“How do you know about LARS?”
“How do you know about it?”
She sighed. “This is getting us nowhere. Why don’t you just tell me what you want, and we’ll figure out how to go from there.”
One corner of his mouth tugged up into a grin. Apparently the man found this whole thing very amusing, which only made her more annoyed.
“What I want is ten stories down,” Stoner said. “And I assume that’s what you want, too, or you wouldn’t be here. So let’s work together and figure out how to achieve that goal.”
Another series of pop-pop-pop echoed from above them. This one went on for a few seconds, much longer than the previous gunshots.
Stoner unclipped a black two-way radio from his side. He waited for the shots to evaporate before pressing the transmit lever. “Give me a sitrep, Hawkeye.”
The radio squawked, and a male voice replied through the speaker, “Nothing much, boss man. Just keeping the crazies on their toes.”
“That’s all fine and well, Hawkeye, but stop wasting bullets. It’s not like we have an unlimited supply, you know.”
“Roger that. Hawkeye out.”
Stoner put the radio away and gave Emily a slightly exasperated shake of his head. “Ran into a gaggle of them on the road here. As much as they were taking out each other, and we were helping, there’s still a good twenty or so keeping us busy.”
“Where did you guys come from?”
“Benton, Colorado. You?”
“North.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“No.”
Stoner chuckled. “Okay, suit yourself.” He looked out the window at the elevator. “So, tell me what happened with the elevator?”
Emily didn’t. At least, not right away.
Instead, she weighed her options.
Step one: Know your objective.
Stay alive until she could rescue Cole. Or he could return to rescue her. Either/or.
Step two: Gather intel.
Find out as much as she could about Stoner and his men, and their real agenda. Was he lying about LARS? Did he have an ulterior motive? She had to find out.
Step three: Formulate a plan.
Don’t give him anything he could use against her, but get as much out of him as she could.
And finally, step four: Execute that plan.
“There’s an Army Mountain Division stationed just outside of Colorado,” Emily said. “Fort Benton, if I’m not mistaken.”
“And how do you know that?” Stoner asked.
“I watch a lot of TV.”
“Is that right?”
“What happened to your division? And why are you running around out here without the stars and stripes and name tags on your chest?”
For the first time, Stoner’s face darkened. The affable good ol’ boy personality he’d been trying to sell vanished along with it.
“It’s gone,” Stoner said. “Whole damn division’s gone.” He nodded at the men scattered outside in The Welcome Room. “This is all that’s left.”
“There were more than 10,000 soldiers in that mountain division stationed at Fort Benton,” Emily said.
Stoner shook his head. “Not anymore.”
Chapter 13. Cole
“You’re going the wrong way.”
No, I’m not.
“Yes, you are.”
No, I’m not.
“Yes, you are!”
Cole didn’t bother replying the third time. He took the corner, leaving enough space that Fred the Chef couldn’t hack at him as he made the turn. The Glock moved in front of him, both hands on the weapon, forefinger slipping into the trigger guard and resting against the suddenly very cold trigger.
The tap-tap-tap! of footsteps, fleeing!
Cole moved faster, turning, turning.
There, a white-clad figure racing away from him. The man was already halfway to freedom when Cole fired, striking him in the right shoulder.
Fred twisted slightly as the round struck him, but he never slowed. He was a third of the way down the corridor when Cole pulled the trigger again and something fell off Fred’s head.
The chef slid, his shoes fighting for purchase against the slick floor as he made the turn. Cole didn’t fire a third shot but he did run after the man.
“Wrong way,” the Voice said. “Still the wrong way!”
Cole ran until he reached the “something” that had fallen off Fred.
It was an ear.
A big chunk of an ear.
“I think he heard you,” the Voice said, laughing.
Good one.
“Yeah, I thought so, too.”
The piece of flesh lay in a small pool of deep dark-red blood that seemed to ripple underneath the bright ceiling lights like a worm that had been sliced in half but, somehow, was still alive.
“Well, you got some of him, at least,” the Voice said.
At least.
“Wanna finish him off?”
Fuck yes, Cole thought as he stepped over the ear, flexing his fingers around the grip of the Glock.
“Hey, big guy,” a voice said. Not the Voice, but Sal’s. “You’re still going the wrong way.”
Cole stopped.
“Oh, so when she tells you to stop, you stop,” the Voice said. “But when I tell you, it’s never-you-mind. I should feel insulted, shouldn’t I?”
“You should hurry,” Sal said from somewhere behind him. Or in front of him. Above him? Goddammit, where were those speakers?
Before Cole could ask her Why:
“Your friends in The Welcome Room could really use you right now.”
Emily, Cole thought as he turned and began walking up the hallway.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Let’s just say they’re not the only ones up there anymore,” Sal said. “A bunch of new dudes just arrived, and I don’t think they’re in the mood to negotiate.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You can’t hear that, huh? Of course you can’t hear.”
“Hear what?” Cole said, unable—and unwilling—to hide his annoyance.
