“Can we just get somewhere with chairs?” Rita said. “I really need to rest my legs.”
“I think we’re close,” Elna said. “Hang in there, Mrs. Dulles.”
“We’re hanging in there,” Rita said.
Prig pulled something from an inner pocket and handed it to Golf. The bandaged Marine had half his face hidden behind the wrapping that covered almost everything from his forehead to his chin. Golf took the paper and unfolded it. Elna thought it was some sort of map. Prig and Golf appeared to discuss something for a moment, then Golf pointed off to the left, where the empty barracks buildings were collapsing into the rocky ground.
“Okay, I think we know where we’re going, people,” Prig said over his shoulder. “Try to stay close.”
He beckoned the others then headed farther into the old base. The handcart bumped and thumped over the rough ground, jostling poor Ant, who was all wrapped up under a blanket. The young Marine, Mac, finally reached out and put a hand on his chest to stabilize him. As Elna passed through the gate, she looked back in the direction of the hill. She couldn’t see the guesthouse from here. Too many trees in the way, but she did see a bit of the road winding up the hill. No sign of Selene or her father.
“I don’t like this,” she muttered. “My father isn’t thinking straight. He knew we were leaving the house. Why did he wander off? It’s his condition, Malin.”
“He’ll be fine,” Malin replied. “There’s still time. Come on.”
Prig, Cat dangling from his back, led the group past the barracks building and made a sudden sharp turn to the left. Elna remembered the little cave entrance behind the back corner of the building. Selene’s ex, Dominic, had used it once as some sort of hideout. Prig and Spence both produced flashlights, shining them into the depths of the cave. Elna saw a familiar narrow passageway.
“This is supposed to be the place, guys,” Prig said over his shoulder.
They passed through the opening. Elna had the strange notion that they were lining up for some kind of amusement park ride, moving single file into the cave. She walked with Joe, Rita, and Malin at the back of the line. As they passed into the cool darkness, she saw the round chamber at the end. Metal shelves were set against the walls, some of them still containing bits of junk, trash, and MRE wrappers.
Golf moved to the metal shelves at the back of the room, grabbed the end of one shelf with both hands, and pulled. The shelves swung away, as if on hinges, with a section of the smooth rock wall itself, revealing a wide alcove behind it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Elna said. “This was hidden here the whole time?”
“I guess we didn’t look carefully enough the last time we were in here,” Malin said.
A door at the end of the alcove had a large L-shaped handle with an older-style keypad beside it. Golf lightly brushed his bandaged face with his hands, then began punching in numbers. The code was at least twenty characters long, but when he finally finished, he twisted the handle, and the door gave a big whoosh of air. He pulled it open, revealing a long hallway that seemed to spiral down underground. Lights flickered and came to life in the upper corners of the hallway, revealing dusty metal walls and cobwebs hanging from a rusted ceiling.
The sight of so many electric lights shining, even if they were faint and flickering, made Elna’s breath hitch in her throat. In front of her, Norman pressed his hands to his cheeks. Seeing electricity on the island again was surreal.
“Good job, Golf,” Prig said, clapping his fellow Marine on the shoulder. “I knew you’d get us in.”
Prig and Golf led the way down the descending passageway. It twisted around and sank down under the base itself, moving ultimately in the general direction of the lighthouse. Elna saw small vents high on the walls and heard fans clanking in their cases.
“How is there still power down here?” Malin asked.
“Generators must still have fuel,” Elna replied, “and I guess this place was shielded from the EMP. Does this mean people have been sneaking onto the island over the years to maintain the place? That’s a bit alarming.”
The twisting passage ended suddenly at a second door with a keypad. Golf entered an even more absurdly long code—it took a good ten seconds to type all of the numbers--and opened the door. It opened this time into a large interior space with hallways, doors, rooms, tables—practically an entire base underground. When it was Elna’s turn to pass through the door, she felt cool, recycled air pass over her. Danny and Chloe immediately went dashing about with Sniffy.
“Watch where you’re going, kids,” Prig said. “I can’t guarantee it’s safe down here, and I have no idea what they’ve got stashed in these rooms.”
Mac parked the handcart against one wall and set Ant’s cot down beside it. Cat was lowered onto the ground nearby. Then Prig, Spence, Fish, and Golf headed for a long hallway on the far side of the room. There were doors, some open and some closed, on all sides. A couple of tables sat in the middle of the room surrounded by folding metal chairs. Joe and Rita made their way over to the table, brushed off some of the dust, and sat down together.
“Shall we take a look around?” Malin asked Elna.
“I suppose we should,” Elna said. In truth, she was having trouble accepting the existence of this place. How had they never known about it? Her father had bought the island from the government, but the military had never entirely relinquished the place. She felt strangely violated by this fact, and it made it difficult to concentrate on what they were doing.
Elna chose a door at random and headed toward it. When she opened the door, she saw a long barracks room with bunk beds lining the walls on either side. Though there were no blankets or pillows, the thin mattresses appeared to be in good shape.
“People have definitely stayed in this place from time to time since my father bought the island,” she said. “They must’ve been moving back and forth right under our noses.”
