“We’re going to move,” Handelman whispered, breaking the silence at last. “We’re too closed in, and I need a better field of fire. You ready?”
Devon moved to stand next to his bodyguard.
“We’ll go back to where we came in,” the agent breathed. “Down the stairs, back into the classroom and out the open window. I’m going to find us a car. We’re safer on the move.”
The boy didn’t argue, only nodded.
With the agent leading, they slipped out of the office and into the hall, the man’s head and pistol tracking together. Then they scooted across the tiles to the stairs, moving on the balls of their feet, watching the shadows for movement. In the first floor hallway at the foot of the stairs, Handelman came to an abrupt stop.
There was blood on the floor, black and gleaming like spilled oil in the darkness, touched with red from the glow of a fire exit sign not far away. It was a trail leading into the open door of the classroom where they’d made entry…or coming out of it, Devon thought.
Handelman took a few steps toward the door, and then the throaty laughter came again, close this time, just up the hall ahead of them. It was followed at once by the sound of running feet and the rattle of bouncing keys. A shape came at them from the darkness, a custodian running with arms outstretched, his radiant eyes a pair of silver discs.
He snarled.
Handelman grabbed Devon by a shoulder and propelled him though the classroom door, then fired one-handed, three quick shots. In the doorway, not quite inside the room, Devon flinched at the blasts and raised an arm against the brilliant white muzzle flashes, blinded. Right before the painful whiteness exploded behind his closed lids, he saw the janitor stagger into a wall. Then all he had left was his hearing, and he could tell that the running feet and bouncing keys were coming at them again.
Handelman swore through gritted teeth, elevated and fired twice more. The back of the custodian’s head burst from the double-tap, and he crashed to the floor.
Rubbing his eyes, Devon blinked some of his vision back. Handelman was pivoting, aiming back toward the stairs. Special Agent O’Brien was racing at him from that direction, snarling and reaching as the custodian had done, only a dozen feet away. The bodyguard fired, hit his supervisor in the heart, a kill shot, but the man’s momentum carried him into his executioner and they both went down in a tangle. Handelman was scrambling at once, fighting free of a limp corpse, getting to one knee. Two more figures in the hall, backlit by the exit sign, little more than silhouettes; the biology professor and Sean. Devon’s roommate let out a sickening giggle and they both charged.
Handelman dumped six rounds into the two of them, dropping both.
“My God,” Devon whispered, holding onto the door frame and squinting, the white muzzle flashes still popping behind his eyes like camera strobes.
Handelman went to his boss and searched him quickly. Earpiece but no radio. No cell phone or car keys. Shit! He took the man’s service weapon and spare magazines, then went to the dead custodian and relieved him of the set of keys clipped to his belt.
He grabbed Devon’s collar. “Window. Move.”
Outside, the breeze had rapidly cooled the October night, and Devon pulled his school blazer tight as they moved through the darkness at a trot. Overhead the northern sky blazed with cold stars. They reached Handelman’s destination, the campus maintenance truck they’d seen before, found it locked, and the agent flipped through the custodian’s keys until he found what he wanted.
Then they were in the cab, the engine running. A dashboard gauge revealed the fuel tank to be a little less than half full.
“The gymnasium is over-” Devon started.
“No. We’re out of here.”
The boy looked at his protector. “They’ll kill her! I promised, we can’t-“
“You shouldn’t have, and it’s not my problem. You are.”
“Bullshit!” Devon grabbed the door handle. “I’m going.”
A single palm slammed into Devon’s chest with a force that nearly took his breath away, pinning him to the seat. He blinked, never having realized just how strong the man was.
“If you think I won’t restrain you,” Handelman said, his voice soft and conversational, but carrying a tone the boy had never heard before, “you’re wrong. We’re leaving. Don’t touch that door again unless I tell you to.”
The hand left his chest, and Devon didn’t even look at him, just stared out the windshield. The maintenance truck moved into the night streets of the campus, the agent driving without headlights and taking a route he’d memorized.
As they left the Harrison School, Devon Fox turned and looked out the rear window, still not speaking. He’d just killed a girl with a broken promise.
-23-
FEATHER MOUNTAIN
Western Pennsylvania – October 28
The silos and underground support areas of Feather Mountain had been constructed in the early eighties, labyrinths blasted deep in the rock as part of the American build-up of strategic missile defense. Within a decade and a half the site was decommissioned, its ICBMs removed and the facility mothballed. Post-911 fears of terrorism brought the tomb-like mountain fortress back to life, with Army engineers expanding and rebuilding, transforming the site into a larger, more modernized facility designed not for launching missiles, but for survival. Although still capable of withstanding a nuclear blast (in theory), its new design made it resilient to a more likely, modern threat; chemical and biological terrorism.
The inside was maintained by a skeleton crew of fifteen man and women from the 114th Signal Battalion, who kept the site ready for a just in case scenario. A platoon of permanently assigned MPs took care of the small base outside – the buildings, airstrip and perimeter fence – and for both groups, it was one of the most boring assignments in the US Army. Since its repurposing, Feather Mountain had never gone live.
Until now.
