“And you need someone who knows about the bomb,” Adam said, his heart sinking.
“You’re an outsider,” Thompson said. “You’re impartial. You can talk to the president, let him know what he’s facing here. I saw your face when I showed you what we had, Adam. I know you’re afraid of it. I know you think I’m out of my mind. Use that. Convince him. If he believes you and agrees to our demands, we’ll never have to use our ultimate weapon.”
“You want to send me to Omaha to talk to the president alone?”
“Not completely alone. It’s a twenty-two-hour trip. My men will drive you most of the way,” Thompson said. “We don’t have time to wait around while you make that trek on foot. But once you get close, yes, you’ll have to approach the bunker alone. You’ll have to pretend you’re just a lone survivor, and that you have no idea where you’ve washed up. You can’t let on that you’ve seen and spoken to us until you’re inside.”
Adam felt cold. “What if I don’t want to do this?” he asked. “What if I refuse?”
Thompson leaned across the desk. “You think I’m insane, Adam,” he said. “I know you do. Is saying no to me really something you want to do?”
Chapter 10
Admiration battled with resentment in Adam’s mind.
On one hand, he could see in hindsight exactly how General Thompson had set him up. He had let him in just far enough that Adam could believe he would do exactly what he said he would do. He had explained his point of view perfectly, so that Adam could see exactly how the dominoes would fall if he refused to play his part.
It isn’t just the president he’s threatening with that nuke, he thought bleakly. It’s me, too. Because he knows I don’t want anyone to die. He knows I’ll do whatever it takes to stop that thing from going off.
Adam thought back to Clay, the night before, telling him that he could visit the commissary in the morning. It seemed so telling now. Of course they wanted me to wait until morning, he thought. They didn’t want me cleaning myself up. They want me looking dirty and wrecked when I walk into Omaha, not wearing a fresh pair of clothes and looking like I’ve just had a shower and a shave.
He wanted no part of this.
He wanted to tell Thompson to go to hell and to take his nuke with him.
A part of him, ablaze with anger over the role he’d been asked to play in this horrible farce, wanted to tell Thompson to go right ahead and set off his nuke. If Thompson wanted to play that way, he would have to be prepared for the end of the world.
But Thompson would do it.
And Ella was here.
Adam couldn’t do anything that would lead to Ella’s death. He’d made it his business to protect her, ever since they’d left the Santa Joaquina. The idea of knowingly making a choice that would end with her dying was unthinkable.
Damn it.
He was going to do what Thompson wanted. He had known it as soon as the man had started talking, really, but he had held out hope that there might be some way out of it for him. So much for that. He’s got me good and cornered.
Thompson was still watching him, still waiting for an answer. “What do you say?” he prompted. “Are you willing to help us out?”
As if all he’d asked for was an innocuous favor. As if he wasn’t, in essence, ordering Adam to declare war.
But what could Adam do? What other option was there but to go along with this plan? He couldn’t stand against the man who had all the weapons when he had nothing at all.
But maybe I can negotiate.
He saw, suddenly, a glimmer of hope. A way this might lead to a positive outcome after all. But he would have to play his cards well. Because he knew he didn’t have that much leverage to bargain with.
“I want to ask for something in return,” he said.
Thompson’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“I think it’s fair,” Adam said. “You’re asking me to face down armed Secret Service agents. We think they won’t shoot me on sight, but it’s not exactly risk free. You know that.”
“There are some who would say that you should obey an order from your commanding officer without question,” Thompson said.
“But I’m not military,” Adam pointed out. “I haven’t got a commanding officer. And didn’t you tell me that the most sensible thing to do was to use all the assets at your disposal?”
“You’re going nuclear?”
“It’s really only a small request.”
Thompson sighed. “Name it.”
“Ella and I are very grateful for the hospitality we’ve been shown here,” Adam said, choosing his words with extreme care. “But we’d really prefer to go our own way. My hope is that after I do this for you, you’d be willing to let the two of us go.”
“Let you go?” Thompson frowned. “No one is a prisoner here.”
“Yes,” Adam said. “But we were brought here to see you without…being asked if we wanted to come. And it’s not that we’re sorry to have seen your operation,” he added quickly. “We’re just very private people. We were enjoying living wild. I can promise you that if you let us go on our way, we’ll never trouble you or your militia again.”
Thompson hesitated, then nodded slowly. “I think I can agree to that,” he said. “Once you come back from Omaha—if you execute your mission correctly—you and your girl are free to go. None of my men will stop you. Does that satisfy?”
“One other thing,” Adam said.
“You want more from me?”
Adam steeled himself. He had known this would be the hard part. “You have my friend’s sister here.”
“Our scientist.”
“You know?” Adam was stunned.
“My lieutenant told me,” Thompson said. “Was it a secret?”
“I suppose not,” Adam stammered. “I was just surprised.”
“What about her?”