“Gunshots,” Sal said. “There’s a real party going on up there. You better hurry, unless you wanna be late.”
Goddammit, Cole thought as he moved faster, turning—
It was an axe. A fireman’s axe with a curved wooden handle and a bright-red head that ended in a sharp blade. It sliced through the air, aiming for Cole’s head. Or his neck. Or chest. Some part of him. Not that its destination mattered, because all it had to do was land on just about any part of him and he was finished.
Fortunately for Cole, he smelled the man coming and stopped a split second before he glimpsed the elongated shadow on the floor. He ducked as the axe slashed the cold hallway space above his head. The sharp edge might have taken a dozen or so strands of hair as it missed him by just a few inches.
Cole was half-lunging up and half-jumping back—he wasn’t sure how any of it was possible—even as he squeezed the trigger on the Glock, held at almost waist level.
The first shot hit the psycho in the side of the neck, but the second one missed, pinging off the ceiling a few yards down the corridor. Blood spurted from the man’s neck as he lunged after Cole, the axe already swinging again, this time in the other direction.
Cole retreated quickly, the pointed pick end of the axe coming within a foot from digging into his chest. Not quite as close as when the weapon almost took his head off, but it sure as hell felt closer.
He shot again, this time striking the man in the right cheek, the round exiting and ricocheting off the wall farther down the hallway with another echoing ping! Blood poured out of the psycho’s wounds as he pushed forward, indifferent to the two bullets Cole had already put into him.
“Not to be pedantic, but you only got one in him,” the Voice said.
Oh, shut up!
Bloodshot eyes flared in front of Cole, growing in size at an ex
ponential rate as the man continued to push his attack. Dark black lips, dry and cracked, slithered into a sinister snarl underneath a full mustache. Late forties, wearing the same gray overalls as all the LARS staffers he’d encountered so far. The name TOLBERT was written on the man’s name tag.
The fire axe in Tolbert’s hands, which he gripped like a baseball player choking up on a bat to hit the mother of all home runs, had seen plenty of use. The wooden handle was chipped in random spots—with more than a few dents that looked to have been put there by something sharp—and Cole had trouble telling where the red of the metal head ended and the blood of its victims began.
Geysers of red flowed freely from Tolbert’s neck and cheek as he charged, the bloodlust in his eyes flickering against the bright facility lights. If the man even knew that he was wounded or gave a damn, Cole couldn’t see it on his face.
Tolbert rushed forward, the axe cocking back to deliver a devastating blow. It might have chopped right through Cole if it connected.
If Cole had allowed it to connect.
But he didn’t, and fired the Glock again.
He didn’t even have to aim the third time. Tolbert was so close that Cole could feel the warm breath of the man’s ragged breathing against his face and hear the thump-thump-thump of Tolbert’s adrenaline-charged heartbeats.
The round struck Tolbert almost in the center of the face, obliterating the nose and spraying the mustache underneath with even more blood.
But the man kept coming.
How the hell was he still coming?
“Goddamn, this guy won’t die!” the Voice shouted.
Another bullet snapped Tolbert’s head back.
“That did it!”
And another one, just for good measure, slammed into the psycho’s already-jerking chest and the man dropped.
“Should have saved that last bullet,” the Voice said.
Had to make sure.
“So are you sure now?”
Yup.
Cole stumbled back anyway until he was leaning against the wall to keep upright. He took a moment to catch his breath even as he watched Tolbert lay in front of him.
Dead. Dead as a doorknob.
“Hey, that’s my line,” the Voice said.
Blood oozed from underneath Tolbert’s head and body. There wasn’t much of a face left, but of what remained Cole swore the guy was still…staring back at him.
“Well, that was dramatic,” Sal said.
Cole snapped out of it and looked up and down the hallway. Both hallways.
“Fred,” Cole said. “Where did he go?”
“He’s gone,” Sal said.
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find him on the cameras.”
“More blind spots?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“She’s not sure,” the Voice said. “Now that’s not very comforting.”
No shit, Captain Obvious.
The Voice laughed as Cole stepped over Tolbert’s motionless body and headed back up the hallway. The Glock felt very light in his hand, and with good reason. He’d wasted two rounds trying to pick off Fred the Chef. Then six more on Tolbert.
Shit. He’d wasted six rounds on Tolbert.
That left him with…
“Not much,” the Voice said.
No, not very much. Nine total rounds, to be precise.
“Sure, if you wanna be an asshole about it,” the Voice said.
He did, because every bullet counted. At least he still had the Remington.
Cole holstered the Glock and unslung the shotgun. Four rounds, plus the final two he had in the pouch behind his back. Six total. That, combined with the Glock, gave him fifteen “rounds” in all.
“Glad we still know how to count,” the Voice said.
Fuck off.
The Voice snorted. “Then who will keep you company?”
I can think of plenty of options.
“Like who? Sal? Speaking of, we still gonna shoot that bitch in the face when we finally meet her, right? After she shows us how to get the elevator working again, I mean.”
