Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2)

by Tanpepper, Saul

  Finn sighed and shook his head in frustration. "How far?"

  "Six hours by car, I think. I can't be exactly sure."

  They rode in silence, crossing over the gorge around daybreak, then continuing on for another hour or so. Sunlight streamed into the van through the dusty windows, steaming the glass as their clothes dried and lulling them all into a sort of exhausted torpor.

  Danny pulled over after a bit so they could stretch their legs. It was the first opportunity they'd had to see each other in the full light of day.

  Danny insisted on driving when they resumed their trip, telling the boys that they should rest. No one argued.

  Finn was nearly asleep again when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped reflexively and turned to find Charlie leaning toward him in his seat.

  The boy studied Finn's face intently for a moment. "You have a brother?"

  Finn nodded. "My twin. Bix and I were heading north to find him when those people brought us to the ranch."

  "Harper? You said his name was Harper."

  "Yeah. He was staying inside a . . . a sort of special place where he could be protected from the sickness. I haven't seen him in a long time."

  "Since before?"

  "Yes."

  Charlie sat back and nudged his father with his elbow. Byron leaned in and listened to the boy whisper something in his ear. When he was finished, he frowned and whispered something back.

  "What is it?" Finn asked.

  They exchanged a few more words, then Byron straightened in his seat. "Are you sure, son?"

  The boy glanced over the seat again. He raised a hand toward Finn, who flinched. But Charlie didn't want to touch him. He made a frame to block out a part of Finn's face. Then he nodded and said, "I'm sure, Daddy."

  "Sure about what?" Finn asked.

  "Is your bother Harper Bolles?" Byron asked.

  "How did you— You know him? Have you seen him?"

  Byron didn't answer right away. He chewed on his lip for several seconds, as if trying to decide what to share. Finally, he asked, "Where did you say you were going? And where were you coming from?"

  "North," Finn replied. "To a . . . to a mine."

  "Bunker Two?"

  Finn's mouth dropped open. "Yes."

  "Me and the boys," Byron said, hugging them to his sides, "we were there, too."

  "With Harper? Were my mother and sister there?"

  Byron shook his head. "He was alone. Other than to say he'd lost his entire family, he never mentioned anyone. Few of us did. We all lost people, friends and family. It sort of became an unspoken rule not to dwell on the people who'd died during the Flense."

  Finn was shaking.

  "How did you know he was there?" Byron asked.

  "You had a man named Micheal Williams with you. He showed up at our front door, Bunker Eight, about two weeks ago. He said he was from Bunker Two. Right before he died, he recognized me. Or, rather, he thought I was Harper."

  "Williams?" Byron echoed, his face tightening.

  "Yes."

  "What did he tell you?"

  "That there was a breach and Wraiths got inside. He said he barely made it out alive."

  "There was a breach." He let out a deep breath. "But they didn't."

  "I don't understand. He said a lot of people were infected."

  "They were, but not by Wraiths coming in. The infection was already inside."

  "What?" both Bix and Finn exclaimed at once. "How is that possible?"

  "I don't know. It swept through the community like wildfire, starting deep in the mine. It was Charlie who saved us." A tear slipped down his cheek. Little Jerry buried his face in his father's shirt.

  "What happened to Harper? What happened to my brother?"

  Byron shook his head. "The infection came from his end of the complex. No one from there got out."

  Eddie had grown to appreciate his newfound abilities. They enabled him to scale walls, jump higher, and run faster than normal. They significantly improved his senses. But if there was one thing they didn't help with, it was picking locks.

  He threw the paperclips down in disgust and straightened up in the darkened hallway and glanced toward the front door. He kept expecting one of the two men who occupied the office, Cheever or Wainwright, to return.

  Cheever had come and gone for most of the day, but Wainwright had ventured out for only a few minutes here and there.

  "Guy needs to get himself a frikkin life," Eddie had decided.

