Chapter 35
“You’ve done a great job, Joe,” Travis said. “We’ll wait until they’re inside, and then we’ll close in. There’s no way they can get away.”
At that moment the radio crackled into life. “Command Base, Command Base. This is Charlie One. We have a group of people coming out of the trees on the north side of Central Control. There are four—no, five—no, seven—seven people in all. One appears to be a woman. They’re all carrying rifles, and three have heavy sacks.”
“That team watching the north fire door had better stay out of sight,” the Major growled. “I don’t want Eric to see them and get spooked.”
Travis had his binoculars up. “No, they’re coming right along the building. Our men are up in the trees, out of sight.” He turned to the radioman. “Winters, tell all units to stand by. I don’t want anybody moving so much as an eyelash until I give the signal.”
Joe shook his head. “There are more than seven. There were fourteen of us altogether.”
Travis and the Major both looked startled. “Some of them must be going to wait in back to cover them.”
“Or Eric may have sent them around to the south door,” the Major said. “Winters, alert the team by the fire exit to watch for them. Tell them to stay out of sight.”
Then both he and Travis lifted their binoculars again and peered out the glass front of the Shalev Library.
The men went in quickly, Eric going first, rifle at the ready, the others following. For a moment they stood together in a tight clot inside the main lobby; then one of them (Travis couldn’t tell which) moved over and peered behind the desk.
“Where’s Hendry?” Travis asked.
“Who’s Hendry?” the Major demanded. “And how come they got in so easily?”
“Hendry is the desk sergeant tonight. I told him not to appear too alert and not to fight them coming in. But he’s not even at his desk. That could make them suspicious.”
“He was there when I went in,” Joe Jensen said.
Just then the lights inside the lobby went out, except for a dim light over the desk. Travis half turned. “Winters, tell Zebra Six they’re inside and should start moving down the hall any moment now. Tell them to stay alert. I don’t know what’s going on with that desk sergeant. Tell him to report to us the minute things are secure.”
“Yes, sir.” The young radio operator began barking out the order into the microphone.
For the next two minutes no sound from the radio broke the growing tension in the room, and Travis grew more and more impatient. Suddenly the Major swore. “What’s the delay, Travis? They should have them by now.”
Travis stared first out the window and then at the back of the radio operator’s head, willing him to make the radio speak. “I don’t know. Carlson has probably forgotten us in the excitement.” He strode to the radio and snatched up the mike.
“Zebra Six, this is Central Control. Come in, please.”
No answer.
“Lieutenant Carlson, this is Captain Oakes. What is your report? Have you made contact?”
Silence.
The Major leaped to his feet. “Something’s wrong! Why doesn’t he answer?”
“Lieutenant Carlson!” Travis shouted. “Anyone in Zebra Six! Come in, please! What’s going on over there?”
Suddenly the silence was shattered by the shrill, synchronized buzzing of their wrist computers. As the four men jerked up their hands and stared, the bright yellow letters flowed across the tiny screens.
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ALL CITIZENS OF SHALEV! STAND BY FOR AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. PLEASE TURN YOUR TELEVISIONS TO CHANNEL FOUR. AN ANNOUNCEMENT CRITICAL TO ALL CITIZENS WILL BEGIN IN EXACTLY TWO MINUTES ON KSHV-TV, CHANNEL FOUR. And then it began again. ATTENTION! ATTENTION!…
The Major, his face purple, grabbed Travis’s shoulder and spun him around. “What’s the meaning of this?” he screamed in fury.
Travis was stunned. “They’ve gotten into the Monitoring Room. But that’s impossible!”
“Van Dam!” Jensen cried. “Mark Van Dam left camp the day before we did. I asked Eric about it, but all he said was that he had to go down and get some things ready for us.”
“He’s going to announce his victory to the people!” the Major shouted, almost incoherently. “We’ve got to stop them, Travis!”
