Duane shook his head as he rose from the couch and shuffled to the bar, kneeling on the floor as he closed one cuff around his wrist and the other on the rail.
“Tug to show me it’s tight.”
Duane obeyed and yanked his arm away, the metal clanging as his balled fist stopped a few inches from the rail.
“Perfect, that’s all I needed to see. Have a good flight. I’ll see you in Denver.”
Martin reclined in his lounge chair and let himself drift off to sleep. His brain was exhausted and had no issue dozing, even with all the commotion behind him. The world was ready for the change coming in the morning, and he needed to be, too.
21
Chapter 21
In Barrow, Alaska, away from the drama of a treasonous Councilwoman and middle-of-the-night kidnapping of Duane Betts, a team of Road Runners put on the final touches of their two-week project. They worked at all hours so that progress was constant. They knew what they were working toward, and nobody griped about the long hours, proud to be an integral part of the organization’s constantly changing history.
Andrew Wilson, the man tasked with leading the charge in Alaska, examined the placement of the explosive devices from the tunnel they had spent the last two weeks digging. The mansion had retaining walls deeply embedded in the ground, and they were able to find them quite easily. It was the digging around the actual mansion that proved more challenging than anticipated.
Nevertheless, they pushed through. Andrew headed the development team for the Road Runners. Their primary focus was building safe office spaces around the country, maintenance of said properties, and constructing anything the commander might need. His same crew had also built the now-extinct Desert Oasis Hotel in Las Vegas, and hearing of its destruction made everyone want to work even harder on their new tunnel project. Many even took the liberty of signing their names on the concrete retaining walls, the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to Chris.
Andrew often touted his team as the smartest in all of the Road Runners. They consisted of architects and engineers from every field of practice, and also doubled as a construction crew to create their visions first-hand. They had plenty of experience working underground, considering most Road Runner offices were in a basement, but they had never done so under the cloud of fear that lingered over them every day. They set up camp a quarter-mile from the mansion, across the only road, separated by a wide span of trees that kept them concealed from the mansion’s view.
This didn’t mean they felt safe, however. They were dealing with the most dangerous man in the world, as far as they were concerned. And if he had happened to go out for a jog through the woods and find their little campground setup, what might he have done on the spot?
But no one ever discovered them. Only the first day of construction had been loud as they dug the initial hole in the ground to begin the tunnel, but by day two they were fully hidden beneath the earth. Digging a quarter-mile tunnel was no small feat, especially on the strict time restraints provided by Commander Briar. But with a crew and a surprising influx of volunteers who simply wanted to come dig as instructed, Andrew was able to create a schedule to meet the seemingly impossible deadline. It was incredible to see how a little bit of determination to end the war propelled people to uncanny levels of focus on the task at hand.
Andrew had examined the bombs, testing their radio signal with one of the volunteers at the campground. All were properly planted, four on each retaining wall all the way around the house. Even without the bazooka, the mansion would surely crumble into itself and cause plenty of harm and death to those inside.
Everything was cleared, only requiring the final word from Commander Briar on the detonation of the bombs and firing the missile. They had also sent a soldier to Barrow to deliver and handle the bazooka. None of the constriction crew had any experience using one and didn’t want to botch the critical step.
A ten-minute walk separated the base of the mansion from the campground, and once he stepped out of the tunnel, Andrew promptly lit a cigarette and pulled out his cell phone to call Gerald. It was 7 A.M. in Barrow, the sun not quite breaking the horizon yet.
“Good morning, Mr. Wilson,” Gerald greeted.
“Good morning, sir. I just did a final check. Everything is in position and ready, including the bazooka.”
“Great. I spoke with our soldier this morning and he knows the position he needs to be in. He will be the closest to the mansion, but still a quarter-mile away.”
“That should be fine, our explosions shouldn’t create any outward shrapnel.”
“Understood. I will have Commander Briar give you a direct call in a couple minutes to authorize the strikes. And Mr. Wilson… thank you. You’ve led such a flawless project—I can’t imagine having anyone else on the job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They hung up and the air grew still. Roughly twenty tents were set up within the hundred yard radius of clearing they had discovered, and each one’s lamp illuminated in the chilly morning. Everyone had worked tirelessly on the project and wanted to join the festivities in viewing the encore. Many started to emerge from their tents, rubbing their eyes and clutching steaming cups of coffee that had been boiled over a communal campfire.
Soon, the ground would rumble and smoke would rise in the distance. They had a strict exit plan to follow. Surely no one would venture their direction, all focus on the destroyed mansion. Chris would be on the run, and everyone was ready with their own firearms to defend the campground should he happen to stumble their way. Andrew had suggested they disable Chris’s jet in the Barrow hangar, but it was too heavily guarded.
Chris had an exit from the scene if he could think fast enough. If not, they just might get the opportunity to capture him today.
Andrew remained skeptical at such a prospect, and only hoped they’d be able to pack up their campsite tonight and head to the hangar where their own jet would be waiting to take them all to Denver where Commander Briar had a celebratory breakfast planned for them the next morning.
