As he led the others, Tucker checked the feed on his phone from his four-legged partner. The night-vision mode of Kane’s camera showed a bobbling image as the shepherd traversed the maze. A small blinking dot of Kane’s GPS tag marked the dog’s path, slowly building a map of this subterranean system for them.
He watched Kane stop beside a crumpled figure that blocked the tunnel.
Must be the source of the odor.
The shepherd nosed the remains, as if trying to revive the corpse. By Tucker’s estimate, the body lay in the tunnels on the far side of the town square. The scent must have drafted through the tunnels to reach Kane’s nose at the trapdoor in the general store.
He radioed to Kane’s earpiece. “CONTINUE SCOUT.”
Obeying the order, the shepherd backed away and found a side tunnel that led away in another direction. Tucker followed after his partner, tracing the glowing bread crumbs on the slowly extending map.
When they reached the turn that led away from the dead body, Tucker had them all hold. “I’m going to check the remains. Maybe they could give us some clue to what’s going on here.”
Jane came with him, while Frank stayed put, his face awash from the glow of his CUCS unit’s screen.
Leading with a penlight, Tucker found the corpse ten feet down the side tunnel. The upper body was half curled on itself, the lower legs trapped under an old cave-in. The remains appeared mummified, with the skin and muscle dried to bone. From the short, brittle-looking hair, Tucker guessed it was a male. The cargo shorts and red shirt suggested it was likely someone young. A caving helmet lay in the dirt.
“I don’t think we’re going to get any answers here,” Jane said. “The body must’ve been down here for at least a decade.”
He nodded and searched the shorts, finding a wallet, a penknife, and a few crumpled dollars. He studied a faded Arizona driver’s license, showing the smiling face of a collegiate-looking kid.
His name was Kyle Wallace.
“What was he doing down here?” Jane asked behind him.
Tucker found the answer in a laminated card tucked in the wallet. A logo showed what looked like a haunted house, with the initials APEC stamped atop it. Written along the bottom were the words ABANDONED PLACES EXPLORER CLUB. He shook his head. He had heard of such urban explorers who scavenged and searched lost and abandoned places.
“What do you think?” Jane asked.
Tucker sighed. “Wrong time, wrong place.”
It was a soldier’s motto. From his tours in Afghanistan, he knew how fickle fate could be: the misstep that exploded a hidden IED under your feet, the chance turn of the head that ended with a bullet through your skull, a sudden wind shear that crashed your helicopter into a mountainside, and on and on.
Jane reached forward and touched his arm, as if sensing the defeat washing through him. Her warm fingers slid down to his wrist and tugged gently. “Let’s keep going.”
He nodded, but not before pocketing the wallet. He intended to let Kyle’s parents know the fate of their son. They deserved to know, especially as the kid’s death had inadvertently offered them a possible way to escape this trap.
Tucker intended to make sure that death was not wasted.
He and Jane rejoined Frank and set off again, continuing to follow Kane’s lead. As they crossed under another structure, faint voices rose from up ahead. Tucker doused his light and had Frank switch off the glowing screen of his CUCS unit.
Tucker motioned for the others to stop and crept closer to eavesdrop.
A man with a nasally voice echoed from above. “Looks fine to me. Green lights across the board.”
A shift of weight creaked the plank floor. “Are you sure this is the one that was glitching?”
“Unit 417B. That’s what Webster said was the problem.”
“Maybe he got it wrong.”
“Well, I don’t want to be the one to tell him that. Let’s just reboot this damned thing and get our asses out of here. It’s less than fifteen minutes until this party starts. And I don’t intend to be here when that happens.”
“True dat,” the other acknowledged with a harsh laugh.
Tucker mentally calculated and guessed the timetable was set for midnight. As he listened to their muffled movement, he willed them to work faster.
After three or four long minutes, the one with the nasal twang announced, “Fuck it. That oughta do it. Let’s find Webster and haul ass out of here.”
The tread of boots across the floorboards sounded explosively loud.
Tucker waited until he was sure they were gone and called softly to the others. “All clear.”
He got them all moving again.
“What did you hear?” Jane asked.
Tucker used his penlight to check his watch. “I heard that we don’t want to be here at midnight.”
Jane winced. “How much time do—?”
“Nine minutes.”
Frank offered even more bad news. “Rex is picking up two bogies in the air to the east. Another four are rising from those bunkers we spotted earlier.”
“Drones?” Jane asked.
“Big ones.” Frank stared toward the low roof. “Nothin’ I’ve ever seen before.”
Tucker remembered Nora mentioning another class of drone, something called a Warhawk. No matter what was coming, Tucker could guess the mission objective.
To level this place to the ground.
He also knew one other fact.
No way we’re getting clear of here in time.
22
October 22, 11:58 P.M. MDT
White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico
With his penlight clutched between his teeth, Tucker crawled as fast as he could through the tunnels. Frank and Jane wheezed and gasped behind him, struggling to match his pace. In one hand, he clutched his phone, following the electronic trail left by Kane as the shepherd sought an underground path to the far side of the town. In the upper corner of the screen, he watched the seconds on the digital clock winding toward midnight.
