by Tom Abrahams
Wincing, she raised her arms and moved her hands to the back of her head. Keeping the weapon trained on her, Rick moved around the desk to the back wall where he’d pinned her. With his back to the wall, he turned to his compatriots, ready to bark orders, when the door to the interrogation room swung open.
Rick took three quick steps toward the door, maintaining his field of vision, and swept the gun from the woman to the man emerging from the room. He was tall and muscular. His hands were balled into fists.
“What is going on out—” The color drained from his face when he saw Rick. His eyes moved to the injured PFC and back to Rick, his eyebrows twitching as he tried to make sense of the scene in front of him. He started to reach for his weapon.
“Don’t,” Rick said. “Put your hands above your head.”
The man complied and Rick motioned toward Reggie Buck. “Reggie, please relieve the man of his weapon.”
“What are you doing?” Lana protested. “Too many people have already died.”
“Nobody needs to die,” Rick assured her. “But we’re not staying here as prisoners.”
“Gus is dead,” said Candace. “He tried to stop them.”
“I’m aware,” said Rick.
“Look, son,” said the muscular soldier, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you need to calm down. We can talk this through.”
“Not gonna happen,” said Rick. “Reggie, get the gun.”
Reggie looked at his wife, at Rick, and back at Lana. The space between her eyes crinkled, she bit her lower lip, and she shook her head. Reggie put his hand on her thigh and squeezed. He smiled weakly and looked back to Rick. He stood, carefully approaching the soldier from behind. He deliberately withdrew the sidearm from the soldier’s holster, deftly removed the magazine from its grip to check if it was loaded, and stepped away. He jammed the magazine back into place and returned to his seat. He rubbed Lana’s back then thumbed a tear from her cheek with his free hand while keeping the pistol trained on its owner.
Rick motioned to the open door with his weapon. “What’s in there?” he asked the muscular soldier.
The soldier’s face reddened and he glowered at Rick. He rested his clasped hands on the top of his shaved head and remained silent.
Rick took a step toward PFC Cooper. He swung the weapon around and pressed it against the top of her head. She pressed her lips together to suppress a cry. Lana Buck gasped.
Rick focused on the muscular soldier and repeated the question more forcefully. His voice was lower and more measured as he jabbed the muzzle at Cooper’s hairline. “What. Is. In. There?”
The voice that answered wasn’t the soldier’s. “Rick?” a frail voice called from inside the room. “Rick? That you?”
Kenny peeked into the room. “Mr. Mumphrey?” he said, his brows arching with confusion.
Rick felt an instant spike in his blood pressure. He gripped the handgun more tightly, his finger drifting toward the trigger, and he swung it around to the muscular mute in front of him. He took three strides toward the soldier, ready to combust.
“Back up,” he spat, pushed past the retreating soldier, and turned into the room. It was empty except for two chairs, a single overhead light, and a bound and beaten Mumphrey. The old man was bleeding from his swollen lower lip. One eye was purpled and closed. His head bobbed as he worked to maintain enough strength to hold it upright.
Rick rushed to his side, knocking over the empty chair and sliding to his knees in front of his wounded friend. He set the gun on the floor beside the chair and worked to unravel the binds around Mumphrey’s ankles.
“Like I said,” Mumphrey slurred, “you’re a good man, Rick Walsh.”
His hands trembling, Rick moved to the back of the chair and struggled to loosen the knots at his wrists. “Shhh. Save your strength.”
Rick struggled with the final knot, digging his finger between the strands to wiggle them free of each other. Mumphrey’s breathing was labored. He rasped as he sucked air in and out from his open mouth.
“I didn’t tell ’em anything.” Mumphrey’s voice was discordant. It didn’t sound anything like the gravelly country drawl to which Rick had become accustomed. His friend sounded feeble. “Like I said, I didn’t have anything to say. They were asking me about things I don’t know.”
