Interrupt (48 page)

“Keep running,” Drew said. He braced his feet. Then he hurled his submachine gun like a large, badly weighted knife.

Below him, the woman shrieked. Her light tipped away.

The bullhorn continued deep in the tunnel, but Drew heard the bunker personnel running closer. Hysterical civilians quit talking as the soldiers and airmen hustled into the sleeping areas. Here and there, other loyal troops stepped forward, shouting recognition codes.

“STAY FACEDOWN ON THE FLOOR! STAY FACEDOWN ON THE FLOOR AND YOU WON’T GET HURT!”

Drew wasn’t sure he could reach the front of the tunnel before the other men. He caught up to Emily and took the lead again, moving faster than was wise. From one step to the next, he fell and cracked his knee.

“We have to hurry,” he said. “The civilians aren’t going to hold—”

Rifle fire hammered through the tunnel ahead of them. The uncontrolled burst was Marcus’s signature, emptying his weapon in seconds.

Drew began to run again, slipping and banging through the supplies. Behind him, dozens of civilians screamed. Someone fired a pistol into the ceiling—once, twice—but if the gunman meant to silence the crowd, the shots had the opposite effect.

The ambient light dimmed as someone knocked over a lamp in one of the sleeping areas. Drew heard another pistol shot. Hysteria inundated the tunnel again, which would impede the soldiers.

But the rifle fire meant Marcus was at the entrance. He might have ambushed the guards from above.

Drew was fifty feet from joining the fight. The distance between him and Emily had grown as he raced ahead, yet she didn’t call out for him.

He dropped into a fissure between two pallets, scrambled up, and worked past a loose heap of insulated picnic coolers. He caught himself on the brink of a ten-foot drop where the crates ended.

Their motor pool of four Humvees and a Dodge Ram lay below. Beyond the vehicles, Drew saw the trailer that served as their ready room. It contained most of the gear for their recon teams. Every light was out except one over the trailer door. Beyond it stood the military bus and iron bars they’d used to plug the mouth of the tunnel.

He detected no movement. If there were footsteps or whispers, those sounds were lost in the reverberating screams behind him.

The bullhorn continued. “STOP! STOP WHERE YOU ARE!”

Drew couldn’t let Marcus go. He also didn’t want to meet the next soldiers to reach the motor pool. After the killing inside, those men would be twitchy. Drew wanted to believe Bugle would give him a chance to explain, but the bunker personnel might shoot first and ask questions later…

But if Drew got outside, very few people could follow.

Emily was behind him. “They’re catching up,” Drew murmured to her before he jumped. He landed with a
thud
and ran to the nearest Humvee.

Emily was louder climbing down. Drew watched for a response in the dark. Nothing. They started toward the trailer before he saw the
brittle glass on the floor and a human form. The Dodge Ram had been strafed across its roof and hood. An M16 lay on the concrete.

Drew lifted the rifle and pulled the magazine. Empty. It was Marcus’s M16. The soldier had been hit in the leg, chest, and neck, killing him instantly, after which Marcus had taken the man’s weapon and sidearm.

Emily swore softly. “That son of a bitch.”

Drew led her to the steel door welded into their blockade. A damp wind stole through the seams in the iron and sheet metal jammed around the bus. Their shield didn’t need to be airtight, merely dense enough to deflect the pulse.

Outside, rain pattered against the shield. Neither of them had jackets, and the temperature wouldn’t rise above fifty even in daytime. Drew glanced at the ready room. The lockers were hung with weather gear.

Outside, distantly, a man howled. His voice was triumphant and insane. It curdled Drew’s blood.

“Nnnnnnnnnnmh!” the man screamed.

“That’s Marcus,” Emily whispered. “He made it.”

Drew had only one mesh cap with him. They never left their M-string in the ready room. The armor was too precious. ROMEO and General Strickland had both ordered Drew’s team to maintain personal possession at all times. The spare M-string was in the Osprey, which they’d sheltered at Beale AFB to minimize its exposure to the pulse. The hangar was 1.6 miles away.

Drew put his mesh cap on his skull. “We need to run to the plane,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“I’ll keep you from getting away.”

“No. Oh, no.”

“You’re not strong enough to hold on to me or I’d give you mine. But I can hold on to you.”

Emily nodded suddenly. “Don’t let go.”

Drew felt a roar of affection. Emily was risking her soul. If he lost her while they were outside—If she was killed—

He kissed her and she threw her arms around his neck.

“Clear,” a man said distinctly behind them. The soldiers would enter the motor pool in seconds.

Drew opened the door with one hand. His other fingers were locked on Emily’s wrist. The thin corridor through the pile of iron and sheet metal went left, then right. He reached a second door.

Rain skittered against the cement and the razor-tipped fences on either side of the tunnel entrance. To the right, above him on the mountainside, the communications array was insulated from the pulse and Neanderthal scouts by a series of tall steel clamshells and more fences—but he would need several minutes to hike to the cluster of dishes and antennae. Bugle or another man in M-string would catch him at the fences before he could disable the antennae. That meant U.S. Command would learn of ROMEO’s treason.

He saw no sun, only the wet haze and the road curving down the rocky mountainside. Yellow grass and brown shrubs clung to the slope. The runways, fences, and buildings of Beale AFB were a distant collection of geometric lines. Old barracks and family residences spilled away from the base’s southern side like white bricks.

Emily stumbled.

Drew hauled her up again.