Less than a minute to go . . .
“Frank?” he called back, not needing to explain what he wanted.
Frank scrabbled along with his CUCS unit in one hand. “The first two drones are almost on top of us. Rex has tapped into their systems. The drones’ weapons are hot, and an attack pattern is being actively calculated.”
So Tangent was right on schedule.
He swore under his breath, knowing he would never reach Kane in time. They all needed to find the best cover. Overhead, the roof was a series of planks as the tunnel burrowed under the floor of another of the structures. Not good. These buildings were surely the targets, and once the bombardment started, the floorboards would offer no protection. He hurried to clear the structure, to reach the section of the tunnel that ran between the buildings, hoping being underground would offer them the best shelter to weather the coming storm.
“Faster!” he urged the others.
Tucker got them clear of the building behind them and continued deeper.
Frank yelled, “They’re dropping cluster bom—”
Whump!
The earth lurched under Tucker’s knees. He dropped flat to his belly as the concussion rippled through his body. A wash of dust swept up from behind and rolled over them. Coughing, he pushed up and continued deeper into the tunnel. The ground shuddered again with a chest-pounding thump. Tucker got slammed sideways into the wall.
More explosions echoed, coming faster and faster.
He glanced back and saw Frank sheltering Jane, the two huddled close to the floor. With his eyesight swimming, his ears ringing, he pulled his phone close to his nose, checking on the status of their last teammate.
The feed from Kane’s night-vision camera showed the shepherd racing down a dust-choked tunnel, panicked, zigging and zagging. Then a burst of brilliance exploded, burning away the image on the camera’s light-sensitive receptors.
Tucker’s heart clenched into a tight knot.
The image returned a moment later, showing a cascade of dirt falling over the camera lens like a shroud—then only darkness.
Kane . . .
Kane breathes dust as the tunnel collapses around him. He flees blindly as the wall of dirt chases him, trying to swallow him up.
All his senses have been overwhelmed. The fiery flash had turned his vision into a red glare. The explosion had set his ears to ringing, followed by a dull deafness now. Sand and smoke clog his nose, stripping him of the trails of night breezes and mice spoor that had led him through the darkness earlier.
His world now is only panted breath and the burn of muscles.
Then a heavy weight strikes his hindquarter, crushing his legs down, sprawling him forward onto his chest. More of the roof falls over him, riding over his body. He claws with his front paws, gouging nails into the dirt. He drags his body forward, an inch, then another, trying to break free.
But he is too slow, too exhausted.
More dirt buries his hips, his back, his chest.
Still, he struggles, gasping his fear.
A wave of sand and dirt rolls over his shoulders. He howls through the darkness. Then more of the world closes over his neck and head, burying him to silence. A heave of his chest only finds dirt. He writhes, but only traps himself further.
He howls again—but only inside, casting out one last plea for help.
Tucker reached the trapdoor in the next structure and stood up, his forearms braced on the trembling dirt walls. He had left Jane and Frank in the insulated section of the tunnel between the last two buildings. From the digital map built by Kane’s GPS, he pinpointed his partner’s last position, but the building above had been struck by one of the drone’s cluster bombs, shattering half its structure and demolishing the tunnel on the far side.
The only way to reach Kane now was across the open battlefield.
But the detonations were coming faster, every few seconds, sometimes above his head, sometimes far enough away that he heard only the muffled detonation through the dirt ceiling.
He stared up.
As bad as it was down in here, aboveground would be worse. The structures of White City would offer no protection against the bombardment.
Still, he didn’t hesitate.
He reached up, placed his palms against the hatch, and pushed. Debris rained down on him. He closed his eyes and kept shoving, straining. With a crack, the trapdoor popped free. He pushed it aside, grabbed the edges with both hands, and vaulted himself out onto the floorboards.
Crouched low, he looked around. He had emerged into one of the bungalow homes—or what was left of it. One corner of the roof had caved in, and the back half of the structure was nothing more than splintered studs. Through the gaping hole in the wall, he saw a line of basketball-sized craters.
As he watched, fire and dirt erupted from the neighboring home, shattering wood high into the air. The bass note of the explosion pounded his ears.
He ignored the danger and checked his phone to orient himself. Kane’s last position was beneath a bungalow two doors away on his left.
Tucker turned in that direction and rushed to the front doorway. He creaked it open enough to check the night skies. He heard the buzz of drone engines, but they sounded like they were coming from every direction.
He flashed back to the hunt through the Alabama swamp, which pushed his heart into his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against a numbing panic.
Put it away . . . stay on point.
As he opened his eyes, a black-winged shape swept down the street before him, unnervingly quiet. Even this close, its stealthy passage rippled the air, making it appear to be a ghostly mirage. Tucker felt his skin prickle with goose bumps, knowing what glided silently past him.
A Warhawk.
As he watched, it banked away to the right. A moment later, a series of explosions blasted in that direction, leveling more of the town. A hailstorm of shrapnel rained down over the bungalow.
Tucker shook away the palpable terror at the sight of that war machine.
Now or never.
