“But how do you know she set it up before today?” Deacon asked.
“That was the ‘mask’ Damien referred to,” Nicole explained. “Keena would’ve had to bury the code of her intended target—say San Diego—somewhere in the sequence of the missile launch code for Qi Jia’s target—say…Honolulu—the place that they’d think the missile was going. On their screens they’d watch the missile close in on their target, while in actuality each missile would go to Keena’s preset target.”
“So they’d see it going to Honolulu and hitting Honolulu, but the missile would actually be hitting San Diego or something—wherever Keena set it to hit?” Tara tried to clarify Damien’s point.
“Exactly.” Damien nodded. “But she would have had to do it on every … single … missile. With her skills it might’ve taken only a few minutes per missile—but a hundred missiles times three or four minutes, that’s what…?”
“Five to seven hours,” Trigger answered immediately and everyone looked at him in surprise. “What? I like math.”
“That’s the problem,” Damien continued. “Where would she have gotten five to seven hours? She didn’t even get a half hour in there with Danny, and she couldn’t have done it around Baker. I could show you what I mean if I had a launch code. You can’t hide or skip any steps—every alteration would be obvious—and they would never have left her alone with the computer. Trust me…Baker would have seen what she was doing. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Reagan watched his face blanch suddenly.
“Holy shit!” Damien said, reaching out and putting his hand on Nicole’s shoulder beside him.
“What?” Trigger asked.
“Holy shit!” Damien said again, jumping up.
Emily and Abbey had heard plenty of cursing the past couple days but Tara still glared at Damien. “Come on.” She mouthed at him, nodding towards her daughter. She pointed at the members of the Pack. “These four are going to beat the holy mess out of you if you don’t—”
“Baker was in on it,” Damien blurted out.
“There’s no way—” Reagan snapped immediately.
“Think about it.” Damien was animated. “He had to be. He knew what she was doing. Or they were working together. That’s it. He was torturing her as much as necessary but keeping her alive. He didn’t need what she was holding out—or she wasn’t even holding out—but he…like it or not, he was a part of this.”
“I don’t believe it.” Tara was just as incredulous. “The guy you told us killed his own son and sold out his team. Sorry, I’m with Reagan on this.”
Reagan turned to address Trigger and Twix. “You guys know Baker better than anyone here. That sound reasonable to either of you?”
They looked at each other. “Well.” Twix shrugged. “If you’re asking if it’s possible that a SEAL captain sold out his team to save his own life, felt terrible about it, and found out he could redeem himself by protecting someone who could do what he couldn’t—sure…I guess that’s possible.”
There was silence in the room as everyone considered what Twix had just said.
“I’d like Danny’s perspective on it, of course,” he added.
Tara shook her head and said what everyone else was thinking. “Is it really possible one of the world’s biggest a-holes could be one of its greatest heroes?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Kate’s raspy voice startled all of us. Those were the first words she had said since Redemption.
“Kate,” Tara almost squealed. “How are you feeling?”
“Call Cheyenne Mountain.” She pointed at the red phone.
“Honey.” Reagan took her hand. “They’re all dead. They launched the missiles while you were out. They hit Colorado Springs too.”
“It’s a nuclear bunker, isn’t it?” Kate asked.
There were several nods, and Damien replied, “Yes.”
“Then call them,” Kate repeated.
Damien picked up the receiver on the red phone and dialed the Cheyenne Mountain Bunker. Everyone in Area 52 silently watched and listened as he hit the speakerphone button and set the receiver down.
They heard it start to ring. On the eighth ring Damien shook his head and reached down for the handset. And then there was a click. Then there was a voice on the other end.
SIXTY-NINE – Celebration (Hayley)
---------- (Thursday. August 11, 2022.) ----------
Anaheim Safe House. California.
Thirty minutes after the missiles annihilated the Qi Jia capitals across North America we got a phone call from Area 52. We’d been trying to reach them for the past twenty minutes but had repeatedly gotten a busy signal. Many of us didn’t even know that was possible—a phone that didn’t go straight to voicemail. How lame was that?
But where digital communication had failed us, that hard line kept us connected. When the phone rang we almost didn’t hear it. A celebration was in full swing in the Disneyland bunker. All of our new friends were as giddy as we were, well aware by now that we were exactly who we said we were. Danny holding them hostage had quickly been forgiven, and we had watched the missiles launch and hit their targets—none of which were in Hawaii.
We had been just as panicked as they were in Hawaii when the missiles launched—and just as shocked at the results. According to the Anaheim bunker’s top tech guy the three nuclear missiles that hit San Diego would have registered at a 5 to 5.5 on the Richter Scale. At almost a hundred miles from the impact zone we didn’t physically feel a thing. But emotionally, we were as high as you could get—without drugs—at this low of an elevation. Jubilant, giddy, euphoric—pick an adjective to describe insane happiness and this group was definitely that.