Travis broke out of his shock and thrust the microphone up to his mouth. “All units! All units! Something’s wrong. The enemy force is inside Central Control. Move in! Move in!” Then, without hope, he screamed into the mike once more. “Carlson! Answer me! Where are you?”
Eric poked his head around the door marked “Authorized Personnel Only” and looked across the Monitoring Room to where Nicole sat at one of the consoles. “Did you get the message off?”
“Yes, it’s sent. I repeated it three times. It should wake everyone in the city.”
“Good.” He pointed to the woman who lay on the carpeting. “You’d better drag her out of here. Take her far enough away that she won’t be hurt when this blows. Then see if you can find the unit locations for the Guardians. If we’re in a trap, let’s find out.”
Without waiting for a response, Eric went to the room where the rows of central processing units lined each wall and took clumps of reddish-gray putty from the sack. He was grateful they had found Don Brownley and Charles Metcalf, both excellent chemists. In the village they had been unable to make anything more complex than dynamite and gunpowder, but this plastic explosive, made by the two partners in Flathead Chemical and Fertilizer Company, was far more sophisticated and better suited for their task.
The plan was very simple. While Nicole stayed in the main room at the console, Eric, Rod, and Dick worked on the CPUs. Moving swiftly from computer to computer, Rod and Eric slapped the putty in large globs at the base of the machines. Then Dick, moving right behind them, inserted detonators into each glob, stringing a thin red electrical wire from patch to patch.
The detonating system was almost as simple as the plan. The heart of it was a small blue metal box with a red plastic button, much like a doorbell, only about three inches square. Andreason had wired both boxes—he had insisted on a back-up in case the first one malfunctioned—with two small flashlight batteries as the power source. A thick roll of electrical wire, long enough to stretch from the Monitoring Room out to the south fire exit, was connected to the clip at the edge of the blue box. From the other end of the wire dangled a small circuit board with a ten-second delay switch. Once connected to the wires leading from detonator to detonator, the circuit board required only one light push on the red button. The delay switch would activate, and ten seconds later a fury of explosive power would be unleashed. The device was simple, the results spectacular.
Almost a full minute later Eric heard Nicole cry, her voice muffled by the noise of the big units in the room. “I can’t get access to the Guardian code. Someone has changed it.”
“Try again!” he called. “We’ve got to know where they are.”
“I’ve tried everything. They’ve changed it all.”
Rod Loopes looked up, sweat pouring down his broad nose. “That’s the Major’s doing. He’s nobody’s fool.” Then he turned his head and shouted, “Nicole, try tracking Travis with the regular monitor. See where he is right now.”
Nicole’s fingers flew over the keys, typing in the familiar number. Almost instantly the flashing light appeared on the board, and below came the sentence: PRESENTLY TRACKING TRAVIS OAKES, #G14332.
For a moment Nicole stared, trying to orient herself to the grid symbols appearing on the screen. Then her eyes widened in shock.
“Eric!” she shouted, “Travis is right across the square from us, in the Shalev Library.” And then suddenly the light, which had been stationary, began to move. “He’s coming here. Running!”
Clayne Robertson blinked once, then peered more closely through the glass doors out across the quad. The only light inside the lobby came from outside, making it
difficult to see. “Don,” he hissed, as he moved closer to the entrance, “someone’s coming.”
Don Brownley and Chet Abernathy both jumped to his side and peered out across the quad, unable to believe what they saw. The quad was suddenly alive with dark shapes running across the grass toward them, and they could hear the shouts of men through the doorway.
“We’re under attack!” Clayne shouted as he pushed the door open and blasted off a shot at the nearest figure. As though he had used a cannon with an incredibly wide span of shrapnel, every figure suddenly disappeared, diving for cover or sprawling on the grass. Then, almost instantly, they returned his fire, and the front of Central Control exploded in a shattering spray of plate glass.
“Take cover!” Clayne screamed, diving for the sofa to his left. “Pin them down!”
The Guardians’ opening volley had cleared the front entrance of everything but the metal framework, studded now with jagged shards of glass, and Don and Chet opened fire, the blast of the rifles deafening in the confinement of the lobby.
