Pilcher suspected she would respond with little or no emotion to his request, but he wasn’t ready to bet his life on it. He’d played a bizarre surrogate father role in her life for seven years, guiding her through an intense transformation. Psychiatric tests unanimously assessed her loyalty as fierce—nearly unbreakable. Nearly. A few of the specialists warned that the strong father-daughter bond could backfire if she perceived a critical betrayal, resulting in a mental breakdown. This presented a risk, since none of his experts could accurately determine what might initiate a collapse.
They proposed theories and attempted to instigate an emotional response during follow-on tests, but Pam showed them nothing. Nothing beyond an unnerving wide-eyed grin, which waxed and waned apropos of nothing. He touched the polymer pistol grip for comfort. Better safe than sorry. He didn’t want to lose Pam, but life in Wayward Pines would proceed without her if she posed a threat.
“Pam, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. Please take a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Water with lime?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied, her face remaining neutral.
When she was seated, Pilcher proceeded.
“I’m worried about Upshaw and how he will react tomorrow.”
“I have him under control,” she said, the start of her grin appearing.
“Upshaw has proven to be invaluable,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I need to be sure about this.”
“I’ll take care of it tonight,” she whispered, her eyes fixated on the ground for an uncomfortably long pause.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said.
His right hand drifted imperceptibly toward the pistol as he searched Pam’s face for the remotest sign that she might jump out of her chair. Instead of attacking Pilcher, her creepy grin surfaced.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Wayward Pines is too important,” she said.
“Thank you, Pam. You’re the only one I can trust in here,” he said, moving his hand away from the gun.
Chapter 42
Upshaw linked the signal from the transceiver to the system, displaying the location of the ninety-third explosive charge on the digital map. Hassler was one charge away from completing his mission and accomplishing the impossible. Time to notify Pilcher and the hangar—though he suspected something amiss there. He dialed Pilcher’s residence, surprised when Pam answered the phone.
“We’re on our way down,” she said and disconnected the call.
“Of course,” he mumbled, having momentarily forgotten that Pilcher could see all of his screens.
He really didn’t want to see Pam again. Not after last night’s visit to his quarters. He enjoyed the surprise indulgence on a primal level, but knew logically that the ten minutes of passion would cost him. Upshaw didn’t believe her “no strings attached” story any more than he bought her awkwardly delivered sexual compliments. She said the right words, but like everything else with her, something was off.
Her performance felt as convincing as a prostitute’s. Upshaw wouldn’t taste that forbidden fruit again, if he could help it. Then again, that’s what he said the last time. At least she was hot, he thought, watching Leo open the external door to Operations. When the motion-activated camera in the hallway changed the image, he saw Pilcher talking to Leo—Pam was missing. Shit.
She stepped inside the room and winked at him, heading directly for his station. Now he understood why Pilcher wanted the rest of Upshaw’s team out of Operations after Hassler planted the ninetieth charge. Conveniently chatting up a storm with Leo, he’d given Pam some alone time to work her twisted charm. He knew there was a reason for her sudden interest in him.
“Miss me?” she said, nestling her firm breasts against the back of his head.
“I don’t think this is a good time,” he said, feeling flush.
Her hand slid down his chest, stopping a few inches short of his khaki pants. She bit his ear lightly and whispered, “I can’t wait to stop by tonight.”
Despite every natural alarm and survival instinct screaming “NO,” he offered a trembling, “Sounds good.” Her hand brushed against his growing bulge and stopped.
“Just be a good boy, and I’ll take good care of you tonight,” she whispered, quickly stepping away from the chair.
Ted glanced at the monitor, noticing that Pilcher was gone.
“How are we doing in here?” said his boss, standing in the doorway.
“What?” he said, his mind scrambling to make sense of the encounter.
“How far are we from celebrating?” he said, holding out a sweating bottle of champagne and three crystal flutes.