Everyone immediately looked to Danny for an explanation. Obviously the altered strikes had been intentionally programmed. “Had to be Keena,” he said. Danny assumed that after she hadn’t been able to close the door on the Cheyenne Mountain bunker, she’d set to work on the “next best thing.” She wanted to make absolutely certain that any missile launched from Cheyenne Mountain would never hit Hawaii. What didn’t make sense was how she’d had enough time to pull it off. I heard him say that to Blake and Blake’s reaction made it clear that he agreed. Keena had succeeded, yes—fantastic—but how? It didn’t really matter—not to anyone else in here at least—but I was carefully watching Danny and then I heard someone yelling at him.
“Danny,” a man yelled across the din. “Phone call.”
Danny limped over to the phone and waved at everyone to quiet down. Most of them just left the room—including Ava. Blake, Flynn, Eddie and I gathered around Danny as he picked up the phone.
At first it was Damien on the other end. Apparently everyone in Area 52 had been wondering the same thing as Danny. How did Keena program a hundred nuclear missiles in twenty minutes? No one thought she could have. Danny was doing more listening than talking which was bothering me because I couldn’t hear what was being said. And then I saw the expression change on Danny’s face, along with the tone of his voice.
“No way,” he said, shaking his head.
No way, what?
A minute later his position on the mystery topic had changed. “I guess it’s possible. That would certainly explain a few things.”
And then he was asking us for a little privacy. We backed away as his voice changed completely. “Hey,” he said softly. Now he was on the phone with Kate.
I watched his face from a distance, straining to listen to his side of the conversation. He was calm for the most part. He said “sorry” a few times. He wiped his eyes a few times. I saw Danny take some bad news, and say, “Oh my… Seriously?” But it was his glance at me that made my heart both drop and accelerate simultaneously. “Quiet, everyone,” I pleaded, trying to catch every word, but Danny wasn’t saying anything now. “What?” I asked, walking towards him. Blake, Flynn, and Eddie followed me over.
“It’s Dad.” Danny lowered the phone and shook his head. I could see his
hand shaking. “The hurricane hit Redemption hard. He didn’t make it, Hayley.”
Tears filled my eyes, and Flynn was quickly beside me. “No…” I whispered.
Danny continued to shake his head. “Dad, Grandpa, Jenna, and…” Now Danny glanced at Blake.
“Kaci?” Blake asked quietly. Danny nodded.
I could barely feel anything, but my eyes were drawn to Blake. He was nodding, his eyes glazed over, and I watched him wipe his face. “How?” he asked Danny.
“Something called a meteotsunami hit Redemption in the eye of the hurricane—storm surge basically. Ramped right off Ni’ihau and wiped Redemption clean. There’s nothing left out there.”
A stunned silence dropped over the five of us. Blake shook his head and left the room. “Yeah, I’m still here.” Danny spoke into the headset. His eyes were back on me. “There’s more.”
I didn’t know if I could take any more. I was tempted to follow Blake. What else? “Okay…”
“Someone wants to talk to you.” Danny held the receiver out to me.
I took it from him, and the voice on the other end made me drop it. I could hear the words coming from the handset. “Hello…Hayley…hello.” I fell to my knees, my hands shaking like crazy now, and picked the phone back up. “S-s…Sam?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he answered with his deep warm voice.
“How…” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I’ll tell you all about it soon, okay? I promise.”
I cringed instinctively at those words but nodded—even though he couldn’t see me. “Okay.”
“I need to give the phone back to Kate, but I wanted to tell you I’m here, I’m safe, and I love you.”
It was my turn to wipe the tears away now. “I love you too.” I handed the phone back to my brother. “Kate wants to talk to you again.”
I didn’t even think about why, until I saw Danny hang up the phone, sit down, and bury his head in his lap. “Danny?” I knelt beside him.
He was trying unsuccessfully to hold the sobs in. “She lost…”
She lost the baby! He didn’t have to say a word. I brought the wheelchair he occasionally used over to him and wheeled him down the hall. He kept his head down past all the partying people—many of whom cheered him as he rolled by—all the way to his room. Ava met me in the hall just outside his door. “I’ll take him from here.”
I wanted to object, but Danny grabbed my arm firmly. I knelt down beside him. “Hayley, please, just this once, don’t say anything. Just let it go.”
Let it go. I nodded, stood, and backed away. I stared Ava down as she wheeled him into his room and closed the door.
Let it go.
I felt a cold hand on my arm and turned to see Flynn standing beside me. “Come on.” She pulled me toward our room.
I took one last look at Danny’s door. I knew I’d lost now. Ava was going to get what she wanted. I’d lost. Kate had lost. Damn it, Danny.
Dinner was a mixed bag of tears and laughter later that night. The group of soldiers outside had dispersed, clearly fearful of the encroaching radiation from the missiles that had struck the San Diego/Tijuana hub. It would be several months before we’d even be able to safely leave this bunker, but we’d find a way to survive in here until then. I looked around the tables at the twenty-six men and women who had been living here at Disneyland for the past two years. I watched them interact with Blake, Flynn, and even Eddie—who had been released from his cell hours ago. Danny had asked to be excused from dinner tonight—he wanted one night to himself. Well, with Ava, of course. I was inclined to give it to him, but I had a few things on my mind that couldn’t wait. Turns out so did Blake.
I let Blake go talk to him first. When he returned, I stepped away from my seat at the table and walked down the hallway toward Danny’s room. I knocked on his door. Ava opened it a crack.