Clayne swept up his walkie-talkie. “Eric, we’re under fire. It’s a trap. We’ve got Guardians all over the place coming at us.” He instinctively ducked as a bullet slapped through the back of the sofa, leaving a four-inch gaping hole not more than a foot from his nose.
With a cry he scrambled around the corner, glancing quickly at his two companions. Chet was behind the desk, while Don was in the corner almost totally without shelter, levering shells into the chamber and blasting away with a vengeance. “Don, get down!” Clayne yelled.
“Clayne!” the radio blurted.
He jammed the radio to his ear to hear over the explosion of the rifles and the angry whine of ricochets. “What?”
“We need another two or three minutes,” Eric said. “Can you hold them?”
“Not here. We’ll fall back down the halls, delay them at every corner. But it won’t be long. There must be several dozen of them, and most of them have rifles.”
“Do your best. We’ll hurry. Give us two minutes, and we’ll go out the back all together.”
Eric slapped his last wad of putty against the base of one of the metal cases and turned around. “Leave the rest. Dick, wire up whatever we’ve got, and let’s get out of here.”
“No,” Rod cried. “I can be finished with them all in another thirty seconds.”
“And I’m right behind him,” Dick added.
“All right, but hurry!” Eric darted out the doorway into the Monitoring Room. Nicole was standing at the door, looking anxiously up the hallway, rifle at ready. Eric grabbed his rifle and ran to her. “You cover the side doorway that leads to the back exit just in case.”
The muffled blasts of rifle fire grew louder. Then suddenly the clatter of footsteps echoed in the corridor, and the three men dashed around the corner about thirty feet away and came pounding toward Eric. Chet whirled and fired a shot back the way they had come. In the narrow confines of the hallway, the reverberating blast was a sharp stab of pain against the eardrums.
“Come on, Chet!” Eric shouted. “I’ll cover you. Don, get inside!”
An orange-clad figure hurtled around the corner, took one startled look down the corridor at Eric, and tried to change direction in midflight. He bounced off the wall and dove back behind the corner as both Clayne and Eric fired together. They ducked instinctively as the black snout of a rifle was thrust around the corner and fired wildly back at them.
“Inside!” As they dove through the door, Eric shouted through the opening of the doorway into the room with the CPUs. “Rod! Dick! Let’s get out of here before they cut off the side exit.”
Rod Loopes came out of the computer room in three strides. “That’s it. Dick’s almost done.”
Andreason was right behind him, carrying the blue box and unreeling the spool of wire as he came. “Okay,” he called. “It’s hooked up.” He handed the box to Rod Loopes. “You take this and let me take the rifle. Just don’t bump that button!”
“All right, let’s go,” Eric commanded. “Don, check the hallway—see if we’re clear. Clayne, you and I’ll cover the rear while Rod unrolls the wire.”
Don Brownley opened the side door that led out of the Monitoring Center, peeked around the frame, then nodded. “It’s clear, let’s go!” But as he stepped out, turning back to see if the others were coming, he suddenly flew backward and upward, jerked completely off his feet. He slammed back hard against the door, staggered once, then pitched face down to the floor.
“Don!” Nicole screamed.
In one leap, Eric was to the door, now propped half open by Don’s body. “Help me, Nicky. I’ll cover the hall while you pull him in.”
He stuck the muzzle of his rifle around the door, fired two quick shots, then leaped over Don’s form into the hallway. His first shots had sent the two Guardians coming down the hall frantically back around the corner where they had been hiding. He pumped another shell after them, hoping the screaming ricochet would drive them even farther back, then whirled and helped Nicole drag Don back into the room.
“Stay clear of the doors,” Eric commanded. “Cover them from the center of the room.” Then he turned to where Chet was kneeling over Don Brownley. “Chet, how badly is he hurt?”
Chet Abernathy pressed his finger into Don’s throat just below his jawline, then removed his hand slowly and rocked back on his feet. “Dead.”