“We’d like to bring her with us when we go.”
“Hang on,” Thompson barked.
“And her son, too,” Adam barreled on before he could be cut off. “I understand he’s here with you as well.”
“You can’t ask me to send away my nuclear scientist,” Thompson said. “She’s the only one here who knows anything about the weapon.”
“But she’s already got it working for you,” Adam pointed out. “You don’t really need her anymore, do you?”
Thompson hesitated.
“Let us take her,” Adam said. “And the kid. They’re a family. They belong together.”
“No,” Thompson said. “You’re asking too much. If they want to be together, they can stay together here, on the base.”
“She’s here against her will,” Adam said.
“It’s wartime,” Thompson countered. “We’re all here against our will.”
Adam drew a breath and tried to summon as much confidence as he could. This could so easily backfire. If he calls my bluff, I’ve got nothing to fall back on.
But he had to try.
“These are my terms,” he said. “If you agree, then I’ll do whatever you ask. I’ll go to Omaha—”
“You’ll go to Omaha regardless,” Thompson snapped. “I have the manpower. I have the guns. What are you going to do about it?”
“I could refuse,” Adam said.
“We’d kill you.”
“Okay, but then you wouldn’t have a messenger.” It was terrifying to be this reckless. For all he knew, Thompson was about to pull out a gun and shoot him where he sat.
Thompson narrowed his eyes. “I could send her,” he suggested. “The woman. Ella. She’s as malnourished as you are. She knows about the nuke too. She could do the job.”
Adam shook his head. “You don’t want to send her.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You told me yourself. You said ‘some things are best discussed between men.’ I understood what you meant. You think this is a man’s job. And I agree with you,” Adam added, even though he didn’t. “The president will
take me more seriously than he’d take Ella. This has a better chance at working if I go.”
Thompson frowned, and Adam knew his point was made.
“I’m not expendable to you,” he went on. “I know you would shoot me. But you don’t want to. You want to use me. And you can. I’m offering to give you exactly what you want, without even putting up a fight. All I’m asking is that you give me what I want in return.”
“If I agree to this,” Thompson said, “I’m going to want more than just a token effort. You’re going to have to do all you can to get the answer I want from the president.”
Adam nodded. “I can do that.”
“You’d better. Because I’m not giving up my scientist for anything less. You come back here with a guarantee of our independence, and I’ll consider letting them all go.”
Adam shook his head. “If I get a yes,” he said, “you guarantee that we all get to leave. Me, Ella, Julie, and her son. No one bothers us, no one follows us out. No stipulations. The four of us and your army go our separate ways for good.”
Thompson’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said icily. “But if you don’t get the results I’m looking for, the women stay here for good.”
“Just the women?”
“I don’t want you here anymore,” Thompson said. “You’re too much trouble. I’ll use you for this mission because I believe you’ll give it your best effort now that there’s something you want on the line. But after this, you’re expelled. You get your wish. You’ll leave my camp and go your own way.”
Adam opened his mouth to protest at this. Thompson’s condition meant that he would be separated from Ella, and that was an unbearable thought.
But he stopped himself.
It’s all or nothing anyway, he reminded himself. Either this plan works, and we all get away, or else it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t work, it’s not going to matter whether they send me away or not, because they’re never going to let Ella and me be happy here together.
Not that they could be happy in a place like this anyway. Not knowing every day that total devastation lay right beneath their feet. Not knowing the sort of violence that the men of this militia wreaked on the people who got in their way. Neither of them would ever be happy here.
So there was only one choice left. He was going to have to go on the mission Thompson had assigned him. He was going to have to pour every ounce of effort he could muster into it. And he was going to have to succeed.
It was the only way to ensure that he and Ella would be able to have any kind of future that didn’t just look like a nightmare.
“All right,” he agreed. “You’ve got a deal. I’ll go to Omaha and give your message to the president. I’ll negotiate with him until I can get him to agree to your terms. And then, when I come back, you’ll let me take my family and leave.”
He was surprised by how natural it felt to refer to Julie, who he’d only met once, and her son, who he’d never even seen, as family. But after all, they belonged to Ella. And more and more, Ella felt as if she belonged to him.
From the moment he’d boarded Cody’s yacht, Adam had been struggling to find a place he fit in. A group of people to call his own. He’d thought he had it with Artem, but when Artem had been killed, he’d been forced to start the search anew.
Now he had Ella, and he’d be damned if he was going to let that relationship slip through his fingers.
Of course, he thought, it’s possible this whole thing is another big setup. It’s possible I’ll come back from this mission having fully succeeded, and Thompson will go back on his word and keep us here anyway. It’s possible he’ll do even worse than that. We know these are people who don’t have a problem putting those they don’t need up against a wall in front of a firing squad. I’ve got no reason to believe he won’t just do that to me.
But he would have to try to trust Thompson. There was no better alternative.
