Collapse Series (Book 7): State of Destruction

by Summer Lane

  Just as Cheng warned during mission planning, the wooden fence is tall, but it is not impenetrable. We are prepared. Uriah and Cheng drop their packs and take the ropes and grappling hooks out. Each has two, which leaves us with four ropes between the team. They toss the hooks over the fence, give them a tug with the rope, and Uriah shoots me a thumbs up.

  Yes. I will be the first one over the wall.

  I sling my gun over my shoulder and test one of the ropes with my body weight. It holds firmly. I jam my boot into the wall and pull myself upward. With the heavy pack on my back—plus my gun and my armor-plated vest—I am slower than usual. It takes strength to pull myself up the wall at a dead vertical angle. By the time I reach the top, my arm muscles are burning, but I am doing just as good as everyone else. I am still the first.

  I swing my leg over the side and grab one of the grappling hooks, lying on my stomach, one leg dangling on each side of the fence. I swing the hook around and drape the rope over the inside of the fence and roll over, gripping it in my gloved fingers. I rappel to the bottom, sliding to the ground, landing in a neat crouch.

  I swing my rifle up to my shoulder and look up.

  We’ve done it.

  We have made it into Red Grove.

  Before me, there is a huge, wooden building. It is an oversized structure made of dark wood. It looks like a lodge. I wait for the rest of the team to come over the fence before I move, and as I wait, I sniff the air. It smells like smoke.

  Chris lands beside me, and then Uriah. Cheng stands next to us in the lineup. His expression is grave. “I didn’t think I would ever see this place again,” he murmurs.

  “Lead the way,” I command.

  It is only a figure of speech, of course. Chris and I lead the way, now that our teams have combined again within the confines of the grove. Cheng follows closely behind my shoulder as we round the edge of the cabin structure.

  “There’s the rear entrance,” he whispers.

  We crouch at the corner. From here, I can see a trail winding into the woods. In the distance, I see torches flickering through the trees. This cabin is sitting in the dark, silent. A huge porch juts around the entirety of the structure. The windows are wide and magnificent.

  Abandoned.

  “There it is,” Cheng says.

  I follow his line of sight. A rear entrance is located on the side of the structure, facing east. It is a large door, paralleled on each side by big windows. I see a security camera stuck to the corner of the porch awning, facing the door.

  I nod at Uriah. He lifts his rifle to his shoulder. He takes the shot. There is barely a sound, thanks to the help of a silencer. The camera shatters. If it was a threat, it is no longer one now.

  “Okay, Andrew,” I say. “You’re up.”

  Vera gives him a nervous look. We move toward the door. Our team forces the door open and we make a perfect entry in formation. Inside the building, we flick our flashlights on at last. The beam carves a path through the darkness. I see a massive kitchen with stainless steel counters, sinks and ovens. Knives hang clean and sparkling from hooks on the walls.

  And on our left, a small panel is blinking red.

  Andrew moves toward it and pops the panel open. There is a keypad, and beneath that, a visual image of the rear entrance. I slam the door shut, but the light keeps blinking.

  Andrew messes with the keypad. Sweat slicks down his forehead. I hold my breath, praying to God that he can disarm it before the alarm starts screaming and we all find ourselves dead.

  Cheng hurries past me and stands by Andrew.

  “Let me try,” he says.

  “No, let me think!” Andrew snaps. “I’ve almost got—”

  Cheng shoves Andrew aside and punches a code into the keypad:

  606806

  The visual of the door stops pulsing, and the panel ceases to blink. I log the key code away in my head for future reference.

  “What the hell was that?” Andrew demands, his voice low and dangerous.

  “I had a hunch,” Cheng replies. “And I acted on it.”

  “I had it under control.”

  “It didn’t look like it.”

  “Stay on target, gentlemen,” Chris commands, threatening.

  Andrew slowly nods, taking a deep breath. Adrenaline, testosterone and fear are running at an all-time high, and I admire Andrew for having the restraint to walk away from Cheng and shake it off.