“No!” Nicole gasped, her face white.
“Yes. They’re using maximum power on the stun guns. He died instantly.”
“Shhh!” Clayne commanded, pointing at the main door of the Monitoring Room. The lock rattled almost imperceptibly as he raised the rifle. The blast was like the explosion of a stick of dynamite in the small room, and the heavy wood panel of the door shattered. There was a sharp, muffled cry and then a heavy thudding sound. The smell of gunpowder filled the room.
“That’s one for one!” Clayne said savagely.
“At that rate,” Eric snapped, “we don’t stand a chance. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Suddenly the overhead speaker blared. “Eric!”
The six of them jumped in surprise and then stared at the ceiling.
“Eric, this is Major Denison. You’re cut off in both directions. I can hear every word you’ve been saying. If you’ll flip the switch on the control panel, you can talk to us. Nicole knows where.”
Nicole swung around and stared at the switch in front of her but didn’t move.
“Eric, it’s foolish to go on killing each other. Let’s at least talk about it.”
Eric finally nodded, and Nicole stepped to the board and flicked the switch. “All right, Major,” he said wearily. “Talk.”
The Major shot Travis a look of triumph and covered the microphone. “Can you cut off the monitoring consoles from here?” he asked. They were in the confinement-cells section, sitting at the control panel Nicole had once used to trigger Eric’s wrist computer.
Travis shook his head. “No, this gives us access only to the public-address system. But we can cut off the power upstairs.”
“Do it! They can set off your punishment mode if they think about it. Shut the whole system down.” He turned back to the microphone. “I must give you credit, Eric. You’ve been very clever. You didn’t even open the doors to the cafeteria or the conference room. If you had, you would have seen that we had three squads of men waiting for you in here. What did you use to knock out the whole building?”
“Major,” came the sharp reply, “you’re not here to discuss tactics. What do you want?”
“True,” the Major responded, almost amiably. “Actually, I wish to negotiate your surrender.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, Eric, you’re no fool, never have been. A wise man knows when he’s defeated.”
“True. And so far, we don’t see it that way.”
A look of exasperation briefly marred the smooth features, but the Major spoke with a tone of patient goodwill. “We c
an come in there, overwhelm you with sheer numbers. I have over fifty men out here. But I don’t want either my men or yours to die needlessly. You cannot win.”
“Major, that depends totally on what you mean by winning.” Now Eric’s voice was easy, almost conversational. “We have one hundred fifty pounds of plastic explosives wired up to your little machines in here. We hoped to get away clear, but our primary objective is to wipe out the heart of your little psychological dictatorship. So we haven’t really failed, have we?”
“You’re sitting right on top of those explosives. You won’t annihilate yourselves.”
“Eric!” Nicole’s whisper was muffled but still clearly understandable through the speaker, and the Major cocked his head to listen. “We have the monitors in here. We can trigger the punishment mode in Travis’s wrist computer.”
There was a moment of silence; then Eric’s voice responded in a whisper. “Get Travis on line.”
At that moment, the door opened, and Travis came back into the observation room. The Major shot him a questioning glance, and he nodded. “The monitoring terminals are shut down completely.”
The Major nodded, unable to repress a tiny smile of triumph. For several minutes things had looked bleak, but they had turned them around. “Eric, the time for bluffing is over. You have a problem and no way out of it.”
“No, Major. You have a problem. We’re not bluffing. I’d like the side hallway cleared immediately.”
“Or?”
“Or we’ll push the punishment mode on Travis’s wrist computer. We can terminate him just as you tried to terminate Cliff Cameron.”
The Major shook his head. “Nice try, Eric, but it won’t carry.”
“As soon as Travis dies, we’ll send your next man down. And the next and the next. We regret, Major, that you have been wise enough not to link yourself up to—”
A sharp cry of dismay cut him off. “The terminals are off!” Nicole cried.
The Major sighed. “Now, Eric, are you ready to negotiate? There’s no way you can win.”
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