“Last stop,” she said as the doors closed.
Neither of them conversed until the numbers ticked on the LED above the doors. It meant they were passing the regular levels. Once she saw it, Tabby wanted to say what was on her mind.
“Thanks for coming to get me, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. If you’re coming with me in the hopes of reversing that, you’re wasting your time.”
Victor turned to face her. “I don’t expect to change your mind. I’m here because I see now what’s been going on. They flew us here on a big plane. We never got to see the cities and towns stripped of people. We were told you surrendered, and the war was over as soon as it began. When I first saw you, I assumed you were like me. Like the others. We’re at peace. It’s time to rebuild a new America.”
The numbers ticked off, drawing her ever closer to the top floor. His story was impossible to confirm, and it wasn’t a version of events she wanted to believe. At the same time, knowing what she did about David and his leaders, it made sense. They’d threatened her with the lives of her friends to get her to comply. Lying to young people to get them to marry off was simple by comparison.
Her thoughts turned to Peter and Audrey. She recognized the threat to their lives, but if she didn’t try to escape, all three of them were doomed inside the vault. If she could get out of NORAD, even if it meant accepting assistance from Victor, she could seek help on the outside and eventually come back for her friends. In the meantime, she reasoned, no harm would befall them until she was captured again.
Please be right.
“For now, let’s agree to disagree. As long as you help me escape from this nightmare hole, I’m willing to call you an ally. It’s the best I can do for you.”
“I’ll take it,” he said, much too happily.
She shook her head in disbelief. “We’re coming up to the top level. Do you think there will be guards this time?”
“I’ll handle them,” he said dryly, facing the door.
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay back.” He motioned for her to stand near the buttons, which would keep her out of the line-of-sight for people outside.
The doors opened and Victor strode out as if he owned the place. She listened intently as someone yelped. An instant later, a second person cried out. Two thumps followed.
“You can come out.” Victor was huffing from exertion.
“Oh, crackers,” she blurted. Two guards were on the ground. Blood gushed from their heads.
Victor smiled. “This way. The exit is here.”
They ran down the short hallway and approached the same door she’d tried to open before being captured the other time. Its large EXIT lettering drew her forward. Looking behind, she saw no one there to stop her. The men on the ground were black piles of uniforms. They weren’t moving at all.
“It’s not complicated,” he said. “You open it with this handle.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
He pointed to a placard near the mechanism. “The designers didn’t want anyone getting stuck inside for lack of understanding a complex system. It’s a failsafe.”
“Thank God for that,” she said, truly relieved.
The vault door swung out as if it were motorized. It was about seven feet tall and almost square. As it came out of the wall, she got a good look at its depth. It was at least three-feet thick, with graduated edges, so it fit into the socket in wedged stages rather than being one smooth block.
When the door cleared enough for her to see around it, she was disappointed at what appeared. “There’s another opening…”
“Yep. There’s two doors. This one, and the big one to the outside.” The outer hole was big enough for a truck to drive through, as was the fifty yards of tunnel between her and the portal. Yellow and white lines were painted on the ground, as if the road from the outside came into the mountain and up to the inner vault door. “It’s all designed to protect us.”
“The outer door is already open,” she said dryly. “There are people in the tunnel.”
“We’ll simply run by them,” Victor advised.
“Yeah, I’m good at running.”
CHAPTER 27
NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain Entrance, CO
“I knew you were bad news,” Brent remarked, pistol pointed at Long.
“You shoot me, I shoot you. Is that how it’s going to be?” Long gave the men a sideways glance. “Drop your weapons or boss man gets it.”
The other men did as instructed, then crouched in place or crawled away, afraid the guy was going to spray them with the street sweeper. It didn’t worry Brent; he’d take one in the gut if it gave the others time to regroup and fight back.
Long laughed after everyone was disarmed, then he spoke to Brent. “You don’t know anything about me. For instance, did you know I was transferred to your prison wing specifically so I could survive the first wave?”
“I suspected,” Brent replied, fighting to maintain his cool.
“Well, did you know several of the others you let go from your prison were also playing for the enemy team?” He nodded toward the entrance to NORAD, as if clarifying who he meant.
“I should have let you rot…” he said in a dejected tone.
“Naw, we all would have gotten out. We had it planned to the last detail. One of the guards was in our pocket, trust me. My point is you were never going to win. The only reason I didn’t stop you before this is because I wanted you alive. By driving yourself here, you’ve made it easy to scoop you inside. That’s where you’ll get a taste of our hospitality.”
Trish came up behind him, catching Long’s attention. “There’s our accomplice now.”
Brent half-turned. “Trish?”
“Please drop your weapon, Brent. No one has to get hurt.” She sounded apologetic.
A heavy sigh escaped his chest. After running through his chances of getting at least one shot into the asshole in front of him, he figured Trish might fire at him, too. Despite everything, he didn’t want to make her do that.
He put the gun down and kicked it over to Long.
