Crisis Zero

by Chris Rylander

  As was Medlock.

  He’d been very clear: Any signs of evacuation and he’d blow the base. Any signs of me telling them about his plans and he’d blow the base. All of our lives depended on what I said in the next few minutes.

  “What did you need to tell us, Carson?” Agent Nineteen asked.

  I buried my face in my shackled hands as if I were tired or frustrated, or both. I split apart my palms slightly so I could whisper to Agents Nineteen and Blue but not be heard by any of the recording devices that were surely in the room.

  “Whatever you do,” I said slowly, clearly, and softly, “do not react to anything I’m about to say. It’s imperative. Cough if you understand.”

  There was a slight beat and then one of them cleared his throat. They obviously had no idea what was going on, but it was good to know they both still trusted me enough to follow my lead without blowing the whole operation right then and there. That was a good sign, I thought.

  “You need to get us away from any security cameras,” I said, again as slowly and clearly and quietly as was possible. I began shaking my shoulders and head as if I were crying or something instead of talking. “Our lives depend on it. You have to trust me.”

  There was another delay. And then a voice spoke. It was Agent Blue.

  “Well?” he said. “Quit stalling. What did you want to tell us?”

  I breathed out a low sigh of relief. They were playing along. So far, so good. But, this was still the early and easy part of our intricate, ridiculous, nearly impossible plan to save the day and fix this entire mess once and for all.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” I said, finally raising my head, making my face look as distraught as possible. “I think I might barf.”

  Agent Nineteen and Agent Blue stared at me warily. I wasn’t sure if they were still acting the part or not. I had no idea what they’d do, or if there even was somewhere in this building out of sight of security cameras. I had come up with the barfing thing, hoping that the bathroom might be one of those places. Or at the very least to give them a believable reason to get me out of this room.

  “Come on then,” Agent Nineteen said.

  They lifted me from the chair and led me out of the interrogation room and down the hall toward a bathroom. As we walked, Agent Blue coughed into his hand. At the end of his cough he faintly whispered something.

  “When you get out, say you need to lie down,” he said into his hand.

  We got to the bathroom and Agent Nineteen opened the door for me. It was a single occupancy restroom, with just a small sink, toilet, and mirror. It was obvious from the way they’d acted that there were cameras in here. So I bent over the toilet and pretended to barf as best I could. Then I flushed, washed my hands, wiped my mouth, tried to look as sick as I could as I walked back into the hallway.

  “I think I need to lie down,” I moaned. “Are these really necessary?” I held up my shackled hands.

  “I suppose not,” Agent Blue said, before removing them.

  “Can I lie down somewhere?” I asked again.

  “Yeah, come on this way,” Agent Nineteen said. “There’s a couch in Director Isadoris’s office. We can talk in there.”

  I nodded and followed them down the hallway. I could only assume this meant that Director Isadoris’s office was the only place in the entire base that didn’t have security cameras. Who watches the one guy in the country who, after tomorrow’s purchase, would be able to watch anyone he wanted on the entire planet?

  This thought made me even more determined, more sure that we were doing the right thing.

  CHAPTER 54

  STOP SAYING BOOM!

  “WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT?” DIRECTOR ISADORIS PRACTICALLY shouted as the three of us entered his office. “I told you to conduct the entire interview in room three forty-seven. I don’t care if he’s not feeling well.”

  “We’re hoping he can explain,” Agent Blue said placing a hand on my shoulder perhaps a little too roughly. “Have a seat.”

  He pushed me down onto a couch adjacent to Director Isadoris’s desk. The three of them loomed around me, waiting for me to say something. I saw Agent Smiley and the other agent I’d tranquilized at the Dirt Mall earlier that day sitting at their usual table behind Director Isadoris’s desk.

  She glared at me with a look that could easily kill an elderly person or small child. I tried to ignore her glowering and instead focused on my thoughts before I started speaking. Isadoris was obviously furious, which meant I’d need to get right to the point.

  “I asked them to take me somewhere there were no security cameras,” I said, “because Medlock is watching your every move.”

  The news visibly rippled across the faces of three men looming over me. Agent Nineteen looked confused, Agent Blue frowned, and Director Isadoris looked downright outraged. Like he would tear off a puppy’s head just to release the fury.

  “How is that possible?” Director Isadoris asked through gritted teeth.

  He looked like a man who was losing his grip on reality. It frightened me. And not just because he was the size of a four-door sedan. More and more I was beginning to realize that I might be looking at the most powerful man in the world. He certainly had more power than the president. After tomorrow’s exchange, there’d be no question about it.

  “The plans,” I said. “The ones that you sent me to steal.”

  Director Isadoris cocked his head at me, only furthering his primal, animalistic appearance. “What?”

  “The plans to blow up the base by drilling down from above,” I said. “They’re fake. The files on the USB drive and the laptops actually contained some sort of computer virus that Medlock has used to take control over many of the base’s operational systems, including access to the security camera feeds.”

  “How do you know that?” Agent Nineteen asked.

  “Because Medlock told me,” I replied.

  “It can’t be . . .” Agent Blue muttered under his breath.

