by Jeff Carlson
Captain Fuelling was a short man with a knot in the bridge of his nose where it had been broken and healed poorly. He was also the senior ROMEO contact inside Bunker Seven Four.
It’s bad news, Drew thought.
Fuelling had only spoken to him in private twice before, first to establish their bona fides, then to share a covert assessment of Seven Four’s viability. The DIA considered the installation highly unstable, yet no one could spare the aircraft to relocate Seven Four’s civilian element. Not even ROMEO had tried to muster a relocation force. They’d instructed Drew to scavenge as many luxuries as his team could find, simple things like chocolate and shampoo, in hope of calming the refugees.
They should have done more.
Maybe our agency is actively taking charge, Drew thought. They might run damage control in order to keep the imprisoned scientists working. But how?
ROMEO operatives were sanctioned to act outside the military justice code. Technically, they were federal agents. As such, they weren’t beholden to the Navy or U.S. Command.
Drew was not a thug. He would refuse to torture anyone if that’s what his superiors wanted, but he wasn’t above intimidating the eggheads who’d organized the conspiracy. A walk outside might be exactly what they need, he thought as Fuelling led him into a pocket of darkness where he remembered light.
One of the sleeping areas had been shut down in order to pack the civilians into fewer spaces. They didn’t have enough military personnel to secure more real estate.
In the empty space, Fuelling stopped Drew. “I have new intel and contingency plans for your ears only,” Fuelling said. “Lieutenant Buegeleisen and Sergeant Patrick are unauthorized for these directives.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Some of it may be hard to hear.”
“Is this about the civilian takeover?”
“Affirmative. There’s something you need to know,” Fuelling said, watching his eyes.
Drew waited.
Whatever Fuelling saw in him—anger, commitment—it was the correct response. Fuelling said, “The civilian insurrection wasn’t limited to this bunker.”
“I don’t understand, sir. How could they talk to each other outside this shelter?”
“I need your oath before I tell you more,” Fuelling said. “I want your word as a ROMEO operative.”
“Aye, sir,” Drew said.
Standing in the shadows, Fuelling spoke for ten minutes in a low, insistent tone. He raised his voice once when Drew objected. Then he returned to his fierce tone. His eyes gleamed ominously. His gestures were short and clipped.
Finally, Drew nodded. “Aye, sir,” he said.
Near the blast door into the complex, Drew found Bugle waiting for him. Floodlights lit the massive steel slab. Bugle rested against the pallets that separated the door from the third sleeping area in the tunnel, which danced with shadows and noise. Drew couldn’t see the civilians on the other side of the pallets, but the ceiling flickered as they gestured or paced through their lights.
“You knew!” a woman shouted. “I think you knew and now we’re stuck in here!”
They were tearing themselves apart.
Feeling uneasy, Drew walked toward his friend. He stopped when he realized Bugle’s height obscured Emily. She sat with Bugle. Darkness hid her face, but Drew would have recognized her profile and her ponytail anywhere.
“Drew,” she said from Bugle’s shadow. She stood up.
“Are you all right?” Drew said.
“I’m so glad to see you.” She lifted her chin to look at Bugle as she spoke, including Bugle in her sentiment even as she approached Drew.
Drew felt happy, too—happier than he’d anticipated. He’d been almost certain she hadn’t taken part in the conspiracy, yet he’d worried when she wasn’t at the front of the tunnel when he returned. “I, uh,” he said.
“Em’s the one who tipped off our guys about the mutiny,” Bugle said, rising from the pallet to stand close to her again. He nudged her shoulder, and she smiled, but her body language was uncomfortable. She didn’t want Bugle’s affection.
Why hadn’t Drew seen it before? Emily had put up with Bugle’s flirting because the two of them were buddies, nothing more.
She and I are a better fit.
Drew couldn’t articulate what he was thinking. “You’re the one who warned General Strickland?” he asked.
“I didn’t… It wasn’t anything special,” Emily said.
