by Jamie Canosa
Shots ring out from everywhere, one too close for comfort, and I dive behind a tree. At least we have the trees for cover. Perman’s soldiers are entirely exposed in the open area surrounding the building. That levels the playing field a little. Almost as though they read my mind, the soldiers start charging the tree line. Okay, so it was probably more likely the actual combat training that gave them the idea than telepathy, but either way, we’re about to lose our only advantage.
“Don’t let them reach the trees,” I shout as loudly as I can, even though I seriously doubt anyone’s still listening to me at this point.
I take a couple shots at a soldier in front of me. One of them collides squarely with his chest, but he barely even stumbles. As if we weren’t outmatched before, they’re wearing some kind of bulletproof vests. Fan-freaking-tastic. I hadn’t realized how lucky my first few shots actually were until now.
“Aim for their heads,” I warn the others, and then try and follow my own advice.
This proves to be a lot harder now that I’m thinking about it. The soldier, who’s still coming at me, can’t be more than five feet away when I finally take him down. That was way too close. I’m still trying to regain the ability to inhale and exhale without choking on air when another soldier comes around from behind me. It’s too late to even lift my weapon, but his is ready for action. There’s a deafening bang, and suddenly, it’s his blood instead of mine that’s all over me. I stare at the soldiers body slumped at my feet for a second before turning around to find Allan standing there.
“Thanks,” I manage, wiping blood from my face with my shirt sleeve.
“Don’t mention it. Did you find your way in yet?”
“Not yet. I’m going around back to look.” I have to shout to be heard. Only now am I realizing how far from me he really was when he made that shot, with me standing between him and his target. “That was a nice shot.”
“Eh . . . ex-guardian.”
“Really?” How does a guard end up tossed in a work camp, only to lead a rebellion and end up here fighting against these guys?
He just shrugs and disappears back into the fray. A man of few words, I can appreciate that. I regret not knowing him better, not knowing his story. There must be thousands of interesting stories that I’ve never bothered to learn. When this is all over, I’m going to make an effort to hear them, especially Allan’s.
Despite my shot to hit ratio being about three hundred percent better here than it ever was at the shooting range, I’m still not making a dent in the army of soldiers we’re standing against. The best thing I can do is get inside and bring all of this to an end as quickly as possible. To do that, I need to find a way in.
I get my group positioned in what my severely limited sense of direction tells me is the northeast corner of the building, and then tell anybody who’s listening not to let anyone get past them. That’s about it. They should seriously just pin a star on me and call me General.
Abandoning the others, I start slipping through the trees around the perimeter of the building. From my avid map studying, I know there are six entrances to the building. The main doors, two smaller doors on the east side, two on the west side, and one emergency exit in the rear. The first two doors I pass are heavily guarded by no less than four soldiers each. Four of them, one of me. Yeah, I don’t think so. So, I keep moving.
Everywhere I look, the battle is still raging. Soldiers and workers alike weave in and out of the trees, firing back and forth at one another. The workers are already being pushed back, and if we don’t do something soon, this isn’t going to end well. I ignore all of that, focusing solely on my task. I push through the turmoil, bullets ricocheting off trees as I duck between them. More than a few lodge themselves into the trunks I’m using for cover as I go. They’re not messing around.
The emergency exit at the back isn’t much to look at—just a rusty metal door, with a small flight of concrete stairs—but it’s possibly the best sight I’ve ever seen in my entire life, mainly because it only includes one soldier. Just one. That shouldn’t be too difficult, for anyone but me, anyway. I line up my shot carefully, and take a deep breath. Once I pull the trigger, he’s going to know I’m here, so I have to make it count. Two eyes open, I stare straight down the barrel of the gun and squeeze the trigger.
The bullet ejects from the chamber and rips through the air right into the wall. Perfect. I try to line up a second shot, but he’s already returning fire, and he has much better aim than I do. Instead, I dive behind the tree and press my back to the trunk, willing myself to be smaller as pieces of bark fly off in every direction around me. I’m pinned down and then suddenly everything stops. The gunfire, the sound of bullets whizzing by, the bark exploding from the tree trunk. Standing there, waiting for the barrage to start up again, I find I have a new appreciation for every breath I take. I wait for what feels an eternity but is probably no more than a few seconds. The gunfire doesn’t return. Afraid that he’s moving to get a better shot, I chance a peek around the tree, but he isn’t standing there anymore. He isn’t standing anywhere. He’s lying in a heap on the ground. What the . . .?
“Looked like you could use a little help.” Lori steps up beside me, and I could seriously kiss her right about now.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Is that our way in?”
“It is now.”
“Nice shootin’.” Connor suddenly materializes from behind another tree.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Allan told us you were looking for a way in back here.”
“Then who’s telling everyone what to do up there?”
“They kinda have it figured out. Besides, Allan has everything under control. He has a real knack for this.”
He should, being ex-military and all. “I noticed.”
I pull the pack off of my shoulder, and rummage around the small green bag until I find what I’m looking for. It’s time to end this.