She crossed the barracks to another room and found the lavatory, with a row of toilets, sinks, and mirrors on the wall. She caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors and didn’t like what she saw. Pale and haggard, dark circles around her eyes. Her long, black hair desperately needed conditioner, and her clothes were rumpled to an absurd degree.
I guess I really do look like a high school science teacher, she thought. A science teacher at a poorly funded, crappy school.
“You figure these toilets flush right into the ocean?” Malin asked, patting one of the tanks. “They can’t have a real sewer system.”
“I don’t know.” Elna started back through the barracks room. “This is extensive, Malin. This place is huge. I can’t wrap my head around it. This is our island. We bought it fair and square, the whole thing.”
Shaking her head, she moved out of the barracks room and started down a hallway. She passed a large kitchen area, a room full of shower stalls, and finally some kind of common area that had a bunch of card tables lined up in the middle. She found most of the others here. Norman was picking through books on a shelf, while Raymond idly played with some dusty dominoes that had been left on a table.
“We found games,” Daniel Cabello said. He was picking over a shelf stacked with board games in the far corner. “Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee…ooh, Scrabble.”
“They have puzzles,” Chloe said. She grabbed a cat puzzle and brought it over to a table where Miriam was sitting. Sniffy dutifully followed her. The little dog seemed to have glued itself to the little girl’s side. “I want to do a puzzle! Sniffy can do the puzzle with us.”
Elna noted a pile of snacks on the table in front of Miriam. Various kinds of crackers in small pouches. When she picked one up to examine it, Raymond said, “Lots of food in the kitchen. MREs mostly, and other things.”
“It’s like they were keeping this place ready,” Elna said, “like they knew what was coming.”
She tossed the crackers back onto the table and headed back the way she’d come. She wasn’t in the mood to read
a book, play a game, or enjoy a tasty snack. However, when she returned to the first room, she mentioned these things to Joe and Rita.
“You might be more comfortable down the hall with the others,” she said.
“I wouldn’t mind putting together a puzzle to pass the time,” Rita said, rising from her seat.
Elna and Malin continued to explore the facility. They came upon most of the Marines in a dim room on the far side. This room was lined with large consoles and a bunch of electronic equipment that Elna didn’t recognize. Prig had a checklist that he was reading, and as he did, Golf turned various knobs, or tapped on the keyboard, or checked various screens. Fish was sitting at another console, and he seemed to be doing some work on the wiring behind a panel.
Elna stood in the door and watched them for a minute. Finally, Prig noticed her and said, “We’re just getting everything set up in here. This is the control room for the comm system. You probably don’t want to be in here, ma’am.”
He was all business now. They all were. Serious expressions everywhere. Elna and Malin excused themselves and shut the door as they left. When she arrived in the entry room, she saw Dr. Ruzka creating a makeshift treatment area in the barracks room. Ant and Cat were laid side by side in bunks, and the doctor was setting up medical supplies in careful rows on a table she’d dragged into the room.
It’s amazing how quickly they’re all acclimating to this strange place, she thought.
Her gaze went to the bunker door. They’d left it ajar for the time being, in case George and Selene came along. But would they know how to find it? They hadn’t left any signs marking the way.
“All of the others have settled in,” Elna told Malin. “I’m going to head back up and look for my father.”
“Are you sure about that?” Malin replied.
“Yeah, someone needs to keep an eye out for them,” she said. “Otherwise, they won’t know where to find us.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She headed to the barracks door, but someone made a kind of loud clicking sound from the barracks room. When she turned, she saw the Marine, Cat, gesturing at her.
“No need to go back up,” Cat said. “Check the cameras.”
“What cameras?” Elna asked.
“Golf says there are cameras hidden all over the island,” Cat said. “The surveillance room should be somewhere near the control room. If they’re headed this way, you should be able to spot them.”
“Cameras.” Elna said the word numbly. Cameras all over the island. A surveillance room!
She realized after a couple of seconds that she was just staring at Cat, so she forced herself to turn away. Cameras all over the island. The words gradually sank in.
“I don’t think it’s a big secret or anything,” Cat said, “but now you know. Prig can bite my head off later if I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I just thought I’d save you some time.”
“Thanks,” Elna said. Her eyes were flitting about the room, and now, what had seemed strange began to feel ominous, intrusive, scary.
Have they been watching us all this time?
But, no, that made no sense. Surely, the military hadn’t been conducting surveillance on a small, family-owned vineyard. No, this was about something else, something bigger.
Something that was coming to the island at that very moment.
20
“Come on. I’ll show you.” Despite the doctor’s protests, Cat rose from her bed and hobbled toward Elna. “You look freaked out. It’s no big deal, okay? They didn’t have cameras in your bathroom. They were planted on the island because this is a surveillance station for watching the West Coast, okay? No big deal.”
“No big deal,” Elna replied. Somehow, she didn’t feel it.
Cat was a big woman, and as she drew near, Elna felt like she was shrinking before her. She had a chiseled face, flinty eyes, and a perpetual scowl that could eat through a wall. Though her words were clearly meant to be comforting, they came out like barked orders. She grabbed Elna by the shoulder, giving her a little shake, as a coach might do before sending a player onto the field.