Cole didn’t answer.
He paid attention to the hallway ahead. Tolbert had come out of the second door on the right. Cole knew that because the door was wide open and he could hear the machinery inside churning away. If he had any doubts where the facility’s main generators were located before, he didn’t anymore.
So what was Tolbert doing in there? Hiding? Waiting for someone to walk by so he could pop out like a Jack-in-the-box and take a swipe at them with his fire axe?
Cole stopped and glanced back at the axe. It lay next to Tolbert, the handle still resting in one of his open palms.
He could use that axe. But did he want to lug it around?
No, he didn’t. Not unless he didn’t have any choice.
And right now, he still had choices.
“You do?” the Voice asked. “You know something I don’t?”
Plenty.
“Do tell.”
Maybe later.
Cole sneaked a look through the open door when he reached it. The lights were off inside—Tolbert apparently liked the dark—but there was no missing all the heavy machines. This part of the hallway was also shaking even more noticeably than the rest of the facility. The room was massive, maybe bigger than the employee lounge—the only other room in the place Cole had seen inside—by a good five to ten times. It was hard to properly gauge the dimensions in the semidarkness.
He pulled the door closed. He wasn’t sure why, maybe because he didn’t like the idea of a psycho going in there and destroying the equipment. Not that he thought they would. The psychos weren’t mindless crazies; they, too, would realize the stupidity of destroying the only thing keeping LARS running while they were also down here.
“You’re clear from here on out,” Sal said from somewhere around him.
Cole made a face at nothing in particular.
“No, really,” the woman said. “I can see the rest of the way.”
“No more blind spots?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“Just wondering.”
“It’s not like you have any choice,” the Voice said.
Nope. I don’t.
“Or do you?”
No, I don’t, Cole thought, thinking about what Sal had said about what was transpiring in The Welcome Room right now while he was stuck down here.
“Your friends in The Welcome Room could really use you right now… Let’s just say, they’re not the only ones up there anymore. A bunch of new dudes just arrived, and I don’t think they’re in the mood to negotiate.”
He moved with urgency, reaching the corner and peeked left—empty—before turning right, when the lights above and around him flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then it went dark.
The fuck? Cole thought.
“Now what?” the Voice chimed in.
That’s what I said.
“Nuh-uh.”
Cole quickly flicked on the flashlight taped underneath the Remington, his breathing suddenly quickening.
“Lucky we brought the flashlight,” the Voice said.
I brought the flashlight. You didn’t do shit.
“Semantics.”
Cole took two quick steps back into the hallway, where he could have a long corridor between him and anything—or anyone—that might make a run at him in the dark. He finally stopped after a few yards because he’d noticed something else, too. It was hard not to.
The room with the generator.
It’d gone quiet.
For that matter, the entire facility had gone deftly silent.
“That doesn’t sound good,” the Voice said. “Get it? Sound? Because we can’t hear anything? Oh man, I kill me.”
I’d like to kill you, too.
“You don
’t mean that.”
Don’t I?
“Ouch.”
Cole thought he heard footsteps behind him and spun, the flashlight beam washing across the floor, then quickly the walls.
Nothing. Just a long hallway.
He was trying to gather himself, willing his heartbeat to slow down, when one of the lights directly above him started to flicker, showing signs of life. Then all the other bulbs in the hallway did the same thing, before they all turned on one by one. Soon, he was grimacing against the suddenly bright lights again.
The generator room behind him, too, was loud once more.
“Oh, in case you were wondering, that’s the other reason you need me to get the hell out of here fast,” Sal said from behind her invisible speakers.
“What happened?” Cole asked.
“LARS isn’t as complete as Anton wanted his potential investors to think.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I’ll draw you some Cliffs Notes on a napkin when you get here.”
Cole sighed. Did he have any choice?
“I think we both know the answer to that one,” the Voice said.
Cole headed back to the intersection, turned right, and proceeded down the final leg without hesitation. His destination was a silver-chromed door at the end. It wasn’t until he got closer that he could read the plaque on it: CONTROL ROOM.
“Makes sense,” the Voice said.
Right. Like anything makes sense anymore, Cole thought as he proceeded up the corridor, stepping around multiple dry bloody boot prints that led toward the control room before backtracking later.
A lone body lay near the door on its chest and face. It didn’t move as he walked toward it, not that Cole took any chances. He kept the Remington at the ready, hoping he didn’t need to waste another shell until he started making his way back to the elevator.
The body belonged to a man in yet another gray LARS staffer uniform. He’d been dead for a while, the blood that pooled underneath him having long turned into a sticky substance. His right hand was stretched out along the floor, the fingers still gripping a Phillips head screwdriver even in death. But it was the back of the man’s skull that caught Cole’s attention. There was a big, jagged hole there, where something hard and metal had punched its way through—repeatedly. No doubt the man’s killer was the owner of those bloody boot prints Cole had run across earlier.
Fall of Man | Book 3 | Firebase: Page 11