Chapter 35
I pull in a shaky breath and hold it. I made a deal with the devil, and now it’s time to pay up. The mini explosive creates a tight bulge in my pants pocket, but at least I know it’s secure. I’d hate to drop the thing and blow myself to kingdom come. Rooting through the bag, I pull out the detonator. Connor and Lori are still standing there, watching me wordlessly. There’s really only one person I can trust to do this for me.
“Girlie, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” I tell Lori, pressing the detonator into her hand. “Fifteen. Then you press this, no matter what.”
Lori’s wide-eyed gaze drops to the chunk of metal in her hand for a moment before returning to mine. “I can’t . . .”
“Someone out here needs to keep the detonator in case I get caught. This is what we came here for, and there’s no one else I trust to do it. Please, Lori.”
“Girlie, don’t do this. Let me . . .”
“Connor . . . this is sort of a covert plan.” I eye his two hundred pound frame that easily clears six feet. “Hate to break it to ya, but you’re hardly the most inconspicuous person on the planet.”
“I can . . .”
“No, you can’t, but I can. I have to do it now, though. The sooner we end this, the fewer people have to die.”
The way Connor’s shoulders slump along with his face tells me that he knows I’m right.
“So what do you say, Lori? Are you gonna help me end this?”
“All right, Kiddo,” she sighs, “but you had better have yourself back out of there long before the fifteen minutes are up.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Girlie,” Connor snags my hand just as I turn for the door, “just be careful in there, ya hear me?”
The finality of this moment feels so real that I can only nod. Then, although it looks like it causes him physical pain to do it, he lets me go.
Nerves and adrenaline blur my vision as I head for the door. Strangely, though, th
e closer I get, the calmer I feel. A confidence I haven’t felt in a long, long time edges in, and I’m suddenly sure that I can do this. One way or another, this ends today, and everything is about to change.
The door is so thick that it manages to block most of the noise from outside. The walls must be even thicker—from the look of them, pure concrete—because as I inch my way further down the hallway, all evidence of what’s happening just on the other side of them disappears entirely. It’s silent as the grave in here. I immediately chide myself for the oh-so-optimistic analogy. Apparently, all of that confidence was short-lived once I stepped inside this creeptastic building.
The floor is made of the same unyielding cement as the walls, causing each of my footsteps to echo noisily. Now I just have to get this thing to the center of the structure, without getting caught while practically announcing my presence with every step I take. Oh yeah, and I have to do it in less than fourteen minutes.
I pause just long enough to slip off my shoes, and I’m grateful to find that bare feet on concrete are much quieter. Feeling a bit of that confidence returning, I pick up my pace and hurry along another corridor, and then another. The mental image of the map that I spent several days searing into my brain is paying off. In one corner of my mind’s eye, I can see it laid out before me with a blinking ‘you are here’ light keeping me on track, and in the other is a clock running out my countdown. Thirteen minutes.
I’m just starting to think this will be a piece of cake when that whole ‘quiet as the grave’ thing turns out to be good for me. I hear them coming long before they turn the corner. Ducking into a shadowy alcove, I watch as a pair of soldiers patrols along the hallway. Working in a bakery for so long, I should have remembered that cake isn’t nearly as easy as people seem to think it is.
As soon as they turn another corner, I slip out of my hiding place and hurry in the opposite direction, coming to a sudden halt as voices drift from yet another direction. Crap, they’re everywhere. Why aren’t they outside fighting with their buddies?
I race along the hall as quietly as my feet will carry me, stopping just long enough to check around each corner as I come to it, searching for a vacant hallway. I do my best to keep track of my location on my mental map. The last thing I need is to get lost in here, but it’s difficult to think straight with my heart pounding so loudly that I’m surprised it isn’t echoing off the walls.
It takes much longer than it should, and some ludicrous roundabout route, but I finally find myself lined up with the center beam, only two corridors away. I don’t know how precisely this explosive has to be placed, but I’m not taking any chances. I’ve got to get closer. Twelve minutes.
Pressing myself firmly against the wall, I peek around the corner into the hallway that should take me where I need to be. Of course there’s a pair of soldiers in it. Why not? But their backs are to me, and they’re headed in the direction I need to go. If I’m quiet enough, maybe I can just follow them without them noticing? It sounds crazy even in my own head, but I’m running out of options here . . . not to mention, time.
I let them get a little further ahead while I take the time to pull the explosive from my pocket. I’m only going to get one shot at this. Luckily, this shot doesn’t require a gun. The soldiers are about thirty feet ahead of me when I finally slip around the corner and follow after them. My nerves are so fried that my brain is threatening to shut down all together. At least my feet fall back into an old reliable pattern. One foot in front of the other.
The soldiers reach the center corridor, where I need to go, and turn into it. I really should have seen that coming because clearly the entire universe is against me. Shaking off my frustration, I risk a glance around the corner. I watch their backs as they wander past what I am pretty certain is the center beam I’m looking for. So now what? Am I really going to have to plant this explosive with a couple of soldiers in the same freaking hallway? This is completely insane.