He burst out the door, leaped the porch steps, and hit the ground running. He sprinted across the street, vaulted over the picket fence of the next house, and veered to the backyard. He didn’t slow, aiming for the rear of the next bungalow. The place was in even worse shape than the one he had abandoned. It was just a section of roof balanced on a couple of walls.
He hurdled the shattered remains of its porch and skirted through a blast-damaged section of wall. Once inside, he searched the floorboards.
Where the hell is the trapdoor?
The others had been in the structures’ corners. He checked the nearest one and found nothing. But in the second corner, he found the hatch—but it was half pinned under a collapsed section of wall. He stomped on the remaining exposed boards, shattering the slats under his boot heel. He then knelt down and clawed the pieces away, ripping his palms and fingertips to bloody shreds.
Come on . . . come on . . .
Once he had enough cleared, he jumped feetfirst into the shaft, then bent forward and crawled into the darkness. He clicked on his penlight and danced its beam across the walls and ceiling. In a white-knuckled grip, he kept one eye on his phone’s screen, working his way to the last glowing bread crumb left by Kane.
He followed the tunnel to where it ended.
A wall of dirt and splintered wood filled the passage.
He reached it and started digging, yanking pieces of broken rafters. He pictured the skeletal remains of the young explorer, terrified that Kane would suffer the same fate.
As bombs continued to rain down upon the town above, he clawed and fought, tears blurring his vision.
Don’t leave me, buddy . . .
Then his fingertip brushed over something furry.
A paw.
He scrabbled faster, clearing away more and more of the obstruction. Dirt fell over his own shoulders as he labored. He finally reached Kane’s face. The dog’s eyes were half open, caked with dirt. No breath moved the dust in the air.
I’m too late.
As more tears wet Tucker’s cheeks and choked him with grief, he still tore at the dirt. His fingers caught the edge of Kane’s vest and curled into the Kevlar-reinforced straps. Bracing his legs, using both arms, he dragged Kane’s body out of the debris. Tucker fell onto his back and pulled the limp form over his chest, hugging his friend.
I can’t . . .
Tucker didn’t know what he was refusing, but he squirmed farther back and rolled Kane alongside him. He brushed dirt from his friend’s nose and clutched his muzzle and heaved air through those cold nostrils, feeling Kane’s chest rise and fall. With Tucker’s fingers ripped and numb, he had no way of checking for a pulse, no room in the cramped tunnel for cardiac compressions.
More concussions echoed down from above, raining dirt over their forms, but Tucker didn’t care. He simply held on to his friend, side by side, forcing breath into Kane.
He took in another chest full of air—only to be met by a faint whine from Kane, almost like a complaint.
“Buddy,” Tucker whispered in his ear.
Kane stirred, his eyes blinking away the caked grime, paws weakly batting at Tucker’s chest. Tucker rubbed his partner all over, digging fingers deep into the dog’s ruff, his lips whispering reassurance, more sound than words.
Then finally a warm tongue licked the inside of his wrist.
Eyes stared back at Tucker, reflecting the meager light.
“Who’s my good boy?” Tucker asked.
Kane leaned forward and touched his nose to Tucker’s.
“That’s right, you are.”
12:22 A.M.
Hauling Kane in a fireman’s carry, Tucker retraced his steps back to the first bungalow. After emerging from the tunnels, he had waited for a few breaths, noting that the squadron of wedge-shaped Warhawks had seemed to turn their deadly attention toward the cluster of Soviet equipment pa
rked on the other side of town.
As explosions echoed from over there, casting up swirling plumes of fiery smoke, Tucker hurried across the blasted ruins of the town to rejoin the others. He didn’t know how long this lull would last.
Once at the bungalow, he called down for Frank and Jane to join him. As he waited, he lowered Kane to his paws and examined the shepherd’s body more thoroughly. There appeared to be no broken bones, and Kane’s thick fur and reinforced vest had protected the dog from all but a few scrapes and cuts. As if irritated by the exam, Kane shook his coat. Still, the shepherd kept close to Tucker’s leg, plainly needing the reassurance of his close company.
Tucker felt the same way and rested a palm on Kane’s flank.
Frank and Jane climbed through the trapdoor. They were covered head to toe in dirt and dust. Once free, Jane hurried forward and hugged Tucker.
“Thank God . . .” she whispered in his ear.
He returned the affection and would have happily stayed in her arms, but they were not out of danger. He broke free of their embrace, letting Jane greet Kane, and turned his attention to Frank.
“Any success?” Tucker asked him.
“I think so, but I’d be happier if Nora were here to double-check my homework. She knows far more about these drones than I do.”
“I’m sure you did fine.”
Before leaving to find Kane, Tucker had tasked Frank to try to use Rex as a Trojan Horse in order to sneak code into the squadron of drones. Back in Alabama, the CUCS unit had shielded Tucker and Kane from the Shrike’s targeting sights. He had hoped they could use Rex to achieve the same result, to create a blank spot in the drones’ surveillance net, a hole through which they might escape.
Even with that protection, getting out of here would be risky.
As if reading Tucker’s mind, Frank offered a thin smile. “I was also able to figure something else out.”
“What?”
“Rex hacked into and got hold of one of the Warhawks’ targeting cues.”
War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel Page 22
