by Noah Mann
“How many troops do you have?”
Schiavo wanted to tell Martin she’d come with a battalion. But there were no more battalions. Or companies. Or platoons. There was only what there was.
“Five plus me,” Schiavo told him.
“Six,” Martin said, thinking. “We’ve scrounged a few weapons from the area, but we’ve kept them out of sight. We didn’t want Kuratov to know about them if he sent anyone up to check on us.”
“That was smart,” Schiavo said.
“So if you need more manpower, you have it,” Martin offered.
“We probably will,” Schiavo said. “But first we need to figure out how to get in, and how to get the children out.”
Schiavo looked to me. I knew what that meant. The expertise I retained from my former profession was going to come into play.
“You’ve got to find us a weak point,” she told me.
“Yeah,” I said, the burden that came with that assignment, and the consequences of getting it wrong, clear beyond doubt to me.
“If...”
Schiavo only got that word out, then she tipped toward the crossed branches again. Before she could grope for a handhold, Martin got an arm under hers, and the other around her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
“She’s up from a bullet wound two days ago,” I told Martin.
He looked to her with a quiet, incredulous admiration.
“I’m fine,” she lied, realizing that a second after saying so. “I’ll be fine.”
She steadied herself. Martin gingerly eased his support from her.
“We’ll take it easy back to town,” Martin told her. “Okay?”
Schiavo didn’t protest. She just began walking, our pace matched to hers, Martin close to her side, his attention more on her than the way ahead.
Part Four
The Pit
Thirty Three
I spread the secondary set of blueprints I’d taken from Cranston’s trailer out on the pool table in what had once been a bustling tavern. We’d moved this more detailed inspection of the plans from the foreman’s cramped office to a location in the center of town that could accommodate the whole of Schiavo’s unit, Elaine and me, and a few representatives of the evacuated communities who’d been sent to observe and answer any questions about the Russians they’d encountered.
Martin stood with us, too. Gazing upon the plans with clear disdain.
“That was supposed to be our home,” he said.
“It’s big,” Enderson commented.
He was right. I’d worked with designs and engineering schematics of projects that varied from simple apartment buildings to office complexes that covered entire city blocks. What we were looking at rendered in pale blue lines upon faded white paper dwarfed anything I’d come across.
“It’s bigger than the Pentagon,” Lorenzen said. “Just fifty feet underground.
I reached to the long and wide stack of paper and flipped slowly through the design, orienting myself with the layout. I’d already made some preliminary checks of the overall design, and one thing stood out. One very counterintuitive thing that worked in our favor.
“This is basically a prison,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Schiavo asked, sipping from a cup of powdered energy drink Martin had insisted she have.
“It was built to keep people in,” I said. “There’s no provision to defend against an attack from outside. No surveillance system to watch for aggressors. I mean, it’s still a fortress buried in the earth, but it’s not impenetrable. Look, right here.”
I put my finger to a square void depicted by thick dashed lines.
“A greenhouse skylight, correct?” I asked, looking to Martin.
“Correct,” he said, pointing out others. “Right there and there, too.”
“Which is the one where you look in on the children?” I asked.
“This one,” Martin showed me.
“Is it always the same one?” I asked. “You haven’t looked through another?”
“It’s only been four days,” Danforth said. “We’ve only been out there that many times.”
“But always the same one?” I checked, and the man from San Diego nodded. “Then I’m thinking the children must be kept close by.”
“Who would want to herd thirty three little ones very far?” Elaine said, agreeing.
Schiavo pointed to a number of larger spaces near the skylight in question.
“Somewhere here,” she suggested logically.
“I know that area,” Martin said.
We looked to him, curious. Then Danforth added his concurrence to what Martin had said.
“Me, too.”
“Kuratov had us form details to transfer the food that was on the ships and in town for the workers,” Martin explained, directing our attention to a specific space. “Right there, Chamber Six Six Two. That’s where we put it.”
“The supplies meant for everyone when the place was locked down are here,” Danforth said, pointing to a chamber a good hundred yards away along intersecting corridors.
“Chamber Two Zero Zero,” I said, reading from the design. “That’s what Kuratov would protect, yes?”
The question was directed to Schiavo, but she looked to her sergeant.
“What do you think?”
Lorenzen studied the location briefly.
“Closer to the main entrance,” he said. “They would only have to defend one point, this corridor, to deny access to the supplies from the entrance. That’s where I’d place my main force.”
“He puts supplies dedicated for the hostages near where they are kept,” Elaine said. “I’d buy that.”
“Me, too,” I said.
Schiavo looked to me, sensing that an idea was brewing.
“What are you thinking, Eric? That the skylights are our point of entry?”
“Yes,” I said. “They’re made of a strong polycarbonate according to these specs, but it can be breached.”
Schiavo finished her drink and turned to Martin.
“Among those weapons you scrounged, were there any explosives?”
“From the construction of the pit,” Martin confirmed. “Yes. Some shaped charges. Block plastic explosives. Not much, but enough to get through a skylight.”