  Chris steps forward and says something low and quiet into Cheng’s ear. The young man’s face is unreadable. He dips his chin and I say, “Now what?”

  Cheng keeps his voice quiet.

  “There are three levels,” he replies. “Most likely, this building is completely abandoned and nothing of great value has been left behind. If there was, it would be much harder than it was to get inside.”

  “So why are we even here?” Vera demands. “Let’s find Veronica and get out.”

  “Because it’s an Omega military building,” I say. “When was the last time you got to go through one and look for military information?”

  Silence.

  We have never been able to get inside a military base like this and get anything out of it. In Sky City, the information was stored on large computers that were wiped at the time of our infiltration. This is different. We are finally here, right in the heart of one of Omega’s best-kept secrets, and I don’t intend to leave empty-handed. Not after risking our lives to get here.

  “Let’s move,” I say.

  We go upstairs. There is nothing here but long hallways and endless corridors of locked doors. Cheng seems to know exactly where he is headed, though. He makes a beeline for a large door on the end of the first hallway. Our team breaks inside. It is vast space, filled with tables. On each table is a computer.

  “Wow,” Andrew says, lowering his gun. “Goldmine.”

  “Can you get anything useful out of these?” I ask.

  “I can try.”

  We station lookouts at the windows, doors, and lower levels of the lodge. Andrew seats himself at a computer and powers it up. The computer screen glows bright blue in the darkness. It is such a harsh, artificial light, and a stark reminder of the technology that we are deprived of, now that the world has changed so much.

  The computer home screen is generic, with a blue background and the white Omega 0. There are endless documents and icons. Andrew goes through the computer’s files and I walk to the edge of the room and peek out the windows.

  I can see the flickering torchlight from here, burning somewhere through the trees. I am antsy. I want to leave this building and go see what the fire is all about.

  “It’s the theater,” Cheng whispers, ghosting next to me.

  “The theater?”

  “The Grove’s entertainment center,” he replies. “We’re in luck. If the theater is playing…everyone will be in one place, at the same time.”

  An opportunity at last.

  “Done yet?” I ask Andrew.

  “Getting there,” he looks at me, clearly frustrated. “These things take time, Cassidy.”

  “Well, hurry up.”

  “File extraction is a very fine art,” Vera snaps. “Leave him alone.”

  I make a face.

  Now that Vera and Andrew are an item, she won’t stop defending him from every small comment or gesture that could be construed as hostile or sarcastic. I’m pretty sure that Andrew is dating a guard dog rather than a woman.

  I roll my eyes and wait patiently.

  “Got it!” Andrew exclaims. He stands up, clutching a small USB stick. “Maps, strategies, names, coordinates and everything else.” He taps the computer screen. “I disabled their security monitors and sensors, and I turned off communications from the guard towers to the inside of the grove.” He powers down the computer. “It should take them twenty minutes to figure out what I did.”

  “So let’s go to the theater,” Cheng says, bowing dramatically. “Come on. I know how to get to it without being s
een.”

  I feel jittery—almost excited. This mission has actually been successful so far. I am grateful for that, and charged with the satisfaction of managing to cripple Omega’s security in some way.

  We work our way out of the room, down the hallways, to the first floor, and back through the rear entrance once more. Cheng leads with Chris, and I am right behind them with the rest of the team, moving in formation across the pathway that weaves through the forest. We go into the trees, slipping into the shadows, making our way toward the flickering firelight.

  Cheng slows and makes a fist. We stop and crouch in the woods, listening. I hear the soft chatter of voices. Cheng moves on, stopping at the edge of the trees, nodding to me. I creep forward, amazed at what I’m seeing.

  No more than two feet in front of me, the ground drops off, sloping into a large bowl-like pit. It’s an amphitheater, and at the bottom, there is a stage. The stage houses a large statue. The statue itself is nothing but a large, stone globe. Torches are lit around the base of the stage, and a bonfire burns brightly just beyond that. Around seventy people are seated on the wooden bleachers around the fire. They are mostly middle age, men and women. I see a few younger ones, but they are the minority. They all wear black jackets over their clothes, talking in hushed tones as someone wearing a black hood steps onto the stage. It is a tall, handsome man. He pushes the hood back and looks around, opening his mouth to speak.

