Assault on Cheyenne Mountain
Part Four of the Denver Burning series
by Algor X. Dennison
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2015 Algor X. Dennison
This is Part Four of the Denver Burning series, in which Deep Thaw agent Carson Anders finally turns the tide against those who brought down the country in Part One, Get Out of Denver and Part Two, Take Back Denver, and who set him up in Part Three, Deep Thaw.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Into the Maw
Chapter 2: Revelations from an Insider
Chapter 3: Southward Alone
Chapter 4: Hard Time
Chapter 4: Up and Away
Chapter 5: The Black Key
Chapter 6: Change of Plans
Chapter 7: Allies
Chapter 8: Return to Longmont
Chapter 9: The Decemvirate
Chapter 10: Turn Inward
Chapter 11: A Cleansing
Chapter 12: Into the Breach
Chapter 13: Face-Off
Chapter 14: Set Free
Chapter 15: An End
Chapter 1: Into the Maw
The gate barrier opened, coils of razor wire rattling along the top, and a duty sergeant trotted up, rifle ready. Two privates kept close behind.
“Howdy, Sergeant,” Carson said, eager to show he was a friendly. The rapid armed response was a little disconcerting, considering he was alone and obviously unarmed. “I’m here to see the base commander.”
The sergeant was a big man, African-American, looked tough as nails. His voice was low and gravelly. “Are you armed, sir?”
“No. They took everything at the freeway entrance.”
“Name, sir?”
“Carson Anders. Department of Homeland Security.” One of the privates covered Carson while the other slung his rifle and approached. For the third time in twenty-four hours, Carson was frisked, but at least it wasn’t a strip search like Scala had pulled on him the night before. “I have an urgent message for the base commander.”
“I’ll see that he gets it, sir, if you’ll give it to me.”
“No can do, Sergeant. I have orders to deliver it to the base commander or highest ranking officer, in person.”
The sergeant thought this over for a moment. When the private came up empty of any contraband in his search of Carson, the sergeant shrugged. “Okay. Follow me.”
They walked several hundred feet through the base, which was built adjoining the Colorado Springs airport. Then they entered a building and Carson followed the sergeant down a long corridor, still flanked by both privates. Everything was dim inside the buildings; if they had working generators on base, they seemed to be saving the fuel nighttime operations. The only light came from windows, and the approaching storm outside dimmed it even further.
They went up a few flights of stairs and came to a halt outside a door with a name stenciled in a nameplate to one side: General Marcus E. Tamare. The sergeant knocked, and voice inside called, “Enter.” The privates waited in the hall while the sergeant escorted Carson inside.
The room was fairly spacious. Carson couldn’t help noticing, here and outside, that the Air Force had a nicer budget than the Marines had back in his day, which showed in every aspect of base life. It probably helped that this was the home, or former home, of NORAD.
The man across the desk was a wide, broad person. Not fat. Thick with muscle. Sideburns so close they might as well have been shaved off entirely. Thick eyebrows overshadowed a pair of dark eyes, very intent, missing nothing.
The sergeant saluted. “Sir, the intruder at the front gate. He states that he is DHS, with a classified message for your eyes only. He was alone but we are conducting searches along the perimeter to verify.”
“That’s fine, Sergeant. Dismissed.”
“Sir.” The sergeant exited.
Carson was bemused for a moment, unsure why the hypervigilance of the men that had met him at the gate would give way now and leave him alone with the general. Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the office, and he noticed three other soldiers standing silently in the room with him. One was obviously an adjutant, the boss’s right hand. The other two looked to be base security. Real MP’s, not contract agents or militia goons. Both men looked tough and ready to jump on Carson if he made a wrong move.
The base commander looked at Carson and spoke in a neutral tone. “So, Department of Homeland Security?”
“Yes, sir.” Carson spoke slowly, trying to feel the mood in the room, figure out where he stood. “My name is Carson Anders. I’ve been with DHS for eight years, a clandestine program known as Deep Thaw. Before that, a hitch in the Marines.”
“That’s interesting. We haven’t had any federal people show their faces around here lately. Why do you come now?”
“I’ve been stuck in Denver for a while, sir. It’s pretty bad there.”
“So we’ve heard. All right, let’s have your message.”
Carson stepped forward, and immediately the MP on his right did the same. The adjutant, a major as Carson now saw, followed suit. Carson smiled reassuringly. “Relax, gentlemen. We’re on the same side.”
He drew the flash drive on its lanyard from his shirt and handed it to the adjutant, who took it to the base commander. The MP eyeballed Carson steadily, and Carson began to feel a crawling sensation on the back of his neck. The whole thing was a little off. Scala’s warning played in his mind.
The base commander accepted the lanyard, swinging it idly from a finger, studying Carson without once looking at the device. Carson stared back, trying to project humility and strength at the same time, struggling to keep the growing sense of unease from his face.
“What does this device contain?”
Carson shook his head. “No idea. I believe it’s encrypted.”
“Are you able to confirm your identity and your mission for me, Mr. Anderson?”
