Family Reunion "J" (32 page)

The conversation woke Gwenn and she climbed out of Jon’s truck. She stretched and looked around. “Anyone seen Tami?”

“Yeah, she’s behind the truck in the shade,” Jon answered from the tailgate of Auddy’s truck where he was pouring a coffee for Jay.

“That smells good. Can I have a cup?” Auddy asked.

Gwenn came back waving a piece of cardboard over her head. “Hey guys. You might want to read this.” She handed it to Jon.

A note written on the cardboard left them all wondering what to do.
I can’t leave not knowing for sure what happened to Gerald and Ben. This is my home, I need to stay. I’m headed back to the store. I have taken a weapon from your box. I hope you can forgive me. Don’t come after me.
It was signed
Tammila.

“She can’t be far. We need to look for her,” Jon said, staring east as if he could spot her hiking down the road.

Jay disagreed. “She’s a grown woman; we have no right to chase her down. What are you going to do, force her to come with us?”

No one said anything for several minutes. “I guess we should pack up and move on,” Jon finally said, shaking his head.

The phone rang on Dr. Pearson’s desk. He was meeting with Lana; he had her bent over that same desk. He stopped what he was doing for a moment. “Answer the phone,” he said, not moving from behind her. She reached over and picked up the receiver. “Dr. Pearson’s office,” she said, her voice cracking a bit as he thrust into her again with an unpleasant grin on his face.

She covered the receiver with one hand while leaning on her elbows. “It’s security, Dr. Pearson.”

“Put it on speaker,” he said, tightening his grip on her ponytail.

She did as he asked. “What is it, Phillip? I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Ah, we have a problem, sir.”

He swore and jerked Lana upright by her hair. She whimpered as he whispered in her ear, “We’ll finish this later.” He stepped back and she quickly pulled up her pants and left the room without ever making eye contact with him. He was tiring of her company. Maybe he would bring Susan in for a meeting.

He pulled up his pants and made no effort to hide the sound of his rearranging. “What the hell’s the problem, Mr. Smith?”

“We had an alarm on a secured door on the second level, sir. We went to the video and I think you’ll want to see this.”

“All right, I’m coming. But if this is bullshit and you’re wasting my time, I’ll have you cleaning shit out of the cages.” He punched the disconnect button, stormed out of his office, and headed to the security command center.

He swiped his key card on the security door and walked into the command center. Phil waved him over to his station.

“I thought you would want to know. I thought they might be sneaking off for a quickie, sir, but they have the kid with them.”

Brian’s face went red as he leaned on the desk with both hands and looked at the monitor. There was Susan leading Julian and Simon through the door. “Where does that door lead?” he said through clenched teeth.

“Nowhere really, sir. The air scrubbers are in there and the water storage tank, not much else.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, you can access the old sewers from there, but they’ve been abandoned and sealed off since about 2005, sir.”

Brian whirled on him and cracked him with the back of his hand. Phil toppled over backward in his chair, wondering what the hell that was for. “Get a team down there immediately, you idiot.”

Phil rolled out of his chair, stood up, set the chair back on its feet, and returned to his seat. He put his headset back on and keyed his mic. “I need team Alpha to sector B level two, full battle rattle, this is not a drill.”

“Where are they now?” Brian asked Phil, who was still gathering himself after the unexpected assault.

“In between levels two and three, as you know, sir. Those levels are farther apart due to the sewer infrastructure. I show them as having gone through the door leading to the tunnel entrance in 1B, right here, sir.” Phil pointed to a diagram on his monitor.

“Where does that lead?” Brian said without looking at him.

“Nowhere sir, it’s a dead end.”

“All right, instruct Alpha team to recover them alive if possible.”

Phil passed along the orders to the head of Alpha team, who was standing by waiting for the remainder of the team to muster.

An entire wing of the underground complex was set aside to house and maintain the security force. The fourteen members of Alpha team were on duty, which meant they were required to muster within two minutes. The armorer unlocked the rack of Bull Pup FN P90s and retrieved two H&K CAWS twelve-gauge shotguns. The short submachineguns and shotguns were designed for combat in close quarters, perfect for the enclosed spaces of the complex. As the Alpha team members raced to their muster point, the armorer handed them their weapons. Each man also carried a Sig Sauer 1911 sidearm. At one minute thirty-eight seconds, they deployed to the second level.

Julian inched down the ladder with Simon in front of him. It was slow going but he paced himself in order to keep Simon safely between himself and the ladder. “One step at a time son, you are doing fine.” Simon’s small arms shook with fear. “Daddy, don’t let me fall.” “I have you son, do not worry. Easy does it.”

Susan waited at the bottom of the ladder, looking up and fretting. “They’ll be coming. We have to hurry.” Julian ignored her and continued to reassure Simon.

Susan had explored the abandoned tunnels during her off-duty hours as a way to get away from people in common areas of the complex before this all started happening. It was off limits to the staff, but she befriended the custodian and he had been happy to show her the labyrinth of tunnels.

Julian reached the bottom of the ladder and Susan handed him a hard hat with an attached headlamp. “There’s no lighting in the tunnels. Stay close to me,” Susan instructed as she opened the steel door. Thankfully, the security command center had not disabled the electronic locks.