“Hey, you’ve got a thousand-yard stare,” Cat said. “What’s the deal? The real trouble hasn’t even started, and you look like you’re already halfway checked out.”
“No, it’s not that,” Elna said. “I’m just a little overwhelmed at all of this.” She gestured at the bunker around them. “I grew up on this island and never suspected something like this was right beneath my feet.”
“You think you’re the first people who had the government messing around on their private property without telling them?” Cat asked. “Look, we all get messed with one way or another by Uncle Sam, but we just have to deal with it, right?” She gave a big, exaggerated shrug. “You’ve got a secret government bunker on your island, I’ve got a bullet wound in my hip. There we go. We both have to suck it up and get ready for what’s coming.”
Cat’s little speech, bordering on silly, nevertheless had the right effect on Elna. Just deal with it. Of course. She took a deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out slowly. Much of the shock and strangeness went with it.
“You’re right,” she said. “Thanks for talking sense to me. Show me the camera room, please.”
“Follow me,” Cat said, limping across the room toward the short hallway that led to the control room.
Dr. Ruzka shouted at them from the barracks room. “Don’t walk too much on that bad hip! It needs to heal!”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Doc,” Cat replied, waving a hand at her.
Elna and Malin followed Cat down the short hall to a door near the back. She shouldered it open, revealing a space little bigger than a closet with a couple of chairs in front of a bank of old CRT screens. A single fluorescent light flickered from the ceiling. Cat eased herself down into one of the chairs and patted the other one.
“Let’s turn these on and see what’s going on around here,” she said, flicking a row of switches.
As Elna sat down beside her, she heard the faint, high whine of the old screens warming up. Malin stood behind them, though there was barely enough room between the backs of the chairs and the wall. As the images appeared, Elna’s sense of disquiet returned. She saw views of places all over the island that she recognized: the fishing dock from a high view, the causeway somewhere close to the vineyard sign, the lighthouse, the rocky western shore of the island, and so many more places.
“Where the heck are all of these cameras?” she said.
“High in trees, from the look of it,” Cat replied, wincing as she leaned back in her chair. “Inside fake rocks. All over the place. The government spooks are pretty good at hiding cameras. Hey, we didn’t do this. This is probably NSA work.”
“Private property doesn’t seem to mean much to them,” Malin noted. He sounded more upset than freaked out.
“You just figured that out?” Cat said with a little bark of a laugh. “We’re all in it now, friend. Let’s stop whining and have a look for your friends.” She swept her hand at the row of cameras. “Look real close.”
Elna leaned forward and began to study the screens. Unfortunately, they weren’t high-resolution images. She saw trees swaying in the wind, waves crashing against rocks, island birds flitting about, a small fox rushing up the dirt road. On another screen, she saw the back of the guesthouse. Somehow, this seemed more invasive than anything else, and she fought a moment of rage.
Stay on task, she told herself.
Sudden movement on one of the screens caught her attention. The camera was pointed down a hill toward a rocky shoreline somewhere on the west side of the island, but a small pale object had moved into a corner of the screen. It was some kind of small military patrol boat. It swept right up to the rocks and came to a stop, and armed men began piling out of it. They were dressed all in black, with black hats and black tactical vests. Each bore a rifle, and some had packs. As they stepped among the rocks, they began to fan out along the s
hore in pairs, moving in what was clearly a coordinated effort. Elna counted a dozen of them.
“These are not militiamen,” she said.
Cat leaned forward in her seat, her dark eyes getting wider and wider. “No, these guys are worse. Mercs. My guess is they anchored the big schooner out at sea somewhere and used a smaller boat to come ashore. I’d better tell the staff sergeant.” She pushed herself out of her chair with a loud groan and hobbled out of the room.
Seeing these strange men marching onto the island filled Elna was an icy dread. This was worse than the bunker, worse than the cameras. This was a real invasion. The men moved with purpose, a well-coordinated group. She tracked some of the groups from screen to screen.
“They seem to be looking for something,” Malin noted.
“Yeah, us,” Elna replied.
As the soldiers fanned out in pairs, they seemed to be looking low, peeking behind trees and rocks. They were like men on a treasure hunt, as if they thought pirate treasure had been buried somewhere on the island.
Prig, Spence, Fish, and Cat all appeared then, trying to crowd into the room but mostly getting jammed together in the open door. Prig pushed past the others and leaned in close to the screens, moving back and forth.
“What are they looking for?” Elna asked.
“This place,” Prig replied, making a little spinning motion over his head. His demeanor had changed. The glint, the slight smile, all gone. He was severe and sharp-eyed, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Something about his answer bothered Elna, but it took her a second to articulate it. “They’re looking for this place…why, exactly? So they can use your communication equipment for some reason? Why would an armed group like this—mercenaries—raid an island to get into the communications room?”
She stared hard at Prig. He didn’t answer, his blank gaze fixed on the screens. However, Elna thought the other Marines looked suddenly uncomfortable. Spence was fiddling with an empty Mentos wrapper, twisting it around his fingers until it ripped in two.
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 64