“Anders. The program I am with doesn’t issue badges, sir. We’re clandestine. But I have come at great risk to place that in your hands, and I trust you will know what to do with it.”
“Ah. Yes. But I am sure you’ll understand my reluctance to accept an unexpected drive brought by an agent from a program I’ve never heard of, and plug it into the last working pieces of our hardened computer infrastructure.”
Carson swallowed. “I understand. My mission was to deliver it, nothing more. You’ll have to handle its contents as you see fit, sir. I can only assure you that I am no saboteur, and I’m on your side.”
“What side is that?”
Carson didn’t dare say anything. He was aware of the adjutant behind him motioning to the MP’s, perhaps mouthing words at them just outside his peripheral vision. He felt like a fly stuck in a web, with multiple spiders converging on him.
The general gazed at Carson with a tired look, as if contemplating some great tragedy. “You know, Anderson, I think I believe you. You’re probably just a good soldier doing his job. Like me.” He glanced at the adjutant and raised one eyebrow. Carson felt the MP’s step up behind him. “But for all you or I know, this flash drive could be some kind of cyber-bomb, the last straw to completely take this base back to the Stone Age. Our computer networks are not as resilient as they once were, as I’m sure you can imagine. So I’m sure you’ll be willing to wait while we take our time to investigate.”
“Of course, General.�
�� Carson chose his words very carefully. “I have business back in the Denver area. Further mission objectives. But I can wait here for a few hours.”
“Oh, I’m afraid it will take more than a few hours,” the base commander said. “Substantially more.” He dropped the lanyard on his desk and gestured to the MP’s. “Take him to the holding cells.”
Carson lunged for the door. It was a bold and desperate move, but unfortunately not an unexpected one. The MP’s batons crashed down on the back of his head simultaneously and the last thing he saw was the carpeted floor coming up fast to meet him.
He woke up in the holding cell. It was a six by eight foot room with a toilet, a cot, and nothing else. No window, no air ducts, nothing that might allow the remotest chance of escape. Floor-to-ceiling steel bars comprised the front wall, which allowed guards to keep an eye on him at all times, and pass his food and other necessities in to him. They left his clothes on him, but he was missing everything he had carried in his pockets, including the electronic key he needed to retrieve 905T4.
Carson was silent for the first several hours, hoping for the best and thinking good behavior might show his captors that he needn’t be treated as a hostile. When a private finally came down the hall to push an MRE packet through the bars, Carson asked him if he had any idea how long the incarceration would last.
The private shrugged his shoulders. “For the duration, man. As long as it takes. Look, I don’t know why you’re in here, and I don’t really care. But I’ll tell you this: we haven’t received orders to let anyone out since the system went down. That was six weeks ago. So get comfy, all right?” With that, he turned and left, ignoring Carson’s curses and continued pleas for information.
For the next couple of days Carson tried every psychological ploy he could think of to get some sympathy from the guards and a chance for another audience with Tamare. But the duty officer in charge of the holding cell block seemed entirely disinterested in that specific duty, and the rank and file that were assigned to feed prisoners and maintain the place knew nothing and weren’t interested in speaking to Carson. He thought there were a few other holding cells on either side of his, but they seemed to be empty.
Later his frustration gave way to rage and he began to threaten the soldiers that came in and vowed an eternal lack of cooperation. But no one stuck around to listen for more than thirty seconds at a time. Just long enough to toss another roll of toilet paper or an MRE packet through the bars, and then they left. Carson wondered what else was going on at the base that kept them so busy they couldn’t treat prisoners with more respect.
After the first three days in a holding cell, Carson began to realize just how much trouble he was in. Scala’s intuition had proven correct in every detail, and Carson gradually accepted the fact that he had stumbled directly into the last place on earth he wanted to be. The utter lack of further information about his captors’ intentions drove him nearly mad with constant wondering.
They only let him out once during the first week to stretch his legs. It was a ten-minute jaunt around the building with hands cuffed, and he saw nothing of interest during the excursion. The base looked exactly as it had when he got in. It appeared to be running with a skeleton crew, and without power most of the goings and comings seemed to be happening in other parts of the base he didn’t see.
Back in his cell, he had to rely on pushups and jumping jacks to stay fit. The lack of reading material and external stimulation was almost enough to sink him into deep depression. It was only by daydreaming that he got by at all: what he would do when he finally got out, how Dana Ryan was faring with all the food he’d left her, and visions of Edith Scala having a joyous reunion with her daughter.
There was one guard that came through periodically whose name was Brunson, and it was this man that kept Carson from losing all touch with reality during his solitary confinement. Carson noticed a devil dog tattoo and Brunson admitted that he had been in the Marines for several years, stationed in D.C., and had only been at Peterson for three weeks on a temporary cross-training assignment when the national infrastructure went down. He had opted to stay put, since a cross-country trek to Washington D.C. in the absence of working transportation wasn’t something he was eager to try. But he was not relishing the responsibilities the Air Force officers had found for the leatherneck stranded among their ranks. He couldn’t say much to the prisoner, but Carson got more out of him than any of the others. The man was nearly as frustrated with his situation as Carson was with his own.