  Finally, about an hour after sundown, the colonel left the building, locking the front door up tight.

  Eddie had been waiting all day. He'd slipped into the building soon after it was unlocked early that morning, but rather than knocking on the commander's office door, he'd headed up to the dusty unused attic, and there he'd stayed, hiding directly above the office, listening to the two men talk. The attic was hot, and he was drowsy, as he'd gotten no sleep after leaving Jonah to prepare.

  He heard the man in charge of his duty assignment come in midmorning to report that he hadn't checked in. Eddie hoped both men would leave to investigate his absence, perhaps to go searching for him in the barracks. But all Cheever did was tell him to check with the guards at the gate. "See if he left on his own."

  "That group from the bus has been more trouble than they're worth," he complained to Colonel Wainwright afterward. "They have no interest in fitting in with the rest of this community. If they want to leave, I say let them."

  "That would not be advisable."

  "We lost a man because of them. And what do we get for thanks? The guy they saved just ups and leaves. A bunch had to be put in the infirmary, straining our limited supplies."

  "And two of them have died."

  "Yes."

  "You know how it is anymore, Grant. The sooner the weak ones drop away, the stronger the rest of us become. They'll either realize how much they need us and settle in, or they won't."

  Eddie did not like the sound of that.

  "Patience. Maybe something positive will come out of this."

  Eddie had warned Hannah at breakfast about his plans. He didn't tell her about finding Jonah out in the desert or that he'd seen Bren leave with the bus. He simply told her that he wouldn't be around for most of today and not worry. "You may hear rumors that I've left, but know that it's not true. I'd never leave without you."

  "Where are you going? What are you doing?"

  "These people aren't telling us the whole truth. I need to find out why. If anyone asks, you haven't seen me. You don't know where I am. I'm telling you so you won't worry."

  She nodded and hugged him. "I wouldn't, Daddy. I know that you'll be okay. You can do anything now."

  His daughter's words echoed in his mind as he stood before the locked door. "Anything except pick locks," he grumbled.

  He checked the front door once more, then reached into his rucksack and extracted the roll of duct tape he'd relieved from the supply closet a few days before and began to cover the glass in the door with it.

  When he was done, he pressed his palm against the surface until the window began to bow. It soon broke with a muffled series of cracks. Some of the pieces still fell away and tinkled to the floor, but it was a lot quieter than the sound of an entire pane shattering.

  With the broken window held in place, he cut a hole in the tape and stuck his hand through it until he found the knob on the other side. Ten seconds later, he was inside the office.

  The room was dark, but it proved to be little problem for him.

  A week ago, it wouldn't have been any problem at all, he thought, remembering the ease with which he'd been able to move about inside the bunker despite the near complete darkness at times. He could still see clearly enough to get around now, though not with quite the same ease.

  He went over to the desk and saw that it was strewn with several large sheets of thickly laminated paper. He recognized them immediately as military-issue detail maps, busy with contour lines and other label
s of strategic importance. A stamp in the bottom corner said PROPERTY OF QUANTUM TELLIGENCE.

  On the map topping the stack, someone had circled an area with blue wax pencil and labeled it with the number 7. A green X filled it. Below the circle was a series of letters and numbers:

  AM — 5

  AF — 7

  JM — 2

  JF — 3

  He flipped the map to the side and checked the next one. Like the first, it had a point circled with blue wax. It, too, was crossed out in green. This spot was labeled with the number 2. As with the first, a similar set of codes accompanied it:

  AM — 2

  AF — 1

  JM — 0

  JF — 0

  The next was labeled #1; however, the X was in red this time, and there was no associated alphanumeric column. Instead, there was an ominous notation: DESTROYED. The circle encompassed a town named HENGILL, which he didn't recognize.

  He thumbed quickly through the next six maps, noting that some of them contained a single circled area, though not all. Each one, however, had its own unique number. None was X-ed out, whether in green or in red. Nor did they include a coded column.