  Veronica Klaus is nowhere in sight.

  The man’s voice is clear and commanding, but I cannot understand what he is saying. It is a different language that I do not recognize. I look at Chris. He shakes his head. He does not know what it is, either.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper to Cheng, frightened.

  Something about this whole thing creeps me out.

  “They are meeting for the nighttime ritual,” he replies, smiling wryly. “The Western Council is highly superstitious. They’re using ancient Latin.”

  “What ritual?” Chris asks, knitting his brow.

  “The ritual.” Cheng rests one hand on his knee. “Omega, you must understand, does not function on strategy alone. They use rituals and superstitious customs to knit their leaders together. It’s a religion of their own making, if you get my meaning.”

  The man raises his voice, and the gathering of people begins chanting.

  “Say hello to the Western Council,” Cheng says grimly.

  I stare at the scene. I can hardly believe that the most powerful leaders of the Omega movement on the West Coast—the entire Western Council—reduce themselves to ritualistic voodoo.

  I look at Chris. We make quiet motions and our team gathers around the edges of the amphitheater. I lie prone and press the rifle into my shoulder, resting the stock against my cheek, the sights perfectly aligned. I set them in the center of the handsome man’s chest.

  I wonder what the Western Council would do if they knew they had the sights of thirty lethal operatives trained on them right now?

  We wait for Chris’s command to fire. Once he takes the first shot, we can all follow. But he doesn’t take his shot. He is watching the proceedings—as we all are.

  The chanting intensifies, and then it drops off.

  The man lifts his hands up and two black-hooded figures drag an old man onto the stage. He is dressed in tattered clothing. His hair is sparse, his face is wrinkled. He looks at the amphitheater and the torchlight with a bewildered expression as they drop him on his hands and knees.

  The handsome man yells something out. The audience cheers.

  My finger rests on the trigger.

  Chris still does not give the command. I tilt my head, watching him. His eyes are trained on the stage below, unmoving.

  The handsome man whips out a knife. He does it fast—so fast that I don’t even see it coming. He takes the knife, grabs the old man by the hair, and drags the blade across his throat. I gasp, and I hear Vera do the same. The old man chokes and gags and blood spills down his neck, staining his clothes. He collapses onto the floor, shaking and reaching out to the audience for help.

  He dies. His blood runs across the stage.

  “Cheng,” I whisper, trembling. Disgusted. “What. Was. That?”

  “The ritual,” he replies. He looks pale. “Although when I was here…the sacrifice was in effigy. It wasn’t real.”

  I look at Chris. I look at the dead man on the stage.

  Enraged, I go against orders and take the first shot myself. My bullet is straight and true. I nail the handsome man right in the chest. He stumbles backward and hits the stage with a sickening crack.

  Hearing the first shot, the Angels open fire, razing down the Western Council in the bleachers. They scream and run for cover, but there are too many of us, and they are hopelessly exposed in the bottom of the amphitheater. I shoot as many as I can, my blind anger making me cold to my task. I feel nothing as I kill one Omega council member after another. I am not sorry. I am only vengeful.

  These people have taken too much. They’ve killed too many.

  They have destroyed so much that is good and beautiful in this world.

  They do not deserve to live.

  Overhead, I hear the distant blades of a helicopter in the sky. I disregard it at first, because it could be anywhere. But it begins to move closer, and I pause my shooting to speak into my earpiece.

  “Bogey approaching our position, Angels,” I say. “Get ready to take evasive action.”

  I roll over on my back and watch as a black helicopter glides over the trees, beating the air with its blades. The tree branches shudder as the chopper hovers over the amphitheater. The door is open on the chopper.

  Boom, boom, boom, boom.

