“If there are no more questions,” Moultrie said, “I need to get back to my rounds. I’m trying to keep up with what’s going on in all the sections, and also, Deb or one of my other lieutenants will let me know right away if there are any problems. So far, nothing has happened that we didn’t expect and prepare for, and I’d like to keep that record going.” He started toward the door but then paused. “I’m sorry about the residents who didn’t make it here in time. But honestly, I thought the number might be higher than it turned out to be. We’re going to be all right, gentlemen. I can feel it in my bones.”
With that declaration, Moultrie smiled and left the meeting room.
“You fellows can go back to your quarters now,” Chuck Fisher told the men at the table. “I’ll be in touch with each of you and give you your duty schedule. I want to echo what Graham said and thank you for stepping up to make things better here.”
They filed out, leaving the long guns behind to be locked up, and walked back through the Command Center to get to the main hallways. Threadgill walked beside Larkin, hurrying a little to keep up with his friend’s longer strides. Quietly, he said, “What do you think, Patrick? Is everything going to be all right?”
“Sure,” Larkin said, “as long as everybody down here ignores human nature and is on their best behavior around the clock.”
Threadgill grunted. “What do you think the chances are of that happening?”
“Slim and none, but we’ve got to try to make it work. For better or worse, this is our home now.”
BOOK TWO
Chapter 25
May 16, the following year
Larkin hurried toward the angry shouts, pushing through the crowd in the Bullpen. He didn’t know who had given the lower bunker that name, but someone had done so fairly early on, and it had stuck.
“Break it up!” he yelled, the time-honored command of authority wading into a mob.
Resentful faces turned to glare at him. A man said, “It’s the Redshirts! Look out!”
That was just wrong on so many levels, Larkin thought. For one thing, the security force wore red vests. Larkin hadn’t been able to talk Moultrie and Fisher out of that readily identifiable garment, and he supposed they had a point. For another, the man’s frightened cry, along with the reactions of the people who shrank away from him, made it seem like he was here to hurt them, rather than doing his job and protecting them. Larkin didn’t like being seen as the bad guy.
On the other hand, he did have a job to do, and it included breaking up fights before anybody was injured seriously.
Susan, Jill, and the rest of the medical staff had enough to do without having to deal with broken noses, busted knuckles, and all the bruises and scratches that came with brawling.
The crowd parted enough for him to get through to the area in the middle of the huge chamber where four men were fighting. Two of them rolled around on the floor, wrestling with each other, while the other two stood toe-to-toe, slugging it out. Larkin recognized all of them.
The two on the floor were Chad Holdstock and Michael Pomeroy. The two sluggers were Jeff Greer and Zeke Ortega. Holdstock and Greer were part of Charlotte Ruskin’s group of malcontents. They’d probably been mouthing off, and Pomeroy and Ortega had taken exception to it. There was no telling who had thrown the first punch. With tensions in the Hercules Project as high as they were, it could have been any of them.
It didn’t matter who started the fight, Larkin reminded himself. His job was to end it.
The pair on the floor grappling with each other were closest to him, and Holdstock was on top at the moment, trying to wrap his hands around Pomeroy’s throat. Larkin stepped in, bent over, and grabbed Holdstock from behind, sliding his arms under the man’s arms and then locking his left hand around his right wrist in front of Holdstock’s chest. With a grunt of effort, he heaved upward and hauled Holdstock off Pomeroy. Turning, Larkin gave Holdstock a shove that sent him stumbling into the crowd.
“I said break it up!” Larkin repeated. As he swung around, he saw Pomeroy scrambling to his feet. The look on Pomeroy’s face told Larkin he was eager to go after Holdstock and continue the fight. Larkin thrust his left hand toward Pomeroy, palm out in an order to stop, and added, “Damn it, back off !”
Pomeroy stopped, but his hands were still clenched into fists.
Larkin moved around him toward Greer and Ortega. Greer had moved into Charlotte Ruskin’s quarters in Corridor Two a while back. People’s personal lives were their own business. The security force didn’t care who slept with who as long as they were peaceful about it. But Greer’s relationship with Charlotte Ruskin probably had a lot to do with his dislike for Graham Moultrie and his frequent bitching about the things Moultrie and the project staff did.