I linger around the bend a few more seconds to allow a little more space to build up between us, but I have no idea when another set of soldiers will turn a corner somewhere else in this flipping maze of corridors and spot me, so I can’t stay put long. Drawing in a determined breath, I step into the center corridor just in time to see the two soldiers I’ve been stalking disappear into a side room. My relieved sigh takes with it a solid ton of stress that had been weighing on my shoulders, and I run as quickly as I can to the center beam, which protrudes just slightly from the smooth wall.
I glance dubiously at the metal ball in my hand and back to the beam. There really isn’t anywhere to put it besides the floor. Cautiously tucking it as close to the beam as I can get it, I step back and take a look at it. It’s fairly obvious. I mean, it’s a random metal ball just sitting on the floor, but what can I really do about it?
Across the hall is a four foot tall flowery, decorative vase. Apparently someone decided to spruce the place up a bit. They failed, but in a moment of pure genius, I decide that it will work to hide the explosive. I grab it by the lip and try tugging it, but it’s heavier than it looks. I end up having to roll the stupid thing across the hallway and then right it again.
Once again, I step back and take a look at my handy work. Perfect, as long as the troops are completely blind, they’ll never notice I’ve been here. That’s really the best I can hope for because I’m running out of time. Ten minutes. It’s time to get the hell out of here.
The positioning of the vase turns out not to matter in the slightest, because when the soldiers reenter the corridor, they don’t notice a thing . . . except the girl standing next to it, of course.
Chapter 36
“Get her!”
There’s a chorus of shouting and pounding feet, but I don’t stick around long enough to find out where they’re coming from, or how many. Maybe I should have instead of running full speed for the closest exit in a terror fueled panic, because then I may have noticed the telltale sound of footsteps coming from ahead of me as well as behind me. Then maybe I wouldn’t have run smack into a whole troop of soldiers. But I didn’t, and I did, and now it’s too late.
Two or three of them have me by the arms. I don’t know why I’m bothering to struggle anymore, but I am. Chalk it up to stubbornness. Stupid, stubborn me struggles all the way up three flights of stairs, and down another corridor. Eight minutes. All I’m really getting for my trouble are tighter grips that are sure to leave bruises. At the end of the hall is a large oak door with an enormous cursive P inscribed on it. One of the soldiers pounds a quick beat on it before pushing it open and shoving me inside the most fantastic office I’ve ever seen.
The dark wood floor is ornately littered with decorative pieces of pottery, a few more vases like the one downstairs, and even a sculpture or two of something I can’t quite make out. All of it looks incredibly old, and incredibly expensive. Even the walls are covered in artwork. It’s like a museum in here. The place of honor, on the wall behind an ornately carved desk, belongs to a portrait of a man with graying hair. A plaque reading ‘William Perman’ hangs just below it, and William isn’t the only Perman behind the desk. Sitting in a plush chair, wearing a suit fit for a meeting with the President, is Robert Perman himself.
Once again, the man does not meet the expectations. I hadn’t really considered what Robert Perman would look like, but after all I’ve learned about him, it’s strange to see him as just a man. Weirder still, he’s a younger man. Not nearly as old as the geezer on the wall, mid-thirties, at the latest. He’s frustratingly good looking with his dark, wavy hair and eyes like the summer sky. Even if he wasn’t evil incarnate, I would hate him, anyway, just for looking like some ridiculous billionaire playboy.
“You’re not Syms. Kaleigh Matthews, I presume?” He sounds every bit the pompous jerk he is, sitting here surrounded by all of his fine things while people are dying just outside his front door. “What are you doing here?”
I don’t bother with a reply. The answer should be f
airly obvious if he could peel himself away from that comfy looking chair long enough to take a peek out his window.
“Let me guess, Syms sent you.”
The thought of carrying out a conversation with this man makes me physically ill, but if I can just keep him talking for another seven minutes, then I can end all of this once and for all. I try to force myself to focus, but find it nearly impossible as my thoughts keep drifting back outside to everyone I’ll be leaving behind. A certain someone in particular.
It’s funny. I thought that once all of this was over, choosing between Connor and Peter would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. Now that it’s too late to matter anymore, the choice seems so glaringly obvious that I can’t believe I ever stressed about it at all. There’s only ever been one person I’ve felt that way about, and I’ve felt that way about him for all of my life. I just wish I could have told him.
“Yes, President Syms sent us. He told us all about you and your company, the deals you made, and what it’s cost everyone. We’re here to get it all back.”
“And what, pray tell, did President,” he spits the word out like it tastes foul in his mouth, “Syms tell you?”
I weave an extended tale of everything we’ve learned from the time the bombs went off, right up until today. I may have also included a few of my own personal thoughts regarding some of the events. It’s not like he needed the history lesson—or my own private commentary—but every second I spend talking brings us one second closer to the end. Five minutes.