“Uhhhh. I think…” he said, stalling to recover his focus.
“How long until Hassler plants the final charge?” said Pilcher, setting the glasses and bottle on one of the desks behind him.
“Less than ten minutes. He’s extremely proficient with the electronics at this point. Most of his time is spent digging. Might be sooner if he finds a soft spot,” said Upshaw.
“And all of the charges are transmitting and receiving?”
“That’s correct. I have ninety-three strong signals. No failures,” said Upshaw, hearing the door close.
“You made a solid choice with the gear selection,” said Pilcher.
“The best money could buy in 2033,” replied Upshaw, pretending to focus on the screens so he didn’t have to look at Pam.
“And the addition of transmitter darts to the inventory was an exceptional call on your part—we should be able to develop an accurate model of the abbies’ acoustic and seismic capabilities. We might need to increase the range of the charges, based on the abbies’ initial reaction to the mile-fifteen test charge, but that shouldn’t present much of a challenge.”
“What do you mean?” said Upshaw, knowing exactly where Pilcher was taking this.
“If the abbies react to our furthest charge, we can’t create a model. We’d have no idea if they’d still react at mile sixteen or seventeen. We have to find the point between reaction and no reaction—obviously starting as far out as possible.”
Upshaw decided to take Pilcher’s bait. He could read between the lines. Pilcher was about to ask him to do something far more deplorable than order his “golden child” to perform sexual favors on a hairy, out-of-shape man old enough to be her father.
“I don’t think Mr. Hassler will be happy with that suggestion,” stated Upshaw.
“Mr. Hassler doesn’t have any explosives left to be of any use,” said Pilcher.
Upshaw paused before responding. “Then I hope the current test pattern does the job.”
“Mr. Hassler won’t be returning to the superstructure,” responded Pilcher.
“No ultralight,” muttered Upshaw, confirming the implications of Pilcher’s statement.
“I can’t have someone like Hassler subverting our efforts. He’s proven to be pathologically selfish.”
“And useful,” interrupted Upshaw.
“He sent agents under his charge to their deaths to secure a place in this world. I had no intention of waking him—until we discovered the abbies. As far as I’m concerned, he’s not here,” said Pilcher.
Upshaw nodded slowly, unsure if he should respond.
“Can I count on you to keep this a secret, Ted?”
“Of course,” said Upshaw, staring at the screen in front of him.
Pilcher put his hand on the same shoulder Pam had touched, sickening his stomach.
“I need you to detonate the last charge as soon as Hassler activates the transceiver.”
“Sometimes he activates the transceiver before attaching it to the explosives,” he said blankly.
“I trust you can figure this out,” said Pilcher.
“Yes, sir,” he said, hearing the champagne glasses rattle in the background.
He opened the “Transceiver” window and migrated it to one of the unused monitors in his personal array of screens, selecting “Charge Nine-Four.”
A mini-window appeared, with several on-screen buttons. The button labeled “Detonate” was grayed-out, waiting for a transceiver signal. Several minutes later, after an interminable period of silence, the ninety-fourth transceiver went live, and the “Detonate” button appeared solid green. He moved the wireless mouse icon to the Communications window on the center screen, selecting “Field Tactical 1.” Upshaw’s finger hovered over the mouse.
“Ops, this is Hassler. Last charge is set. How is my signal?”
He clicked the mouse, enabling a two-way conversation. “I was just about to contact you. Looks good on my end.”
“Roger that. Once I bury the charge, I’ll head to the primary LZ. Should take me about twenty minutes. Have the glider pilot contact me on this frequency. I’ll pop red smoke when the glider is thirty seconds out.”
“Sorry, brother,” said Upshaw, clicking the green “Detonate” button icon.
A loud popping sound caused him to jump in his seat. He swiveled the chair to see Pilcher pouring a glass of champagne.
“Will you ping Hassler’s radio? I’m not sure that Mustin’s team will see the ground effects of the explosion from this distance. I want to be sure.”