Ever since Day One, the day of the nuclear war—that was how they measured time here in the Hercules Project; today was Day 247—Charlotte Ruskin had caused trouble. She hadn’t physically attacked anyone again, but she complained constantly about anything and everything. A few months in, she had started holding meetings in the Bullpen, meetings at which she had given loud, angry speeches about Moultrie’s leadership. Larkin hadn’t attended any of those gatherings, but he’d heard that she was comparing Moultrie to Hitler and his security force to the Gestapo. That appealed to people like Beth Huddleston, since playing the Hitler card had always been one of the Left’s go-to tactics in political arguments.
And despite Larkin’s hope that they were now beyond all that partisan bullshit—that the residents would understand they were in this together—almost right from the start it had been evident that wasn’t going to be the case. Factions had formed almost right away. “Democrat” and “Republican” might not mean much anymore, but now there were Bullpenners, Corridor People, and the Silo-ites—a name that Larkin hated with a passion. Varying degrees of Haves and Have-nots, although anybody who looked at the situation with a clear-eyed, practical bent could see right away that nobody down here “had” much more than anybody else.
Sure, the people who lived in the corridors and the silo apartments enjoyed a little more room and privacy than the ones in the Bullpen, but that had been everyone’s choice to make. Nobody was living in the damn lap of luxury, as Larkin had pointed out during more than one argument with Beth Huddleston, who had appointed herself the spokesperson for and guardian of the so-called downtrodden—not that she was just about to give up anything of her own in order to “share their pain.”
Charlotte Ruskin, fueled by grief over her husband’s death and her hatred for Graham Moultrie, used that festering discontent to stir up trouble. Larkin knew it, Moultrie knew it, and so did everybody else on the security force, but, per Moultrie’s orders, there wasn’t much they could do about it. This tiny outpost was still America, after all, and people had rights.
But when they started throwing punches . . . then Larkin could step in and do what was necessary to keep the peace.
Which was what he did now as he moved toward Greer and Ortega. He had gotten close when Greer hooked a left into Ortega’s stomach that doubled him over, then followed with a right uppercut that sent Ortega flying backward. Larkin braced himself and caught the man.
Ortega hung loosely in Larkin’s grip, only semiconscious. Greer bored in with his fists cocked, evidently so caught up in the heat of battle he didn’t notice who had hold of Ortega.
“Hang on to him!” he cried. “I’ll teach the bastard a lesson he’ll never forget!”
“Damn it!” Larkin turned and pushed Ortega into the waiting arms of the crowd, several of whom grabbed him and kept him from falling. He put his hand out in a warding-off gesture, as he had with Pomeroy. “Back off, Greer!”
The man’s chest rammed hard against Larkin’s hand, but Larkin was bigger and had set his feet. Greer grunted from the contact and fell back a step.
“Larkin!” A scowl twisted Greer’s face. “Come to strut around in your red shirt and give orders?”
Larkin start
ed to say something about how it was a vest, not a shirt, then stopped as he realized how pointless that was. He kept his hand up and said, “I don’t know what this is about—”
“He called Charlotte a bitch!”
Maybe if she wouldn’t act like one . . . The thought started to form in Larkin’s mind, but he shook it away. “That’s no excuse for going after a guy.”
“Isn’t it? What would you do if somebody called your wife a bitch, Larkin?”
Larkin knew good and well what he would feel like doing in that case. Whether or not he gave in to the urge would depend on other factors, he supposed. He liked to think he could control himself, but if he was being honest, he didn’t know if that would always be the case.
“Look, if you and Ortega don’t get along, just stay away from each other.”
“Yeah, that’s easier said than done. You can’t exactly go for much of a walk down here, man.”
Greer revolved his hand to take in their surroundings. He had a point there, too. This underground chamber seemed vast, but when you were stuck down here all the time, it shrunk in a hurry. People could walk around the Bullpen and then go upstairs and walk the full length of both corridors in less than fifteen minutes. It didn’t take long to start feeling like the concrete walls were closing in.
