“We might have to wait a little bit,” Raymond replied, patting his son.
For the moment, all seemed quiet outside the bunker. Maybe the commander had run out of rockets. Maybe he was taking time to consider his next move. But the air in the room was dusty, and Elna was tense. She didn’t like the idea of waiting.
“We have to do something about that guy,” she said to Cat. “Aren’t there other ways out of this bunker?”
“There were,” Cat said. “We brought down the only corridor that connected them. This is now our only way in or out.” She nodded at the bunker door.
“And what if that mercenary ends up blocking it by bringing the cave down?” Elna said.
Cat shrugged one shoulder. “Then we dig our way out, I guess.”
“I’m not…” Elna’s nerves were so on edge she couldn’t think straight. After all she’d been through already that day, standing in the bunker and waiting while a madman tried to blast his way in was just too much to ask. She turned to Malin, but he was looking at her with a little frown on his face, as if he was more concerned for her than the bunker itself.
Finally, Elna trudged back across the room and down the hall to the control room. The door was ajar, and she pushed it open. Golf was fiddling around in a space behind a panel on the wall as Prig tapped out something on a keyboard. Prig glanced up at her.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Just had to make a few tweaks to get it all up and running. We’re short a few Marines, but the two of us are trying to make up for it.”
“What about Spence and Mac?” she asked. “Any idea what they’re up to?”
“Don’t know,” Prig replied. “Can’t get hold of them.”
“And Chloe? Miriam?” Elna said.
Prig grumbled under his breath. “Best thing they can do now is hide somewhere up there. Elna, we’re doing what we have to do, what’s most important. Got that? Spence and Mac were sent up top to take care of the enemy, and I trust them to do the job. We’re not opening that door.”
She gripped the doorframe and tried to regulate her breathing. She was all nerves and tension, and it was driving her crazy. Taking deep breaths didn’t seem to help. Nothing helped, and her back was killing her.
“That should do it,” Golf said, slamming the panel door shut. “You should be able to reach them now.”
“Good work,” Prig said. He grabbed what appeared to be a small handheld transceiver hard-wired into the console and raised it to his mouth. “Alpha Base, this is Alpha Dog Seven. Bunker is secure but hostiles are present, and we are under attack. I say again, bunker is secure but hostiles are present, and we are under attack. Over.”
He set the transceiver down and waited. After a second, there came a short burst of static and a voice began to speak. It was garbled, buried under mountains of static, but Elna made out the first words: Alpha Base.
Whatever else the person on the other end might have said was lost as the whole bunker suddenly lurched, the floor heaved upward, and a violent gust of dust-choked wind swirled through the bunker. Elna was flung backward, stumbled into the hard, metal wall on the far side of the hallway, and slid down onto the floor. It sounded like every wall and roof panel shrieked at once. Elna heard the islanders shouting, crying out, cursing loudly.
Despite the sudden stab of pain that went from her shoulders down to the small of her back, she rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled toward the main room. Prig had been tossed from his chair, and she saw him out of her corner of her eye as he drew his sidearm and rose.
“What the hell was that?” he growled. The transceiver hung down from the console by its wire, swaying from side to side like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.
“I told you, he’s firing rockets into the cave,” Elna shouted. “What did you think would happen?”
Thick smoke hovered around the bunker door, but even through the smoke Elna saw that the door had buckled. It was bent inward, the massive bolt ripped through the frame. Only the bottom hinge remained intact. Cat had grabbed one of the tables and flipped it on its side, dropping down behind it and pulling Malin down with her.
On the far side of the room, Dr. Ruzka lunged to the clinic door and slammed it shut, hiding most of the islanders and the injured. Elna didn’t know if there was a lock on the door. If not, she could only hope they would jam it somehow. The smoke around the front door was getting thicker, as if smoke from the outer ramp were seeping in.
Elna stumbled back toward the surveillance room, catching herself against the back of a chair and scanning the screens for the clearest view. She spotted the commander standing in the mouth of the cave, his face turned as smoke poured past him. Two other mercenaries had joined him, both of them carrying AK-47s. After a moment, the commander signaled them, and the three men strode into the smoky cave, disappearing from the screen as they headed toward the bunker door.
31
Elna was still staring at the screen when she noticed that a few of the other screens had gone dark. Had the explosion damaged the equipment somehow, breaking the wires that connected them to their respective cameras? She thought so, but one of the mercenaries, a broad beast of a man, turned at the cave entrance and aimed his rifle up high. Just before the screen went dark, Elna realized where he was pointing it.
They’re taking out the cameras, she thought.
They no longer had a view of the back of the guesthouse either, or the back road, or the western shore. She didn’t dare spend time pondering this. The mercenaries headed into the cave. The bunker was breached! It wouldn’t take long for the enemy to make it down the ramp to the inner door.
Elna headed back down the hall. As she did, she saw Prig and Golf bent over the console.
“That last boom knocked out the system,” Prig snarled, grabbing the transceiver and setting it next to the keyboard. “Can you get it back up and running?”
“No idea unless I get into the guts,” Golf replied. He turned to the panel on the wall.
“They’re coming through,” Elna said.