  The sound is deafening. A heavy, ballistic spray of automatic machinegun fire rips through the trees.

  “Get to cover!” I scream.

  “Air security!” Cheng yells, darting ahead of us.

  Chris and I pull back from the tip of the amphitheater. Another round of fire shreds the tree branches above our head. The impact knocks me off my feet and I stumble, falling. I hit the ground on my hands and knees. I roll to the left, curling into a ball as the bullets fly by my head.

  I can barely make out the Omega gunner on the chopper. I look ahead. I see Chris, Cheng, Uriah and the rest of the team moving away from the amphitheater. Chris realizes that I am not with them. He turns around, a horrified expression on his face. I look up. The heavy artillery on the chopper swings back in my direction. Desperate, I throw myself off the side of the amphitheater and roll down the center aisle of the stadium seats as the gun fires once more.

  I manage to get to my feet and dive behind a corner of the stage. The chopper continues to rage its bullets down on us. I can’t even hear the radio chatter over the noise of the gunfire.

  I crouch there, waiting for the chopper to move, but another chopper arrives. This one flies in a circle around the grove, with a gunner on each side of the aircraft, smattering the woods with machinegun fire.

  I make a run for the left of the stage, exiting the amphitheater and diving into the woods, pressing my back against a tree.

  I think it’s safe to say that Omega knows we’re here now.

  Andrew was right. It took about twenty minutes for them to figure it out.

  I look around, attempting to locate my team. I see flashes of movement in the trees, catching glimpses of retreating Angels, but I do not see Chris or Uriah or Andrew. I don’t see Vera or Cheng.

  Something streaks through the cry, screaming as it passes by, and strikes the ground about a hundred yards away from me. When it makes contact with the ground, it detonates.

  A rocket.

  The explosion sends a massive Shockwave through the forest. It flattens me to the ground. My ears ring. I taste blood in my mouth. I must have bit my tongue. I lie on my stomach, the forest spinning around me. Everything is one massive, shifting blur.

  I shake myself and try to lift my body up, but dizziness takes me back
down. I close my eyes, wait for it to pass, and force myself up again. I struggle to stand upright and clutch the tree for support.

  In the distance, I see that the rocket’s explosion ripped apart the lodge that we infiltrated earlier. I wonder why Omega destroyed it. Are they that worried about our infiltration? Are they willing to ravage Red Grove to keep it out of our hands?

  I turn back, looking at the amphitheater.

  Every single member of the Western Council is dead. We have carried out our mission…but where is Veronica? I burn with the desire to find her…to make her pay for what happened at Sky City. For killing Alexander Ramos. For making my relationship with Chris tense and difficult.

  I regain enough of my balance to run through the trees, toward the ruins of the lodge, knowing that the team will meet up at the clearing where we were supposed to land earlier. We have no choice but to retreat, anyway.

  I reach the edge of the grove. I see several Angels ghosting through the forest, out of the barrage of fire. I still do not see Chris, but that’s okay. We have a backup plan.

  I reach the edge of the burning lodge just as another rocket streaks overhead. It is nothing more than a flash against the gray sky. It detonates. The ground shakes. I feel myself falling. Pain rips through my body. I hear myself screaming as a wave of heat and debris slams into me, cracking my head against the ground.

  I struggle to remain conscious, but the pain is too tremendous.

  I slip into unconsciousness, falling into the blackness of Red Grove.

  Chapter Twelve

  When I wake up, it is dark. I take a deep, shuddering breath and cough violently, my lungs filling with dirt and ash. I try to move, but I hit my head on something hard. Pain shoots through my skull. I spread my arms apart, feeling walls on either side of me. I am in a tight, enclosed spaced.

  Panic.

  I begin to hyperventilate.

  I feel cold air coming up from the ground. I turn on my stomach and slowly follow the current. I glimpse a bit of light. Where am I? I feel soil and rubble under my fingers, and grim realization dawns.

  I am buried.

  I have been left behind.

  But I’m still alive.