by Hunt, Jack
As Thorn stepped back into the room, three rounds were fired and then silence dominated. The final member of the security team looked on in horror, his hands raised. “I…”
“Shut up. You’re not going to die.”
Thorn looked at the door with a small window, and pulled on the handle. It was locked. “Open the door.”
“I can’t do that,” Rigby said.
Thorn brought the gun up to his face.
“Please. It’s not that I wouldn’t do it. I physically cannot open it. We give them codes when we arrive and they buzz us in if they match.”
“What are the codes?”
The airman looked out into the night and swallowed hard.
“What are the CODES!” Thorn bellowed louder.
Rigby threw his hands up. “Okay. Let me get them.” He shuffled forward in his chair to a drawer, unlocked it and pulled them out. “I’ll have to phone through.”
“While you’re at it, let them know that the motion detectors were set off by an animal. All is well and the cook is bringing down the food early tonight.”
The airman stared back at him as if he wasn’t aware of how it operated. He knew enough to know that the two blast doors, seventy-five feet down below, only opened when a shift change occurred or food was brought in and they had a rule that one person couldn’t be in the bunker alone, so they usually ate on the bridge area between the launch control center and the elevator, so they were in sight at all times.
Airman Rigby slid over to the phone and made the call.
“Lieutenant, this is Rigby.” He looked up at Thorn and Thorn shook his head noticing Rigby’s hesitation. “The motion detectors were set off by an animal. All is well. I have the codes. The cook is coming down,” he paused then yelled, “DON’T OPEN. It’s a tr—” Before the word slipped his lips Hector fired a round and shot him.
Thorn stepped back, his eyes widening. “What have you done? You fucking idiot!”
“He was going to give away our…”
“He’s the only way we get in!” Thorn grabbed him and threw him up against the door. It echoed. He tightened his grip around his throat; rage welling up inside of him. He hadn’t spent this long going to these lengths to have it all screwed up now.
“Thorn, let him go!” Dmitry said entering the room and getting between them.
“I should kill him right now.”
Hector gritted his teeth before Thorn released him. He took a few steps back and ran a hand over his head. “Oh my God,” he said. He unleashed his anger by sweeping off several stacks of paperwork and folders to the ground and kicking a chair across the room.
“We don’t need to get in,” Hector said.
“You’re an idiot. Did you not hear anything I said?” Thorn replied.
Hector frowned. “I heard you. We’re going to tap into the HICS line. We can control it that way.”
“Yeah but where are we going to go after the missiles launch? Huh?” Thorn said. “We will have less than thirty minutes to get away from here and find shelter before Russia reacts, by then it will be too late. The only way we survive this is by barricading ourselves in that bunker below ground until the dust settles. We needed to get in, Hector, and you just fucked it up!”
Hector looked back at him, a look of disbelief on his face.
Everything had gone to plan perfectly up until this point. The abduction of Blake Dawson, bringing down the interconnected infrastructure, nothing had gone wrong.
Thorn squeezed the bridge of his nose and perched on the edge of the table looking out into the night. His mind was swirling. He knew the crew below didn’t have a means of calling for additional backup, it was all handled by security topside but that didn’t mean they couldn’t prevent them from moving ahead with their objective.
Thorn snatched up the phone and rang them.
A female picked up the phone. The blast doors only opened from the inside. “Open the blast doors now or the rest of them die,” Thorn said.
He knew there were no cameras for the missile combat crew. The two lieutenants relied on the security manager. They only monitored and controlled the missiles.
There was a long pause. Thorn heard her talking with her co-worker, and when she came back on the line, her words weren’t what he wanted to hear. “We can’t do that.”
“Then I guess you’ve just signed their death warrant.”
He hung up. “Damn it!”
The other men looked at him, concerned expressions spread throughout.
“What now?” Hector asked.
“Just give me time to think.”
He exited the building to get some fresh air and have a cigarette. Thorn tapped one out and slid it between his lips and lit the end. The nicotine hit his system and he felt a wave of relaxation. Dmitry came out and joined him out by the Jeep.
“Are you going to change your mind?”
“Did I say that?” Thorn replied blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth. A hard wind blew across the flat plains, whipping his fatigues against his body and kicking up grit into his eyes.
“We can still do this. To hell with it,” Dmitry said.
“Dmitry, you might have a death wish but I don’t. There is no satisfaction if we’re not alive to see the country break.”
“It’s already broken, my friend. If we leave the power grid down it’s only a matter of time before Russia or an enemy of the US takes advantage of it. We’ve done our part.”
“No we haven’t. We have crippled them. They will bounce back from this. Give it enough time, they will clear the malware just like they did in the Ukraine. All we’ve done is disrupt. I want to destroy.” He looked back at Dmitry. “Isn’t that what you wanted for your country too?”
“Of course.”
“Then we continue,” Thorn said tossing his cigarette to the ground. A few golden sparks bounced as he made his way inside.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find the generator for this shit hole and turn it off. Then we’ll see how long they can last in that capsule without air.”