Schiavo thought on the possibility for a moment, uncertain.
“We breach it, rappel down, then...”
Lorenzen nodded, buying into the doubt she was hinting at.
“Yeah, then...”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Once we’re down there,” Schiavo began, “then what? We initiate a firefight with the troops he has watching over the children, because he will have someone on top of them. And while we do that...”
Lorenzen pointed to the area near the access door.
“Kuratov sends his main force back,” Lorenzen said. “And now we’re flanked, and caught in a crossfire. Worst of all worlds.”
What they were describing made sense. I’d found a way to get them in, but in was not a very healthy place to be in that situation.
“And if we punch through one of these other skylights closer to the main access,” Schiavo said. “Then we have to split our unit. Half to deal with the main force, half to free the children.”
“Even if we secured the kids,” Enderson began, “we have to get them out. Thirty three kids. How? Up ropes? Through that main access door?”
Every aspect of what had to be done was complicate by the presence of the little ones. To even fathom losing just one was impossible.
“Eric...”
It was Martin speaking up. I looked to him and saw his gaze narrowed down, zeroing in on a part of the plans near where the children were suspected of being held.
“What, Martin?”
“This place was rushed, you know that, yes?”
“Cranston said something like that,” I confirmed.
“When we were moving the supplies back there, I noticed some fairly substantial
cracks along here.”
Martin showed us where he had noticed the structural defect, along the corridor that connected the area around Chamber 662 to the section where we theorized Kuratov was keeping his main force.
“If that section is weak enough, could you bring it down with the right charge?”
Martin’s question, whether he knew it or not, was, in itself, a suggestion of simple brilliance.
“There’s maybe thirty feet of earth pressing down on that corridor ceiling right there,” I said, smiling. “Yeah. The right charge could weaken it enough to cause a failure.”
“Yes,” Lorenzen said, stabbing a finger at the lines that defined the corridor in question. “That would block access for any force Kuratov sends toward the children.”
“We’d only have to deal with whoever he has guarding them,” Enderson said.
The plan, at least part of it, was beginning to come together now. But by the looks of it, Schiavo wasn’t yet convinced.
“As soon as we breach that skylight, we announce what’s happening,” she said. “Can we charge and detonate that corridor before Kuratov’s men get to us?”
“Or to the children,” Danforth added.
Schiavo stared at the plans for a moment, planting her hands on the pool table’s edge. She seemed to be tiring, something I was not alone in noticing. Martin reached to the table in front of her and took her empty cup, refilling it from a canteen.
“Here,” he said, handing the beverage to her.
“Thank you,” she said, managing a smile and taking a long sip before focusing on the plans again. “You that were in there, we need to know more. Everything you saw. Anything you heard. Tell us everything.”
Martin began to talk, trading off sharing information and observations with Danforth. They tag teamed the data dump, occasionally answering questions from Schiavo’s men. And in the rolling exchange I noticed something. Someone.
Hollis.
He’d introduced himself before we’d begun, sharing that Perkins had sent him to offer any help he could. Yet now, when he could be adding to what Martin and Danforth were telling, he stood mute. Saying nothing. Just looking at the blueprints and at other things.
Studying other things. Other people.
Schiavo and her men.
I had a good angle to catch how his eyes moved without him noticing. Every few seconds he would look one of the soldiers up and down, zeroing briefly in on their weapons. Their name patches. Rank insignia.
He was scouting them.
Then, as I paid some very direct attention to him, I saw it. Saw what I needed to bring the wariness which had come suddenly to full blown worry.
I took a small notebook from my pocket and clicked open the pen clipped to it.
“Martin, what about this?” I asked, pointing to a length of partition highlighted on the blueprints.
“That’s an interior wall,” Danforth answered, dredging details from his brief time in the pit. “It looked flimsy.”
I nodded and wrote in my notebook, watching as Martin listened to Schiavo ask about the surface of the corridors, and whether they were slick or rough concrete. When I’d finished making the notation I gently nudged Elaine with my elbow. She first glanced where one would, to meet my gaze, but I was very purposely fixed on the blueprints. It took her just a few seconds to realize I’d wanted to get her attention covertly. Then, as I’d desired, her gaze drifted down to what I’d written in my notebook. I couldn’t see her posture stiffen, but I sensed that she’d keyed in completely to what I feared.
“Do we have descent harnesses?” Elaine asked between questions from Schiavo’s men.
“We have the basics with our gear,” Enderson answered.
“If we have to bring the children up, we’re going to need a way to secure them to ropes,” Elaine said, stepping back from the pool table. “I’m going to go see if there’s anything we can fashion into harnesses.”
Her idea received a nod from Schiavo, who continued peppering Martin and Danforth with questions for a few more minutes before deciding she wanted to process what had been learned with her unit. They filtered out the front of the tavern, the rest lining up to follow.
That was when I acted.
“Are you going to see Perkins?” I asked Hollis as everyone neared the exit.
“Yeah,” Hollis confirmed.