He thought it was possible the man actually could be trusted. Thompson had manipulated him masterfully, but so far he didn’t think the general had actually lied to him. Thompson’s M.O. seemed to be using the truth to compel people to do what he wanted them to do.
Adam would have to hope that was what he was doing now.
He and Thompson finished their breakfast in silence, and then Adam got to his feet. “May I be excused?” he asked. “I’d like to catch up on some sleep if I’m going to be leaving on a dangerous mission.”
Thompson nodded. “You’re excused back to your tent,” he said. “But I don’t want you visiting the commissary for clean clothes. You’re to go in the things you’re wearing. We don’t want to give the president the impression that you have some kind of source of supplies.”
Adam nodded wearily. He had really been looking forward to that new set of clothes. Now, thanks to the deal he had struck, it didn’t seem like he’d be able to get them even if he was successful in his mission. It was foolish to think that Thompson would allow him to take anything from the camp’s supplies before he left.
He walked across the ground, feeling detached, as if he were on a movie set instead of a real military base. How did it come to this?
Ella was still on her cot when Adam returned to his. He didn’t know if she’d waited there for him or if she had gone to breakfast and was now back. It didn’t matter. He was grateful to her for being at his side.
She touched his shoulder. “What happened?”
“Not now,” he said. He was shredded, emotionally, and too tired to discuss it. He knew that if he tried to explain to her the deal he had made and what he was about to have to do, he would fall apart. “Let me rest, okay? And we’ll talk tonight.”
She nodded. He had worried she might see something wrong in his wanting to go back to bed so soon after waking up—but then, he supposed, she had to be just as tired as he was. And neither of them was accustomed to eating full meals.
He curled up on his cot, facing away from her, contemplating the wall of the tent. After a moment, he sensed that she had moved away. Maybe she believed he had fallen asleep.
Let her think so.
Adam longed for the release of sleep, but he didn’t think it would come to him so easily this time. Not now that he knew what lay ahead. Not now that the stakes had been so clearly laid out, and he understood what he would be giving up if he were to fail.
So it came as a surprise when blackness began to encircle his vision, and it was with a sense of relief that Adam dropped into unconsciousness once more.
Chapter 11
By the time night fell, Adam was fully awake and alert and wishing he hadn’t slept away the day. Because now his circadian rhythms were completely off.
He lay on his back, staring up at the darkened top of the tent above him and listening to the slow, even breathing of the other people around him. How many of them know what’s really going on here? he wondered. This tent was supposed to be full of the newcomers to Thompson’s militia. How long had they been here?
And why couldn’t one of them have been chosen for the mission Adam would face tomorrow? Why had Thompson singled him out?
Of course, he knew why. He had only to look around the tent to see that he was the only relatively healthy-looking man under the age of forty here. He was the obvious choice for someone like Thompson, someone incapable of looking below the surface to see what a person had to offer.
I’m glad he chose me, Adam thought. It’s a good thing he did. Because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to negotiate for the things I did. I wouldn’t have a chance of getting us all out of here with our lives.
He had to focus on that chance. He clung to it, knowing it might be the only thing that would keep him going through the hard days ahead.
Twenty-two hours to Omaha. They would drive him most of the way, which meant he would be confined in a military vehicle with some of Thompson’s men. He wondered how much of the mission they would be in on. Probably most of it, he had to assume.
He would
have to be prepared with his best poker face. He couldn’t let them see how little he thought of Thompson and of the mission on which he was being sent.
“Adam?” Ella whispered from the next cot.
He rolled to his side to face her.
“I knew you were awake,” she said. “I could tell by the way you were breathing.”
“You know me that well?”
“I’ve been keeping watch while you sleep for a while now,” she said. “I know what you sound like when you’re sleeping, yeah.”
Adam nodded, thinking about that. He felt so tightly bound to Ella now. Maybe going through the kinds of things they’d been through together always bound people like this.
But maybe not. After all, he had been through struggles with Artem, Sara, and Cody on the yacht, and although he missed them all now and wished that they were still alive, it had never felt the same as things between him and Ella felt now.
He didn’t know what he would do if he lost her.
“They’re sending you away tomorrow, aren’t they?” Ella asked.
“How do you know?”
“I heard some of the officers talking about it.” She got up and pushed her cot over so that it was right up against his, so they formed a single bed. Then she lay back down, reached out, and took his hand. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“I know. So do I.”
“What are they making you do?”
He shook his head. “It’s probably better for you if we don’t talk about it,” he said. “I don’t think anything good can come from you knowing too much right now.”
Ella frowned. “I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of not knowing where you are. You wouldn’t like it either, if it was me that was going.”
“No,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t. I’d probably drag the truth out of you. But I’m asking you not to do that.”
“I trust you.”
“I know you do.”
Escape The Dark (Book 4): Caught In The Crossfire Page 8
