by Debra Tash
Sequestered in a small room off the mess, I sat next to the cot where my mother lay, struggling to breathe. Her hand rested in mine, frail and cold to the touch.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a whimper. A plastic mask covered her mouth and nose, feeding her oxygen through a tube connected to a slender canister. Her gaze turned upward as if she were staring at something beyond the barrack’s ceiling, a wan smile on her lips. “Becky Baby…”
“Shhh.” Dr. Andrews attempted to silence her as he held a stethoscope to her chest. “Quiet, Mags.”
“But my girl’s finally here,” she said, her voice even fainter than before as tears slipped down her cheeks. I used my finger to gently wipe them away.
Andrews checked her pulse.
“Gilly, do you know what you’re doing?” she taunted.
I looked up at him.
He shrugged. “Middle name is Gilford. She never let me forget it.” He returned his attention to my mother and winked. “Despite being assigned to PSYOPS, I still managed to hold on to some of my medical training.” His countenance sobered. “I know more than enough, Mags, to make an educated guess you probably suffered additional damage with this one.” The doctor informed me, “Your mother had a massive heart attack last year.”
“Fink. Where’s patient privacy?” Mother chided, with a hint of annoyance salting her feeble voice.
“Went out the proverbial window with Obamacare.” His tone dipped as his graying eyebrows knit together. “Besides, the young lady over here is family.”
Maggie turned her head to me, bloodshot eyes clouding with renewed tears.
I nodded and squeezed her hand.
“Your mother had angina for years.” His voice dropped again as he said to her, “Maybe as many years as I had a crush on you, old girl.”
“Old girl?” Her eyes narrowed. “You old fart.”
He chuckled. “You must be feeling better. First ‘Gilly,’ now calling me an ‘old fart.’ Your terms of endearment.”
“Sure. I’m peachy.” Mother grimaced as she adjusted the clear mask.
“Mags, you need to be moved to a hospital.”
I looked through the open doorway. Poole had ordered us to evacuate when he’d returned from his expedition. I knew our position had been compromised. But with everything that had happened, I hadn’t taken the time to ask about the details of our escape or the outcome of his mission.
I spotted Poole in the middle of the activity. “Give me a minute.” I squeezed my mother’s hand one more time and got up.
Clamor filled the barracks as people stripped the storeroom of food. Christina labored alongside the men. The doors were flung open even as a blizzard pelted down in flurries outside.
Before I could reach him, Poole stormed from the building, his strides large and deliberate as he crossed the snow-covered ground. With the wind battering me, I followed but found it too hard to catch up. Instead of running after him, I came to a halt, planted my feet, cupped my hands, and yelled, “Stop!”
He turned and faced me.
“Andrews says my mother needs to be in a hospital.”
Silence.
“Poole, she saved us last night. We owe her.” The captain leveled his gaze on me. Falling snow wove a curtain of white between us. Sweat trickled down my back, and my skin felt flush even as the frost bit at my cheeks. “Damn it! Andrews is a doctor!”
“Damn it, Beck—but—” He let out a deep groan and finally strode over to me. “I lost two men last night. Ambushed by a DHS patrol before we even got to Hadley.”
“You know what happened here. You could have lost all of us if it wasn’t for her!”
He just stood there, his face unreadable.
“She needs a hospital, you son of a bitch!”
“Watch it, Beck,” he warned, his tone sharp.
I took a step back.
“We secured what we needed at Hadley. We’ll have firepower and a hell of a lot more.” He hung his head a moment, fists clenched as if trying to control some inner beast. He looked up at me, his blue eyes so gray and empty. “I’m sorry. I promise to get Maggie the best care we can muster. But not now.”
“That’s not good enough,” I cried as my emotions overrode reason. In that one selfish moment, I didn’t give a damn what was happening to anyone else. “She could—”
Poole held up his hand to cut off my tirade. He turned and left me standing alone with that curtain of chilling white snow separating us once more.