I glanced to the others, as if nervous about them hearing. Then I motioned toward the back door just beyond what had once been a thriving counter at the bar.
“I don’t want anyone else to hear this,” I said, and moved past the counter.
Hollis didn’t even hesitate. He followed me to the back and stepped through the door as I opened it for him.
His head snapped right a split second later.
Thirty Four
The butt of Elaine’s MP5 struck Hollis across the jaw as he stepped into the open. He crumpled to the ground against the back wall, clutching the side of his face, blood spilling past his lips.
“What the hell is—”
He never completed the question that would protest his treatment. As his gaze came up he saw Elaine, who had landed the blow, her MP5 no aimed squarely at his chest. Next to her stood Lorenzen, his M4 at the ready, but a seething look his weapon of choice for the moment. And, right beside them, Perkins stood. Staring down at the bleeding man.
“I have no idea who this man is,” Perkins said.
I crouched next to ‘Hollis’ and held out my notebook, open to what I’d written for Elaine to read.
‘Find Perkins. See if he knows Hollis. I’m bringing him out the back. Tell Schiavo.’
“Infiltrator,” Elaine said.
Hollis looked from her, to the notebook again, then to me.
“Your punctuation is impeccable,” he said, smiling with crimson teeth. “American.”
The Russian wasn’t even offering any pretense. Neither would I.
“How do you get in?” I asked.
The cocksure attitude he’d just expressed faded. He didn’t answer, looking past me as Enderson brought Schiavo around from the front side of the building.
“We have ourselves a live infiltrator,” Lorenzen told the lieutenant.
“Not for long if he doesn’t tell us how he gets in and out of that monstrosity,” I said. “Because he has to. Why else would they leave him out here? He has to report what’s going on. Just like he was going to report on our arrival. Our strength. Weapons. Isn’t that right, Hollis?”
He smiled now again, little bubbles of blood on his lips as he chuckled.
“Viktor Grishin, Leytenánt, six-five-nine—”
A fast slap of my gloved hand across Grishin’s face halted his recitation of the particulars required under the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment to be afforded to prisoners of war. He glared up at me, a spray of blood, his blood, now splashed across the back wall of the building. I wondered if I would hear any protest from Schiavo, but none came.
“I am a prisoner of war!” Grishin shouted wetly.
“What war?” Schiavo asked in response.
I tapped the Russian again on his cheek, lightly now, to bring his attention back to me.
“You see, I know you can get in, and not just because you’d have to report, but because of these.”
I brought a gloved finger to his chest and tapped the thick shirt there, its checkered pattern of reds and greens dotted with small, whitish objects.
Crumbs.
“Your comrades are passing you food,” I said.
Grishin turned his head away, tiring of me. He was about to feel much more than annoyance toward me. Much more.
I leaned close to him and spoke softly into his ear.
“I told myself there were things I would never do. Even to survive. I’m about to break one of those promises.”
The Russian turned slowly to face me from just inches away.
“Tie him up,” I said.
“What are you doing?” Schiavo asked.
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I stood and faced her.
“What you can’t,” I told her.
Elaine jerked the man up and Perkins shoved him against the wall, pulling his arms behind. It took a minute to bind him with paracord. Tight. His hands hung limp and purple behind his back when we were finished.
“Last chance before the screaming starts,” I said.
Grishin said nothing, trying to maintain some stoic resolve. But I could feel his thudding heartbeat against my gloved hand where it lay on his back.
“Eric...”
I looked back to Schiavo.
“This won’t take long,” I said. “Why don’t you and your men discuss what you need to discuss.”
“HELP!” Grishin suddenly screamed. “HELP ME!”
I laughed, and the Russian quieted, his head angling back over his shoulders to look upon me.
“In English?” I said. “Really? Is that because you know your comrades would let you rot, if they could even hear you?”
Grishin’s breathing quickened and he drew his head back, then slammed it against the wall. A gash opened across his forehead, blood trickling from what looked like a sick, red grin carved upon his brow. I grabbed his collar and pulled him away from the building.
“Eric, this—”
“Lieutenant,” I said, laying a hard look upon her. “This is what it has to be.”
Schiavo stared at the Russian for a moment, a long moment, then she looked to her sergeant.
“Get the men together and we’ll hash out what we’ve got to do,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lorenzen said, flashing me a look before he walked away.
I was almost certain there was a wink embedded in it.
“Now,” I said, spinning Grishin to face me, and Elaine, and Perkins. “We have some questions for you.”
Elaine reached to her belt and took a knife from its sheath.
“I’m not going to tell you—”
The solid crunch of Perkins’ fist connecting with Grishin’s nose ended his pointless bravado before he could finish. Elaine handed me her knife and I whipped it fast up to the Russian’s face.
“You’re going to,” I said, sliding the tip of the knife under his upper lip. “Understand?”
He tried to say ‘no’, and I jerked the blade up and through the soft flesh of his lip, leaving two bleeding flaps dangling beneath his nose.