  Director Isadoris slammed a fist onto his heavy wooden desk. We all jumped as it smashed right through the heavy oak surface, leaving a massive, splintered crater. Had I not just watched him punch a hole in his heavily lacquered wooden desk, I never would have believed it humanly possible.

  He pulled up his fist and blood dripped from several large splinters that were poking out of his knuckles like a collection of small trophies.

  “Agent Smiley,” he said, calmly picking the splinters from his hand, “disable the base security cameras immediately.”

  “No, wait!” I whispered urgently.

  Everybody froze. Agent Smiley’s hand hovered over her computer’s keyboard.

  “If you do that, he’ll know I told you,” I said. “And then, well . . . boom.”

  “Boom?” Agent Blue said.

  “What do you mean, boom?” Director Isadoris asked.

  “Medlock will blow up this base,” I said. “He said if he sees any signs of evacuation or that you know he’s watching you, or that I told you any of this, that he’ll blow up the base.”

  Agent Blue paced across the room. “There’s a bomb here now? I thought you said the plans to blow up the base were just a Trojan horse, so to speak, for his virus?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But Medlock told me he can cause the nuclear fusion core powering the base to melt down in a matter of minutes with a simple press of a button.”

  “Is that even possible?” Director Isadoris asked Agent Smiley.

  She and the guy across from her exchanged a few words that I didn’t quite hear. Then Agent Smiley nodded slowly, her face still showing no emotions. Not even fear. “Theoretically, yes,” she said.

  Director Isadoris swore loudly. Then he walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down. He stared at me for such a long time, it felt like he was looking right through me.

  “What does he want then?” Director Isadoris asked. “What’s his endgame here? Why not just blow us up now? I’m sure that’d give
him a thrill.”

  “He wants me to find out when and where you’re making the buy,” I said.

  “What buy?” Director Isadoris said.

  “The Exodus Program.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “How do you think?”

  Director Isadoris hesitated. If anything, this only confirmed that it was true.

  “Fine,” he said. “How does he know about it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Director Isadoris swore again. I was just glad he wasn’t smashing holes in his massive desk again. It was too brutal a sight to witness multiple times at such proximity.

  “Anyway,” I said, “he wanted me to find out when and where the deal was happening and bring the information back to him. He said he only wants to use it to blackmail you and get his son back. But I suspect, and I assume you’ll agree, that he’d use it for much more than that if he actually got his hands on the tech. If I don’t report back in a few hours, then . . . boom.”

  “Would you please stop saying ‘boom’ like that?” Director Isadoris said, rubbing his temples.

  I shrugged, not sure what else to say instead. Kill us all sounded a lot worse in my opinion. As did Blow us to smithereens. Or even Hit the switch.

  “So why did you tell us all of this, instead of carrying out his plan?” Agent Nineteen asked.

  How could he ask me that?

  “Of course I’m going to tell you!” I nearly shouted. “Why would I want to help out that psycho? I was hoping that by telling you, you would somehow know what to do. How to stop him. Besides, you’d never trust me with that information now, not after what I did at the Dirt Mall today.”

  “The what?” Agent Blue asked.

  “At Arrowhead,” I said, glancing at Agent Smiley and the other agent I’d shot.

  “You aren’t wrong,” Director Isadoris said. “I don’t trust you any farther than I could throw you. Which, actually, would be pretty far, I guess . . . but that’s not the point.”

  “Well, regardless, I’m still on your side,” I said. “You do know what to do, right? How to stop him? He said if the information I give him isn’t accurate, well . . . you know.”

  Director Isadoris looked at me evenly and then nodded.

  “Maybe we do,” he said. “But I still don’t trust you enough to say anything more.”

  “Why?” I asked angrily. “Because I wouldn’t stab my friend in his back? If anything, you should trust me more for that! Besides, you wouldn’t know any of this if it weren’t for what I did.”

  “That’s assuming any of it’s true at all,” Director Isadoris said.

  “Well, don’t test it out or we’ll all die,” I said bleakly.

  “Convenient, that,” Director Isadoris said. “Regardless, I just don’t think I can truly believe a word you’re saying. Agent Nineteen, please detain this civilian and get him out of my sight.”

  CHAPTER 55

  HYPOTHETICAL BODIES AT OLD AUGUSTINE

  I STILL COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS WAS HAPPENING. DANIELLE AND I were being led down a dark concrete corridor somewhere inside the base. In handcuffs. And the worst part was that Agent Nineteen and Agent Blue, along with Agent Smiley, were the ones escorting us to . . . well, wherever it was we were headed.

  Prison? Some gray site in Europe similar to wherever Jake was in custody? A concrete cell deep within the base? Our own graves?

  I couldn’t really rule anything out. But it didn’t matter. The end result would be unchanged: I had failed. I had failed in the very first few steps of our complicated plan to take down the Agency and Mule Medlock all at once. In order for our plan to work, I needed to get Isadoris to trust me and tell me where the exchange was going down. And so, yeah, it was probably a little foolish to have believed I could get that guy to ever trust anyone beside himself.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said suddenly. A last-ditch effort to save us all. “There’s still time. Medlock is going to blow up the whole city!”

