean, I guess I should say it would have had I not somehow managed to reach out and snag her wrist as she fell.

  I can’t take all the credit, though. She also was able to grab my backpack, and our combined efforts were enough to keep her from plummeting to her demise. Or a very bad headache and six months in a body cast, at a minimum.

  Once I was sure she was secure, I focused my attention back on the guard, who was already moving to cut my grappling hook wire. I had fractions of a second to act, and so I didn’t even get a chance to think about what I did next. My body just kind of acted on its own.

  I kicked backward on the wall just enough to get a better angle while swinging the tranquilizer gun up with my free hand. I fired a single shot just as his blade reached underneath the wire.

  The small dart lodged itself in the guy’s hand. He let out a surprised yell and took a step back, away from the
edge of the roof. The knife tumbled down toward my face. I closed my eyes and flinched, wondering what exactly having a knife buried in your forehead would feel like and just how long it would take before I died. How much pain would I actually feel?

  Thankfully, the knife merely grazed my cheek. I opened my eyes again and noticed that we were basically at the top now, the motor having never stopped pulling us up, even with almost twice the weight.

  “Did the knife get you?” I asked, wiping away a bead of blood dripping down my face.

  “What knife?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I hit that guard with a tranquilizer. I think he’s unconscious by now. Can you crawl over me and up to the roof ledge?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and started climbing up my back, using my pack of supplies as a ladder. Then her knees were on my shoulders and she was able to grab the edge of the roof and hoist herself up. That’s when a burst of machine-gun fire roared above me, much, much closer than the constant popping of gunfire from the opposite end of the Snaketown complex.

  Danielle rolled to her left on the roof’s ledge as chunks of concrete sprayed up around her. Taking a dart to the hand must not have been potent enough to completely knock out the guard. Or maybe there was more than one still up there?

  My heart caught in my throat as Danielle rolled off the ledge of the roof.

  At first I thought she’d been hit by one of the bullets. But she just managed to grab the ledge and keep herself from falling for a second time. My next thought, then, was that she certainly wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer.

  The desperate look she gave me while dangling there confirmed as much.

  She was too far away for me to reach from where I was still hanging from my grappling hook. I’d need to get onto the roof and pull her up. But the armed guard hanging out up there certainly complicated the situation.

  “Carson, please, I can’t . . . ,” Danielle said quietly. Desperately.

  Her fingers slid on the surface of the roof’s edge. She quickly adjusted her grip before she lost it entirely. Then they started sliding all over again. I knew I had maybe thirty seconds at most.