“Did you give me mouth to mouth?!” I sputtered. “What the hell were you eating before that?! It tastes like road kill!”
He only laughed louder as I continued to hack and sputter, trying to spit out my own saliva. “Yeah, I know. It tastes something awful. Argon had left behind his jerky and he knew I’d pocket some, so I think he poured something on it to make it taste bad. He pulls pranks on me all the time. Maybe he peed on it. I wouldn’t put it past him-“
The visual alone that accompanied was enough to make me sick. “Ugh!”
“It’s good to be alive, right?” he chuckled over my half-outraged, half-disgusted little exclamation. He seemed to be giddy, weirdly enough. Then again, considering we had nearly died a few minutes ago, he had a right to be. “When you conked out, I started kicking at the sand and it dislodged, bringing us down here. Turns out my temper tantrum worked out pretty good. I got your heart going again and here we are. You’re not going to puke, are you?”
I breathed heavily, still trying not to gag. “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions. I wasn’t exactly looking around when I tried to wake you up. I couldn’t let a ‘friend’ die after all.”
And with that my last words came back to me. Leave it to me to become a sentimental slob in my last moments. Inwardly cringing at the fact I was now going to be ribbed about my moment of weakness until I swatted him at some point, I looked around. “How did Xorratti and Tiranshyck corner you all?”
He chuckled, probably hearing my grouchy change in subject. “It doesn’t matter. The better question was why they were together and hanging out over this building. When we came down the hill, I could swear I saw them digging in the sand. They must have known this was here.”
Looking around, Cain was right. The floor under me, though covered with a layer of sand, was hard. This must have been a building from the century before the sun had roasted the planet. It had been buried with sand. The question was how we were going to get out of here. “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight, would you?”
I closed my eyes as light flicked on from my left. I slowly opened them and saw Cain sprawled out on the floor with a lazy smile. He wagged the flashlight at me. And then he gasped, looking at our surroundings. “Damn. They did know it was here.”
I had to laugh at our fortuitous misfortune. We were in the abandoned missile silo site where the nuke had come from. The old Minutemen launching silo was off to our right and we seemed to be in the command room next to it. Spray painted on the walls was the symbol for the former United States of America, along with a large number of buttons and levers. A bunch of aged computers surrounded us, most covered in spider webs and filth.
Cain cursed under his breath and whistled. “And we now know what happened to Rogee’s operative.”
I looked over, seeing a man’s corpse on the opposite end of the room. He had been shot point blank. Blood was splattered all over the wall behind him. Clutched in his hand seemed to be a long keychain. If I had to guess, I would have said he had been in possession of the keys needed to fire off the nuke. Someone had taken them. Off to the man’s side, there lay a small stainless steel briefcase. Another guess told me that that had probably housed the mainframe computer used to launch the bomb.
“So they not only have the warhead, they also have the keys and probably the codes,” Cain murmured. “Fuckin’ fantastic.”
I stood, cringing as my ribs protested, and headed over to the silo door. Next to it, there was a large enough hole where I gathered the two of us had fallen in the office. Sand was still dropping from it, slowly creating a large pile. As for the door, I opened it and saw nothing other than what looked like a broken refrigerator cooling system. “The cooling system is still here. And what’s worse, I think they broke it. If we get the bomb back, we have nothing to cool it with.”
He cursed under his breath again, this time sitting up. “So I guess Xorratti was here for the same reason as us.”
“Not necessarily,” I grumbled, clutching my side. “Tiranshyck was on his side. And if I know him, he wouldn’t stick around to reclaim one stinking air conditioning unit.”
“What are you saying?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. But Xorratti tried to kill us. Funny for a guy who’s on the same side as we are.”
“You think he’s involved with the terrorists?” Cain asked, shaking his head. “No,” he added, “Xorratti is too obsessed with his retirement. Plus it’s not in his best interest to blow up the city considering he keeps all his money in the main bank on Central Avenue. No, they were here for another reason. I’ll bet he just hired Tiranshyck as a guide just like we hired you. He probably personally knew him, too. It wouldn’t be a stretch since Vinkent spends every other weekend going down to the slave auctions.”
