The base commander turned away from the vice president and saw Eddie staring at the tent wall. “Problem Major?”
Eddie grunted. “No.” He stood up. “No problem.” They escorted the prisoner out towards the waiting chopper.
Eddie and his men climbed into the helicopter with the vice president right before 2 p.m., expecting to be sent back down to Denver. A giant snowstorm was heading east down the Rocky Mountain corridor but they easily could have made it. Instead, for some reason, they were rerouted to the base at the top of Trail Ridge Road for the night. “Orders,” was all the pilot would say. Orders? Whose? As they climbed through the sky to the Alpine Visitor Center, Eddie looked into the vice president’s eyes. He wanted to ask him who had visited him in the tent, but there were too many ears around. Eddie would wait for a more private moment.
--------------------
The storm was massive. It expanded up both sides of the mountain corridor, down to Pike’s Peak and up to Estes Park and beyond. It dumped a foot of snow per hour for the first three hours and then several inches each hour after. Danny wanted to sit it out and make sure the helicopter was gone, but he also knew the vice president’s little girl was locked under a storage closet in a freezing cold building. There was a short way and a long way to the Stanley Hotel. The short way was eight miles along the highway, which they’d never be able to walk without a snowplow. The slightly longer way was almost twice as difficult with a steeper off-road climb across the face of Bighorn Mountain followed by a descent down the Black Canyon. They didn’t make snowplows for that terrain. Danny had initially planned on going the long way each way to maintain some kind of cover, but the blizzard had changed his plans. Try walking eighteen miles through six feet of snow. Now, if the snowplow didn’t clear the shorter way, they’d have to move the white truck we’d hidden in the woods to make it to town. Once they did that, there would be no driving it back.
The snowplow came through before 10 p.m.. It seemed we’d lucked out. Again. The snowplow drove all the way down to the camp, then turned around and drove all the way back. By the time it returned, Danny, Cameron, Blake, and Hayley were crouched under the bridge near our cave. As the plow reached the intersection with the main road, for the first time ever it didn’t turn. Instead it went straight, shortening the route to the hotel from eight miles to seven. Danny and the others would be grateful for that unexpected deviation. I saw the four of them emerge from under the bridge and begin running up the road after the snowplow.
It was pitch black out—no moon tonight—and freezing cold. Thank God for extra layers and thick ski masks. The cold wasn’t keeping the wildlife indoors, though. Skunks, deer, elk, coyotes, rabbits, and raccoons cut across the road in front of the rescuers, and every one they saw freaked them out a little. It took them almost two hours to cover the seven miles to the Stanley Hotel, and when they arrived it, too, was a snow-covered pile of burnt rubble. The white, castle-like, Georgian-style structure used to tower above Estes Park. It had a well-documented history as the area’s “haunted house” with a “King” suite in room 217—the inspiration for Steven King’s novel The Shining—several other “ghost suites,” and even its own on-site psychic, Madame Vera.
Monday, November 30, 2020.
Estes Park, Colorado.
They circled the rubble, careful to avoid the bright lights illuminating the main entrance, and searched in the darkness for any kind of side entry to get them to the lower level. It was a nearly impossible quest in these blizzard conditions. After about an hour of searching and poking around in the deep snow, Blake stumbled upon a pile of bricks with a sizeable gap in it. The pile turned out to be a staircase, but excavating it was a tedious process. The deeper they dug the tighter the gap became and the rubble became more and more unstable. Knowing this may be their only way in they took their time carefully removing bricks and boards out of the stairwell until they could all safely squeeze through. They’d already lost another hour. It was almost 2:30 a.m.
When they reached the bottom level, Danny and Cameron pulled out their military flashlights, and the other two followed them through the lower floor of the building, which was amazingly intact. The walls were charred, but the structure was almost totally made of concrete and had held up well in the blazing fires. Hayley found the supply closet, after another half-hour of searching, and whistled for them to join her.