Sam shouldered his rifle and pressed on into the cemetery. Large tombstones marched away into the distance and concrete mausoleums blocked their view of the bikers. He could make out flashlights bouncing through the trees, and one of them had started a fire inside a steel drum.
“Are you sure they were armed?” Sam asked.
“Positive.”
“They’re just teens,” Sam said squinting into the darkness. They certainly didn’t look like a threat. They couldn’t have been older than Anna.
Eric turned to Anna. “You saw what they did to Gene, tell him.”
“They busted him up really bad,” Anna said.
Eric said, “Gave him a concussion. The guy is in stable condition but he was lucky to survive.”
They made it to a mausoleum and took cover so Sam could get a better look at what they were up against. Although he didn’t imagine them causing any trouble, they were living in different times now. Not all cities and towns would resort to violence and theft as not everyone was the same. Doped-up individuals didn’t think straight even when the law did exist, so would they act any different now?
“I’m going around,” Eric said. “I’ll cover you from the west.”
“I’ll take the east,” Anna said.
“No you won’t. It will put you in direct line of fire. Stay with me.”
He approached from the south and told her to get behind him as he moved in on the group. There were four of them partying it up, drinking beer and acting like idiots. One was leaning against his bike, two were smoking weed and the other one was using a steel baseball bat and hacking away at a tombstone. Shadows danced on their faces as the fire licked up into the night sky.
“I’m telling you the cops haven’t a clue,” one of them said.
“I told you they wouldn’t give us any trouble. They have their hands full as it is.”
Out the corner of his eye, Sam could s
ee Eric moving into position. He was packing a Glock 22 while Sam had an M4.
He didn’t have to say anything to the guys. One of them spotted him and alerted the others. Their heads whipped around and one of them put his hands up.
“Hey man, it’s all cool.”
It was an odd reaction for teens that were have supposed to have caused so much trouble. As he moved in he scanned them and noticed they weren’t carrying rifles, or handguns. What the hell was Eric going on about?
“Get on the ground,” Sam said.
“Look man.”
One of them hopped up onto his bike and Sam unloaded a round in the air. The echo was enough to scare the living daylights out of him and his attempt at kick starting his bike stopped before it caught hold.
Sam hurried over keeping his handgun on him. “Get off the bike.”
He slipped off putting his hands up.
“Which two was it?” Sam called out to Eric.
“I’m not sure. It was dark.”
“Which of you two were involved in a home invasion on Iron Mask Drive?” he asked. All four of them shook their heads but said nothing.
“Come on now, otherwise you’re all going in.”
“We haven’t gone anywhere near there,” a guy with long blond dreadlocks said.
“You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“Are you a cop?” one of them asked.
“Nope.”
The kid started chuckling. “Then why the fuck are you pointing a gun at us?”
“You carrying?” Sam asked.
“Nah man.”
One of them looked like he was reaching for something.
Sam was about to caution him when a round went off, this time from Eric’s weapon. A chunk of stone from a tombstone near them broke away and they all bounced back. “Whoa, whoa! Okay man, okay, we’re cool.”
Sam looked over to Eric who wasn’t looking at the kids but at him. He lowered his weapon. Sam turned his head and glanced at the tombstone closest to him. “Something doesn’t add up,” Sam mumbled. “Eric, get over here.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Eric.”
He moved out from behind the tombs and made his way over.
“Hey man, I know you. You’re that lawyer in town.”
“How very observant,” he said glancing at Sam and Anna. “Look, I say we take them in. Hand them over to the cops.”
Sam squinted. “You recognized they were bikers but can’t recognize the two who ran away?” Sam asked.
Eric shook his head.
“Ah fuck this,” one of them said jumping onto his bike and kick starting it to life even as Sam shouted for him to get off. The bike tore away before he could stop him and he wasn’t going to shoot a kid. Instead, he told Eric to watch over them while he hopped onto one of the bikes. It growled to life and he gave it some throttle. The back wheel tore up the earth as he zipped away. He slalomed around headstones, his headlights washed over grave mounds and he hit a couple causing the bike to gain air. It had been a while since he’d been on a bike and this one kept making a funky noise as if it was about to quit on him. The guy he was chasing ducked his head and made his way onto the narrow road that cut through the cemetery. He was heading for the main exit when Sam decided to cut him off. He shot across a field of graves, went around multiple mausoleums until he burst out, turned the bike hard and peeled off down a short road. Trees and graveyards shot by in his peripheral vision as he rounded a bend that brought him down to the exit.
The kid was coming up fast. The dirt bike wailed as he gave it everything it had. The kid saw him but thought he could make the gate, and he might have if he’d gone a little faster except that was not what happened. The front tire of Sam’s bike collided with the rear of the guy’s bike. The collision was fast and brutal throwing both of them off.
Sam landed hard on the grass and rolled several times before coming to a stop.
He let out a groan and looked up to see the kid on the asphalt.