  “Shut up,” Agent Smiley said, jabbing me in the back painfully with a finger. “Traitor.”

  Danielle kept her head down, crying silently. The guilt was overwhelming. It was my fault she was here. It was my fault she’d gotten messed up in any of this in the first place.

  And then suddenly an explosion dropped us all to our feet. Smoke filled the small hallway, and my ears were ringing from the deafening blast. I choked and coughed on the smoke, disoriented. Had Medlock just hit the button? Were we about to die? I had no clue what was going on.

  But then someone was unlocking my handcuffs and pulling me to my feet.

  “Run,” a gruff voice shouted in my ear.

  A hand shoved me forward. I began running. I couldn’t see through the smoke but just kept running. I held my hands out to my sides to keep from slamming into the walls. Then someone was next to me. They grabbed my shirt and helped guide me to the left and through a doorway of some kind.

  The door swung closed. We were somewhere dark and I couldn’t see anything. I was shuffled into another room with a metal floor. Then, suddenly bright lights popped on and I shielded my eyes with my hands. Once my vision adjusted to the light, I realized I was inside a small metal elevator.

  Agent Nineteen, Agent Blue, and Danielle were also there.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “And what happened to Smiley?”

  “She’ll be fine, just a little bump on the head,” Agent Nineteen said. “Take this elevator all the way to the top. There, you’ll find a concrete tunnel with a ladder. You’ll have to climb the rest of the way but it’s not too far. Go home, both of you. Stay inside, stay with your families. Okay?”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because what the director is asking of us isn’t right,” he said.

  “We believe you guys,” Agent Blue added. “He has no right to detain you both and send you away to a gray site.”

  I looked around the elevator. It definitely wasn’t the one we normally used. This one seemed way less high-tech, it was more like a freight elevator.

  “But won’t you get in trouble for helping us?” I asked. “I mean, can’t they see us right now? Plus, what about Medlock seeing this . . . it might make him . . .”

  “No, there are no cameras in here,” Agent Blue said. “It’s an emergency protocol exit. The same one we’re going to use to evacuate the base ourselves without Medlock knowing.”

  “Don’t worry about us and the Agency,” Agent Nineteen said. “We can handle ourselves with Isadoris, let us worry about that, it’s not your problem anymore. He won’t know we helped you escape.”

  I nodded. And then realized that if they were letting us go, there was still an outside chance that Danielle, Dillon, and I could complete our mission after all.

  “Where and when is the exchange taking place?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Agent Nineteen said.

  “You still don’t trust me?” I asked.

  “No, that’s not it at all,” Agent Nineteen said. “It’s that I think you want to know because you want to go there and try something stupid. Well, don’t. It will only end up getting you killed.”

  I sighed and looked away from his clear green eyes. Then I faced him again, determined to get what I needed at all costs.

  “You turned your back on a partner once before,” I said. “I know that now. Don’t do it again. Please, just tell me—I won’t go anywhere near it, I promise. I just need to know to make sure that Medlock hasn’t figured it out somehow himself. I can give him incorrect intel.”

  My words visibly disturbed him. Agent Nineteen looked like he wanted to either break down and cry for an hour, backhand me for calling him out, or punish himself since the guilt clearly hadn’t worn off yet.

  “It’s at old Augustine Church,” Agent Nineteen said. “Right before sunrise, just under four hours away.”

  “Augustine Church?” I said.

  “That’s right,” Agen
t Blue said. “What better place to do a covert exchange than in Middle of Nowhere, North Dakota, in November?”

  Augustine Church was an old, abandoned church ten or fifteen miles west of town. It was a local historical landmark, being one of the oldest buildings in the state still standing. That said, nobody ever went out there, except for teenagers sometimes in the summer, who spent the night in the supposedly haunted building on a dare. It was the sort of place that would be the perfect dumping ground for bodies if Minnow, ND, ever had more than one murder per decade. Being out in the middle of nowhere meant it was essentially right in the middle of a mostly flat plain with very little to hide behind for miles. The truth was, that location might make it a lot harder to execute the last parts of my plan. But I couldn’t worry about that now or it might give something away.

  “Just stay out of the way,” Agent Nineteen said. “I better not see you anywhere near the place. Now go on, get home, both of you.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply as both he and Agent Blue stepped out of the elevator and then hit a button on the outside wall. The last thing I saw as the metal doors slowly slid closed, was Agent Nineteen reaching up toward his face to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  CHAPTER 56

  A HANDHELD MEDLOCK

  THE CLIMB UP THE METAL LADDER INSIDE THE CONCRETE TUNNEL felt extra long. Probably because I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to be looking down the barrel of a gun held by Danielle. Which is essentially the equivalent of what had happened to Medlock all those years ago.

  Danielle and I had said nothing on the relatively fast elevator ride to the underground sewer, or the climb the rest of the way up to a small street a few blocks from the school. We jogged back toward the school where Danielle had parked her bike.

  There was a cop car parked up the hill in the school parking lot. The lights were off, but we could see two uniformed officers standing next to it, outside in the cold. It almost looked as if they were keeping watch for something . . . or someone.