She began to fight. Her eyes rolled as she tugged and bent. She bit him like a cat. “Stop it,” he said, hoping his sharp tone would scare her, but she tossed her head and snarled, keening with a soft, insistent ferocity.

The rain soaked through her clothes, plastering her shirt against her small breasts and her jeans to her hips. Her blond hair darkened. So did the color of her eyes.

A 9mm Glock pistol had been abandoned on the road. Drew grabbed it, darting his eyes left and right, but Marcus wouldn’t have set
up to shoot. Drew had expected to find both of the man’s weapons. Emily would have dropped them in her primitive state. Marcus was a more advanced tool user. He must have kept the rifle as a club. With luck, he’d shoot himself.

Emily tried to run away across the hill. “Aiee!” she cried, whipping her free arm at his shoulder and face. “Aiee!”

Drew cuffed her. The blow reopened the cuts on her cheek, but it also knocked her out. Then he bent and slung Emily’s slim frame over his shoulder.

It wasn’t fair. Today’s events could determine whether or not Emily was a success. If she was deemed an outlaw and locked up, or if she was hurt, she would never have time to develop her cures. Now she wasn’t even a participant in the fight, so he would succeed for her.

I swear it.

He’d bring her to the plane before her precious mind was damaged. Then he’d track Marcus and execute the murdering son of a bitch. Marcus’s corpse might be enough for Emily and Drew to win their way back into the bunker in one piece.

The thought gave him strength, which he needed to bear Emily’s weight. Soaking wet, she was a hundred and ten pounds. The cut on his wrist throbbed. He’d sprained his knee.

Limping, Drew ran into the storm.

Men emerged from the tunnel before he’d gone two hundred yards. Their voices cut into the wind. Was it Bugle and the rest of his team? They were shouting at each other, not him.

Drew collapsed behind a broad fin of rock, nearly throwing Emily against it when his knee twinged. He’d left the road for the mountainside. Running on the asphalt would have been faster, but he couldn’t afford to get caught in the open.

“Drew!” Bugle screamed. “Drew, come back!”

What were they arguing about? If they should let him go? Their uncertainty was a small advantage. It sounded like they hadn’t moved from the bunker entrance. Drew thought he knew why. Bugle had rushed two or three men outside in their M-string caps, hoping to catch Drew while the rest of the team threw on their Kevlar vests, jackets, and helmets. When those men emerged, Bugle would duck back inside for his own jacket and other equipment.

Drew shoved himself up beneath Emily’s weight and began to jog again, sliding in the mud. As soon as the men inside had their gear, they would run him down without Bugle in command.

He felt a creepy shiver in his brain, a sixth sense like someone was watching him. He looked back.

No one was standing on the roadside. Bugle might follow its bend to the north while Drew continued southwest. There shouldn’t be any boot prints where he’d left the road. He’d hurried out onto a cracked slab of granite until it broke away with the mountainside—but they must know where he was going even if he had no intention of stealing the Osprey.

The irony was it would be useful to have Bugle’s men outside. Drew couldn’t let them catch him, because if they marched him back inside, they would be paralyzed by accusations and arrests—yet on his own, he probably couldn’t cover enough ground to find Marcus. He needed their help.

If Marcus joins the Neanderthals…

Breathing hard, his neck hurting beneath Emily’s waist, Drew ran another four hundred yards before his knee crumpled and he spilled her headfirst into the rocks and brush.

He lay dazed. He’d ripped open his chin and his left palm. Nearby, Emily moaned and stood up, swooning.

Her face was matted with mud and hair. One sleeve had torn, revealing an ugly scrape.

Drew jammed his bloody hand against the ground and groped for her with his good arm. But she moved no farther except to lower herself into a submissive crouch, staring past him with a quiet wail. Drew thought she was looking at soldiers and airmen from the bunker.

They caught us.

He couldn’t locate his pistol. It had bounced into the weeds and rock. “I give up!” he said, spreading his arms. Then he turned, prepared to lunge at Emily if she ran.

Standing in the rain behind him were eighteen Neanderthal hunters.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

E
ach man was a heavy, dripping shadow elongated by a club or a spear. In front stood a blond child with a bad arm. It was P.J. The darkest shape was Roell.

Drew staggered back.
They came for Marcus,
he thought before he realized,
No, that’s impossible.

If they’d heard Marcus yell, they were looking for him now—but Drew didn’t believe the Neanderthals were telepathic. P.J. must have led his best hunters into the area, tracking Drew’s team. Then the gunfire in the tunnel had brought them right on top of Bunker Seven Four.

P.J. gestured silently, deliberately. It startled Drew, who’d heard too many battle cries.

The gesture caused P.J.’s hunters to spread out in an enveloping half circle. The eighteen of them could certainly kill Drew, but they must have recognized that he was also a warrior. They wanted as few injuries to themselves as possible.

Their caution allowed Drew another instant. Sidling closer, they took the high ground above him, pacing up the slope. In hand-to-hand
combat, the taller man often won, but Drew had spotted his pistol in the weeds. The black muzzle protruded from a clump of yellow grass on the far side of Emily’s slim, trembling body.

Roell was among the nearest hunters. If they attacked as soon as Drew jumped, Roell would surely reach him before he grabbed his weapon, so he tried to distract them.

“Nim!” Drew yelled.

Roell’s dark eyes never changed. If Drew’s cadence or his pronunciation were wrong, there was no time to try again. His shout brought different voices through the wind.

“Nnnmh!” Marcus screamed in the distance as another man called, “This way!”