General Joshua T. Rowe and his team reached the mountain’s entrance, leaving the two Humvees they’d taken from the airfield parked nearby. Twelve uniformed men and women moved quickly toward a concrete and steel archway jutting from a sheer rock face, each loaded down with packs, laptop bags and personal small arms. With Rowe was his second-in-command, a major, two soldiers to provide security, a pair of communication techs and a pair of biohazard specialists, two IT techs, a combat medic and an Army surgeon. The general and his team had drilled in this exercise and knew their jobs, but now it was for real and their tension level was a tangible thing.
Inside the high archway, fluorescent bars chased away the coming night and illuminated a pair of heavy blast doors, one big enough to permit the passage of large vehicles, the other an oversized man-door off to the right. The major approached this one and entered a seven digit code into a panel, placed his eye near an optical scanner just above it, then touched a blue plastic key card to the proximity reader. A green light came on, and the pressurized door popped open with a hiss, swinging silently outward, revealing that it was thicker than a bank vault slab. Rowe led his team into a brightly lit corridor, and the door closed behind them as quietly as it had opened, making ears pop as it vacuum sealed once again.
“Proceed to decontamination,” a voice said from an overhead speaker. Another door opened and the team moved into an airlock-style chamber sealed at both ends, everyone lining up in single file.
“Close your eyes,” ordered the voice through another speaker, “and hold your breath until I tell you to release it. This will take about fifteen seconds.” A moment later the room filled with white fog, which was sucked out through vents fifteen seconds later as promised. The next door opened, and the team entered the mountain complex.
“Good evening, sir,” said an Army captain, saluting the general. “We received the alert that you were inbound. My group is bringing the facility fully online.”
Rowe returned the salute. “Let’s get moving, Captain.”
The younger officer led them across a h
igh, domed chamber nearly a hundred feet across, the floor and walls polished smooth but the vaulted ceiling raw, chopped granite. Light bars did what they could to reduce the gloom, but shadows still dominated. It was twenty degrees cooler in here than outside, the air heavy with the scent of minerals. Boot heels echoed as the team followed the captain toward one of four archways positioned around the circular chamber. To their left, lined up against one curving wall, were three Humvees covered with tarps. Overshadowing the utility vehicles was an eight-wheeled Stryker Dragoon, an armored assault vehicle that could also carry ground troops, armed with a remote-turret-operated Mk44 Bushmaster, a thirty-millimeter death dealer. It was flanked by twin .50 caliber heavy machineguns mounted in the turret, just in case the Bushmaster didn’t provide enough lethality. Several bicycles leaned against the armored vehicle, the more obvious modes of transportation in what had to be an enormous space.
“Do we have comms?” Rowe asked the captain.
“The systems are all up, but we’re not making contact everywhere. Many units are not responding.”
The general already knew that fact from hours earlier, when he and his team had deployed from Maryland. Another reason why Bank Vault had been initiated.
The soldiers traveled down a long corridor, passing deeper into the mountain, trying to ignore the intangible sense of millions of tons of granite pressing down on them. Their guide seemed perfectly at ease.
In another chamber where five more, identical-looking passageways intersected, open-topped golf carts were parked against a wall and plugged into portable chargers. The captain removed a handful of blue, laminated cards from a plastic holder on one wall, passing them out. “If you’re not here every day, it’s easy to get turned around. These are diagrams of the facility so you don’t get lost. These cards are not to be copied, and must be returned before you leave the mountain.”
Rowe nodded. Although he had been here several times, about half his team had not, and so he let the man continue with his rehearsed briefing. Even the general had not been here in fourteen months, not since the last drill, and he found it ironic that his team had been scheduled for an annual Feather Mountain drill just two weeks from now.
Their guide gestured to a large, Plexiglas board mounted to a wall, a larger diagram of what was on the cards. “Most of the support areas are on this main level,” the captain said. Enlisted and officer’s quarters, mess hall, medical facilities with biohazard and quarantine sections. Sub-level one has the communications center, briefing rooms, executive housing and private mess. Sub-two houses our dry goods storage, supply stores and quartermaster. I recommend you stop down there to pick up some warm clothing if you didn’t bring it. The mountain is a constant fifty-three degrees, and it stays pretty chilly. This much space is difficult to heat.”
Those team members who had been here before nodded. They’d sworn that next time they would pack sweaters, but this deployment had come on too suddenly to grab anything more than the most critical gear.
The captain’s hand moved to another section on the map board. “Sub-three is maintenance, the generator rooms, battery banks and fuel bunkers, as well as the armory. All the way down here,” his hand moved to a long, blue rectangle near the bottom of the map, “is a one-point-five million gallon fresh water reservoir.” He looked back at them. “Elevators and stairs connect all levels at different points. The mountain’s ventilation system is equipped with a broad spectrum of filters to protect against known chemicals and airborne particles. You might have noticed the metallic taste and smell of the air. That’s normal, but it takes some getting used-to.”
“What’s that section off to the left?” asked the major, Rowe’s second-in-command.