Upshaw turned and activated the emergency beacon system on Hassler’s radio, watching the screen closely for a return signal. What had he done? The beacon cycled through several frequency signals, yielding no return.
“Nothing. The radio is either destroyed or significantly disabled,” said Upshaw.
“Thank you, Ted. I’m sorry you had to be involved in this, but it was for the greater good of Wayward Pines. Everything we do is for the greater good,” he said, nodding at the large monitor on the wall.
The pattern of transmitter dart icons hadn’t changed, indicating that the abbies hadn’t detected the seismic signature created by the explosive charge. Seismic waves travelled nearly twenty times faster than sound waves through the air, attenuating far less than sound. If they hadn’t sensed a seismic disturbance, there was no chance that the sound waves could reach them.
“Looks like we don’t need to launch another glider,” said Upshaw, standing up from his station.
“No, we don’t,” said Pilcher, handing him a half-filled champagne flute. “I’m afraid this has lost most of its carbonation.”
“That’s fine. I was never a big champagne drinker,” he said, raising the flute. “To Hassler.”
Pilcher stared at him quizzically while Pam’s face lit up with a perverse grin.
“I was thinking more along the lines of Wayward Pines,” said Pilcher.
“Hassler played his part, just like the rest of us,” said Upshaw. “Too bad he got sloppy with the explosives at the very end.”
“A tragedy. To Hassler, then,” said Pilcher, clinking his glass. “And Wayward Pines.”
“To Wayward Pines,” said Upshaw, wishing he had never answered Pilcher’s advertisement five years ago.
Chapter 43
A column of dirty white smoke rose between the trees at the edge of the clearing, catching the wind and swirling toward the light blue sky. Standing on a partially buried boulder at the far end of the flattened field, Hassler shattered the radio and the “ninety-fourth” transceiver with the butt of his rifle. He detached the thin wire from the M57 firing device he had used to detonate the explosive charge and pulled the rest of the wire hand over hand through the clearing. With the “clacker” and the hastily wound ball of insulated wire stuffed in his drop bag, he walked north.
The quarter-pound charge was bound to attract attention, but it had been necessary to complete the illusion. Mustin and his team of observers two thousand feet above the ground would see the smoke and report it, confirming his death. Fucking Pilcher. Hassler should have known better than to trust that bald-headed, pinch-nosed shit on any level. He did know better, but Pilcher had leveraged Theresa against him. The veiled threat in Operations was only part of the elaborate setup. The dinner had been a staged affair designed to lower his guard. Pilcher had given him a sliver of hope, and that had been enough for Hassler. Now that hope was gone. Pilcher never had any intention of letting him be a part of Wayward Pines.
A faraway screech resonated through the trees, confirming the arrival of a curious pack. He picked up the pace, fanning his rifle in a continuous one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc as he moved. His pack still tugged at him, lighter than before, but still loaded with gear—and several blocks of C4 he’d neglected to attach to their transceivers.
If Hassler didn’t get to live happily ever after in Wayward Pines—nobody did. He’d make sure of that.
Part III
“Sanctuary”
Chapter 44
Adam Hassler slithered through a wet layer of pine needles, coming to rest against a half-rotted, moss-infested log. The wind rustled through the trees, disturbing the branches above him. He was downwind, less than a hundred and fifty feet away from his target—about as close as he could get without risking detection. Raising his rifle slowly, he rested the hand guard on the log and quietly lifted his body into a seated position. Easy shot. He checked his surroundings for grey-skinned prowlers before nestling his cheek into the rifle’s butt stock. Snap—the four-point buck collapsed on its front legs and toppled headfirst into a shallow stream.
He waited several moments, listening and scanning the forest. Nothing responded to the suppressed bullet. Hassler didn’t anticipate anything would, but if his limited time in the year 3818 had taught him anything, it was to expect the worst—from abbies and humans alike. Eager to get this over with, he sprinted through the trees to reach the deer, pulling it clear of the scarlet-stained water.
