Cole hadn’t thought about that, mostly because he hadn’t had the luxury to think about the why any of it was happening. Concentrating on getting to Emily had been his entire universe four days ago. And it still was, now.
“This is only the beginning,” Emily had added. “Whoever is behind this, they’re only getting started.”
That had sent shivers up and down his spine. After everything he’d seen, everything he’d been through, the thought that this was only the beginning was…terrifying.
“Probably shouldn’t be thinking about that right now,” the Voice said.
The Voice was probably right.
“Probably?”
Possibly.
“Oh, come on. Now you’re just being vindictive.”
Maybe he was, but Cole didn’t have time to argue with a nonexistent (“Come on!”) voice that only he could hear. He was too busy making another turn—he’d lost track of what number this was—with the Remington leading the way like it had the previous half hour or so.
Had it been half an hour since he started this trek?
Maybe less than that.
Maybe more.
Maybe—
“Focus!” the Voice shouted.
Cole stopped thinking and did, even if there wasn’t much of anything to focus on but a long and brightly lit hallway with blood on the floor and walls. He wasn’t sure how much farther he’d waded into the facility, but it seemed and felt as if he’d reached the heart of it. If nothing else, the generators that continued to churn in the background had gotten noticeably louder.
He was getting closer to it.
It was one long hallway in front of him—another thirty yards—with two doors on the right and two more on the left. One of those rooms housed the generators that were keeping the facility’s lights on.
And there, yet another three-way intersection at the end.
He had no idea what to expect once he reached here and neither had Sal. This was one of her blind spots. She didn’t know what had happened to the cameras, but they weren’t working. Or, as she put it, “It’s dark. It’s just a big black hole in there.”
Now, as he stood at one end of the corridor and looked across it, Cole figured out why all Sal could see was “a big black hole.”
There was some kind of dark marking on the wall near the ceiling at the very end of the hallway. It looked as if someone had splashed black paint on a very specific location, for a very specific purpose.
“Where are the cameras?” he’d asked Sal back in the employee lounge.
“In the walls,” she’d answered.
“In the walls?”
“That’s right.”
“In the walls, where?”
“Most of them are high up, near the ceiling, pointed down the corridors.”
“I didn’t see them.”
“You wouldn’t. Anton’s idea of hyper security. A.k.a., Big Brother. The cameras are everywhere.”
“Can’t be everywhere if you have blind spots.”
“True. There are no cameras in some of the private quarters, but they’re in every single hallway. They’re buried inside the walls. They’re a part of the walls. Which is why I can’t figure out how I still have blind spots.”
Cole turned to look at the wall directly behind him and understood why Sal had blind spots:
There was black paint on this wall too, near the ceiling about where a hidden surveillance camera would be perfectly positioned to watch the entire corridor. It was thick paint and had hardened since it was splashed in place, likely days ago. No wonder all Sal could see was “a big black hole.”
He turned back around and walked past the first door. It was on his left, with the word SUPPLIES stenciled in capital letters on a plaque. The door, like the other three, were closed. The supply room had a satin nickel lever that was partially covered in dry blood, and there were no sounds coming from the other side.
He passed it by, eyes already moving to the next door.
This one was marked INVENTORY (“Wait. Isn’t that the same as supplies?” the Voice asked.) and its own satin nickel-plated lever was untarnished. As Cole approached it, he spotted blood on the floor. A small pool that had leaked from the other side of the room and into the hallway underneath the door.
Cole continued on, stepping around the blood, with the shotgun in front of him.
Four doors. Two were behind him now. Two more remained in front of him.
And Sal, around the corner.
“Sounds easy enough,” the Voice said.
Yeah. Sounds easy enough.
“I was making a joke.”
Were you?”
“Obviously.”
Well, I didn’t get it.
“Everyone’s a critic.”
Cole glanced up at the black splotch on the wall in front of him. Closer, it appeared to be the same black paint as the one he’d seen up close on the other side. Someone had known exactly where to put them in order to black out Sal’s cameras. They couldn’t get to the equipment themselves because they were buried inside the walls, with just a tiny hole—so small that Cole hadn’t been able to detect it even after learning of their existence—for the lens to look through. So they’d done the next best thing: Covered them up.
Someone who knew where the cameras were. Exactly where they were.
“Who knows about the cameras?” he’d asked Sal.
“Everyone in Anton’s main technical staff,” she had said.
“And how many is that?”
“Five.”
“Including you?”
“Including me.”
“What happened to the other four?”
“Two are dead. I don’t know what happened to the other two.”
“What about Anton?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know. He sorta…disappeared when all of this started.”
“But he was down here at the time. Hosting the bigwig investors.”
“Yes.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No.”
“And that’s not strange to you?”
“Of course it’s strange to me,” Sal had answered, sounding more than a little annoyed. “But it’s not like I can do anything about it from in here.”