  On one of the maps, his eye caught several Chinese characters. On another, what appeared to be Russian words.

  Eddie slumped in the chair in frustration. None of this meant anything to him at all. What were these people doing with maps? Some of the areas they depicted didn't even seem to be within North America. And as far as he knew, overseas trips had become an impossibility since the Flense, a relic of a lost technological past. There were no more transoceanic ships, no airplanes.

  Were there?

  Of course not, man, he thought.

  He remembered the last scenes of chaos that had been televised before he'd snatched Hannah from her school and making their way to the meeting site. The Flense had appeared in all parts of the globe seemingly simultaneously and spread quickly, leaving no time for governments to respond. Armies tried to mobilize, but they were all in disarray. Civilization fell in a matter of hours, returning to a state hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the past.

  So, what possible reason would these people need with these maps, if they couldn't get to the places they depicted?

  On the wall was a whiteboard with yet another map taped onto it. He stood up and walked over to look at it, puzzling over the codes:

  AM — 3 + 6 (+1?)

  AF — 4 + 4

  JM — 2 + 2 (+1?)

  JF — 1 + 1

  Below them were two extra lines, written in the same hand:

  1 MALE INFANT

  13 STILL INSIDE

  He stared at these last lines for several seconds, then his eyes flicked up to the circle. It intersected a river and was labeled with the number 8.

  Recognition stole over him. This was a map of the location of the dam, their bunker. Bunker Eight. And the codes were an inventory of the people inside— or, rather, those that had been inside plus those that still were. AM and AF stood for adult male and female, respectively. JM and JF were juveniles. It was the mention of the one male infant, Jorge, that had provided him the key to decipher it.

  He hurried back to the desk and checked the top map again, quickly adding up the numbers in the column.

  "Seventeen," he whispered, and thought back to the scene at the gate last night. He remembered seeing at least a dozen people, though he couldn't recall exactly how many more. The age and gender breakdown was certainly in line with what was on the paper.

  "Bunker Seven," he muttered. "Those people last night were from Bunker Seven."

  He quickly thumbed through the stack again, looking for Bunker Two. It was marked along a branch of the same river as Eight, about a hundred miles north of the Canadian border. "Three adults," he whispered. "Two male, one female. And no juveniles."

  Was that all the survivors? Were the three still here on base?

  The map on the wall proved that Cheever and Wainwright knew about Bunker Eight. But had they known already? Or had Bren told them? The numbers were evidence that she had shared at least that information. They added up too perfectly.

  Just as he had guessed, she was taking them to the dam.

  With his heart pounding against his ribs, he checked the maps one last time. Notations printed beneath the key in the corner — B1 through B10 — corresponded to each of the ten bunkers that he and the other survivors had always known existed.

  It seemed, however, that the exact locations of several wasn't known, just the general vicinity. Four were in North America, whereas the other six were spread out between Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa.

  There was no Bunker Twelve.

  Nor, for that matter, was there an eleventh.

  The sound of shouting roused Eddie from his thoughts. He dropped the maps back onto the desk, stood up, and went over to the window and nudged the blind away enough to peek outside.

  A vehicle had pulled up to the gate and was waiting to get into the compound. Someone had gotten out and stood in the glare of the headlights shouting something. Several men gathered inside the wire with their rifles trained on the newcomer. They shouted back.

  The standoff continued for another minute or so before Colonel Wainwright appeared, jogging across the quad and trying to button up his shirt.

  Eddie watched as he spoke with the people at the gate for a moment, then relayed instructions to the men around him. Two guards exited the compound inspect the vehicle. They ordered the man who'd gotten out to kneel down on the ground with his hands on his head. A third ran toward the barracks. Another remained where he was, his rifle trained on the vehicle.

  Captain Cheever arrived a couple minutes later, marching straight up to the colonel. They conferred with the driver, who was then allowed to get back onto his feet again.