CHAPTER 15
By 8:30 a.m., we were on the road. I traveled with Poole, Mother, Dr. Andrews, and the driver who guided our MRAP through a growing blizzard. Tina rode behind us in another vehicle with Sergeant Hernandez. We were in the lead of a convoy, which consisted of every motorized conveyance that had been housed at the DHS base. I sat in back of the MRAP, with Mother laid out next to me on a stretcher.
The doctor kept checking her blood pressure, pulse, and listening to her heart, so much so he began to annoy his patient. Mother batted him away, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Where the hell are we going, Daniel?” she yelled, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask over her face and the engine’s rumble.
He looked to me. Poole had given orders to his inner circle, and for now that circle didn’t include me. I shook my head. Andrews turned back to Mother and shrugged.
“What about detection?” she shouted. “They scanning for us?”
“Last I checked, nothing registering.” Again, the doctor shrugged. “It’s like something or someone’s shielding us. And I have no idea how.”
“Vermont?” I suggested.
“No. We don’t have any technology like that. And a convoy this big?” His brow furrowed. “Truth is, I don’t know anyone who would have the capacity or the capability to do it.”
I turned my attention to the front of the MRAP with Poole in the passenger seat. Where were we going? And why did we leave all the base’s armaments behind, and the computer equipment? Only the food, bedding, and clothing were taken. After our exchange outside the mess, I’d kept clear of the captain.
Now, I sucked in a deep breath and scrambled forward, navigating between the crates of supplies secured inside the MRAP. I stopped and knelt beside him. The snow pelted the windshield, obscuring a view of the road even as the wipers worked to clear away the ice crystals.
Before I could open my mouth, Poole turned in his seat, eyes distant and still the color of hardened steel. Stiffening my resolve, my lips parted to let a string of questions free.
He put his hand to my cheek as he had that night before venturing off on a quest for the Holy Grail housed in a mythical place called Hadley. His hand was warm then. Now it was icy, despite the heat blasting from the dashboard vents. His gaze softened, a strange yearning lighting his eyes, almost the look of a plea for salvation.
“It’s all taken care of,” he said as if he could sense what I wanted to know. “Trust me.”
I did trust him—before—but not in that moment. “How?” That one word escaped me. How? The first of so many questions clamoring inside me.
“We’ll be there soon.” He placed a kiss on my mouth, seeming not to care who saw us. A soft kiss at first, it became more urgent, nearly fervent, transforming into a needful, greedy act.
I pulled away, paused a moment, our gazes locked as his turned distant again. I scuttled backward, never breaking with his wintry stare.
Mother and Andrews studied me a moment. Memories returned of that night in Vermont, Poole sitting beside me on the bed and Mother standing in the doorway. Now, settled next to the stretcher, all I could offer them was what Poole had said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
And so we did.
I fell asleep lying in the cramped space next to my mother. It was one of those deep sleeps, an abandoned darkness where nothing could reach insid
e. I don’t know how much time slipped by or even when we’d stopped moving. My eyes slowly opened to see Mother seated upright, the doctor giving her support with his arm at her back. They were focused on something ahead of us. I noticed the engine’s steady hum, the lack of motion. We were idling.
Elbowing my way to a seated position, I turned to see where they were looking. The fierce storm had ebbed. Now and then a breeze blew a dusting of snow onto the window. That snow melted away as we sat outside of what seemed to have been a guarded entrance.
I made my way forward again, stopping short of where Poole sat. We were parked in front of a small abandoned building that looked to have once been a guard shack. There was a sign on it, weathered brown wood with yellow lettering barely legible: “United States Air Force — Hadley Air Command.” A short chain-link fence ran the length on either side of the approach, and there were the remains of a thick black metal crossing arm that used to block the roadway. The driver reached for the stick shift and threw the MRAP into gear.