Susan turned on her headlamp and told Julian to do the same. They hurried down the dank, earthy-smelling tunnel, long unused for any purpose. They made several turns and Julian realized he was completely lost. If Susan were to betray him again, she could lead them directly to Brian and he wouldn’t know until it was too late. Several hundred yards later, they made another turn and came to a dead end.

Julian grabbed Susan’s arm and spun her around to face him. His light pointed directly into her face. “You have led us into a trap. I should kill you before they come for us.” She looked frantically left and right, as if looking for a way to escape Julian’s wrath. “No, Julian, there’s a pipe! We have to find it and crawl through it. It connects to the active sewer system outside the complex.”

Still not convinced she was telling him the truth, he was about to throttle her when they heard a noise coming from back where they had entered the maze. “They’re coming, Julian! We have to hurry!”

The Alpha team leader divided his men into two groups. “Follow the tunnels. If you come to another split, divide your numbers and continue. Command has assured me there is no way out of here.”

Susan located the grate covering the pipe. It looked like it was welded shut. “Julian, help me,” Susan said as she stuck her fingers into the grate, trying to turn it counterclockwise. Julian did as she asked and the grate gave just a bit. They redoubled their effort and the grate loosened and gave a
clank
when the stops reached the release points. They set it aside and Julian inspected the impossibly small diameter. Susan could see his concern.

“You can fit, believe me. I’ve done this before.”

Julian looked skeptical. “
Why
would you have done this before?”

She smiled. “For fun.”

Julian shuddered. Simon followed Susan into the pipe and scurried along behind her, seemingly unafraid. Julian didn’t mention it to Susan because there was no choice in the matter, but he had horrible claustrophobia. He could picture himself entombed in the pipe like a mummy, forever stuck.

He heard the sound of something striking the side of the tunnel. He had no idea how far back they were, but they were coming. He took a deep breath and stuck his head into the tunnel. He narrowed his shoulders as much as he could and pushed himself in. The constriction in his chest made him dizzy, but he pushed with his feet until his butt was in and his feet left the floor of the tunnel. The tightness of the fit threatened to send him into a full-on panic. He rested his head against the bottom of the pipe and tried to calm down.

Then he heard Simon. “Come on daddy, it’s not far, you can make it.”

His son must have been listening the times he explained his fear to his wife. How it could completely disable him, cause him to panic. The sound of Simon’s voice renewed his resolve and he wiggled forward. If he relaxed his shoulders they would wedge him tight, and he couldn’t move his arms much more than a few inches at a time. He had to coordinate each movement. Exhale, squeeze his shoulders, wedge his arms forward, and push with his toes. Each repetition moved him about three inches forward. He was completely in, so there was no turning back, no turning at all…
Stop it! You will send yourself into an anxiety attack.

“Daddy, we are through. You can do it daddy.”

He concentrated on the process and just tried not to let his mind go anywhere else.

It was a very old pipe, made of terra cotta. The sections of pipe were joined together every six feet, and there was an almost imperceptible narrowing. When Julian reached the first one, he almost lost it again. His heart rate shot up and he couldn’t control his breathing, which only made moving more impossible. Simon was talking to him constantly now, encouraging him, egging him on.

“Alpha Eight to Alpha One, we are at a dead end, orders?”

“Alpha One to Alpha Eight, backtrack to last split and light a flare.”

What the team didn’t know was that there were actually six tunnels that ended where the old tunnels had been sealed. Only one of them had the pipe that connected the old system to the new system.

“Alpha Six to Alpha One, we are at a dead end also, over.”

“Alpha One to Alpha Six, same orders, move back to the last junction and light a flare, copy?”

The original team of fourteen had eventually broken into five groups of two, leaving Alpha One with three other troops. They had night-vision equipment, but what their leader had just ordered caused each team to remove their night vision to light the flares as a signal to the others. Alpha One’s group came to a dead end and they searched the entire area. Finding no sign of the targets, they returned the way they had come.

If he had told his men to search each dead end instead of having them immediately return to the junction, they may have found the pipe with Julian wedged inside it. Alpha One’s mistake—thinking they had somehow gone by the targets—was just the break needed for Julian to make good his escape.

Susan paced nervously waiting for Julian while Simon continued to talk down the pipe. It had taken Susan and Simon about five minutes to traverse the distance. It was going on twenty-five minutes and Julian still hadn’t made it.

“I see him, I see him!” Simon squealed.

“
Shhhh,
Simon, not so loud.” Susan got down next to the end of the pipe and saw Julian about four feet from the end. Somewhere in his passage, his light had gone out. She reached for him but he was just a little too far away. She climbed back in and was able to get ahold of his hands while her feet still touched the floor. “Simon, pull on me,” she called back to the boy. She pulled on Julian, and with Simon’s help they got him out. Julian embraced them both as soon as he regained his feet.

“Don’t cry daddy, we made it!”

Hearing a voice alerted the security team they had missed something. They followed the sound until they came to the pipe, its cover lying on the floor. “Alpha One to base, we have located what we believe to be an egress. No sign of the targets, over.”