End Game

by David Baldacci

  He detected the scent of Malloy all over him. He took a deep breath and it was all he could do to stop himself from sprinting back up the steps, waking the woman, and doing it all over again.

  He slowly rose and staggered to the door. A minute later he was back at the hotel.

  As he passed Reel’s room down the hall from his, he noted that there was no light coming from under the door. At three a.m. she was, like most people, asleep in her own bed.

  Like I should have been for the last four hours.

  He showered and lay down in the bed with just a pair of boxers on. He stared at the ceiling, hoping perhaps to find some answers to bewildering questions on the drywall up there.

  It didn’t work. There were no answers there or in his head.

  He finally fell asleep and then rose when his phone alarm sounded. He dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.

  He saw Reel had beaten him down. She was just finishing her meal at a corner table. She saw him and motioned him over. Robie squared his shoulders and marched toward her. He had more apprehension doing that than he’d had going into that home in London to battle seventeen armed terrorists.

  Such was the unique effect that Jessica Reel had on him.

  He sat down and ordered coffee from the waitress who hurried over to take his order. There weren’t many people in the small restaurant, and she was probably happy to have something to do.

  “You look tired,” said Reel. “You didn’t sleep well?”

  “I’m fine. Maybe drank a little bit too much,” he added in a low voice.

  “Right. So what did Malloy want with her nightcap?”

  Robie fiddled with his napkin. “Nothing much, but I’m getting fed up with not telling her about Holly.”

  “I told you how I feel about it, but I also see Agent Sanders’s position. And we gave him our word.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Robie, not finishing the thought.

  His coffee came and he drank it down quickly.

  Reel watched him and said, “You feel better?”

  He nodded.

  “You want something to eat?”

  He shook his head. “So, luxury silos today?”

  “Lambert texted me. He’s going to come by around ten.”

  “Okay, but you really think there’s a connection?”

  “Blue Man toured the place right before he disappeared.” countered Reel. “And you didn’t have a problem last night with our checking it out.”

  “Fine,” said Robie curtly.

  “I think we just need to learn as much as we can about this place, Robie. The more we know, the chances increase we can find Blue Man. But if you have a better idea, I’m listening.”

  “I don’t have a better idea,” he said distractedly. “I don’t have any ideas.”

  “Okay, so then we’re on the same page.”

  They finished up and were waiting out front for Lambert when he pulled up in a Yukon at a few minutes past ten.

  Robie watched dully as Malloy walked across the street, dressed in her uniform, at the same time Lambert arrived.

  Shit.

  He had forgotten that she was coming.

  “Sheriff,” said Reel as Malloy joined them.

  Malloy nodded at her and then settled her gaze on Robie.

  “Agent Robie,” she said.

  “Sheriff.”

  “That was great least night, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “What’s that?” asked Robie nervously.

  “The dinner at Claire’s.”

  “Absolutely. She knows how to throw a party.”

  He didn’t notice Reel glancing first at Malloy and then at him.

  They all walked to the Yukon and climbed in. Reel took shotgun, and Robie and Malloy settled into the middle row.

  Lambert said, “I brought donuts, if anyone’s interested.”

  “I am,” said Malloy, glancing at Robie. “I didn’t get enough last night. I’m still really hungry.”

  Robie looked out the window, even as Reel glanced toward the back.

  “Well, eat up,” said Lambert.

  Malloy took a donut and bit into it. “I plan to.”

  “Let’s go,” said Reel curtly.

  Chapter

  39

  “POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS AND trichloroethylene were the two biggest issues for this site,” said Lambert as they approached the former missile silo complex in his vehicle.

  “See, the biphenyl got into the soil. And the trichloroethylene got into the groundwater. The missile crews used it to flush the fuel tanks after readiness tests.”

  “No problem with radiation?” asked Reel. “Didn’t the Atlas missiles use plutonium for their core?”

  “They did, but all warhead maintenance occurred at the manufacturing facility. Not here. Did you know a version of the Atlas was used to launch John Glenn into space as part of the Mercury program?” He smiled and slapped the steering wheel. “That’s a part of American history for sure. Now, the truth is these missile silos had a short shelf life. They came online in 1961 and were put on high alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then they were phased out in 1965 for lots of different reasons. Environmental remediation was complete around twelve years ago, and the site closure happened a couple years later. Then it went on the market. I bought it and developed it from there. Paid four hundred thou for the site and spent five years and about eighteen million dollars renovating it.”

  He pulled to a stop at a large steel link gate topped with concertina wire. There was a call box with a digital pad. Lambert rolled down his window, punched in a code, and a voice came through a speaker.

  “Yes?”

  Lambert waved at a camera mounted on a post. “It’s me, Karl. With our guests.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Lambert.”

  The gate swung open and Lambert drove through.