The streets were snow-covered potholes; it was obviously a place that had long ceased to host any human activity. The trees, burdened with ice, were overgrown, nearly wild, and the brick buildings were in ill repair, their windows boarded up ages ago.
I looked over my shoulder. Through the rear window, I saw our convoy stretched out behind us. Poole raised his hand and pointed again, a silent order for the driver to turn. I saw old hangars, shuttered and rusted, along with an open field, paved perhaps, but it was too hard to tell with its deep cover of snow. Here and there were civilian planes long left to decay. A wing poking through the snow, a sleek nose, its paint chipped or worn away, were visible evidence of better days.
“It’s clearly deserted,” I said, unsettled.
Poole chuckled, a sound tinged with a sharp edge. It set me even more ill at ease.
We passed more buildings, hangars, workshops, all forsaken relics. I began to think Poole had lost his sense of reality, a madman who had just led us to a dead end. Once more, his hand rose, giving the driver the signal to stop. Out in front of us lay nothing, just snow, a whole section of emptiness.
“The runways,” Poole explained.
“You want me to start flapping my arms?” I blurted, then pinched my lips when I thought better of being flippant.
Poole chuckled again, the tone friendlier, softening just like that steely gaze of his melting away before he kissed me. “Have a little faith.”
We waited in that open field as the digital clock on the dash tracked the minutes. The ground rumbled. For a brief moment, I thought of an earthquake, though I’d never experienced one in my life. A section of snow quivered to reveal a deep cut in all that white. More rumbling caused the MRAP to vibrate as what seemed to be an immense slab tilted upward, its snow covering sliding backward in an artificial avalanche. I leaned forward, not quite believing what I saw. Stark light poured out from the opening, so much so it seemed as if it were emanating from a whole city buried underground.
Poole pulled me close beside him, a smile turning up his lips. “Welcome to the Promised Land, Honey Beck.”
Our convoy proceeded down a ramp leading underground. We entered a staging area of some sort. Armored vehicles, parked several rows deep, were lined up on either side of a wide aisleway. These were sleek, compact, deadly war machines that looked as if they could strike quickly and move out just as fast. And there were troop carriers, or at least that’s what they appeared to be. At the far end lay an open area large enough to hold our entire convoy. Poole gave the order to pull in there.
When our vehicle stopped, the captain opened his door and exited. I glanced at Mother, then Dr. Andrews. They both gave me a brief gesture indicating I should follow him. I rushed after Poole. Hernandez got out of his vehicle, leaving Tina behind. He hurried to join the captain. Beyond the staging area was an even larger expanse filled with equipment, computer decks, and sophisticated instrumentation. And people, lots of them, and none wearing a uniform, odd for a place that seemed to be a military installation.
Poole strode in the direction of a small group headed toward him as I struggled to catch up. There were five in that group, two women and three men. Poole joined them just as I came up from behind. One of the men slid his gaze away from Poole and focused on me, his grayish-blond eyebrow arched.
Winded, I sucked in a deep breath and said, “Rebecca Sanders.”
“Margaret Dunn’s daughter,” Poole elaborated.
The man appeared to be digesting my mother’s name. “Dunn,” he wheezed.
“That’s right. And she needs medical assistance.”
“We have a sick bay here. State of the art with decent personnel.” The man cupped his ear and dipped his head as he spoke into a com. “Need medical. Patient. Sector 3. MRAP. Number one position.” He paused as if listening, then looked up at me.
“Heart attack,” I volunteered.
“Heart attack,” he repeated, waiting another moment, then nodding as he said, “Yes.” The man tipped up his chin. “Help is on the way.”
He was shorter than Poole, not muscular, not unpleasant. He wore an aftershave, some scent that reminded me of forest pine in the winter. A bit older, approaching forty, maybe a shade over, he was a man most would pass by without notice. He had blond hair dusted with light silver, skin so pale it looked as if he had never lived outside that underground lair. His eyes gave me pause. They were the color of a lake I’d seen a long time ago when Dad had taken Vera and the family camping in Canada. It was British Columbia at a glacial lake with water so clear and blue it seemed as if the lake had swallowed the sky whole. It was those eyes that made me shiver—and maybe what lay behind them, veiled by an unassuming veneer.