Anton, Cole thought now.
It had to be Anton.
Or one of the two people in his “main technical staff.”
“Who cares,” the Voice said. “It’s done. Let’s move on.”
Yeah, who cares, Cole thought as he approached the third door.
Two down, and two to—
“Cole,” Sal said through one of her invisible speakers, “behind you!”
He spun around just as a white-clad figure pulled its head back behind the corridor fifteen yards away. The man had moved too quickly for Cole to see more than just one blood-red eye.
“It’s the chef,” Sal said.
“The fucking chef,” the Voice said. “It’s always the fucking chef, isn’t it?”
Cole stared down the corridor, his forefinger rubbing against the trigger guard of the Remington. It’d been a while since he felt like the hunted instead of the hunter. And that was exactly what was happening now. He was being stalked by a killer, and Cole didn’t like that feeling one bit.
“Where is he?” Cole asked.
“Still there,” Sal said. “Sorry. He came out of nowhere. He’s really sneaky.” Then, sounding alarmed, “What are you doing?”
She had sounded alarmed because Cole had slung the shotgun and drawn the Glock, and had begun stalking back toward the corner.
“Yeah, what are you doing?” the Voice asked.
Cole didn’t answer.
“Cole!” Sal said. “What are you doing?”
“Answer the lady, Cole,” the Voice chimed in.
Cole didn’t. He didn’t respond to either one of them.
He was too mad to.
“Aw, goddammit,” the Voice said, because it knew that Cole was mad.
No, he was more than mad.
Cole was pissed.
If Fred the Chef wanted him, then Fred the Chef was going to get him right fucking now.
Chapter 12. Emily
The pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic weapons fire snapped Emily up from the floor where she was lying.
“Whoa, relax. Relax.”
She opened her eyes and looked to her left.
Greg, also sitting on the floor nearby. He reached over with his left hand as if to keep her from—
She nearly toppled back down, but Greg’s large hand grabbed her flailing arm first and kept her mostly upright. She was unsteady, even though she was sitting down. The warehouse floor was hard against her butt, and so was the wall behind her.
The warehouse. She was still in the warehouse.
“What happened?” she asked. Or croaked. She worked saliva around in her mouth to get rid of the arid taste. “I heard shooting.”
“I did, too,” Greg said. “It’s going on outside, as far as I can tell. They’re shooting at the crazies.”
“‘They?’”
“The ones that hit us with those smoke bombs.”
“What happened exactly?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
She felt better and nodded at him. “I’m okay now.”
“You sure?”
No, she thought but said, “Yes.”
She wasn’t fully okay, but enough that she could sit by herself without fear of falling sideways back to the floor. Her head hurt—there was a slight continued pounding somewhere in the back of her skull; or maybe it was everywhere in her skull—and her body ached. Other than that she was okay. Mostly.
Emily cleared her head—or as much of it as she could—and glanced around her. They were inside an office. One of the two inside Anton’s Welcome Room. The smaller of the two, not the large one where the others were.
The others. Where were the others?
There was just her and Greg inside this one and no signs of Bolton or Tommy or Zoe or Dante or anyone else.
“The others,” she said.
The big man shook his head. She hadn’t noticed it the first time, but he looked as if he’d just woken up and didn’t get the chance to wash his face or brush his teeth. His hair was disheveled, and she could see him trying to fight through his own cobwebs. Whatever aftereffects of the smoke that had paralyzed and knocked her out was happening to Greg, too. But being bigger and stronger, he’d woken up before her.
“I don’t know,” Greg said. “It was just the two of us when I woke up.”
“How long ago?”
“I’m not sure. A few minutes? A little more than that?”
Emily looked down at her watch, but it was gone.
“They took mine, too,” Greg said.
Their watches weren’t the only thing the attackers had taken. Her Glock was gone and so was Greg’s spear. They had been disarmed but not bound and gagged, which was a little surprising. Why would anyone that went to such great lengths to break their way into the building, then take them by force, skip such an obvious step?
She stood up—or tried to.
Emily lost her balance and would have fallen right back down if Greg hadn’t been there to, again, grab her. He’d shot up to his feet like a missile even though she didn’t think he was 100 percent, either. She was proven correct when he reached out and shoved one hand against the nearest wall to keep himself upright and her along with him.
Emily gave him a thankful nod before looking out the windows.
Like the other, bigger office, the top half of this one was glass walls, allowing her to see outside at the rest of the warehouse without trouble. She wasn’t sure she liked what she saw, though.
There were men in The Welcome Room that hadn’t been there before. They wore olive drab BDUs—battle dress uniforms—similar to what soldiers wore. In fact, they were identical. These men looked like soldiers, but there was something not quite right about them.