They came to an unspoken agreement that Carson wouldn’t be pushy with questions, and Brunson would be as candid as situations warranted. So when breakfast and lunch were skipped one day and Brunson brought a bowl of bland oatmeal for dinner (no spoon), he admitted that the base was having difficulty obtaining supplies.
“It’s that P.O.S. militia guy, Masters,” Brunson said. “The guy’s throwing his weight around, putting pressure on General Tamare to concede to his petty demands. He’s like a little girl throwing a fit.”
“Well, do his men outnumber you guys?” Carson asked.
“Probably. But none of them could stand up to a real soldier for ten seconds if it came to a fight,” the short, muscular Marine spat. “I don’t know why the general doesn’t just throw his butt in jail next to you! Somebody ought to take care of him.”
Carson privately agreed, but said nothing of his secondary objective.
Supplies started flowing a little better within a few days, and Brunson confirmed that Tamare and the Commissioner had come to another agreement. That meant Carson wouldn’t starve, but it also did nothing for his chances of getting out.
The days turned into weeks, and soon Carson realized he was losing track of time. Each day was the same, with nothing to give definition to his time. He wondered if he’d gradually go blind in the dim light, or get sick. But at least there were no beatings or torture sessions. There were far worse countries to be imprisoned in than America, even post-collapse.
When change finally came to the holding cells at Peterson Air Force Base, it wasn’t anything Carson had hoped for. He would almost have welcomed a sentence to hard labor at that point if it had meant getting out of the cell for a few hours per day. But he didn’t have to face that yet.
It was late afternoon when the door at the end of the corridor opened and several pairs of footsteps approached. Carson sat up on his cot and tried to put on a poker face. He could tell by the tempo and number of footsteps that this was no ordinary visit. He felt ready for anything as long as it wasn’t more waiting.
But the man that faced him through the bars, flanked by General Tamare on one side and the general’s adjutant on the other, was the last person on earth Carson expected. He didn’t wear a uniform, and Carson didn’t recognize him. He was tall, with a graying crew cut, and wore an expensive black suit that had seen significant wear over the past several weeks. A blue necktie was cinched crisply against the collar of his white shirt. Who still wears a shirt and tie after the apocalypse? Carson wondered.
“Agent,” the man said, by way of greeting. “I’m Alan Coulter, Department of Homeland Security. Director of Deep Thaw. Let’s talk.”
Chapter 2: Revelations from an Insider
Carson stared at the man, feeling a tingle at the back of his neck. Was it possible? How far could Carson trust what he was hearing? Had Coulter come to break him free, or did he represent the darker side of Deep Thaw, the side that had led to a night-time raid on the cabin with professional hitmen?
The conflicting emotions of suspicion and relief swirled inside Carson uncontrollably, mixing with the shock of meeting a man he’d never known existed but needed to speak with more than anyone else. Now that the man appeared in front of his cell as if magically summoned, Carson found it too perfect to be true. He wondered for a moment if he wasn’t hallucinating the whole thing. But there stood General Tamare, scowling at his prisoner and posturing next to the man in the suit as if his authority was being
challenged.
“I’ll tell you what,” Coulter said to all those present. “I think this conversation will be most productive if Agent Anders and I are left alone for a few minutes.” He looked at General Tamare and raised one eyebrow. “Would that be possible, General?”
Tamare squinted at Carson, looked back at Coulter, and finally nodded. Without a word he walked back up the corridor, adjutant trailing him, and let the door slam shut behind them.
Coulter dragged a folding chair from down the hallway and sat facing Carson through the bars. “That’s better. So… Agent Anders. Carson, right? You seem to be in reasonably good health.”
“Yeah. I’m all right,” Carson replied. A flood of questions came to him, but he kept his head enough to remember that in contests of will, the man who opened his mouth first was likely to lose. He wasn’t sure where he stood and how this interview would go—the cell door wasn’t open yet—and he didn’t want to cede the only advantage he might have by revealing all he knew or didn’t know.
“Not a very forgiving type, this General Tamare. But I was gratified to learn your whereabouts, even though I had higher hopes than a military prison for you.”
Carson said nothing.
“You were the Denver agent, Carson. It’s a long journey to Colorado Springs, and you arrived here some weeks back. You were a busy man in the days after going operational.”
He kept pausing, giving Carson an opportunity to jump in and speak. Carson demurred.
“Well, I’m very sorry for any unfortunate events you had to weather before ending up here. But of course you knew your duty, and under current circumstances most of us have had to face things we never quite expected, not even in our line of work.” He eyed Carson with a calculating glance. “I’d like to know the status of your objectives, agent.”
Carson took his time. “My objectives aren’t in great shape, sir. In case that much wasn’t apparent by the fact I’m in jail. But I’d like some kind of assurances that you are who you say you are before I divulge details.”
Assault on Cheyenne Mountain (Denver Burning Book 4) Page 1