Rick undid the final knot and looked over Mumphrey’s shoulder toward the door. He’d forgotten about the two soldiers in the other room and cursed himself under his breath. Scanning the room, he saw a half-dozen more lengths of rope piled onto a wall-mounted shelf. He crossed the room, grabbed the rope, and tossed it onto the floor next to Mumphrey’s chair.
“Reggie!” he yelled. “Guide our new friends in here, please.”
Mumphrey’s hands dropped to his sides, deep red rings decorating his wrists, and he mumbled something Rick couldn’t understand.
Rick squatted on his heels and moved close to Mumphrey’s mouth. The blood leaking from the old man’s mouth wasn’t from the nasty contusion on his lip. It was coming from inside his mouth. His tongue was bathed red. Rick tried to focus his attention on the task at hand. He checked the handgun and raised it toward the door.
The two soldiers were in the room now, walking ahead of Reggie. Both of them had their hands above their heads. PFC Cooper limped forward, her face contorted with pain. She was breathing through puckered lips and grunting with each exhale.
Rick swept the gun between the two soldiers. “You’re going to be staying here for a little while,” he said. “Stop right there.”
“You’re tying us to the chairs?” asked the muscular soldier.
Rick reached down and tossed a length of rope to the muscular soldier. “All right, Arnold,” he said, “use that to tie her wrists the way you tied Mumphrey’s.”
The soldier hesitated but did as he was told. PFC Cooper was bent awkwardly at the waist, apparently unable to stand.
“Help her sit down on the floor,” Rick snapped at the musclehead. “Help her get more comfortable.”
Musclehead shook his head with incredulity. While he helped PFC Cooper to the floor, Rick called for Lana and Candace to join them in the room. He told them to shut the door behind them and lock it, which they did.
Lana gasped at the sight of Mumphrey and scurried to his side. She knelt beside him, whispering comfort to him as he tried to suppress a cough.
“Candace,” Rick said, “please take the gun from Reggie. Reggie, tie up Arnold’s wrists, please.”
Candace took the gun and held it tightly with both hands, aiming it at the muscular soldier. Rick tossed Reggie some rope and within a couple of minutes the task was done. Both soldiers were back-to-back on the floor.
Reggie used another, much longer length of rope and wrapped it around both soldiers at their chests. When they protested, Reggie ignored them.
“We need something to keep them quiet,” said Rick.
Mumphrey muttered something, raising his head.
Rick knelt down beside him. “What?”
Mumphrey smiled, revealing bloody gums that traced the outlines of his teeth. “Use my socks,” he said with as much of a chuckle as he could muster. “I’ve been sweating a lot.”
“I like that.”
Mumphrey’s color was somewhere between translucent and sallow. He suddenly looked ten, even twenty years older than he had the day before. Whatever the soldiers did to him was likely unfixable without a hospital or surgery.
“Hey,” Rick said, stepping to the soldiers, “the lieutenant said there was a MASH unit near the entrance. That right?”
Neither soldier answered and Rick kicked the muscular one on the outside of his thigh.
The man grunted. “No,” he sneered. “There’s no MASH unit. It’s a morgue. People don’t get fixed here. That’s the point.”
Rick squatted on his heels. “What do you mean?”
“The sick go to the MASH unit to die,” he said. “Then they take their bodies to building eight and stuff
them into boxes. Nobody gets better. It’s part of the plan. This is where you’re all going to die.” He nodded toward Mumphrey with his chin. “That one’s gonna go first.”
Rick clenched his jaw and braced himself on the floor with his left hand. He balled his right hand into a fist and jabbed it forward into the soldier’s nose. It cracked under the force of his knuckles. Blood poured from the man’s nose, across his lips and chin, and onto his uniform.
“You’re all dying here,” he growled, his chest heaving. “Sooner than later if I can help it.”
Rick pushed himself to his feet and tucked the gun into his waist. “You can’t help it,” he said. “Reggie, give me Mumphrey’s socks.”
Rick took the socks, hot and damp with sweat and thick with ripe pungency, and forced one of them into PFC Cooper’s mouth. She struggled against him, trying to kick him as he pinched her nose and stuffed the cotton past her teeth. Her eyes watered.