She focused on the one standing closest to her, just outside the office. Like the others, he wore boots, a web belt with ammo and supply pouches, and a holstered sidearm. A gas mask dangled from his belt at the back. He carried a standard military-issued M4 carbine with an ACOG scope on top.
The guard stood five yards or so from the only office door, keeping eyes on both offices at once. She guessed they didn’t have a need for more than one sentry considering the unbalanced distribution of guns in the building at the moment. As much soldier vibe as the man gave off, Emily couldn’t find an American flag patch on his shoulder.
Two others, wearing similar gear, stood sentry near the wrecked semi, while two more were camped at the elevator bank. They were talking, but of course she didn’t have any chance of eavesdropping.
Emily looked past her guard at the other office. Thanks to the surrounding glass wall she could see that the others were all in there, including Bolton and Tommy. They all looked to be in healthy conditions, even the two men that had been caught in the smoke with her and Greg.
Zoe, standing near the door with her arms hugging her chest, must have sensed Emily because she looked over. The older woman waved awkwardly, and Emily returned it. Greg, standing next to her, did too.
“They’re okay,” he said.
“Looks like it.”
“Bolton and Tommy?” Then, spotting the two men among the others, “There they are. Why’d they separate us from them?”
Maybe because I shot one of them, Emily thought, remembering putting two rounds into the big hulking figure that had knocked open the side door with, she was sure of it now, a battering ram. The kind used by police. She had no idea where he’d gotten that. Then again, she had no idea where his compatriots got their BDUs and weapons, either.
Someone whistled.
It was the guard. He had noticed they were up and alert and was whistling to the two men at the elevator.
Both men turned around, and one of them started walking over.
“You think he’s the boss?” Greg asked.
“Probably,” Emily said.
The possible “boss” of the group was a tall man with broad shoulders. He was halfway to them when Emily heard more pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic weapons fire from outside. The man kept walking, never breaking his stride once.
“There’s more of them outside,” Emily said.
“Yeah,” Greg said, kneading his forehead with the knuckles of his left hand.
“What’s wrong?”
“My head’s pounding. Feels like a drumline’s going crazy in there.”
“Go sit down.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Greg…”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, sterner than she was used to hearing from him. As if he realized it himself, Greg flashed her a quick smile. “I’m fine,” he said in a softer tone this time.
She nodded, not wanting to argue with him.
Emily turned to watch the boss of this civilian gang of heavily armed men as the man reached them. He had grays along his temples and light blue eyes that scrutinized her back through the office glass wall. Like the others, he didn’t wear a name tag and there was an absence of the stars and stripes patch on his shoulder.
The man opened the door and stepped inside.
Up close, she was able to confirm the lack of a name tag or any ranking insignias. If he were an American soldier, he’d stripped all hints of it away.
“Up and at ’em, I see,” the man said.
His voice sounded familiar. It took Emily a few seconds to figure out just why.
“I’ll take that,” a voice had said just before a hand did exactly that to her Glock. Even though the man had spoken from behind a gas mask and the words were slightly distorted, there was no mistaking the country good ol’ boy accent.
“Who are you people?” Emily asked him.
“Right to business, then?” the man sai
d.
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I was hoping for some exchange of pleasantries first.”
He walked toward her, and Emily instinctively took a couple of steps back.
Greg, next to her, did too.
The man stopped and chuckled. “Let’s face it; if we’d wanted to hurt you two, or your friends in the other room, we would have done it before either one of you woke up.”
“Who are you?” Emily asked again. “And what do you want?”
“I’m Stoner,” the man said. “These are my guys.”
He indicated the others outside the office. Every one of them—including the one standing guard—seemed occupied with their assigned tasks. The man at the elevator, Emily saw, had managed to open the paneling and was peering at the wiring inside with a flashlight. Emily hoped he didn’t destroy everything in the process.
The pop-pop! of two rifle shots echoed, and this time Emily was able to pinpoint exactly where they were coming from: Above her, on the rooftop of the warehouse.
Stoner had snipers on the rooftop picking off psychos in the area.
“Yours, too?” she asked him.
The older man nodded. He had a good twenty years on Greg and maybe fifteen or so on Cole. He was in excellent shape, from what she could see, and could probably give Greg—even if he had both arms—a real fight.
“We’ve taken the building,” Stoner said. “And it’s going to stay that way until we figure out how to make that elevator work.” He glanced out the office at said elevator, before turning back to her. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“About what?” she said.
“How to make it work.”
“No. It wasn’t working before you barged in here.”
Stoner looked from Emily to Greg. “Is she right?”
Greg nodded. “Yeah.”
“I see.”
“You know about this place,” Emily said.
Stoner returned his gaze to her. “Do you?”
“LARS.”
He smiled. “Yes. LARS.”
Fall of Man | Book 3 | Firebase: Page 10