Prig gave her a wild-eyed look and pulled the two-way radio from his pocket. He pressed the talk button and shouted, “Spence, Mac, come in! Where the hell are you guys? You’re supposed to keep these people away.” When he got no response, he tried again. “Spence, Mac? Come in!” Still nothing, so he jammed the radio into his pocket and pushed past Elna. “So much for the traps they set. Those didn’t do any good.” He shouted over his shoulder, “Golf, get the system back up and running! Whatever it takes!”
Elna followed him down the hall to the main room, where Cat and Malin were crouched behind a table in the smoke. Prig beckoned them both.
“Get to the control room,” he said. “We have to hold that room at all costs. I want everyone inside that room, ready to defend it. Go!” Then he turned to Elna. “Get the others. We’re packing them all into that control room and sealing the door as best we can. I won’t let the mercs take anyone hostage. Hurry!”
He was barking orders at her like she was a Marine. Elna wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended, but she didn’t want to waste time arguing the point. The control room didn’t seem like the best place for a last stand, but there wasn’t time to figure out a better plan. She rushed to the barracks room and pounded on the door.
“Open up, guys,” she shouted.
After a second, the door cracked open and Raymond peered out. Behind him, other people in the room were whimpering, whispering, even crying. Elna pushed the door open so she could see everyone.
“We’re relocating to the control room,” she said. “That means everyone. It’s where we make a last stand.”
“Last stand,” Rita Dulles wailed from the end of the room. “Can’t we just face them here in our own way?”
“No,” Elna barked. Her father was awake, sitting up on his bed. Apparently, the last explosion had finally roused him. Elna went to his side, put her arm around him, and pulled him to his feet. This caused another wave of agon
y to go down her back, and for a second she swooned.
“I’ve got him,” Malin said. He’d come up behind her, and he put his arms around George Pasqualee. “Come on, Pop. We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“And I was having such a nice dream,” Pop said. He didn’t resist when Malin laid him over his shoulder and carried him to the door. “Dreamed the new grapes had come in. But I wake up to the whole world exploding.”
The doctor and Selene started to protest as Cat approached the injured Marine, but she ignored them. Sliding her arms under Ant, she picked him up, carrying him like he was a little kid. Elna made a big sweeping gesture with her arms.
“Everyone, follow them,” she called. “Hurry! We have minutes, seconds. Get out of here, for God’s sake. Go!”
Joe and Rita were up. Joe had his wife’s hand and was pulling her along as she reluctantly followed. Elna was tempted to try to pick them both up and carry them as well, but she thought it might snap her back like a twig. Raymond, Norman, and Daniel followed Cat out of the room. Selene and Dr. Ruzka paused a moment to pack up some of their medical supplies, then they went, lugging too-full bags.
“Just go,” Elna said. “Hurry. Run. Get into the control room.”
She had to wait until Joe and Rita finally made their way across the room. Backs bent and shuffling along, they took so long that she was tempted to give in to Rita’s preference. If they wanted to stay here, maybe they should stay.
No, we’re all in this together, she thought. I won’t give up on any of our people.
She shuffled them out of the barracks room and pulled the door shut behind her. Sound was coming from the curved ramp beyond the inner door. Voices, metal tapping against metal, heavy footsteps. What were the mercenaries planning out there? Would they charge in, or would they toss an explosive through the crack in the broken door?
Joe and Rita finally managed something faster than a walk, but it was still excruciatingly slow. Elna put a hand against their backs, but she was afraid to push them, lest they topple over like the top half of the lighthouse. Suddenly, Malin came rushing back, having dumped his previous passenger in the control room. He picked up Rita Dulles and bore her away.
“Hurry, Elna,” Malin shouted. “Get in there!”
Joe Dulles stumbled just as he reached the control room door, so Elna grabbed him around the waist. Despite the burst of agony that went all the way down her back, she managed to hoist the old man off his feet and move him into the room. As soon as she did, Prig pushed past her, slammed the door shut, and threw the deadbolt.
The room was chaos, everyone moving about, unsure of what to do. Raymond and Daniel were huddled in a corner, the father trying to comfort his weeping son. Dr. Ruzka and Selene were trying to settle Ant in another corner, setting out their medical supplies and herbs on a nearby table. Golf was stuffed inside the compartment behind the access panel, cursing and banging around as he tried to find the source of the problem. In the midst of the chaos, Pop strode forward, pushing past Norman and Malin as he drew something from his pocket.
“Pop, what are you doing?” Elna asked.
She realized the tool in his hand was a small wine cap punch-down tool, a short stainless-steel rod with a kind of mesh circle on one end. Like most of the doors in the bunker, the handle was an L-shaped rod. Pop wedged the tool under the handle, setting it at an angle against the wall and door.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked.
“Brought it from the house,” he said. “Along with the other stuff. It belonged to your mother. Maybe it’ll keep them out a little longer.”
Norman and Malin then pushed a large locker against the door, using the edge to hold the tool firmly in place.
“That’ll hold them for a while,” Norman said, patting the side of the locker.
“Not if they start firing rockets at the door,” Malin muttered. “At least most of us are armed in here.”