It was freezing cold on the lower level, and they were afraid of what they were going to find below the closet floor. It didn’t seem likely the little girl could have survived the night in this place. There were four shelving units in the storage closet, and they tried to move them, but not a single one would budge. They appeared to be anchored into the wall.
A closer inspection of the cabinets revealed them to be clothes lockers of some sort with nameplates of famous authors on each door. Hayley again figured out the puzzle. Opening the door with a nameplate for C. S. Lewis—the only non-American—she moved the uniforms out of the way, revealing a panel with a digital keypad. She typed in the letters N-A-R-N-I-A, and there was an audible click. Who said you don’t learn anything useful in school? She was then able to slide the back panel of the wardrobe aside. They found a hole in the wall behind it with a ladder going down into the floor.
Hayley pulled off her ski mask so she could see better and climbed down the ladder first. The others waited for her to tell them what was down there, but she didn’t respond to their questions, so Cameron climbed down next. Danny was standing watch at the door, but he kept looking back to see what was going on. He motioned, irritated, for Blake to go tell Cameron and Hayley to hurry up. Blake flipped his mask up and climbed down the ladder. A few minutes later Danny was beyond worried. How big was that room? Could they not find the girl? Why hadn’t any of them come back up? Maybe there were more tunnels under there. With three of them down there and no one replying, he knew something was wrong. But the vice president had specifically told him to come get her here.
Danny’s options were limited. Dropping a stun grenade in the hole could do major damage to everyone down there. He couldn’t start shooting either, nor could he leave them there. He called down, but no one answered, so he stepped into the closet and peered into the dark hole. Even with his night vision goggles on he couldn’t see anything. Reluctantly, he too took off his facemask and descended the ladder. A light suddenly came on, momentarily blinding him. He flipped his night vision off quickly, but too late. He was introduced to the cold steel of a gun barrel against the back of his head. Crap.
FIFTY-FOUR: “Guard Down”
Following orders from the voice behind him, Danny stood still while he was disarmed, and his eyes took in the room. There were four men in suits—a little out of place in this setting—all armed and none wearing a smile. A girl was asleep in a bed in the corner next to a generator that powered a heater of some sort, a low-voltage light, and a wall covered with about twenty monitors. Only two screens were on. One camera showed the room above them, and the other was in the hallway outside the storage closet. It seemed possible they were the only two still operational, which would explain why all the others were off.
Adjacent to the monitor wall was a large control panel covered with all kinds of stickers. Danny couldn’t read what the stickers said, but this was probably the room that made the Stanley Hotel “haunted,” and it also seemed to serve as some form of security bunker.
The man with the gun to Danny’s head finally addressed them. “You are clearly Americans, so we don’t want to kill you. But you damn well better have a code if you’re down here.” The code.
“A76845B940,” Danny recited from memory as Hayley, Blake and Cameron looked at him quizzically.
“Are you sure?” The man behind him asked.
“If that’s wrong, you can check my forearm,” Danny answered through gritted teeth. “It’s on there too.”
The man lowered his gun. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Protocol. You were right the first time.”
The other man nodded, shaking Danny’s hand and introducing himself as Agent Adams. “We were assigned to the vice president but…”
“But what?”
“Allow me to speak freely here, sir,” he asked, and Danny nodded, sure he was outranked anyway. “The bastard tricked us. He was under direct orders not to go after his daughters, which you evidently know he did.” Clearly Adams was more than a little upset, but then their guardian responsibility had been huge. “He is the last known government official in America—unofficially the new president. He has the codes to access NORAD, and is the only American outside of Hawaii who knows how to drop the island’s defensive shield. We know Air Force One went down north of Maine, over Prince Edward Island, with the President on Board. If he’s dead, as we suspect he is, then the enemy knows how valuable Vice President Moore is. They know the info he has. Orders from NORAD were specifically to keep him under lock and key. I’m sure now you can understand why.”
“But—” Cameron spoke up as he and the other two were given their weapons back.