Killing the deer was risky this close to the center of the valley, but well worth the gamble. He had a foolproof plan to convince Pilcher that he was dead—a necessary deception to pull off his magnum opus. If the smashed communications equipment and staged explosion hadn’t been enough to keep Mustin’s snipers off his back, feeding his microchip to one of the abbies should cancel any lingering doubt. The problem was luring the abbies close enough to eat the deer without becoming the second course.
To improve his odds, he’d moved precariously close to the series of explosives planted over the previous days. Hassler heard three sequential explosions immediately following his “death,” which meant that the creatures had responded to the test charge set at mile twelve. This bit of knowledge prompted him to cover as much ground as possible before dark. He’d been smart to move up-valley. Additional charges rattled the ground at thirty-minute intervals throughout the night, drawing most of the abbies away from Wayward Pines and depositing them nearby.
Hassler drew a serrated blade from a small sheath on his belt and stabbed the deer’s exposed shoulder, opening a deep, three-inch hole. Pushing his fingers into the gushing wound, he worked his microchip deep into the muscle tissue. Good enough for government work. Within seconds, he had rinsed his knife and hands, setting a course for the eastern side of the valley. He needed to be as far away from the middle as possible when the sun peaked over the cliffs and the abbies became more active. When he could no longer see the stream, Hassler drew his pistol and fired six evenly spaced shots at a distant tree. The gunshots were answered by distant shrieks. Breakfast is served.
Chapter 45
Pope squirmed in the front passenger seat of his command vehicle, a heavily armored Humvee parked next to the superstructure’s reinforced-steel exit ramp. He glanced nervously at the legs dangling into the rear compartment, not sure it was a good idea to have someone in the gun turret. The turret protection kit fitted to the vehicle provided three-hundred-and-sixty-degree ballistic protection for the gunner, including partial overhead shielding, but it wasn’t abby-proof. If one of those things climbed onto the vehicle, it could easily kill the gunner—and drop into the Humvee.
He’d protested against manning the security vehicles’ turrets, but Marcus and Black convinced Pilcher otherwise. Marcus didn’t think the security team could prote
ct the construction crews without readily available firepower, and Black felt certain the equipment operators would refuse to climb into their vehicles without the added protection of the machine guns. Pope couldn’t push the issue—not without sounding scared. He switched his headset to the intravehicle radio net.
“Ragan, if one of those things gets to our vehicle, you climb down and close that fucking hatch. Copy?”
“Roger that,” answered the gunner.
“Everyone in the vehicle keeps an eye on the situation. If you see something Ragan doesn’t see, call it out. I don’t want an abbie tearing his head off,” said Pope, pretending to be concerned about the gunner.
A digitized voiced squawked through the radio set attached to the dashboard.
“Get them moving, Mr. Pope,” said Pilcher. “The future of Wayward Pines is in your hands.”
Pope grabbed the black radio handset labeled Operations. “Solid copy, Mr. Pilcher. The security vehicles are in position.”
With his other hand, he swiped the handset labeled Tactical and issued his orders. Within moments, a behemoth yellow machine appeared in the hatch, belching dark clouds of diesel exhaust into the pristine air. Called a “feller-buncher,” it was one of three similar vehicles that would clear the forest ahead of the forestry mulchers. The fence-building machinery would emerge later, when the path to the proposed line had been cleared. Black expected to be at the fence site in two days. Pope had his doubts.
Two of the feller-bunchers rumbled on their tracks to the southern edge of the clearing and waited for the equally massive mulchers to line up behind them. The third feller-buncher backed into a holding position on the other side of the ramp, where it would serve as a backup in case of an equipment failure. Pilcher was serious about maintaining the schedule. He wanted a quarter of a mile cleared per day, minimum, which was a tall order given the thick forest surrounding them.
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