With that, he backed up beside Elna and drew his Beretta, pointing it at the ground. Elna was straining to hear anything from beyond the door. She thought she heard people moving around out there, but it was too muffled, and there was way too much noise in the control room.
“Is their goal to destroy this place or seize control of the comm system?” Elna asked. “It seems like destroying it isn’t going to be all that hard.”
No one answered. Suddenly, Golf gave a little whoop, backed out of the guts of the comm system, and clapped. “I got it. All I had to do was reset the system, but we’re up and running, boss.” He slammed the panel shut and sat down at the console. As Prig came up behind him and set a hand on his shoulder, Golf began typing furiously on the keyboard. Elna could see tiny green text on a screen. “I think we’ve got it, boss. We’re connected to the comm satellite. Heck, we could launch missiles right now, if you wanted. As long as we can keep the enemy from getting in here, we’re good to go.”
Prig turned to address the rest of the room. “Okay, guys, this room is what the mercenaries want. Everything else had led to this. They will try to get in here, no matter what, and I can’t emphasize this enough: the defense of most of the West Coast depends on keeping this system up and running. If the mercenaries manage to get that door open, I need everyone, Marine and civilian alike, to keep them out. Just don’t shoot each other. Aim carefully. With the satellites up and running, we can restore communications across the West Coast, access missile defense, restore network functionality for computer systems. It’s going to be huge, guys, but you have to defend this place at all costs. Got it?”
“Got it, Staff Sergeant,” Norman said, the look on his face more serious than it’s ever been.
“Look, guys, they don’t want this place, or any place like it, to exist,” Prig said. “The whole purpose of all of this, from the EMP on down to our current circumstances, was to plunge the United States back into the Bronze Age and keep us there as long as possible. It was intended to shift the balance of power permanently, but it’ll only work if they can keep us from reestablishing contact with communication satellites. More hinges on the survival of this room than I can possibly explain. Every risk we’ve taken, every life we’ve lost, will have been worth it if we can defend this place and drive the mercenaries out. We’ve called for help, but no one’s going to get here in time to save us from these guys. It’s up to us. Am I making my point?”
“Loud and clear,” Elna said.
Elna, Malin, Norman, and Cat formed a line at an angle in front of the door, each holding a handgun and aiming it the door. Raymond, Daniel, and Pop lined up behind them, like a second line of defense. Elna could feel her heartbeat in her throat. There was no comfortable position. Standing, kneeling, sitting, it all made her back, shoulders, and neck hurt. Everything hurt, so she tried to focus through the pain. Her hands were shaking, and she saw the barrel of the handgun bobbing up and down. The room wasn’t particularly big. The walls were covered in metal panels. It was dimly lit, and the fluorescent bulb overhead was flickering in a way that was disorienting. There were far too many people packed in together.
You couldn’t design a worse place for a gun fight if you tried, she thought.
32
A terrible quiet filled the room, and for almost a full minute the only sounds were the humming of fans from inside the console, the clack of keys as Golf typed on the keyboard, and the occasional grunt or pained breath from the people huddled in the room. Elna tried adjusting her grip on the gun, but she couldn’t stop shaking. Her whole body felt like it was collapsing, and no amount of willpower could force her hands to hold steady.
Finally, she had the idea to kneel and balance her right elbow on her right knee to provide some support. Just then, she heard voices in the hallway beyond the barred door. One voice was deep, like someone pounding on a bass drum. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but a second and third voice answered. Then she heard heavy footfalls on the hall floor.
“You think they’ve figured out the room we’re in
?” Norman asked, speaking so softly Elna barely heard him above the hum of the console cooling fans.
“Just be ready for anything,” Malin replied.
Prig shifted position, placing himself between the door and Golf’s chair, as he drew his own gun and aimed it at the door. Something clanked against the door, and then the deep voice spoke again. This time, Elna made out a few of the words.
“Two charges should be enough.”
The words sank in. “They’re planning to blow it open,” she said.
Prig rose and ran to the door. He put his ear against the wall beside the doorframe and listened for a second. Then he turned suddenly and waved at the others.
“She’s right,” he said. “Take cover!”
Everybody scrambled, but there wasn’t really any way to take cover in the room. The consoles were against the wall. There were a few folding metal chairs and one small table, but no large pieces of furniture. Still, she motioned her father toward the far wall and followed him, moving in a crouch. He huddled against the wall, and she placed herself in front of him. Malin then placed himself in front of her, spreading his arms wide, as if he intended to absorb the impact of the blast. Cat pushed the Dulles into another corner and slid one of the chairs on front of them—it seemed like a futile gesture.
Golf was still typing away, but Prig grabbed his chair and turned it away from the door. Then he planted a hand against the back of Golf’s neck and pushed him down until his face was against his knees. Elna heard more footsteps in the hall. They were retreating.
“Here it comes,” she said, putting her head down.
Just as she said it, the charges went off. A shock wave went through the room, awakening every already agonized nerve ending in her back and shoulders. Despite herself, she screamed, pressing her mouth against the back of her arm to muffle the sound. The big locker against the door did a strange dance and fell away from the door with a crash, and dust and rust filled the air.
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 73
