Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (12 page)

Bell nodded. “Understood. We’ll stay out of sight.”

Mason felt his heart pounding. Things were going to start moving very fast.

“Look at me,” he said, getting the attention of all three cadets. “It’s been an honor, and I hope to see all of you when this is over.”

Rodriguez’s face hardened with determination. Cobb’s turned pale. As for Bell, she simply offered a sharp salute.

“Go!” he said.

The three cadets took off at a dead run, darting between trees as they raced around the main Greenbrier building. Ashby stood for a moment, clutching his precious silver cup, staring at the flames still licking up into the sky. Then he followed the others, wandering off in the direction of the golf course.

Mason looked over at Leila and then down at Bowie.

“All right,” he said. “We’re up.”

The entrance to the air shaft was not at all like Mason had expected. The dark green building measured ten feet on a side and sat nestled between trees. At first glance it could easily have passed for a common storage shed, the likely home of garden shears, a lawn mower, and perhaps a shovel or two. A closer inspection, however, would have revealed the flood lights, metal-clad security door, and reinforced concrete walls. The door had already been breached, but there were no soldiers in sight, which meant that the Black Dogs were at least a few minutes ahead of him.

Bowie, Mason, and Leila lay next to a towering oak tree, watching for any signs of movement. There weren’t any. Three men had come down the ropes, and all three must have gone into the building.

Mason fished out a spare rifle magazine and set his pack aside.

“I’m going in. You and Bowie stay here until I signal you.”

“I can help,” Leila said, pressing up on her forearms.

He set his hand on her shoulder.

“I know you can, but I need you here to make sure no one comes in behind me.”

“At least take Bowie.”

Hearing his name, the dog raised his head and made a little sound that might have passed for “Huh?”

Mason stroked him softly. “Not until I know that he can help.”

Seeing that his mind was made up, she said only, “Okay, but be careful.”

He leaned in and kissed her.

“Ten minutes, tops.”

She smiled. It was an old joke, but one that she apparently still found amusing.

“Wave us in if we can help.” Leila wrapped her arms around Bowie, and the dog immediately began licking her face. He only stopped when he saw Mason stand up and dash for the building.

The total distance was less than fifty yards, and Mason cleared it without so much as a broken shoelace. As he came to the building, he pressed his back against the concrete wall and slid forward until he could peer through the open doorway. A thick metal plate lay next to a dark hole, the topmost rungs of a ladder barely visible within.

Mason stepped into the building and inched up to the edge of the hole, doing a quick lean forward to catch a glimpse of what lay below.

Darkness.

He had to make a decision, and it was one that might well cost him his life. Going down a ladder with the light above him would provide a perfect silhouette to anyone waiting below. If it had been his team, he would have positioned someone at the bottom of the ladder precisely for that purpose. But his options were limited. If he shined his flashlight down the hole, it would likely alert the enemy, sacrificing the one thing he currently had going for him—surprise.

It took him only a moment to accept that it was a chance he would have to take.

He leaned back out the open doorway and held up a fist, indicating that Leila should stay put. There was no reason to put her at risk, and the thought of carrying Bowie down on his shoulders was not at all appealing.

Mason slipped the M4 over his head and let it rest across his back. Climbing down was going to be hard enough, no reason to have a rifle clattering against the rungs. He took one last look into the shaft and then stepped out onto the ladder, half holding his breath.

Nothing happened.

Moving as quietly as he could, he started down the ladder, quickly disappearing into the pool of darkness. Other than the bright circle of light overhead, everything around him was perfectly black. It was also amazingly quiet, which surprised him. How could three men be operating below without so much as the rustle of clothes or the rattle of gear?

His boots unexpectedly found the bottom about twenty feet down, and he dropped into a deep squat. He remained like that for several seconds, motionless, straining to hear something. Anything.

There was nothing. No breathing. No scrubbing of boots. Not so much as a whisper.

He extended his hands, finding himself surrounded by cold concrete walls. Turning slowly in place, he discovered that the shaft opened up into a narrow horizontal tunnel, no more than four feet in height. What it lacked in height, however, it made up for in length, and tiny flashes of yellow light flickered in the distance.

Cutting torches.

It was impossible to judge how far away they were without some kind of reference. As many a soldier had learned, light could give away one’s position across a vast stretch of desert as easily as it could a courtyard.

The tunnel turned a bad defensive position into an even worse one. If the soldiers turned a flashlight beam in his direction, he would be outnumbered and without cover. His only hope was to get close enough to get the drop on them.

Mason carefully retrieved his M4 and lowered onto his belly. The approach would be agonizingly slow, but one thing he prided himself on was patience. Propping on his forearms, he began to high-crawl down the narrow tunnel. With every push of his boots and slide of his arms, his enemy came into greater focus.

There were three men. Two stood in front of a miniature version of the vault door he had seen inside The Greenbrier. The third man was off to one side, working the cutting torch. The tunnel opened up a few feet in front of the door, allowing the men to stand upright. Mason credited the height differential with making his approach even possible. It put the men’s eyes at a different elevation than the incoming tunnel, allowing him to essentially sneak in at knee level.

The tunnel suddenly fell into complete darkness, and Mason instinctively lowered his head to the concrete floor. Not that that would have done much good. If a flashlight or night vision optics turned in his direction, the game would be up.

He waited, lying perfectly still.

Voices sounded, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Something metal clattered against the concrete floor.

Had they gotten the door open? Not with a cutting torch, they hadn’t. But something had broken free. That’s when it hit him. They were in an air shaft, and air shafts had vents. The soldiers had found a way in.

