Redfall: Freedom Fighters (American Prepper Series Book 2)

by Falconer, Jay J.

  So much for the clean air of the forest, he thought. He’d been around Vito Indigo long enough to know the billionaire loved his secrets. Especially out-of–the-way safe houses and underground facilities. Zeke should’ve expected nothing less from this new location.

  He slid his aging frame out of the car and found a few layers of crushed granite rock at his feet. His eyes darted left and right, taking in as many details as his brain could absorb in a few seconds. He was in a darkened cave about fifty yards wide and just as deep, probably inside a mountain and far away from civilization.

  A man approached in a tailored blue suit and held out his hand. When his coat opened from the extended arm movement, Zeke spotted a handgun strapped to his beltline in a conceal–and-carry holster.

  “Welcome to Root Cellar One, Mr. Olsen. I’m Indigo Tech’s lead council and chief strategist, Calder Stanton.”

  Zeke shook his hand, wondering what Root Cellar One meant. Plus there was the whole lead council and chief strategist thing—he wasn’t sure what to make of that odd combination for a job title.

  But let’s face it, he was dealing with a staff built by his former boss and flamboyant entrepreneur, Vito Indigo, so none of it should come as a shock or a surprise. Since the word one had been tacked on the end of the facility’s name, he knew there were more of these Root Cellars. Whatever that meant.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Stanton. Glad to be here, wherever here is.”

  “All in due time, sir. First we need to get you settled, then we’ll need to address several pressing matters that need your attention as CEO.”

  “Sounds good, but I don’t have any luggage or unpacking to do. I was brought here directly and never had the chance to grab my things.”

  “Not to worry, sir. We’ve taken care of that for you. Your clothes and some personal possessions are waiting for you in the presidential suite,” Stanton said, holding out a hand in the direction of a door in front of them. “Please follow me.”

  Zeke nodded and followed two steps behind the attorney as they left the cave and entered the seven-foot-tall door made of metal.

  A powerful downdraft of air washed over him as soon as they cleared the doorway, then the smell of the air changed. It was no longer musty and damp. It was dry and stale, indicating he was in a climate-controlled environment with low humidity. He figured it was about seventy-two degrees as they walked down a long hallway, reminding him of a perfect December day he enjoyed while attending a business conference in Phoenix, Arizona a few years prior.

  Above him were strings of evenly-spaced lights, and the walls and ceiling looked to be made of stainless steel, much like the door they’d just passed through. His reflection stared back at him on both sides, each distorted in both height and width like a funhouse mirror.

  The place was spotless, even the tan-colored floor, which felt rigid and thick. He figured it was decorative concrete since it had a brushed, finished look—obviously built by some fashion architect. There must have been two-hundred sweeping letters stenciled into the surface, stretching between him and the far end of the corridor. The alternating capital letters were done in longhand script, showing cursive Is and Ts the entire way.

  Next up was an elevator that only traveled down—nine stories to be exact. Zeke stood behind the attorney as the lift took them to the bottom floor, labeled SL-9.

  They got out and made a sharp right, then a left, where they ran into a pair of well-dressed, burly men standing at attention next to a set of double mahogany doors. His eyes found more cursive capital letters carved into the wood—a V on the left and an I on the right. Each letter was done in white and sitting inside a looping, open circle, also done in white.

  “Welcome to your new home,” Stanton said, pushing the doors open from the middle and walking through. “I trust you’ll find these accommodations satisfactory.”

  “Holy shit!” Zeke said, not thinking before speaking. His eyes flew wide as his brain took in the stunning details waiting for him inside. The place was enormous, with plush furniture and decorations in every direction. It looked like something out of the Styles of the Rich and Famous show that used to be on TV when he was a kid.

  “I take that as a yes,” Stanton said, turning and making eye contact.

  Zeke nodded. “Yes, definitely. Wow!”

  Two maids stood in the back, only a few feet in front of a wall covered in abstract paintings. Both women were fit, blonde and in their twenties, wearing traditional black and white French maid uniforms and showing stunning white-toothed smiles.

  Three freakishly tall, slender men in chef’s attire waited by a door on the right. Their dark complexions and distinctive cheekbones made them look medieval, especially their deep-set eyes. The door behind them looked to be a swinging entrance since there wasn’t a knob—only a metal push plate. He assumed the doorway led to the kitchen.

  Each of the chefs gave him a formal bow, obviously showing respect and saying hello.

  “Gentleman,” he said, giving them an eye flare and head nod. He wondered how their tall white hats stayed attached when they bent over.

  On the left was a sprawling built-in entertainment center that covered the wall from end to end. He counted twelve flatscreen TVs arranged in a tight four-by-three pattern in the center. Indigo Tech’s logo was spinning across the massive digital array, almost as if it was in screen saver mode. The rest of the entertainment unit was stuffed with expensive-looking electronic gear with blinking lights.

  He’d hit the frickin’ jackpot and couldn’t wait to see what it all did. It would probably take him a week just to learn how to operate it all.