“I am sorry,” he said to her. “You really are a beautiful woman. You’re just on the wrong side of things.”
The muscular soldier Rick called Arnold spat onto the floor and protested his fate. “You can’t stuff that in my mouth,” he whined. “I’ll suffocate. I can’t breathe through my nose. You broke it.”
“I need help here,” Rick said dispassionately, moving around to face the man. “Ladies, can you each grab a shoulder? Reggie, please hold his head still. You may need to grab him from the side.”
While the others forcibly restrained the behemoth, Rick straddled the man’s thighs and dangled the sock in front of him.
“We’re all dying here,” Rick said. “Isn’t that what you said? Sooner than later?”
The man’s eyes bulged with fear. He shook his head, blood spattering from his chin. “I won’t be able to breathe,” he said. “Seriously. You’ll kill me.”
Rick looked up at Reggie, who shrugged, and then eased himself to his feet. He backed away from the soldier who was still bound and restrained by the Bucks and Candace.
“All right then,” Rick said. “I’m a compassionate man. I won’t suffocate you. That would be an awful way to go. But I can’t have you calling for help either.”
Rick balled his right hand into a fist and then flexed his fingers, loosening his joints. He paced back and forth, measuring Arnold. He pulled the gun from his waist and aimed it at the soldier. He stepped forward; the soldier squirmed against those holding him. His eyes were wide. His blood-covered chin trembled. He was snorting through his damaged nose.
“Rick,” said Reggie, “you don’t have to do this.”
Rick stepped to the side of the soldier and drew the weapon close to the side of his head. He held it there, between the man’s temple and jaw.
“C’mon, Rick,” said Candace. “This isn’t who you are.”
Reggie’s tone was more urgent. “Rick, you—”
Rick ignored their pleas. In a single motion, he flipped the gun around to hold it by the barrel. He rotated his body to his right and, with all the force he could muster, swung the grip at the soldier’s head. He connected just above the top of his jaw. The soldier’s eyes rolled back and his head snapped from the impact. He was out.
Reggie and Lana helped him sit up, despite him being unconscious. A large knot swelled at the side of his head. Reggie checked his pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said, exhaling. “But you could have killed him.”
“I could’ve,” said Rick. “I probably should have. Look what he did to Mumphrey. And for what?”
Reggie stood and backed away from the bound pair on the floor. “Still—”
“We can debate my morality later,” said Rick. “Right now we need to go. He won’t be out of it for long. We’ve got ten minutes before he’s lucid enough to call for help.”
“Where are we going?” asked Candace.
“Building eight,” said Rick. “That’s our ticket out of here.”
CHAPTER 16
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
75 DAYS, 18 HOURS, 22 MINUTES, 02 SECONDS
DENVER, COLORADO
Clayton closed the door to his room behind him and slid the DiaTab in his back pocket. He knew he could navigate the first part of his escape without having to rely on a digital map, and having the DiaTab turned off would further enable to him to move off the bunker’s internal electronic grid.
His heart was pounding with excitement such that his headache had returned. The concussive impact from the plane crash was lingering, as was the ache in his leg. His stride was limp-free, though there was still a dull ache in the wound.
The astronaut knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to move. Having located his would-be accomplice Vihaan Chandra before leaving his room for good, Clayton knew he needed to climb one level to connect with the good doctor.
He walked hurriedly along a hallway, avoiding eye contact with anyone he passed. Clayton was certain someone would recognize him, call him out, turn him in, and put an end to his run. Yet nothing happened and nobody approached him.
Although he’d considered using the elevator to level four to find Chandra, and then working his way into the tunnel system, he knew there were fewer eyes on his level, fewer people who might see him entering a locked, rarely used door. At least, that was his thinking.
From memory he turned left and then right and found an unmarked door with an electronic key panel adjacent to it. Clayton pulled his DiaTab from his pocket and powered it on. He maneuvered through the screens until he found his way back to the administrative screen he’d hacked two hours earlier. Without turning on the locator, he activated the electronic key.