“He snuck out the back entrance.” Another agent, Walker, cut him off, anticipating his question.
“Snuck?” Danny asked. “And what shield are you referring to?”
“Moore is an ex-Marine from the Special Operations Command group,” Adams explained. “He was up the tunnel with Agent Smith and put him in a chokehold until he passed out. The guy is one tough SOB. You met him. I’m sure you could tell.”
No doubt. Danny thought. “So there are still people at NORAD?”
“Well, not actually NORAD,” Adams continued. “The orders came from Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD’s defensive retreat. And then we haven’t heard anything else since. They could all be dead too now, for all we know.”
“There’s a back entrance to this place?” Hayley asked.
“Yes. Well, there was. It is no longer operational. It connects to the Presidential Suite—or did,” another of the men, Agent Deere, volunteered.
“Okay so—” Cameron jumped back in but was again cut off, this time by Danny.
“Hang on, Cam.” Danny held up his hand. “Can you tell us about the shield?”
Agent Adams shrugged. “Sure. All the way back to the Pearl Harbor attacks, Hawaii has been kind of the key to every continent for everyone, military and trade. It’s close to Australia, close to Asia, close to both of the Americas. Our Navy intelligence office is there, and the Marines have an intelligence branch there too. Our second biggest Air Force base is there, and they essentially have another Pentagon in Hawaii.” Danny knew all of this already.
“Anyway, with so many defense secrets and our most advanced weaponry all in one place, the government invested billions in protecting it, most of our national defense budget in fact in the past few years. There’s a perimeter ‘fence,’ so to speak, kind of like those invisible dog fences, that destroys anything coming within a ten-mile radius of any of the islands when it’s activated…a laser grid if you will. Supposedly, it’s impossible to penetrate, but there are rocket launchers set up around the islands in case any planes, boats, or missiles did miraculously get through.” Adams looked around to make sure we were all following.
“That’s the shield?” Danny asked.
“Yes and no,” Adams replied. “That’s above ground. All the engineers and rocket scientists who left NASA years ago have been developing a surface-level barrier for protection against tsunamis as well. From what I understand, there’s a reef-like wall that can rise up out of the water and slow or even deter an approaching wall of water up to forty or fifty feet, or so. Whether it stays up or is just fired up to counter whatever is coming, I don’t know, but I’ve heard it’s incredible. The wall stimulates a controlled wave in the opposite direction to counteract the tsunami. It could foreseeably be used for other defensive purposes as well.”
“How long have they had that?” Danny was thinking back to the tsunami a couple years ago that had flooded the islands.
“Well, it’s been in development for nearly a decade now.” Adams replied. “It malfunctioned a few years ago. Who knows if, or how well, it actually works now. It does have to be activated. But then it could have been. We don’t know. Hawaii was hit in this too, but last we heard it’s at least still ours, so if that’s where you’re headed, you still have a chance.”
“Yeah,” Danny replied. “We intercepted a radio message in Minnesota…” His voice trailed off as he saw the agents nodding knowingly.
“Military vet in Montana,” Walker said solemnly. “We think they got him. He was one of ours, stationed at Moore’s private island.”
Everyone was quiet for a minute. Who knows how many people the Montana man had saved. This all was a ton of information to take in.
Hayley tried to perk everyone back up. “I can’t stop envisioning a dome over Hawaii like that Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show,” she smiled. Danny was imagining the same thing too.
“Sure,” Adams laughed. “I guess it could be kind of like that, except this shield-slash-dome isn’t a permanent structure, and it’s a lot bigger. It covers all the islands.” Adams continued, “The United States never wanted to get caught with their pants down again after Pearl Harbor. Not against humans. And not against Mother Nature either. This all was supposed to assure that.” He shook his head. “We just can’t fathom how the bastards pulled all of this off.”
Agent Smith cleared his throat. “Can I ask, is Moore still alive?”
Danny nodded. “Far as I know.”
“You must have seen him in person?” Adams asked.