The guy cackled. “Oh, how it must break your lonely old heart to see your star pupil pull a gun on you.”
Some of the ex-prisoners cussed with shock.
She had her shotgun out, though she kept it pointed at the pavement. “I didn’t mean for any of this, Brent, and I didn’t know who inside the prison was the person they wanted me to let go. What happened was, I got a bundle of money in the mail. A really huge bundle. It said I would get ten more bundles of the same amount if I was willing to open the cages one time on a certain day. You saw my place, it’s a little hole in the wall. I wanted a real house, with a real yard, and not with drug-dealing neighbors all around me. I really had no idea it would result in everyone in the world disappearing.”
Long craned his neck, listening to another explosion. To Brent’s ears, it sounded like an artillery barrage was walking its way toward them, though the buzz of drones overhead made it clear where the attacks originated. Someone was coming up the road, being shot at the whole way.
Doing his best not to sound defeated, he asked the obvious question to his friend. “You were working for them? Why did you let us attack the airfield?”
She stomped her foot. “I’m not working for them. I just got paid by them. I had no idea who they were, or who I would have been releasing from the jail. I didn’t know the people at that airport were the source of my money. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t,” Brent said dryly.
Long motioned for her to train her shotgun on the gathered men, including Brent. “Come on, sweetpea, let’s get these men rounded up, then we’ll collect the money you’re owed.”
“I can’t help you,” she said slowly and with resolve. “None of this is right.”
Long held his shotgun so it was between him and the young woman. “Don’t flake out on me. The guards are a hundred yards that way, inside the tunnel.
All we have to do is walk these guys over there.”
The roar of a truck engine sounded from down the road. Whoever it was, they were getting close. It gave him a reason to keep Long talking…
“Long, there are only six rounds in your shotgun. There are seven of us.”
The dark-haired man turned toward the others. “Which of you wants to be the lone man who don’t get shot?”
They all raised their hands, not that he blamed them. He had a feeling each of them was itching to pull out a weapon and back him up, but no one could move while Long threatened their leader.
Long returned his attention to him. “You’ll be the first to go down, if you want to play the stupid game. I’d rather we all stay civil and walk up the hill, you know? David’s soldiers are on the lookout for us, I’m sure.”
Brent nodded, intending to wait for a better opportunity, but Trish spoke up. “Brent, I’m so sorry.”
He was focused on Long, which was why he saw the man’s eyes grow large. In an instant, the man reoriented his shotgun on Trish. Almost simultaneously, two shotguns belched out smoke and fire as the pair traded rounds. Brent’s eardrums felt as if they’d burst.
Without taking his eyes off his prey, Brent lunged for Long.
NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain Entrance, CO
“Holy shit!” Ted shouted as a load of buckshot sprayed against the front windshield.
He and Emily ducked low while passing a group of men, and at least one woman, standing between the first and second tanker truck. The woman who’d fired the shotgun at them stumbled back with blood spurting from her left side and shoulder.
Two men fell to the ground, almost under his right front tire.
“What the hell?” Emily gasped.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. We’ve got to get inside the bunker.” He pointed up the roadway, which was clear of vehicles. The black entrance was the only hope they had to get behind a shielded door before the impact. Ted’s foot held the accelerator to the floor.
Two explosions ripped into the rocks outside Emily’s window, making him inexplicably worry for the gathering of fuel truck drivers he’d passed. Did they know to duck down? Were they part of the chase? How did they get sidetracked to the point they were firing at each other? So many questions.
He continued into the roofed entryway, past the huge outer vault door. His eyes adjusted to the switch between the bright sunlight and the low illumination of the lighted tunnel. There were uniformed men standing around near the front, confirming what he already knew: they were going to be caught. However, in the short time he’d learned about the nuclear attack, he resolved to get Emily into a safe place.
I could trick them into leaving the doors open, then the missiles would go deep into the base.
Ted’s runaway heartbeat stopped. Was intentionally killing himself the way to go? It didn’t feel like it. Sure, he’d been prepared to die to carry out his mission, but those plans were designed to save Emily and help her get back to civilization, not kill her in the process.
He honked and shouted, unsure if anyone could hear him over the engine noise. “Get inside! Close the doors!”
The Humvee skidded to a halt about ten feet from the inner vault door. He hopped out the moment all momentum was gone. “A nuke is inbound! You have seconds to get inside and close the door!”
To Emily, he added, “Grab a rifle!”
The men standing around were dressed in military uniforms, but not in the black ones of the enemy. If he had to make a snap judgement based on the differing styles of dress, mostly-dark complexions, and the wide girth of several of them, they were from Central America. Generals, colonels, probably a few drug cartel bosses sprinkled in as well. A brief look deeper into the tunnel complex proved his point: their trucks were parked in a side chamber about a hundred yards away.