  Eddie watched this play out with a vague sense of dread. He'd first thought the vehicle was Bren returning. But that didn't appear to be the case.

  A guard who'd headed off toward the barracks soon reappeared with several more men, all armed. They surrounded a trio of women who appeared to have been roused from their sleep and were still in their nightclothes.

  Alarm filled Eddie when he recognized Kari, Susan, and Hannah. His daughter broke away from the others, burst through the guard, and ran for the gate.

  "Stop!" one of the men shouted and raised his rifle.

  Without thinking, Eddie smashed the window. Screaming for his daughter, he leapt from the office, landing lightly on the tarmac ten feet below, his legs already coiling to run.

  The guards swiveled and fired toward him. Eddie felt a sharp sting on his arm, but he ignored it and kept running.

  Hannah changed course, veering in his direction. He yelled at her to stop, but she didn't. The guards fired another round.

  "Stop shooting!" Captain Cheever screamed at the men. He ran at them, his hands raised. "Stop shooting, goddamn it!"

  Eddie swept Hannah up in his arms in midstride. There was one more gunshot, followed by Cheever screaming again at everyone to hold their fire.

  By then, Susan and Kari had broken from the group. They ran toward the gate.

  "Eddie!" came a shout from the vicinity of the new vehicle. Eddie stopped and turned. A figure stepped out and into the light. The colonel ordered him to stay put, but he didn't. "Eddie!"

  "It's them, Daddy," Hannah said. She pushed herself out of his arms. Numb with surprise, he set her down as he stared. "It's Danny."

  "Danny?"

  "And he brought Finn and Bix!"

  "Open the gate!" Finn shouted. "Goddamn it, open the fucking gate!"

  Eddie's nostrils flared. He smelled blood, and not just his own. He saw Finn rush over to the fence and kneel down. Someone was lying on the ground.

  "Open up!" Finn screamed. "Danny's been shot! Oh my god, please! He's dying!"

  "He's dead," Captain Cheever quietly said. "Your friend is dead."

  He shut the door, and gave Eddie and Hannah a grim look.
After a moment, he sat down on the stool with a sigh.

  Hannah lowered her face into her hands and silently cried. Eddie glared at the man and didn't say anything. He was shaking, too, though it was more in anger than anguish.

  He didn't feel the cuts he'd incurred breaking through the window. In fact, they'd already started to scab over. And while the shot he'd taken to the arm, now bandaged, still hurt, the pain was a distant thing, faraway and unimportant.

  He had refused the medic's painkillers, who seemed to think Eddie was mad for doing so. But he didn't want to be impaired in any way. He wanted to be involved. Except he'd been ordered to remain in the infirmary under armed guard.

  "I want to see Wainwright."

  "The colonel's busy, as you can imagine," Cheever said.

  "I demand to speak to him now!"

  "I'm sorry, but that just isn't possible." He shook his head and managed to look genuinely sorry. "We think it was a stray bullet."

  "It wasn't a stray, dammit! Bring Wainwright," Eddie said, speaking through his teeth. "Those men, the guards, they were shooting at me, not toward the gate. There's no way in hell a stray bullet could've hit Danny."

  Captain Cheever raised his hands. "What do you want me to say? We're investigating."

  Eddie wasn't absolutely certain that Cheever was innocent, but he knew the man hadn't been the one to shoot Danny. He'd been facing the other direction, trying to get the guards to stop. Wainwright had been the closest. He had to have been the one who fired the fatal shot. Nevertheless, Eddie had to struggle to keep himself from reaching out and choking Cheever. He needed to lash out at someone in his grief.

  The captain turned to Hannah, concern on his face. "Perhaps we should be having this conversation in private."

  Eddie shook his head.

  "Listen," the captain said, lowering his voice, "maybe you think you saw something. There was a lot of chaos. Tensions were high. It was a surprise to us all when you crashed out of that window, so of course people were going to react. That's how they're trained. They thought you were . . . infected."