Luckily he was dressed in leather gear and wearing a helmet, if he hadn’t he would have been torn up pretty bad. The bikes were a complete write off. They revved endlessly, the back and front tires mangled.
Sam rose to his feet and made sure all his limbs were intact before heading over to the kid. He was lying on the ground groaning. Sam crouched down beside him and placed a hand on his back. “You okay, kid?”
“What do you think!” he shot back. “You asshole. You nearly killed me.”
Sam patted him on the back. “I think you’ll be just fine. C’mon, get up.”
He offered him a hand and after a minute or two of whining, he grabbed his hand and Sam hoisted him up.
“Why the hell did you run?” Sam asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he said in an angry tone.
“Were you involved in the break-in?”
“No. I already told you that.”
They walked back to the rest of the group who were now sitting cross-legged on the ground. Anna and Eric watched over them. It didn’t take them long to get to the bottom of why they’d attacked Gene. According to them, he’d stolen gasoline from one of their homes and they were just trying to get it back when he came at them. Whether there was any truth to that, they would have plenty of time to tell the judge. Eric was still certain that two of them were involved in Richard’s home invasion but they wouldn’t admit to it. Someone wasn’t telling the truth.
Chapter 10
Thorn bellowed out orders as he stormed back into the Launch Control Support Building. “Hector, get a few of the men and gather up sheets from the bedrooms, and head outside. There are two intake air ducts on the far side. I want you to cover them up, fill the insides of those tubes. I don’t want any air getting inside, you hear me?”
Gripping his rifle, he nodded. “You got it.”
He motioned to a couple of men and darted down the corridor to gather what was needed. Thorn and Dmitry entered the security control center, and got back on the phone again with the launch crew. He perched his ass on the edge of the table, a smile spreading on his face. The male lieutenant answered this time.
“Who are you?” Thorn asked.
“Lieutenant Douglas.”
“Where’s the woman?”
He didn’t reply.
“Okay, look, I’m done playing around. This is your last chance to buzz us in.”
“It’s not happening.”
“Look, this can get real hard for you. Those blast doors might be protecting you right now but they have one serious flaw.”
“Which is?”
“They also imprison you.”
“I hardly see that as a flaw.”
“How’s the air down there?” Thorn asked. “Must be stuffy.”
There was a pause as if he was contemplating what he’d said and connecting the dots. When he didn’t respond Thorn rocked back and grinned at Dmitry before continuing, “I’ll admit, the two blast doors might be problematic for us but this one here, we’ll get through it soon enough. When we do… I’m thinking that you could use a little less air down there. You know, maybe all that clean air is going to your head and not helping you think. So here’s what I suggest. You open the doors, come on out and we will let you go. We have no need for you and by now you probably understand what we have in mind. So let’s cut the crap, shall we?”
He waited for a response but got none.
“Okay. Let’s play this the hard way. Enjoy the air while it lasts, as when we shut off the emergency generator, it’s all you’re going to have. Sure, those backup batteries are going to kick in and give you another six to eight hours of light and functionality, and you’re probably thinking you are going to have to rely on that hand-crank stripper device to make some air but that only works if those two intake air ducts are functioning.” He paused for effect. “That’s right. You go ahead and think about that while we get to work on this door. Oh and if you have any thoughts on using the escap
e shaft, by all means, we look forward to seeing you.”
With that said he hung up and motioned to a few of his guys to start working on getting through the first door. He didn’t imagine it would take long. It wasn’t like the two blast doors underground. It was just your everyday, run-of-the-mill security door. A pain in the ass but nothing they couldn’t handle.
“How did you know about that?” Dmitry asked.
Thorn smirked. “C’mon man, give me some credit.” He fished into his breast pocket and retrieved a folded up piece of paper. Dmitry took it from him and unfolded it. Inside was a site plan of the launch control facility.
“These fools made it available online.” He clapped his hands. “Okay guys, let’s get to work. We don’t have long.”
He exited the building to make contact with the second half of his team that were in a field over two miles away, preparing to dig down to the HICS cables.
Unsure if any of them were telling the truth, Sam took all four of the guys to the local police department. It was there that he got to witness first-hand the pressure the officers were under. The office was busy with numerous people being processed and booked into cells. He’d mentioned to the officer at the front desk that he wanted to speak to Chief Sanchez before he left. Like many others who were there to voice their concerns, file a complaint or try to get updates on those incarcerated, they were told to wait in line.
“I think we should come back,” Anna said.
“Yeah, I second that,” Eric said, gazing around at the crowd that filled the lobby. Many were waiting outside because there wasn’t enough room. They’d had to elbow their way inside. Several people cursed at them and accused them of jumping the line. Sam sighed and nodded. They headed out and returned to Richard’s home to assist in clearing up the house and securing it. The last thing Sam wanted was Richard staying with them. For a short while he even entertained the thought that the whole break-in was just something he’d concocted as a way to not be alone. He didn’t dwell on it, instead he spent the next hour assisting Richard in bringing furniture back into the house while Anna gathered together paperwork that was scattered all over the home.