I put my hands up with a grimace. “I don’t want to be hearing this, Cain. You don’t want to make me any angrier with Vinkent; trust me.”
“Sure,” he grunted. “But I will admit I have had the urge to clock him more than once, too. He’s taken credit for missions I’ve been solely in charge of running. He’s an absolute-“
Just as Cain was about to let another curse word free, the ceiling shook and a huge load of dust came down. The sand must have been shifting again and it was putting pressure on the ceiling. As it was, another load of sand came in the hole Cain left when he kicked the side of the building.
“Three guesses how we’re going to get out of here,” he grunted, finally hauling himself to his feet.
I let him muse over that, still looking around. Now looking over the floors, I could see that there were a great deal of male footprints across the undisturbed sand. The terrorists were large in number if these were anything to judge by. But then I noticed something new.
“Cain?” I asked, warily. “Would you mind lifting your foot for a second?”
He gave me a weird look, but gave in to my request. I ducked down next to him, looking at his boot prints. It confirmed my suspicions. “All of the prints through this room are military. They match your shoes, though in varying sizes.”
“And because my shoes are military requisitioned for all soldiers you think that whoever was down here was government mandated,” he stated, looking thoughtful. “Maybe Xorratti was already through here earlier. Maybe they weren’t digging, but were reburying this place.“
“No,” I said quietly. “These tracks are well over a week old.”
He grunted. “All I know is the bare minimum about this mission; that being what you’ve already heard. But I can agree, it is possible they knew more about this bomb than they’re telling us. I’m not unused to being sent in to clean up the hierarchies’ messes once they screw up. But this doesn’t change our mission. We still need to find the bomb.”
I nodded, still thinking about it. I watched as Cain strode over to one of the computer screens and poked at it. I was amazed as it whirred to life, still operational. He cocked his head at the screen. “Well, we’ll have our answer in a minute. There’s surveillance footage. I don’t know what idiot left this running after they stole everything, but it certainly spells good luck for us.”
“Not necessarily,” I mumbled, peeking over his shoulder. I sat impatiently as the ancient technology rewound to a week ago. And when it did, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Neither could Cain it seemed. He rewound it twice and watched it.
We both had nothing to say as we saw a bunch of Confederate soldiers come down here, entering through the silo door. As they came in, daylight shone behind them. But who came with them was what caught our attention. Xorratti strutted in like a peacock, being led by whom we both recognized as the man who was lying dead ten feet from us now.
After they all scurried about for what the video time stamps told us was a few hours, they took off with the warhead, the computer mainframe that housed the launch mechanisms, and codes. But what happened next was what caught our eyes.
The fellow who had been murdere
d had been refusing to give Xorratti the keys before he was shot. I nudged Cain. “Can you get audio for this?”
He nodded and turned it up. That’s when things got real interesting.
“No! I won’t give you the keys!” the murdered man was shouting. “What you two are planning is depraved!”
“Stand down, soldier,” Xorratti had replied in a bored voice. “We are prepared to use force.”
“I only take orders from Rogee! Get him on the phone or I will-“
I cringed and looked away as Xorratti gave the order and one of the soldiers shot the man in the head. He took the keys from the man, leaving the body behind while they took off with the nuke. No one had looked back or even given the dead man a second thought as they left.
Cain muttered under his breath and shook his head. “This is bad.”
“So Vinkent has gone rogue,” I said, not surprised in the slightest. “No wonder he wanted to kill us. If we found out he had the nuke...”
“Maybe,” he grunted. “But a week before we met, I heard that Xorratti had been sent out on a top secret mission by Rogee. It’s possible that he was doing exactly as he had been told and someone swiped it from him while it was on transport back to the city, so it really is in the hands of terrorists now.”