Still, the men understood his panicked declaration. They broke into a run, chasing each other into the vault door. He hustled Emily through the entrance but stayed next to the big door to watch the stragglers run toward him. Another black drone swooped in the curved front entrance and hovered near the roof as if deciding whether to attack him. Beyond the mechanical flyer, a pair of people appeared on the road into the facility, running toward the NORAD bunker. They were possibly from the group he’d seen fighting.
“I’m sorry, people. We’re out of time.”
He was going to step inside the vault but couldn’t look away from the much larger vault door set toward the front. It was large enough to allow trucks to fit through; a door of such size might be required to survive what was coming.
Why hadn’t the bad guys already closed it?
In a moment of fatalism, he realized the enemy was made up of soldiers and technicians who weren’t always operating at peak efficiency. They came to America and tried to work on the same level as the US military, but he had a laundry list of examples of their forces dropping the ball. They couldn’t protect their airfields. They didn’t know how to check IDs consistently. They couldn’t track down him and Emily to save their lives, at least until the last fifteen minutes.
Now he had to rely on that same second-rate army to close a simple blast door.
“We’re dead.”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
Tabby ran with Victor, but the uniformed men in the tunnel seemed uninterested in them. Many held tablets close to their faces, or scurried between groups, as if watching a nail-biting sports match.
She traveled the paved road, going up a gentle incline, feeling strange to have a rock tunnel carved over her head. As they neared the sun-drenched entrance, she had to shield her eyes after so much low light and darkness. “We did it,” she said, trying to look into the light.
“I told you we would,” Victor exclaimed. “Now we can sneak away and hide.”
“Thanks, I guess,” she said, wondering if she’d judged him wrong. Tabby strode up to the rim of the entrance, expecting to see wooded mountains. NORAD was located in a bunker in the Rockies. They’d seen the rugged terrain on the way there, when they broke down in the milk truck prison van. However, what she saw outside was…
“Where the hell are we?” she murmured.
“NORAD,” Victor replied matter-of-factly.
“No, this can’t be NORAD. There’s nothing out there. Look.” She held out her hand in a “don’t you see?” pose.
The ground was flat as glass from where she stood to the horizon. It was also covered in prairie grass rather than pine trees. She took a few steps outside to try to get some bearings.
It didn’t help.
The tunnel was inside a mound of rocks at the edge of a dirt-paved airfield. Stout shelters, like little bunkers, housed military jets in one area. Near those, dozens of giant gray cargo planes were lined up edge-to-edge. Further down, massive planes had been parked out in the fields, each with six giant propellers and strange disc-like fuselages. From her perspective, they mimicked the appearance of black wings lined up front to back, in formation. She guessed there were about ten of them.
The buildings of a town sat beyond the long airstrip.
While she was rubbernecking, a man came up behind Victor and cracked him over the head with the butt of his gun. When she spun around, the bloodied guard pointed his rifle at her face. “Try me!”
Victor was down, but he wasn’t as injured as the sound implied. He rubbed his head while crouched. She put her hands up, if only to prevent the guy from doing it again.
The guard yelled to some of the men nearby. “Hey, help me get them back inside.” He then glared at her. “David warned if a girl wearing a gray skirt appeared at the front door, I was to toss her and any accomplices into the David Cube, then throw away the key. After I woke up on the floor, I had a good idea who knocked me out, and where you went.”
He shoved the gun in her gut to get her moving.
Still with hands up, she tried to fight back the only way she could. “This is a case of mistaken identity. I’m not wearing a gr
ay dress.” She pointed to the makeshift skirt. “I’m wearing a gray blanket.”
“Nice try.”
Tabby walked inside but was troubled by the fact she’d let everyone down. Where was David? Was he rounding up Peter and Audrey already? Would he give Victor a break? If not, she was going to feel bad about getting him tangled up in her affairs.
Through the doors, she heard one of the men watching the tablets.
“They’re nuking NORAD!”
The heavy weight of bad luck settled in her stomach. The guards continued walking them toward the elevator, with hardly a care in the world. Looking over her shoulder, no one had bothered to close the vault door after they’d come inside.
“Uh, don’t you want to close that?” She pointed back. “If there’s a nuke coming?”
The bloodied guard bared his teeth. “How did you survive as long as you did, American? We eliminated your people. Took over your cities. Hijacked your technology. You expect to resist us, yet you don’t even know where you are. You don’t even know the secret places created by your corrupt government. Places like this bunker.”
He shoved her hard into the elevator. Tabby almost went face-first into the back wall, but Victor grabbed her arm. She looked at him when he got her standing. “Do you know where we are, Victor? Where is this bunker?”
“When I came in the first time, they said the town was in Colorado…Lamar, I think. They told me this bunker system was built after nine-eleven. I wasn’t really paying attention back then.”
They weren’t at the main NORAD facility, after all.
Tabby couldn’t be faulted for not knowing there were multiple bunkers.
It did make her wonder, however, why the US military was attacking the wrong base.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
“Come on, get up, you maggots!”
Dwight’s head pounded with a migraine, so the voice tore through his eardrums like daggers through paper.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 89