“You’re gonna have to find some other way to deal with your problems, Greer,” Larkin said. “You can’t just start whaling away on people.”
A man in the crowd yelled, “Yeah, if you do that, the Redshirts will drag you away to jail, Jeff!”
Larkin looked around, unsure who had said that. His jaw tightened. “Nobody’s getting dragged to jail—”
“Damn right,” Holdstock said from behind him, “because there’s only one of you. Where are the rest of your fascist buddies, Larkin?”
Fascist. There it was again. Larkin hadn’t been born until World War II was over, but he was old enough to have known men who had fought in it. One of his uncles had been in the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. Another had been on the Lexington at the Battle of the Coral Sea and had survived by the skin of his teeth when the carrier went down. A guy like Holdstock could start an argument in an empty room, so he was viewed mostly as a hothead. A lot of muttering came from the crowd. Larkin could tell that some supported Greer and Holdstock while others were on the side of Pomeroy and Ortega. It wouldn’t take much for this to go from a fight to a full-scale riot. He didn’t want that.
“Look,” he said. “Why don’t all of you just move on—”
“What’s going on here?” a shrill voice demanded. Charlotte Ruskin came through the crowd, pushing people aside. She stopped in front of Larkin, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “What are you doing, Larkin? Carrying out Moultrie’s illegal orders to harass my friends?”
“My only orders are to keep the peace,” Larkin said as he struggled to keep a tight rein on his temper.
That wasn’t easy where Charlotte Ruskin was concerned. She was like fingernails on a blackboard. She was around forty, with dark red hair and the sort of looks that used to make people use the phrase “a handsome woman.” Not beautiful by any means, but she could be compelling, at least when she wasn’t screeching like a harpy.
Now she snorted contemptuously at Larkin’s declaration about keeping the peace. “Funny how Moultrie’s idea of peace is beating people up and putting them behind bars.”
In point of fact, there were several small chambers adjacent to the Command Center where people could be detained, but they were hardly jail cells and there were no bars, just doors. Those confinement rooms were seldom used. Mostly they served as a place where somebody could sleep it off if they got drunk and started causing trouble. Liquor was supposedly controlled—Moultrie had learned quickly that people under as much stress as they were in the Hercules Project didn’t need unlimited access to alcohol—but some of them found a way to get their hands on booze anyway. It was an age-old story, Larkin supposed.
“Nobody’s getting locked up,” he began again. “These guys blew off some steam, and that’s the end of it—if they’ll go on about their business.”
Greer bunched his fists and stuck his jaw out defiantly. “What if we’re tired of shutting up and rolling over?” he said. “What if we’ve decided it’s time to start fighting for our rights?”
He was just showing off for his girlfriend, Larkin thought. But before he could respond to Greer, the loudspeakers crackled and Graham Moultrie’s voice filled the bunker. His tone betrayed his excitement as he said, “Attention, please. I need your attention, everyone. We’ve just received a signal—from outside!”
Chapter 26
That news made everyone in the bunker fall silent—but only for a few seconds.
Then voices erupted in shouts of surprise, joy, and maybe even a little apprehension. During the past eight months, people had settled into a life here, despite its drawbacks.
Who knew what might be going on in the outside world?
For all this time, everything had been silent up there. The Internet, wireless networks, shortwave radio . . . all had been quiet. The project’s instruments showed that radiation levels had dropped steadily and exponentially since the day of the war, but the initial readings had been almost off the charts, indicating that the warhead that had fallen on Arlington had been a high-yield and extremely dirty one. The contamination was still bad enough to be dangerous to human life. Moultrie wasn’t going to risk the whole project and everyone in it by unbuttoning too soon.
A significant number of the residents were convinced that the people down here were the last human beings on Earth. They had formed their own group and called themselves the Sole Survivors. Their philosophy was a blend of apocalyptic hysteria and religion. Larkin thought their beliefs were a little far-fetched—the chances of the residents of the Hercules Project being the only ones left seemed unlikely to him—but as far as he was concerned, whatever got them through the days and nights was their business.