“I need ten minutes.” I didn’t even want to look at her, but I couldn’t help but take in what she was—or wasn’t—wearing.
She turned to look back into the room. “Should I let your sister—”
I shoved the door open then. “Ava.” I stepped up to her, face to face. “I don’t need your permission to talk to my brother. So move your T&A out of my way.”
“Hayley!” Danny snapped at me, then looked at Ava. “It’s fine. Could we have ten minutes?”
Ava glared at me but stepped out, in a transparent enough T-shirt—just a T-shirt.
I sat down opposite Danny, staring at him. Finally he raised his head and looked at me. “Nothing happened,” he said bluntly.
“She’s practically naked.”
“Hayley…nothing happened.”
“Today?” I don’t believe you.
“Ever.”
“And by nothing you mean…” Still don’t believe you.
“I mean nothing.”
“You haven’t even kissed her?”
“I haven’t.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
“So why let her sleep in here with you? Why let her dress like that?”
“She’s lonely.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Did you come in here just to yell at me? Cause if so, your ten minutes are up.”
I did want to keep yelling at him, and I still wasn’t convinced he was telling the truth, but I hadn’t come in here to make him feel worse. I took a deep breath and hit reset on my emotions. “I’m sorry about Kate.”
Danny’s shoulders sagged as he accepted my apology. He nodded. “I really wanted to be a dad.” The pain was thick in his voice. “That was really driving me—”
“You still can be.”
He bit his lip and shook his head. “She can’t…”
I knew what he was saying. Kate had been seriously injured—in the same storm that had killed Dad. “You know that for a fact?”
Danny nodded. “Yes.”
“That has to be terrible for her,” I said, then quickly added, “For both of you.” I placed my hand on his knee. “Is she okay otherwise?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t—”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Especially not with you.”
Whoa! Wait a minute! “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, Hayley. You should leave.”
“Uh, no, that’s not happening now. You’re going to tell me what you meant by that.”
“What’s the point?” There was plenty of anger in his voice. “Huh, Hayley? What’s the point in all of this?”
“All this?”
“Yeah—everything we lost. For what?”
“You mean why did you come after me?” I asked and he didn’t answer right away. Awesome!
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
By the way he said it, I almost believed him. “Okay. So what then?”
“Hayley, when you were little, when Mom and Dad fought all the time, I told you I would always protect you, that I would never let anything happen to you—that you would always be my number one.” He paused and stared at me until my eyes locked with his. “You may piss me off now and again—especially now—and your integrity may get on my nerves at the worst damn times, but if I’d have lost everyone else and only saved you, it would honestly have been worth it to me. But not vice versa.”
“Danny—”
He held up a hand. “I’m saying you’re still my number one. I was always going to—and would always—come for you. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with everything that happened. That doesn’t mean this isn’t absolutely killing me right now. I really, really wanted to be a dad. That’s pretty much what kept me and Ava from…” He stopped his own sentence—the implication plenty clear. “That’s what kept me in this. Does that make sense?”
It would have felt wrong not to nod, so I did, even though I didn’t totally understand.
“There’s nothing for me to go back to now.�
�
“Danny, that’s not true at all. Kate is dying for you to come back.” Wow! Terrible choice of words!
“It is Hayley. It is. I can’t take this anymore. None of it. I don’t even want to go back to Hawaii now.”
“Danny, come on. There are so many people who love you and respect you and can’t wait to—”
“I just need a break, Hayley. I need a damn break. Everyone always expects me to be perfect, to carry the load, to figure everything out. I need that to end.”
“Danny, we don’t—”
“But you do.” He stood up now, his voice getting louder. “If I don’t come get you, you’re dead. I did, and now all these other people are dead. I’m not saying it’s your fault, but what was I supposed to do? How do I ever win?”
“Danny—”
“Hayley, damn it, enough.” He spun to me with fire in his eyes, but I hadn’t said his name this time. I pointed at the door, where Ava was standing. Please put some clothes on!
“Sorry,” he apologized to her. “What?”
“You guys need to see this,” Ava said quietly.
“You should get dressed,” Danny said.
Thank you!
Ava put pants and underwear on and we followed her down the hall to the main room. She drew stares from a dozen men along the way. They were probably rather disappointed in her new look.
She led us over to the main computer. “Damien sent this over from Hawaii.” She pointed at a few lines on the screen. “When he lined all the missile codes up in sequence, there was a letter or symbol tagged to the end of each launch code—a hundred missiles, a hundred characters. He’s pretty sure it’s a message from Keena.”
I read the two sentences over Danny’s shoulder.
**If everything went as planned we are still here.**
**If not, I hope we did enough. This land is our land. Take it back.**
EPILOGUE
(Hayley)
Four months later.
---------- (Tuesday. December 20, 2022.) ----------
Leaving California.
I don’t know what news Flynn took worse—that her dad was still alive or that he was being heralded as one of the two heroes in all of this. When Blake explained what had happened in the Cheyenne Mountain Bunker—from what he’d gathered from Danny and Damien—I don’t think there were words to describe our astonishment … or Flynn’s anger.
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