If there was shooting, we could have lost you, Drew thought. He extended his arm as if for a handshake. Instead, she hugged him abruptly, and Drew glanced past the blond halo of her hair at Bugle, his heart pounding. Could she hear it?
Bugle’s face had tightened. The manner in which she’d embraced Drew, leaving Bugle, couldn’t have made her preference more clear. Drew wondered how he was going to make it up to his friend as his arm tightened on her waist.
He tried to catch Bugle’s eye, but Bugle wouldn’t look at him.
Bugle walked to the blast door, which hung open just enough to admit people in single file. The touch of a button would close it in 1.4 seconds, locking fifty tons of concrete and tempered steel against the bulkhead of the tunnel wall.
Drew stayed with Emily. Hugging her, he remembered Julie, which felt awkward and strange. Was she worth any rift between himself and Bugle?
Worse, being with him would put her in new danger.
Emily deserved to hear that P.J. was alive, but Drew couldn’t share any of the information Captain Fuelling had told him.
He’s so nervous, Emily thought with a faint smile. Me, too.
In a normal world, the two of them might have been separated forever by duty and sorrow. Now, in his arms, she was exactly where she wanted to be.
His uniform smelled like fresh wind and rain and dirt. Beneath it, he stank. Drew hadn’t bathed in days, but even that was a good smell, healthy and genuine. Emily thought of the rumors of the men taken into the women’s shower. Then she flushed and kept her face nestled in the crook of his neck. Was it too soon?
She’d lost Chase. He missed Julie. She still wore her rings. But with so much turmoil and death, everyone needed positive relationships.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Is there coffee?”
Despite her emotions, she balked. She wasn’t ready for a date. Not yet. Dating inside a doomsday bunker seemed unreal.
“It’s just coffee,” he said.
Emily sensed the tired grin in his voice and looked up. “I know.” She knew what she wanted. Reassurance. Safety. Friendship. More.
Drew motioned toward the blast door. “Let’s go.”
Emily kissed his cheek, then separated herself from him. She wondered if he’d sensed the conflict of attraction and guilt in her eyes.
They slipped past the blast door and its thick locking bars, which protruded from its side like cylindrical teeth. Inside, the entry room was a smooth concrete box except for its rock ceiling. Like the tunnel, the entry room was a buffer meant to deflect shock waves from the complex. A second, smaller door like a bank vault stood across from them.
“I need to tell you something,” Drew said.
Involuntarily, the fingers of her right hand gripped the rings on her left. What was he going to suggest? More than coffee? Emily tried to head him off. “Let me talk first,” she said. “Please.”
“It’s about P.J.”
Less than coffee, she thought. He’d changed his mind. Too much had happened between them. Her words came out rushed. “Shooting P.J. wasn’t your fault, and I’m so sorry about Julie. Please don’t say you and I can’t—”
Drew stopped her. “Two days ago, my team saw P.J. outside,” he said. “Your nephew is alive.”
The reversal left her stunned. “But you shot him.”
“He’s one of the dominant Nims. He looks like his left arm hasn’t healed. Except for that, he’s fine.”
“Here? How did he get here?”
Drew held her hand ti
ghter. “You can’t tell anyone I told you.”
A bright new optimism woke inside her. “You need to save him!” she said, but Drew shook his head.
“Promise me,” he said. “This is dangerous information. Right now, just us being together is dangerous.”
Emily stared at their intertwined hands. “What do you mean?”
“You have to trust me,” he said.
“I do.” She would have followed him anywhere.
“My team couldn’t reach him. Believe me.”
“I do.”
“If there was any chance of getting him, I would have tried,” Drew said. “We had eight men. They had ninety. But there’s more. Roell is in the area, too.”
“Marcus’s son?” Emily was astounded.
“Actually, it’s not a huge coincidence.” He told her about the massing Neanderthals and their envoys. “The flooding, the mountains, and the snow are bringing them through the middle part of the state.”