Mason reached for his flashlight. As soon as he had it in hand, he raised his head and pressed the flashlight against the stock of his M4. He had only one choice left.

He had to fight.

He clicked the flashlight on and fired a three-round burst where he had last seen one of the soldiers. The noise was deafening, like a garbage can being hit by hammers. He shifted right and fired another burst. Then back to the left. Then to the right. Two of the soldiers dropped to their knees, pushing their weapons out in front of them as they fell.

Mason continued to fire, now targeting their torsos. Three rounds toward one. Three toward the other. There was no aiming, just point and squeeze. Bullets ricocheted off the steel door, veering up into the concrete wall and then back toward the other wall. The way the concrete tunnel opened up into a taller shaft had created the perfect kill box. Back and forth the bullets went until their energy was either expended or they had found something soft to sink into.

He continued firing until the weapon ran dry. Thirty rounds downrange. He dropped the spent magazine, shoved in the spare, and released the bolt. Nothing at the end of the tunnel fired back at him—a good sign to be sure. He swept the flashlight over the area, but the light reflected off the thick cloud of smoke from the burnt gunpowder.

Rising to a crouch, he shuffled down the last forty yards of the tunnel. When he entered the opening, he found two soldiers lying dead. Both had been hit with at least a half-dozen 5.56 mm rounds. There was also a hubcap-sized fan leaning against the wall.

He brought his light up. Three identical air vents, each roughly a foot and a half in diameter, were positioned above the door. The fan had been pulled from the right-most vent, leaving a narrow cylindrical hole through the thick concrete wall. Mason checked the floor again for the missing soldier, refusing to believe that he could have fit through the hole. But each time he looked, he came up with the same answer. There were three rifles, and only two bodies. And that could only mean one thing.

A Black Dog had managed to get inside.

Chapter 8  

As luck would have it, Canal Road not only intersected M Street, it actually became M Street. A four-lane roundabout brought Highway 29, Canal Road, and M Street together into one giant intersection. It was only as Tanner and Samantha passed Dixie Liquors, did they realize they had actually walked on M Street the night before.

The Francis Scott Key Memorial sat directly across the street. Canopies of interwoven branches topped concrete pillars to cast a refreshing shade across several reading benches. No doubt it would have been a comfortable place to sit and rest. But neither Samantha nor Tanner suggested they stop. Every distraction, no matter how small, seemed to bring new threats and delays. Both had accepted that it was better to get on with the task at hand. Besides, their hike had only just begun, and they were quickly becoming accustomed to walking several miles at a stretch.

M Street wasn’t quite a shopper’s Mecca, but it did offer an assortment of upscale bicycle shops, clothing boutiques, and kitchen design centers. As they pressed on, stores became intermingled with pizzerias, ice cream stands, and sandwich shops. A few people even milled about, kicking aside Coach handbags and Lululemon yoga pants in favor of leather work boots and jugs of cooking oil. No one seemed particularly threatening, and before long, Samantha found herself offering the occasional wave to passersby.

“You should try be friendlier to people,” she said, glancing over at Tanner.

“Why?”

“Because most of them are nice enough.”

He furrowed his brow. “Most?”

“Okay, maybe not most, but some.”

“Problem is there’s no easy way to sort the good from the bad.”

“So, what, we assume the worst about everyone?”

He marched on. “Good idea.”

“Wait,” she said, hurrying to catch up. “I wasn’t saying we should do that.”

“Darlin’, it’s my job to keep you safe.”

“So?”

“So, until we discover a magic amulet that glows every time evil comes near, I’m assuming everyone’s rotten to the core.”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “But we’ll never have any friends.”

“That’s all right. Friends are overrated.”

She shook her head. “That’s what people without friends say.”

Tanner grinned but said nothing more.

A short while later, they came upon an abandoned Sunglass Hut. Someone had crashed a motorcycle through the plate glass window, and tiny shards of glass covered the sidewalk out front.

Samantha nodded toward the building.

“I’ve been wanting a pair of sunglasses. What do you think?”

Sunglasses certainly weren’t a necessity where they were going, but it seemed like a reasonable opportunity to gather yet another potentially useful supply.

He shrugged. “Nothing like a good pair of shades.”

They stepped inside the small store and picked through the spilled racks of designer eyewear. There was tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise scattered across the floor, many of the sunglasses either bent or broken from scavengers having stepped on them. Samantha eventually settled on a pair of white-rimmed glasses that were nearly as big as those of Luna Lovegood, and Tanner picked out a pair of classic aviator glasses that would have made John Thomas Rourke proud.

“We’re just picking up garbage, right?” she said, staring at her reflection in a broken shard of mirror.

“Yep.”

“Because I don’t want to steal anyone else’s stuff.”

“I know that, but believe me, the owner of this place is long gone.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.”

It was a conversation they’d had a hundred times before and would probably have a hundred times again. While he often felt frustrated with her reluctance to take what they needed, he was also thankful that she possessed such a steadfast moral compass. Samantha brought a sense of morality to their quests, and while he bucked against it as often as possible, Tanner still appreciated the occasional nudge when it came to right and wrong.

Before long, they were back on the road, satisfied with their selections and each feeling a bit more dapper. The morning was pleasant enough, and for two long miles, they encountered nothing more dangerous than a small pack of wild dogs, which thankfully scattered after a quick warning shot. Georgetown had been a peaceful enough place before the pandemic, and it had somehow managed to maintain much of that charm, despite the collapse of civilization.