  “The Army Corps of Engineers originally built the site,” Lambert explained. “They picked the location too, and they picked well.”

  They navigated a long macadam road that meandered through open fields.

  Lambert pointed to several tall posts along the way.

  “State-of-the-art surveillance at regular intervals. We can see anyone coming from a long way away.”

  “And who exactly would be coming?” asked Reel.

  Lambert shrugged. “In an apocalypse it’s hard to say. Maybe everybody who didn’t plan ahead, I guess.”

  “You mean who didn’t have the money to plan ahead?” countered Malloy.

  “Well, that sort of goes without saying.”

  They finally pulled up to what looked like an enormous concrete dome with a large metal door.

  “Blast door,” said Lambert as he brought the SUV to a stop. “Sucker can withstand a nuclear strike. Concrete walls are nearly three meters thick. That dome can take five-hundred-mile-per-hour winds easy.”

  In front of the door was a parked Hummer that was decked out with a turret machine gun. Four men in cammies and bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles were standing by the vehicle.

  “So you have perimeter security as well,” noted Robie.

  “Absolutely, that’s one of the chief selling points. In the event of an emergency the guards’ families will be allowed in, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Reel, the disgust clear on her features, though Lambert wasn’t looking at her.

  They climbed out of the truck and approached the door.

  “So who buys these sorts of places?” asked Malloy.

  “Wide spectrum of folks. I can’t reveal any names of course, but we’ve got hedge fund managers, investment bankers, Silicon Valley people, you know, Facebook, Yahoo, Google. Captains of industry. Names you see in the Wall Street Journal. Got one professional athlete, a golfer.”

  “Silicon Valley, huh?” said Malloy. “Techies afraid of the apocalypse? I thought they believed technology was going to save the world.”

  “Hell, I met this one guy in the tech world. He’s
scared to death that people are going to be coming for him and other folks out there because this artificial intelligence stuff will be taking everybody’s jobs away. He told me he had attended that fancy-ass economic forum they hold every year in Switzerland and all everybody was talking about over there was building hideaways. The rich are really running scared. And you’ve got to have serious money to buy at this level. Each full-floor condo in my silo will set you back about four million. And it’s not like this is a residence used very often. So really you have to be worth well north of a hundred mill to make this work. We got a billionaire, too, although he hedges his bets even more.”

  “How so?” asked Malloy.

  “Well, he has a place here. But he also has an island off the coast of New Zealand. New Zealand is real popular with rich people worried about global collapse. I guess they think it’s far enough away not to be affected. But I’m like, well, you got poor people there, too. But hey, I figure if they’re that rich they must know what they’re doing. And it’s not my place to second-guess somebody who made that much money. They must be smart, right?”

  “Or they inherited it,” pointed out Malloy.

  “Or they get to operate on an uneven playing field because they paid off politicians to write the laws to favor them,” added Reel.

  “Well, there’s some of that, sure,” conceded Lambert in a halfhearted fashion. “Thing is, folks who buy here aren’t getting a vacation home. They’re purchasing an insurance policy so that if government and civilization go into a temporary tailspin, they’ll be able to safely wait it out and come back to pick up the pieces.”

  “That’s the theory anyway,” said Robie.

  “It’s all theory when you think about it,” added Lambert. “No way to really predict how it will all shake out. But these people are leaders in their business. Really smart folks, like I said. By talking to a lot of them who have bought units here, I can tell they believe they’ll be able to bring civilization back online. So that’s a good thing.”

  Malloy said, “But do they ever think that they might have helped contribute to society going to hell? You know, the haves and the have-nots?”

  Lambert grinned. “Look, I try not to get into the middle of that argument. People can spout off facts on both sides and people believe what they want, and you’re not going to change their minds. So it’s a losing proposition. And I’m not an asshole. I’m not saying I particularly love any of this. You know, poor people beating on the door to get in and rich people saying, ‘Hell no.’ Fact is, it’s their money, so they can spend it however they want. But I’m a businessman. There was a need for this and I’m filling that need. So long as people are willing to pay enough for me to earn a profit, then that’s that. And I took a big risk with this project. The engineering was a bitch and the interior renovation was even more of a challenge. The day I closed on this sucker and we came and opened the door I thought I’d lost my mind and my money. I had to take out a big loan to do the work. And then I had to sell the units. I had to finish one model apartment before I could market it. Folks aren’t gonna shell out millions based on a picture. But I found a strategy that worked.”

  “What was that?” asked Robie.

  “I figured I’d go where the money is. I put ads in luxury yacht magazines and in private jet publications. I had my first customer within a month and then word spread fast. I mean the folks who can afford this place only move in pretty tight circles with other folks who have the money for a place like this. So I had the whole facility sold out in eighteen months. And there was no haggling over the price. People paid the asking. Everything was done high-end, and as you’ll see we thought of pretty much everything. And I always made sure to have my biggest, baddest, and best-armed security out there when potential owners came to visit. They appreciated that fact, I can tell you.”