She met his eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
Kiss me, she thought, but what she said was “I’ve completed my biomarker. I can tell you who’ll become Neanderthal in the pulse and who won’t. That’s the first step in designing a cure, but there are more things we could do with it. Scary things.”
“I’m sure,” Drew said.
He didn’t seem upset by the idea, so Emily was cautious. “We could screen for Neanderthal tendencies in unborn babies,” she said. “It might be possible to remake humankind. We could abort fetuses who exhibit those traits.”
“And you’re not sure that’s… ethical.”
“I’m not sure it’s desirable,” she said. “What if the pulse lasts five thousand years? What are we going to do? We can’t hide in here forever.”
“You’ve been talking to Marcus.”
“I wasn’t, I,” she stammered.
“Marcus is crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
“I think he’s seen things we haven’t.”
“He’s crazy, Emily. Don’t let him get to you.” Drew tried to embrace her, but she pulled free with a fresh pang of guilt.
She couldn’t ask Drew about developing a gene therapy meant to turn everyone Neanderthal. Drew would never quit. No matter how few of them were left, no matter how many years it took, Drew would fight.
He was who she needed to be with. Could she honestly claim the reverse was true?
I’m no good for you, she thought.
She needed to decide which direction to go. She could try to cure the Neanderthals. Or she might bring peace if she awakened that ancient mind in everyone.
To Drew, the choice must be obvious. But to her, the cost remained unclear. Was P.J. better off as a severely autistic boy muted within himself? Or was he happier and more productive as a functioning Neanderthal? Even a healthy kid like Roell appeared to become everything he desired during the pulse, competent and powerful, and Marcus had already made his decision, wanting the strong relationship with his son.
“What did Marcus say to you?” Drew asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“If we’re going to… You said you trusted me.”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I know what I have to do.”
Drew cupped both sides of her jawbone in his hands and kissed her. Emily rose against him, tugging down his forearms. She directed his palms to her hips before she wrapped her arms around his neck.
She wanted to feel his body against hers. She wanted to be as vulnerable as possible. Her breathing was shallow and quick when they broke for air.
“Emily,” he said.
I know a private place, she thought, but he said, “I had twenty minutes before I needed to meet someone. I wanted to get coffee with you.”
“We can.”
He shook his head. “Don’t come inside with me. Are you supposed to be in the labs? Either stay there or go back to your sleeping quarters.”
“I won’t.”
Drew smiled, both sad and proud. Of her? “This isn’t a joke,” he said. “Go.”
“Let me help.”
“No,” he said. “There’s going to be more trouble.”
BUNKER SEVEN FOUR
Captain Fuelling ordered me to keep this information from you, but we’ve had each other’s backs since day one,” Drew told Bugle and Patrick. “I can’t let you walk blind into our next mission.”
“Thank you, sir,” Patrick said.
The three of them stood in the central corridor on Level One. The complex felt deserted. On top on Level Three, a full crew occupied the command center. On One, nine men slept in the barracks behind Drew. The remainder of Seven Four’s uniformed personnel were in the tunnel or at the labs, guarding their prisoners and the other civilians. Drew might have led Bugle and Patrick into a supply room for privacy, but if anyone noticed them, it would look funny. As long as they spoke in whispers, the empty corridor would suffice.
Standing in the open should also make it easier for them to believe my orders are legitimate, Drew thought. His head thrummed with anticipation. He was accustomed to prebattle nerves. What he didn’t like was his own reluctance, so he concealed his doubt with a staunch tone.
“The Chinese EMP weapons are real,” said. “Our ships and armored ground assets are failing at a higher rate than we can reconcile with the pulse, and the same thing is happening with our hardened aircraft. They’re burning us off the map.”
Patrick cursed. “What are we doing about it, sir?”
“DIA analysts found a pattern in the burnouts,” Drew said. “They’ve linked it to attack satellites in polar orbit.”