If there were people still alive on the surface, that would shoot holes in the Sole Survivors’ dogma, but they would just have to get over that and move forward. Larkin, like everybody else in the bunker, was excited and eager to hear what Moultrie had to say.
“We’ve picked up a shortwave radio transmission,” the project’s leader continued, causing a hushed, attentive silence to fall again. “It was very brief and fragmentary, probably caused by signal skip in the upper atmosphere. Someone was sending old-fashioned Morse code. We weren’t able to transcribe complete sentences, just parts of individual words here and there, so we don’t’t know who they are or where they’re located. They were sending in a foreign language, possibly Portuguese, so right now we’re speculating that the message may have originated in Brazil. That seems to be the most likely possibility. But even though we don’t actually know much at this time, we can be sure of this: we are not alone. There were others who lived through that terrible day, and it’s only a matter of time until the human race is reunited again. Until then, God bless each and every one of us in the Hercules Project.”
The loudspeakers clicked off, another second went by, and then another storm of cheers and whistles burst out. People hugged and pounded each other on the back. Some kissed, some even danced around. They were excited and justifiably so. This terrible ordeal they were enduring probably still had a long way to go, but now, for the first time, it was possible to glimpse some hope for the future again.
The fight Larkin had broken up seemed to be forgotten, at least for now, but he didn’t fully trust Charlotte Ruskin and her friends. Greer had grabbed Charlotte and was hugging her so tightly her feet had come off the floor. She wasn’t a petite woman, so that probably wasn’t easy. It showed how excited Greer was, though.
Larkin turned, caught the eye of Pomeroy and Ortega, and motioned with a thumb for them to take off. Putting some distance between them and their former opponents would go a long way toward restoring the peace. Pomeroy nodded and
faded off into the celebrating crowd, but Ortega hesitated before moving closer to Larkin.
“Listen, man, you don’t know what those two were saying,” Ortega said, keeping his voice quiet enough that only Larkin could hear him in the hubbub. “They were talking about how it’s time to take control of the project away from Moultrie.”
“There are always malcontents, wherever you go,” Larkin said. “Those two were just letting out some hot air.”
Ortega shook his head. “No, they were saying Moultrie’s a dictator and he’s got to be overthrown.” He leaned closer. “They want to take over and open up the bunker. They say it’s time to go back up.”
A chill went through Larkin at that. Moultrie kept all the members of the security force updated on surface conditions. Larkin knew it wasn’t safe there yet. He understood why people wanted to get back up top and see the sun again, take stock of what was left and what might be possible going forward, but rushing things could spell doom for all of them.
Ortega went on, “Mike and I told ’em they were crazy, and they jumped us. That’s what started the whole thing.”
Larkin nodded and said, “Thanks for filling me in, Zeke.”
“Of course, I guess it’s not completely their fault. That Ruskin woman keeps stirrin’ ’ em up.”
“I know,” Larkin said. “Maybe this news today will change things.”
“I sure hope so,” Ortega said, then he drifted off into the crowd, too.
Larkin looked around. More than likely, the excitement that gripped the bunker would keep things relatively peaceful here for a while. Anyway, he wasn’t the only security man on duty. He started toward the closest set of stairs leading up to the corridors.
In the wake of Moultrie’s announcement, he wanted to see his wife.
* * *
Susan had been treating a patient with a cold that was threatening to turn into a sinus infection when Moultrie’s announcement came over the public-address system. Colds—good old upper-respiratory viruses—weren’t as common down here as they had been in the world before the war, but they hadn’t been wiped out because a number of people had been sick when they entered the Hercules Project. In a closed environment like this, it was inevitable that the virus would be passed around. A person couldn’t catch the same virus twice, but with more than 200 of the little bastards that caused the common cold, Susan didn’t believe the ailment would ever be wiped out completely. Maybe if generation after generation of residents lived down here for the next couple of hundred years . . .
The Doomsday Bunker Page 16