His cell phone rang and he looked down to a blocked number. “Hello?”
Those in the campground gathered around in anticipation.
“Hello, Mr. Wilson, this is Commander Briar. How are you and your team doing this morning?”
“We’re great. And we are ready.”
“Love to hear it. Gerald let me know everything is in place. We’re watching from the live stream. We equipped our soldier with a body camera to capture the event. He’s already in position and waiting for the green light. I have him on the other line. As soon as you hear the explosion, please detonate the bombs you have planted. Do you have any questions?”
“No, sir. We have been preparing for a long time now. We’re ready.”
“Very good. Thank you for your hard work, and I look forward to meeting you in person tomorrow morning. You should expect to hear the bazooka in about twenty seconds.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
The call ended, and the volunteer who was sending the test signals with Andrew came over and handed him the detonator. They nodded to each other, the world falling completely silent as they awaited for the sound that would change their lives.
With the Earth so quiet, Andrew could hear it crying out for an end to the evilness that plagued it every day. An end to the madness and chaos that consumed humanity.
They huddled in a circle, everyone now out of their tents and waiting anxiously. Andrew heard the bazooka fire, a distant boom! followed by a wicked crack!
He wasted no time in holding the button down on the detonator, trying to press it right through the device. The bombs ran on a five-second delay, so he closed his eyes and waited.
The ground trembled like a light earthquake, the sounds of their bombs drowned out thanks to being underground, but they felt it, and that was all they needed to know they had successfully gone off.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we did it,” Andrew said. The group howled and cheered in excit
ement, hugging each other, an invisible burden finally off their shoulders. Commander Briar might go down in history as the man who finally stopped Chris Speidel, but this crew knew their contributions were what made it all possible.
“Everyone relax. We still have protocol to follow. I’m going to check on our soldier and make sure he’s okay. Everyone stay armed and ready. We don’t know which way Chris will be running.”
Andrew tamed their joy, but for good reason. The hard part was done for them, but relaxing could cost them their lives. They were dealing with a madman, after all.
He left his group behind, the weight of satisfaction heavy in the air. The soldier was positioned exactly halfway between the campground and the mansion, having found a spot on the edge of the woods facing the house. It was normally a five-minute walk, but Andrew ran, not so much out of worry, but a nagging curiosity to see the damage done.
He had witnessed numerous attempted assassinations of Chris, each one failing as miserably as the one before. And while this attack was far from a direct assassination, it represented what the entire membership of the Road Runners wanted to see: a suffering Chris, his mansion a pile of smoldering rubble. He arrived to the soldier within three minutes and found him crouched behind a tree trunk, neck craned to watch the faltering mansion. Andrew joined him, fighting for his own view.
What was once a pristine property with its white walls, fake shrubbery, and layered brick paths, now split down the center, the two halves crumpling inward as the final remains of the structure collapsed.
“Oh my God,” Andrew whispered, his eyes bulging as a hand moved up to cover his mouth. Every Road Runner on the planet knew what Chris’s mansion looked like, perhaps as recognizable as the White House in D.C. for those in the time travel world. But seeing it like this was simply beyond comprehension.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the soldier, a scruffy man named Ethan Daniels, asked over his shoulder, a proud grin stuck on his face. “The missile landed dead center. The house was already split before you set the bombs off.”
Aside from the smoldering house, Andrew noticed that their bombs had indeed worked. What he had first thought was the mansion’s main level was actually the second. The main level was gone, sunk into the ground and collapsed into the basement.
One figure managed to climb out of the rubble, clearly one of the goons who lived inside. He stumbled away from the building where a fire started to grow bigger by the second on the left-hand side of the mansion. He paused, seeming to study the building, before twirling in a circle and falling face down into the dirt.
“Where’s Chris?” Andrew asked.
The soldier shrugged. “I haven’t seen him.”
For a brief moment Andrew wondered if Chris was even inside. They had no way of actually knowing for sure. But that still wasn’t the point. Even if he happened to be elsewhere, he’d still have nowhere to return to.
The sides of the house wavered, swaying like tall trees in the wind. The interior had completely collapsed, all the windows and the beautiful, spiral staircase now crumbled into a pile.
More vibrations rumbled the ground, both Andrew and Ethan looking around in confusion.
“Did one of the bombs not go off?” Ethan asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Andrew replied, but the truth was he had no way of knowing for sure. It was possible that one of the twelve bombs didn’t go off, but they had visual evidence that the underground attack worked, the mansion a sinking ship.
The vibrations grew louder, bringing with them a strong gust of wind as a dark shadow passed overhead. They looked up to see a helicopter, the deafening white noise of the chopper eliminating their ability to hear anything. Ethan shouted something to Andrew, but he had no chance of hearing it.
The helicopter descended, and Andrew saw three Revolution soldiers hanging out of the sides, long rifles clutched in their grip, surely cocked and ready to fire at any imminent threats.