  “So do you have a place here?” asked Reel.

  Lambert smiled. “Hell yes. I’m not going to be left outside. You can’t spend your money if you’re dead.”

  “I’m thinking that all the owners don’t live around here, so how do they get here if there’s an emergency?” asked Robie.

  Lambert pointed towards the east. “We got a secure FAA-approved landing strip a quarter mile that way. It’ll take jets all the way up to Triple Sevens. Folks fly in and then we motor them here to safety. See, that’s the other reason you have to have serious money to make this work. You got to have your own jet. Folks won’t have any way of getting here otherwise. If the world’s gone to hell, it’s not like you can just gas up your car and drive off down the interstate. It’ll be packed with traffic, no gas available, people maybe shooting at each other from their cars. Now, as a last resort, we will take armored vehicles to Denver and pick up folks there, if that’s the only way they can get here. But we do strongly encourage the private jet route.”

  “Well, that cuts down on the riffraff,” opined Reel.

  Lambert looked at her and smiled. “I’m not going to win you over on this, am I?”

  “Doubtful, since I’m part of the riffraff.”

  Lambert shrugged. “Hey, I get it, but I don’t make the rules. Anyway, we have room, you know, like servants’ quarters, for their pilots and their families too, like our guards here. I mean you can’t expect your pilots to fly you to safety and leave their families behind. We have that detail in our owner’s manual so that people won’t forget. Lot of details to keep straight. Hard to do in times of crisis.”

  “Yeah, families,” said Robie, glancing at Reel, who now looked like she wanted to shoot Lambert.

  He continued. “There are actually two underground complexes with the Atlas E facility. There’s the missile launch and service building and the launch operations building. They’re connected by a tunnel. The launch building is a huge storage facility, really. There was one missile to a facility. The Atlas was stored horizontally and then would be raised vertically so it could be fired out of the silo after the retractable roof was opened. The ops building was where the crew quarters were located along with launch control components and diesel-powered generators. You’re talking about twenty-five acres total.”

  He led them over to the entrance door after speaking with one of the guards.

  “I got friends who have motorcycles gassed up and ready at all times. They got their guns, ammo, some canned food, and bottled water that they’ll carry in a little trailer as they head out of the nightmare. They got gold coins, too, and prearranged places where they’ll meet up. Or maybe Bitcoins or cryptocurrency. Now, higher up on the scale are well-heeled executives who keep their choppers ready to go at all times and have a place somewhere remote with everything they need to stay alive, including air filtration. See, they figure if society collapses the worst stuff will happen in metro and suburban areas. You know, low-hanging fruit. Who wants to trek up a mountain to get to a rich person if they just have to turn the corner in Manhattan and throw a brick through a window and follow that with a gun or knife?”

  “So people coming here will be escaping from big cities?” asked Robie.

  “More than likely, yeah. I mean, that’s where they make all their money, right? Hell, we’re flyover country here.”

  “But I’m assuming there are rich people around here, too,” said Reel.

  “Sure, but most are still concentrated along the coasts and down in Texas with all the oil money. Stats on that are clear. And that’s where most of my clients are from. And they know they can’t go it alone. Not against a mob mentality. Not even with all their money. Money works only when you have laws and people to enforce those laws. So they need help. And we’re that help.”

  Malloy said, “And where will the police be in all this?”

  “No offense, Sheriff, but they’re going to be part of the mob,” replied Lambert promptly. “Cops don’t make a lot of money. You know that firsthand. They’re going to be out rioting along with everyone else unless they already cut a deal to act as security for the rich folks.”
/>   “Damn,” said Malloy, shaking her head.

  Reel looked at her. “Hey, maybe you hedge your bets and get your butt in here. I’m sure Lambert is always looking for an experienced gun for hire to show off to his rich clients.”

  Lambert smiled. “Sorry, Sheriff, I’d like to oblige, but we got sufficient security and we frankly don’t have the room. Every square inch is spoken for.”

  “No problem. I’d prefer to take my chances on the outside with the riffraff.”

  Lambert approached the door and pressed his thumb into a biometric reader. A control panel was revealed as a thick piece of metal slid upward. He keyed in a code and the hydraulic-powered door swung silently open surprisingly fast.

  Lambert said, “The shield over the control panel will withstand pretty much anything you can throw at it. But even if it is disabled we have redundant controls inside. And that blast door can take a direct nuke hit, so forget about trying to get through it with conventional explosives. Isn’t going to happen.”

  Robie looked over the width and depth of the gigantic door. “I can see that.”

  “Now, what you’re about to see is the pinnacle response to prepping short of owning an island and employing your own army. I also refer to it