Clayton assumed, and prayed, that because this was an access door to an emergency exit, everyone’s electronic key would work. In an emergency, he presumed, the control center could activate everyone’s DiaTab’s for access to areas they otherwise couldn’t enter with their standard keycards. It was a leap, sure, but he needed to leap. Single footsteps wouldn’t get him home.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, swiping the DiaTab across the panel. The panel lit and a metallic click preceded a hum at the door. He pulled the handle; he was through. He closed the door and turned off the DiaTab.
“That’s one down,” he said aloud, “and a zillion to go.”
Clayton stuffed the DiaTab in his pocket and surveyed his surroundings. He was in a wide tunnel. It stretched fifteen feet across and was a good ten feet in height. It was concrete floor to ceiling, lit in a dim blue hue. It was enough light to see several feet ahead and Clayton began marching forward. Along the roof of the tunnel alongside the blue lighting were long stretches of metal piping. Some of it, Clayton imagined, was plumbing, though most of it was probably electrical. His steps echoing in the hollow rectangular tunnel, he kept moving. When he’d reached a T-intersection, he turned left, walked a few feet, and found another door. This one was labeled STAIRS and there was no key panel.
He gripped the handle and shouldered the door inward. It opened easily into a familiar-looking concrete and metal stairwell, much like he’d seen in parking lots and hotels. It was also lit in a pale, dim blue that washed the walls with a hue that made them look like walls at an aquarium.
He let go of the door and gently pushed it closed, then two at a time, bounded the steps toward level three. The adrenaline coursing through his body numbed the aches and pains he’d felt minutes earlier. So far, so good.
Clayton finished the flight of stairs and found the wall stenciled “Meteorology, Climatology, and Environmental Engineering” at the landing for level four. He tried the door that he assumed led into the secure area. It opened. But instead of being in the secure area closest to where Chandra was working, Clayton found himself in another tunnel. His eyes widened and for an instant his muscles froze with panic.
“It’s all right,” he told himself. “Not a big deal. Just another tunnel.”
Clayton retraced the path he’d taken a floor below until he reached its end. There, he found a door with an a
djacent keypad. He repeated his effort with his DiaTab, and the door clicked and buzzed. He pulled the handle and confidently walked through the opening.
The ambience was remarkably different. It was abuzz with activity, but nobody seemed to pay attention to him. They were engrossed with whatever populated their DiaTabs or seemed hurried and distracted from whatever was going on around them.
This is good, Clayton thought to himself. He pulled out his DiaTab, pretending to swipe its screen as he moved toward a bank of Telenet monitors, which appeared to display the outdoors. He presumed they were feeds from security cameras.
The floors clicked hollowly as he stepped across the large lacquered black tiles. Clayton stopped at the monitors, and from the corners of his eyes he watched the hive activity around him.
The people crossing the space all moved with a familiarity those in building three didn’t seem to possess. True, he’d not seen much of the complex other than his cell and the cafeteria, but this space seemed different. It lacked the newness of the other areas, as if the orientation here had occurred some time ago. They walked with purpose and direction, their shoes squeaking as they crossed what Clayton assumed was a lobby.
He searched the walls for the stenciled guidance he’d seen elsewhere but couldn’t find it. There were no clues as to exactly where on the floor he should go. He turned on his DiaTab, hoping he could access the locator with the help of Telenet. His device was cycling when someone tapped Clayton on his shoulder.
“May I help you?”
Clayton turned to face a smallish bald man. He was tanned and a few wisps of hair crossed his smooth scalp. His left eye twitched. Clayton offered a smile.
“May I help you?” the man repeated. “You appear to be lost.”
Clayton looked at the name stitched onto the man’s white lab coat pocket. “Dr. Rector?” he asked. “Perfect. You’re the man I was here to find.”
Rector tilted his head suspiciously to one side. His left eye twitched again. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” said Clayton. “I was sent here to have you guide me into the meteorological laboratory. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble with my DiaTab and I couldn’t call up the right information to locate you.”