Danny nodded again. “Why did you guys let him go when he brought his daughter back?”
“We didn’t,” Agent Walker replied. “Moore brought her down the main entry stairs and left her in the hallway. Then he turned and ran. We feared he was dead. But by the time we got up there, he was gone.” Walker paused. “He looked like he was hurt bad though.”
“He’d been shot,” Danny confirmed. “Probably more than once.”
“Can I ask a question yet?” Cameron raised his hand.
Danny looked at him quizzically. “Go ahead.”
“Is there any chance all your first names are John?” Cameron asked, and everyone stared, bewildered, at him.
“What the—?” Danny asked, as two of the men shook their heads no.
“Never mind.” Cameron sighed. “It would have made sense before.” Danny was still staring at him. Could he have picked a worse time for a dumber question?
“If I may?” Adams spoke up. “I get that you found Moore, you talked to him in person, and he even gave you the code to come pick up his daughter. But where does he want you to take her? And did he give you anything else? Or say anything else?”
Danny thought about what the Vice President had told him and what he should share. He considered asking them about the Elephant Box Moore had mentioned, but decided against it. “Sorry, guys. I really can’t say anything. You know how it goes. I can’t tell you any of what I know or how I even know it. There’s too much at stake right now. You’re welcome to come with us though—”
The words had barely left Danny’s mouth when Hayley cut in with a sharp whisper. “Danny!” The urgency in her voice captured his immediate attention, and he looked at her as she pointed at one of the monitors.
There was a man standing in the hallway.
FIFTY-FIVE: “Leverage”
When Major Eddie landed at the Alpine Visitor Center with the vice president, he was surprised to see one of The Seven commanders there to greet them. He knew it was highly unusual for any of them to leave Denver. Why couldn’t he have just waited like the others? What was this guy up to? Had the Russian commander been the one who rerouted them? The Russian commander halfheartedly saluted. Major Eddie not
ed the disrespect while pretending he didn’t and returned the salute as crisply as it was supposed to be done.
They moved the vice president into the lower level of the main building and chained him to a chair, and Eddie watched as two men with black cases entered the room and closed the door behind them. Were they going to torture him? Was this the plan all along? This could ruin Eddie’s opportunity to talk to the vice president alone. The Russian commander turned to him and asked him where the little girl was.
“Excuse me?” Eddie asked.
“Daughter,” the Russian replied. “His daughter.”
Eddie hadn’t heard anything about a little girl or the vice president’s daughter for that matter. “What?” he asked again.
The Russian started to get angry, and Eddie couldn’t understand anything he said. The commander’s personal interpreter was standing down the hall, and Eddie waved him over.
The troops in Estes Park had captured the vice president’s daughters a few nights ago. The older one had escaped, but the younger one was still being held at the Endovalley camp. The Russian Commander wanted to know why the major hadn’t brought her up with them.
Eddie explained to the commander, through his interpreter, that there was no little girl at the camp, and he knew nothing of her. No one had said anything to him.
This information made the Russian commander even angrier and he stormed off towards the communication room. Eddie followed him. How much disconnect was there in this army? Communication was clearly a major issue. The Russian tried to radio down to Denver but couldn’t get through, presumably because of the giant storm. He was, however, able to radio down to the Endovalley base camp, and he demanded to know where the little girl was.
The base commander’s explanation of her escape only burned the powerful Russian more. Over the next hour, Eddie learned a great deal through the Russian’s many rants about the vice president’s family and background. Not only was the vice president key to breaching NORAD’s bunker, but he was thought to be the only American survivor with an access code for disarming Hawaii’s defense system. The man didn’t look like he’d be hard to get information out of, but his looks were apparently deceiving. It turned out he was a military hero. And there was little chance they would be able to get a former Special Ops Marine to tell them what they needed to know, no matter how much they tortured him—unless, of course, they had his daughter. If they could torture his daughter in front of him, he’d cave. Any man would.
2020: Emergency Exit Page 26