Once it touched down, Chris emerged from the rubble, his frosty hair black with ash and smoke. Andrew’s jaw dropped, not in shock that Chris was alive—that much was expected—but by how quickly a helicopter had arrived to take him to safety. It couldn’t have been ten minutes since everything collapsed.
And where the fuck did Chris come from?
Eyes had been on the property the whole time, yet there was no trace of him until now. It was like he rose from the underground and barreled through the collapsed remains of his house. The thought sent chills up Andrew’s back.
They watched as Chris moved calmly, stepping over shattered furniture, smoking pieces of brick, tiptoeing carefully to not trip. He still wore his black suit, and combined with his blackened face, appeared more like a silhouetted figure rising from hell.
Chris never looked around—or looked back, for that matter. He simply boarded the helicopter without a word to the guards waiting for him. No one followed him.
Andrew and Ethan watched as the helicopter immediately ascended and flew out of sight, leaving the two back in silence in a matter of seconds.
“Did that really just happen?” Ethan asked.
Andrew fell speechless, two weeks of hard work feeling flushed down the drain. He could only hold on to hope that this attack would still lead to something positive in the Road Runners’ future.
22
Chapter 22
Martin and Gerald sat in Martin’s office, facing the TV on the wall. They decided to bring in Duane for the festivities, keeping him handcuffed to a metal folding chair. Gerald made it very clear that Duane shouldn’t try anything cute with the chair, citing an itch to bash a skull into the concrete floor.
Duane had remained silent during the attacks, not showing a single drop of emotion as his gaze to the TV reminded Martin of that same look he had on his face while frozen in time in his mother’s living room.
Martin had granted Duane the phone call to one of his mother’s neighbors, done so with a gun to his head to ensure he didn’t say anything about his whereabouts. The call wrapped up in a few minutes and Duane already seemed more at ease—as much as he could under the circumstances—knowing his mother was being looked after.
Martin could only smile as he watched the destruction of the mansion, thinking back to the time he had spent there, not knowing who to trust in the world, just wanting a way out of the time travel life. Oh, how far I’ve come since then.
His world had been flipped upside down upon his arrival, and looking back, he was grateful for it. Had he been in any different state of mind, he may have been lulled into Chris’s tricks and become a part of his upper establishment like Duane had mentioned.
Instead, he sat here with Duane watching the first pillar of the Revolution fall into a pile of dust. Martin had instructed Ethan to stash the camera where the feed could keep rolling long after they had all cleared out. Ever since Chris had taken off on the helicopter, there had yet to be any signs of additional life rising from the rubble.
The missile had caused enough damage to the upper part of the house that it only took an hour for everything to completely be swallowed up in the flames. It was around this time when the local fire department arrived, a dozen yellow coats sifting through the wreckage after blasting the remains with water to kill the last of flickering flames.
“That’s quite the beautiful sight, Commander,” Gerald said. “I never thought I’d see the day when this happened.”
“It is indeed.”
“What are your plans for next steps?”
Martin leaned back in his chair and looked to the ceiling. “I’m gonna capture Mario Webster today and bring him here so that Duane has some company. I understand we learned that Mario helps run the Wealth of Time store secretly stashed in northern Nevada.”
“Nevada is a quick trip.”
“Indeed. That flight to Florida was brutal. Duane, do you know of anyone else we can purge from Chris’s life? I’d hate to give him any hope.”
Duane shook his head and spok
e for the first time since arriving in Denver. “He’s going to kill you. This does not end well for you.”
Martin laughed. “Well, which is it? Because on the plane you told me that he didn’t care about you and will let you die. Now he’s gonna get revenge on me or try to save you? You can’t have it both ways.”
“Under normal circumstances, yes, he would let me and Mario die. But now that you’ve attacked him, and there’s no mistaking who did it… He doesn’t like being toyed with.”
“I’m sooo scared,” Martin said sarcastically, smirking. “If Chris wants revenge, then he needs to come face me in person. And that’s all we want, isn’t it?”
Gerald nodded, holding a gaze to the ground.
“We’re ready for Chris. We’re ready to end this bullshit war. Chris just can’t bear the fact that there are people in the world who disagree with him. Hate him. Instead of swallowing his pride, he had to lash out and keep killing us. God forbid anyone in the world exist who doesn’t agree with Chris Speidel on how to properly use the gift of time travel. And you know what the sad part is? He brings good men like you down to his level. You may not do the evil things he does, but you certainly enable him.”
“You don’t know anything about our story.”
“Then why don’t you tell me? We have time—you’re not going anywhere.”
“Go to hell.”
“Funny phrase considering Chris is from hell. Say what you will about the Road Runners, but we have always stood up to the evil. I’ll be damned if I sit by for my two years in this office and pretend what happens in the future is okay. I know you don’t see yourselves as bad people, but genocide against the entire population of Road Runners is far from something good people do.”
Zero Hour (Wealth of Time Series, Book 5) Page 14