I jerked my head back at the dead man. “Not if the body is anything to judge by.”
I said nothing further as he took the hard drive to the video system and stuck it in his jacket. We at least had some hard evidence to use now, but none of it directed us as to where the bomb had been taken from here.
“So we have two suspects,” Cain muttered, kicking the chair back to the desk. “Tiranshyck and Xorratti. I guess we trap them and interrogate them. That’s our best shot.”
“And let’s give this guy at least something to cover him,” he said, heading over to the dead man and throwing one of the canvas covers from the computer desks over him. “Damn. If the audio is faithful to the story, Xorratti has betrayed everyone. But I still don’t understand his motives.”
“An evil intention often eludes the minds of those who aren’t evil,” I murmured, saying a prayer over the fellow who had given his life to stop them. But as I finished the last stanza in my mind, I could have sworn I heard a muffled shouting. I turned just as the silo door was kicked in.
Michael stood on the precipice, chest heaving up and down. Argon was right behind him, gun drawn. And much to my insane happiness, I saw a rope hanging down from the ceiling behind them. We now had a way out of here. Out through the top of silo.
“Rain!” Michael exclaimed, rushing to me and throwing his arms around my upper chest. “I’m so happy you’re okay! All we saw was you two disappearing in the sand and we’ve been digging ever since!”
I couldn’t say anything in return as he squeezed the stuffing out of me. My broken ribs were less than thrilled, too, considering the pressure he was putting on them. I tried to warn him, but nothing other than a weak wheeze came out of my mouth.
“Stop squeezing her,” Cain’s voice said, close by. “She has broken ribs.”
Instantly the pressure eased and the elephant on my clavicle went away. Oxygen flooded my lungs, but not enough to breathe freely. Michael drew back guiltily and I patted his shoulder, trying to catch my breath. “Whoops. Sorry.”
“I had a cousin who once hugged his guinea pig to death,” Rig’s voice echoed down from somewhere above us all. I guessed he was up above holding the rope.
“Who’s the stiff?” Argon said, eyeing our surroundings.
“We’ll discuss it once we get up top,” Cain ordered, shifting back into his ‘general mode’ and headed toward the exit. “But where did you two go? Rain told me that you all had a plan.”
“Piddle fingers accidently shot his gun off, shorting my bike’s engine,” Argon said grouchily. “I then crashed into him and both bikes went down. By the time we reached the battle site, the storm was already overhead and we saw you all go down.”
Michael didn’t contest his account and instead kept studying me. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” I said, uncomfortable with the way he was still hovering around, worriedly checking me over.
“She’ll be fine,” Argon said. I tilted my head to look at him. He was grinning at me from Cain’s other side. Cain was still examining something on the wall behind him. “Sorry about abandoning you, sugar. Michael popped his cork too soon.”
I didn’t find it funny. “Did anyone else make it?”
Michael shifted above me. “Dad and Tiranshyck got away before the sand collapsed. They went back toward Moor En. We should head back there. Rig is up top with Ray still unearthing our bikes. Most of them haven’t worked so far, so we’ll probably be departing on foot.”
“Michael?” Cain asked, turning to us. “Do you have any idea what your father was up to out here?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “I told you that. Why?”
“Because daddio is now the number one suspect as to who has the nuke,” Cain replied. “I have surveillance tape showing him taking off with the nuke, keys and codes in tow, not to mention ordering the soldiers to pop this guy in the head.”
Argon whistled under his breath. “Wow. This is a plot twist I never saw coming.”
“Dad’s gone rogue?” Michael said. “That doesn’t sound like something he’d do.”
“Guilty until proven innocent,” Cain grunted. “We have the evidence. Let’s go.”
“I don’t get paid enough for this crap,” Argon grunted, still eyeing the covered body behind us. “This is ridiculous, this whole mission. We have less than four days now and still have no idea where this thing is. We’re running around like a bunch of morons! ”
“If we fail, there won’t be anybody left to pay us anyway,” Cain snapped. “Let’s move.”