We engaged in a mutual assessment, momentary silence, then an introduction. “Deven Michaels,” he said. “Head of the Charon Project.” He cupped his ear again and turned his attention to the captain. “Your convoy is secure, Commander.”
I looked over my shoulder to catch the last of our vehicles rolling down the ramp.
“Shut the door behind them,” Poole said.
Michaels conveyed the order as if Poole, indeed, were the commander here.
Again came the rumbling sound, but this time from above as the huge slab lowered, winking out the daylight that had been filtering down the ramp. For a moment, I panicked, overtaken by the crazy feeling of being shut in a tomb. I did my best to shake it off and ask, “The snow-covering is gone?”
“Blowers will push more in place,” Michaels explained. “But it really doesn’t matter. We’re masked from satellite detection. Or any other kind of detection, for that matter. One of the many things we’ve developed here. A form of electronic shielding.”
“Patrols probably made the base by now,” Poole said. “Let’s move.”
Michaels nodded once more. The group turned almost in unison as it headed deeper into the complex. I ran back to the MRAP just as two men were lifting Mother out on a stretcher. Tina had joined them.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Andrews assured me.
“I will, too,” my sister piped in. “Go.”
Mother fanned her fingers, shooing me away.
I sprinted in the direction of Poole and his new entourage. I didn’t get far before someone armed with a pistol stopped me. He spoke into his com and must have been given leave to let me go forward.
Michaels waited for me in a doorway. “Security is understandably tight here. Come along. No one will stop you if you stay close to me.”
As we hurried down a long hallway, I spat out a question. “You seem to know my mother. How?”
“Your mother…” he said, his tone flat as he kept his attention fixed ahead, not even bothering to look at me. “If the DHS ever had a superstar, your mother could have easily claimed the title.”
“So you’re part of DHS?”
“No. No
t even Air Force, though our lab was first set up in one of the hangars on Hadley. We’re from MIT. A joint venture with the Feds. Airborne testing of communications and sensors. That was, at first. As you can see, our operation and its mission has expanded since then.”
Of course, Michaels was being glib. This operation had expanded into a temple to modern technology. “So what is it you do here?”
“More than you ever dreamed,” he answered.
Michaels didn’t elaborate; he didn’t have to. In a few moments, we made the Command Center of that underground complex. I saw the monitors; their glowing screens were weightless images hung in the air. The same thing was projected on all of them. They gave me a sense that, soon enough, what they had conjured up here would be let loose. And—dear God—the power of it may just give us the ability to win, but at a cost too terrible to bear.
CHAPTER 16
The Command Center buzzed with people busy at consoles, scurrying between instrumentation, checking readings, or pausing for a quick exchange with a coworker. Poole stood off with Michaels and Sergeant Hernandez, locked in a deep discussion. I focused on the monitors that showed the DHS base we’d abandoned as uniformed agents, rifles held ready, fanned out across the empty field toward the buildings, searching for us.
Something caught my attention in the background. I leaned closer, eyes straining to make out the figures exiting an armored transport just outside the base’s fence line. My hand pressed against my chest as I took a step closer. I knew them, a dozen or so of my neighbors from Farmsworth. Lois Bradley and her little boy were there. Held at gunpoint, they were being herded toward the entrance of the abandoned base.
I rushed to Poole and grabbed him by the arm. “They have people from Farmsworth.” I pointed to a monitor. “Look.”
“Human shields.” Poole turned and asked Deven Michaels, “Can we refocus the field?”
Michaels shook his head. “Not without difficulty. If they remain in place, they’ll be safe. The Charon field is set inside the wire.”