  Stanton cleared his throat. “If you’d like to have a shower to freshen up, you’ll find the master suite quite luxurious. I have two meetings to attend, then I’ll be back to collect you.”

  “Okay, Calder. I’ll be ready. Which way is it?”

  “Through the kitchen. I’ll send for Miss Shelby to help you get acquainted with your new surroundings.”

  “Miss Shelby?”

  “A personal assistant of sorts. I understand her massage therapy treatments are excellent.”

  Zeke smiled, quietly thanking Indigo for this amazing gift.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Director of National Intelligence Nancy Wiggins stood behind the junior communications officer, who was busy working with the video feed integration system in the front row of the massive Command and Control Center of Site R, also known as the Raven Rock Mountain Complex.

  The tech’s hands worked quickly, reestablishing the video feeds as quickly as the site’s two-man maintenance crews could bring them back online. The pale-skinned kid looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with her.

  She wasn’t sure why, but she nodded at the nervous, acne-covered teenager, sending an assertive job well done message with her eyes.

  The tech seemed to appreciate her vote of confidence, turning his head back to the equipment blinking across the impressive control board.

  She couldn’t believe that with all the technology and brainpans supporting this secret facility in Pennsylvania, nobody remembered to shield the external cameras from a possible EMP strike. It was beyond stupid, but reality nonetheless.

  The underground installation was only a handful of miles from Camp David and featured a subterranean tunnel between to two locations. She had been briefed on both and knew most of the rooms in each facility had been carefully shielded and hardened against EMP strikes. However, to her complete shock and amazement, the surveillance equipment outside hadn’t been. Who forgets something like that?

  Men do, that’s who, she quipped to herself quietly. Too busy scratching themselves and puffing out their sagging chests before the next testosterone contest.

  Senior members of the President’s administration would be arriving soon, as well as scores of sitting Senators and Representatives from in and around Washington. Site R needed to finish its repairs and restore full operations before they
did; otherwise, the continuity of the government would be at risk.

  The facts staring her in the face made the threat all too real. Someone had orchestrated the red rain event and its subsequent EMP bursts. She and General Rawlings figured it was Jeffery Hansen, a man who had fallen off the grid since the weather was first unleashed.

  Whether it was Hansen or someone else really didn’t matter. She worried that whoever was behind the plot may have set off the EMP bursts for the sole purpose of forcing a central gathering of senior members of the world’s most powerful nation.

  If she was correct, it was a precursor for a secondary, more lethal attack. An attack she knew would most likely happen after the dignitaries and their families arrived and did so according to the government’s Night Watch Protocol—a well-documented set of steps and procedures that any competent hacker could find if they knew where to look.

  Given everything that had happened recently, she had to assume the person behind the EMP attack had the skills and the motivation to use their Night Watch playbook against them.

  Only a moron would be blind to the chess pieces being strategically positioned on the board. She knew that someone with the knowledge and resources to build and deploy a global doomsday weather device could certainly penetrate the aging systems at the Pentagon and the White House.

  With the government’s budget shortfall mounting year after year, deep cutbacks had to be made, leaving the most experienced systems engineers and security experts unemployed. That meant rookie coders and recent college grads were running the place—a scary thought to say the least.

  Not an hour before, she’d raised these same concerns to the supervisory team in charge of Site R, but they scoffed at her and terminated the meeting in a huff. Not that she could blame them; what she was suggesting was far reaching and almost beyond belief. Then toss in President Cooper’s murderous actions at the White House, and she could understand why everyone was on edge and scrambling. Especially the men.

  The tension in the room was palpable, with each communications and security officer talking into their headsets while their hands worked the controls at their station. The feverish activity would look impressive to an outsider who might be standing on the observation catwalk located behind the massive command and control room.

  But she knew the truth—those hands belonged to men trying to cover their asses.

  She wasn’t in charge but thought she ought to be. Sometimes men were so enamored by their own sense of self-worth and self-proclaimed intellectual superiority that they forgot the simplest things, like putting the seat down after draining their bladder, or remembering to shield the cameras outside. The very same cameras that were tasked as the eyes and ears for a complex that could be facing a imminent threat.

  Then again, men were responsible for forgetting to code the most basic security measures into the country’s failed Obamacare health care website, and the sister project, The IntellaWeb—the private network used by each branch of clandestine services to share and process information.

  The massive ISIS Breach of 2018 was legendary and should have been a hard lesson learned, but unfortunately it was quickly forgotten as history marched forward.

  DC’s virtual rug must have been bulging at the seams with all the skeletons that had been swept under it over the years. The public had no clue what had happened or what was stolen, and the men in charge at the time wanted it kept that way. Some of those same men were standing in the C&C with her, trying to conceal their failures again.

  She held back a grin, wanting to keep her self-amusement from the testosterone sacks buzzing the room.

  If you want the job done right, hire a woman. She’ll dot the Is and cross the Ts. Count on it.