Michael ushered me over to the door, still taking pains to help me. He didn’t listen as I told him to go ahead. He was watching my every movement like he was afraid I was going to keel over. But then a muffled question from Cain quickly caught my attention.
“By the way, Argon, what did you put on your jerky?”
I did not like the evil little chuckle that came out of him in response. “So you were into it. This’ll teach you to stay out of my stuff.”
Cain questioned him a few more times but he wouldn’t tell any of us what he had put on it. As it was, after hearing Cain’s earlier suggestions, I really didn’t want to know. Cain headed up the rope first, being helped up by Rig and Ray who looked perfectly unscathed.
“You sure you can manage?” Michael asked me again. “You don’t look well.”
I waved him off and climbed up before he could stop me. Ray leant me a hand, pulling me out of the hole. I stumbled to my knees, grateful to see the sun again. God had saved me today for a reason. I hope I could return the favor by stopping eight million of his people from being nuked.
In a minute Michael and Argon were up beside me, one of whom immediately went back to monitoring my every move. I looked around, seeing Rig who was already heading over to the half-dug up bike to finish digging it out. I moved to stand and Michael immediately stopped me. “You should rest-“
“Absolutely not,” I said, trying to get to my feet. “There’s a nuke out here. Either I find it or you can drag my carcass back to them if we fail.”
“You’re in no shape to argue.”
I stood to my full height, ignoring the protest from inside my chest and went over to the bike that was leaning on its side. It was a mangled mess. So was the other one. I went over to the half-submerged one and gave it a yank. It was not going to come free without an excavator. I kicked it in aggravation as I heard footsteps behind me. Cain did not look well. There was a bruise across one eye and one across the other cheek bone, not to mention how he was hunched over. “The kid’s right, Rain. You should take it easy. Go sit down. That’s an order.”
“I still think-”
“Sit!” he roared an
d glared at me. I shrank back and padded mousily over to the canvas blanket Ray was laying on. I hadn’t been yelled at like that since I had accidentally shredded Dantenn’s curtains as a kid. Dantenn had not been happy with me, but Cain’s anger surpassed it by far.
I sank down clumsily as all of the men trotted over to the bike and stared at it. Ray chuckled beside me. “Wow. I’ve never heard him yell like that before.”
“He probably doesn’t like it when he has people turn into corpses on top of him,” I grumbled. “What happened to you guys?”
“I got off easy. I was only half submerged since I got carried by the top of the wave. I dug Rig out while Michael and Argon went looking for you two.”
I watched Cain smack the back of Argon’s head and Argon did it in turn. They both laughed. Rig chuckled watching them, turning back to look at us. He came up then, holding his canteen out to her. “Finish that off.”
Somehow his abrupt order was not taken well. To my surprise, Ray crossed her arms. “I’m sure someone else could use the water more than I can-“
“Drink,” he ordered, eyes blazing as he squatted down. “You’re the smallest one out here. Your body can take the dehydration least out of all of us. Drink.”
I was nothing but amused as she stuck her chin out stubbornly and thrust it back to him. “You don’t need to baby me. I am every bit the soldier you are and I don’t need to be fussed over every second of the day simply because I am a woman! You drink it!”
This must have been something of a routine for them if she was this sensitive to his caring behavior. But somehow I doubted that his motives were fueled by her being of the feminine variety, at least when it came to him offering her the last of his water. I had noticed a few of his appreciative glances along our trip so far. My suspicions were confirmed as he refused to back down a few seconds later, completely ignoring my presence. “Ray, this is not the time to be stubborn. Drink it.”
“No. You can take your water and-“
I looked away as he leaned in and captured her lips, effectively shutting down her argument. Other than her shocked little squeak that turned into a whimper of pleasure, there was quiet for a few seconds and then I heard him murmur again. “Drink up. I have to go back and help them dig out. We’ll talk about this later.”
War Machine: Book One in the Destiny In the Shadows Series Page 17