“Those are the access tunnels, launch control center and missile silos. The elevators and stairs will take you down there too, but I don’t recommend it. There’s been only minor preventative maintenance there since the mountain was decommissioned as an ICBM site, and groundwater seepage has compromised some of the structural integrity. We also don’t run power down there, other than the elevator, so it’s pitch black. If you decide to visit, for whatever reason, you’re required to have hardhats, flashlights and a qualified guide.”
“No one’s going sightseeing, Captain,” Rowe growled.
“Yes sir. If anyone has any questions, please find me. You can drop your gear here and my people will take it to your quarters.” The captain gestured. “Now let’s get you to the comms room.”
Minutes later Rowe and his team were humming down a wide tunnel in four white golf carts, the captain driving lead with the general and the rest of the group following. There were no windshields, and the already cool, coppery-smelling air came at them in a cold rush. The carts made little noise as they zipped along over polished cement, the electric whine of their motors swallowed in the vast space. One full mile into the mountain, the captain stopped his cart in yet another high, domed chamber with yet more tunnels exiting, and parked alongside several similar vehicles lined up and charging. He escorted his new arrivals to one of several freight-sized elevators, and soon they were all taking a thirty second ride down to sub-level one. There the captain led them across another wide intersection and through a door marked COMMUNICATIONS.
Within was a large, Mission Control-type room filled with tiers of consoles. They faced a wall of huge, flat screen monitors, about a third of them showing live video feeds. Others were black, showed static or held a test pattern. One of the screens to the right was a digital outline of North America, and nearby a similar diagram of the world. Colored dots with data beside them covered both of these boards. A pair of uniformed IT sergeants was working with laptops beside a far console, quiet and engaged in their work. They paid no attention to the general in the room.
The non-tech members of Rowe’s team moved out of the way as the general took it all in, rubbing his hands briskly against the chill. He thought briefly of the scared, young second lieutenant he’d encountered outside, and the perimeter defense plan that had now apparently shit the bed. But that was the reality of live operations versus THE PLAN. It couldn’t be helped. The kid would just have to make it work.
“Okay,” said Rowe, moving into the room. “I want two people on the national board, one on international and one on satellite comms.”
Team members moved to their stations, pulling on headsets.
“Find out why we’re dark on those screens,” he said, pointing, then turned to his XO. “Get me linked up with the Pentagon, the White House and Fort Meade in that order.” Rowe stepped to a console and pulled on his own headset, looking up at a screen with a satellite image of several Red Chinese warships (the correct term was People’s Republic of China or PROC, but they would always be Reds to him) moving through the Formosa Straits. Beside it was another screen with a high level view of New York City, chillingly familiar pillars of black smoke rising from Lower Manhattan.
“Let’s see how bad it is,” said the general.
It was every young infantry officer’s fantasy; giving the command to “Fix bayonets.” But he couldn’t give that order. Their rifles were back on the forest floor where they’d been dropped when the Green Berets hit their lines like a howling, barbarian horde.
Donny Knapp glanced back at the three shadows hiding with him in the darkness next to a barracks wall. They shifted nervously.
“Private Akins,” Donny whispered, “keep watch to our rear.”
No acknowledgement, only silence. They were pissing him off. After their encounter with the general, who’d ordered them to hold the airfield, the three young soldiers had followed him back to Feather Mountain’s small base readily enough. But as the sun went down and they’d caught glimpses of the horrors sneaking through the shadows of the base, the men had started to lose their nerve again, muttering about running away while they could and ignoring their officer when he spoke. Donny had given them a sharp reprimand, and they’d been quiet since, but that didn’t mean they were in line.
Frightened. Probably because of what you did to their sergeant and executive officer. Donny knew that killing two of their leaders right in front of them – no matter how justified – hadn’t helped with discipline.
He peeked back around the corner of the building, out into the asphalt-paved road that ran between the rows of barracks. Although the interiors of the single-story, white wooden structures were dark, some exterior floodlights were on at the corners, and a handful of tall streetlights had come on when night fell. All of them created circular pools of white, gray at the edges and making for a stark blackness beyond their glow.
There were monsters visible in the light.
Who knew how many were unseen in the darkness.
Right now there were four that Donny could see, a small gathering beneath a streetlight about twenty yards up the road to his right. All wore bloody uniforms; two men from his company, a Green Beret and a woman, probably part of the base support staff. They were slightly hunched over with their arms dangling, hands clenching and unclenching. Agitated by something, they shuffled constantly, turning in all directions. Donny could hear them making thick, mewling and chuckling noises.
Their eyes were the worst. Like bright, silver circles.
Dried blood smeared their faces and hands.
Not soldiers anymore. Monsters. They ate the flesh of those they killed. Donny had seen it on their way into the base, quietly detouring his men around scenes of growling soldiers crouched over their fallen brothers in arms. He’d wondered then, as now, if his little group represented the last living troops on base. Probably not, he decided, there were sure to be others out there, hiding.
Donny looked back and cupped a hand around the little flashlight he was holding, shining it onto the base diagram he’d set on the ground where he was crouched. If they were in the right place – and he was almost certain they were – then just beyond that knot of infected soldiers (that had to be what this was) there would be a side road that led to the armory and the supply building, both places he needed. But he had to get past the opposition first.
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