  “Excuse me, Director,” a tall young tech with deep blue eyes and a lopsided haircut said, turning sideways and cutting in front of her as he made his way to his workstation on the right. He glanced back, giving her one of those “What the hell is she doing here?” looks.

  He wasn’t wearing a name tag, so she couldn’t make a note of his name. However, a nameless ID badge was hanging from his pocket with his picture ID, a bar code, and a number: 3309.

  She smiled, not wanting to give the young mouth-breather the satisfaction. The kid quickly turned away, sitting down and aiming his focus at the controls in front of him.

  “How much longer before we are fully operational?” she asked the video feed operator seated in front of her.

  “We?” he said with attitude.

  She shot him a look with pinched eyes.

  “If I had to guess, forty-five minutes, give or take.”

  “You’re going to have to better than that. The first arrivals will be here any minute,” she said, wondering why General Rawlings had broken away from his escort team. He should’ve been standing there with her, raising hell and showing solidarity against the incompetence dominating the room.

  “I’m doing the best I can, Director. But there are literally hundreds of feeds across the site that we need to restore and check. This is gonna take some time.”

  “Time we don’t have,” she said, looking up at the massive video board along the front wall of the command center.

  The center screen changed, showing six ancient round-top school busses approaching with faded paint, wobbly tires, and cracked windows. Behind them were two dump trucks full of people—they, too, were models from the 60s and puffing out thick black smoke from their twin exhaust risers. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s all we could find that still worked,” the tech answered, his hands working the control board.

  Before she could take another breath, the rows of fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered along the ceiling, then a series of pops rang out as sparks began to fall.

  The display consoles and view screens across the control room jittered once, then twice, then three times before they blinked out entirely.

  An instant later, the power failed inside the command center, sending the room into complete darkness.

  “What the hell is going on?” she yelled into the void, hoping someone would answer.

  She heard the tech in front of her spin around in his squeaky chair, which she assumed was to respond to her question. However, before he could speak, sparks began to erupt across the room, seemingly in every direction. Then, a moment later, zigzagging bolts of energy shot out from the equipment in the front of the room, jumping from station to station.

  She stood frozen, watching a wave of power streaks zap some of the men, then bounce around the room, hitting various officers and staff in the chests and heads. The lightning seemed to moving with purpose, starting in the front row and moving systematically from there.

  The tech in front of her grabbed her hands.

  “Get down!” he yelled, pulling her to the deck.

  She felt a sharp sting in her lower back while the energy storm filled the room with brilliant flashes of light. She buried her head in her arms as the sounds of zap and sizzle dominated her ears. Strike after strike was heard as the energy storm found flesh and metal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Wicks held out her hand as Wyatt finished tossing the last scoop of muddy dirt into the grave, then gave her his shovel. Simon and Slayer did the same, and she carried theirs along with hers inside the lone barn still standing at Jericho.

  She put the four tools against the wall next to several fifty-gallon metal drums, keeping a close eye on the roofline above. Somehow, it was still intact even though two wall sections had been damaged by the attack. Some of the roof had fallen in on itself, but the rest of the stubborn structure was still alive and kicking. Just like the her wounded brother.

  She and the rest of the group had been silent while the graves were dug, filled with bodies, and covered up again. Nobody said anything, probably because there were no words for what had happened. She went back outside the barn and stood next to her brother, putting an arm around him.

  “Do you want to say
a few words?” she said, hoping he’d make it quick. She knew he was hurting both emotionally and physically. She looked down at his shirt and saw that the redness had spread, turning an even darker shade across the cloth.

  Wyatt dropped a knee and bent down to put his palms on two of the mounds. He coughed, then cleared his throat. He began to speak, his voice thready and full of grief.

  “Brothers for life . . . and my life for my brothers . . . I’m sorry I failed you, but I swear to God, I won’t rest until I find whoever did this and make them pay.”

  Wicks waited, but no more words came across her brother’s lips. She leaned down, rubbing her hand on his back. “We need to go, Wyatt. It’s time.”

  He nodded, then got to his feet with her help.

  Wyatt turned to Simon. “Inside the barn are some crates with weapons and ammo from the UPS shipment. There’s a ton of stuff, more than we can carry, but we should grab what we can. You never know what we might need.”

  Simon shook his head. “We’ll gear up, but you’re going to rest until we get you to the hospital.”

  “Gonna be a long walk,” Slayer said with attitude.

  “No, I’m fine,” Wyatt answered, taking a slow, grimacing step forward with Wicks supporting him. Then his eyes pinched and he stopped moving. “What do ya mean, walk?”

  “You don’t know?” Slayer asked in a curious tone.

  “Know what?”

  “Right before the rain dissipated, there were a series of bursts,” Simon answered.

  “Yeah, I heard them,” Wyatt said.

  “Me, too. Made my ears ring,” Wicks added, feeling her brother getting heavier as they walked.

  “I’m not talking about the sounds. I’m talking about the massive light show, then the release of energy,” Simon told them.