Bugle was unusually quiet. He held a Pop-Tart in one hand and used it as an excuse, chewing instead of talking. Drew hadn’t had a chance to apologize about Emily. He’d found Bugle and Patrick in the cafeteria, and bringing them up to speed was more important than anyone’s love life.
“Here’s where we earn our pay,” Drew said. He wanted Bugle to make a stupid remark like Pay? When was the last time we got paid?
Bugle inhaled the last of his Pop-Tart, stuffing his cheeks.
He really likes her, Drew thought, but they didn’t have time to bicker. “The evidence is soft,” Drew said. “Most of our satellites are gone, and the people at the Hoffman array are talking about probabilities instead of hard targets. The Chinese might have two attack satellites. They might have three. We know they’re in low Earth orbit, but intercepting them will be a guessing game.”
“We have more than three missiles, sir,” Patrick said.
“The president and his advisors aren’t convinced of the threat. The risk-reward is for shit. If we launch ASATs, China might think it’s the front end of a full-scale attack and retaliate. Nobody wants a nuclear exchange.”
“What about our generals, sir?”
“They’re split. Their decision was to hunker down and wait.”
“Sit and take it, sir?”
“My information is we’ve tried reprisal air strikes, but we don’t have enough fighters off China’s coast or long-range bombers at home. They’ve burned almost forty of our hardened aircraft out of the sky. Who knows how close they came to hitting our Osprey.”
Patrick frowned. Drew had made it personal, which was his intent, because he was about to ask them to cross the most personal line of all. Nothing was more sacred than a man’s loyalty—but the pulse had done more damage to the nation than any war. ROMEO’s leadership would never have dreamed of taking matters into their own hands if America’s last holdouts weren’t scattered and separated.
As much as Drew sympathized with Bugle’s indecision, they had a responsibility. They’d sworn to accept the toughest jobs even if the cost was their lives.
“The three of us and Fuelling represent the largest bloc of ROMEO operatives in any single bunker west of Colorado,” Drew said. “There are also four Navy SEALs under Fuelling’s command. He thinks the Marines will side with us, too, especially if you talk to th
em. They respect you, Sergeant.”
“I’m not sure I follow, sir,” Patrick said.
“We need to hit the Chinese satellites before we don’t have the ability to launch at all. Captain Fuelling and I have been ordered to lead a bloodless takeover.”
“Oh, fuck me,” Bugle said.
Drew’s voice sped up like a salesman’s, desperate to convince his friend. “Fuelling was behind the civilian conspiracy,” he said. “Fuelling talked to their ringleader early on and let him steal a pair of handguns—after removing the firing pins. The conspiracy fell apart sooner than Fuelling wanted, but it brought most of the bunker personnel out of the complex. No one’s left inside to stop us. We take the command center, take General Strickland, and the place is ours. Nobody gets hurt.”
“This bunker doesn’t have any launch capacity, sir,” Patrick said.
“Four weeks ago, PACOM sheltered two Aegis cruisers in the San Francisco Bay, the Nickels and the Randolph,” Drew said. “They’ve both suffered some systems degradation, but the Randolph has jury-rigged repairs to its AN/SPY and the Nickels is carrying SM-3s.”
The RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 was a battle-tested satellite killer. Their AN/SPY radar would be severely hampered by the pulse, as would the missile’s in-flight communications with the Randolph, but Drew could match real-time solutions with data provided by the Hoffman array and other assets nationwide.
“We’ll fly assault teams onto both ships under the guise of bringing in food and gear,” he said. “Bugle and I are Navy officers. ROMEO also has a man on the Nickels. He’ll help us take the bridge. Fuelling is in possession of the launch codes. We’ll hit the Chinese satellites. Then at least we’ll have a level playing field again.”
“And after that, sir?”
“After that, we stand down. We get the job done, then we surrender. Then there are very good odds all of us will face courts-martial.”
“Right. I just wanted to be clear, sir.” Patrick might have laughed. He made a grunting sound in his throat, which Drew acknowledged with a nod. Patrick’s unflappable nature made him a bulldozer of a man.
