Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (5 page)

Dr. Sara Green took a moment to study her team of would-be investigators. They consisted of six members of the Congressional Body and four military officers, including General Richard “Chappie” Reed, a man that she found to be as intriguing as he was infuriating.

“Thank you for coming,” she started, unconsciously leaning her hips against the conference room table.

The group quieted. Each participant was there for his or her own reasons, but based on the conversations she had overheard, Green knew that almost no one was expecting much to come of the activity. It was but a formality, important only because it might later be listed as an official-sounding position on some future job application.

“As I’ve already explained,” she continued, “our assignment is to travel from Mount Weather to The Greenbrier bunker for purposes of assessing whether or not President Glass is still alive.”

“Do we have any evidence to suggest that she is?” asked Steve Donovan, a former FBI agent turned congressman.

“Not that I’m aware of, no.” Green didn’t dare divulge that she had previously received a secret communiqué from President Glass. “However, as you recall, the radio broadcast promised that she would emerge from the bunker in two days’ time. We’re going to be there waiting.”

“If you ask me, it sounds like a wild goose chase.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “If the doors to the bunker are closed, which I’m assuming they are, we’ll be stuck sitting outside in the heat, waiting on a whole bunch of nothing to happen.”

“Yes, sir, that’s very possible.”

“Isn’t there some way to determine if people are inside the bunker?” The question came from Congresswoman Brenda Lemay, a woman who seemed to insist that pink be a part of every outfit. “Perhaps we could monitor it with spy satellites.”

“No, ma’am, that’s not possible. Nearly all of the nation’s space assets are offline, and even if they weren’t, I don’t believe they could make that determination.”

“All right then, what about someone listening at the door with a high-tech microphone? Wouldn’t we hear them moving around inside?”

Chappie chuckled.

She cut her eyes at him. “Would you care to let us in on the joke, General?”

He smiled. “Imagine, if you would, a solid-steel door two feet thick, beyond which lies a four-hundred-foot-long cement corridor stretching deep into the side of a mountain. At the end of that corridor is a hundred thousand square feet of cement-walled rooms, every one of which is potentially sealed with a thick metal door. Does that sound like something you’re likely to listen in on?” He paused. “Ma’am.”

Lemay’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing more.

“We’ll have to see how things look when we get there,” Green said, hoping to keep the squabble from getting out of hand. “If we’re lucky, we might even find a way in.”

“When do we leave?” asked Donovan.

“We’ll depart from the south helipad at seven tomorrow morning. That means I need for everyone to be there by six-thirty sharp.”

“How long will we be gone?” asked Lemay.

“It’s hard to say for certain, but I’d suggest packing enough clothing for at least three days. General Reed said he would take care of our food, water, and other basic necessities. Do I have that right, General?”

Chappie nodded. “Yes, ma’am, you do.”

“And if no one comes out? Then what?” asked Donovan.

“Then we’ll return home.”

He yawned. “Like I said… a wild goose chase.”

After the meeting adjourned, Dr. Green stood by the conference room door, thanking each attendee as they left. Chappie, however, remained seated, using a large folding knife to trim his fingernails.

After the last person left, she turned to him.

“Do you have something to say, General?”

Chappie snapped the knife shut, quickly inspected his handiwork, and stood up.

“I thought you and I should talk.”

“We
were
talking.”

“In private, I mean.”

She raised her eyebrows, putting nothing past the general. In her assessment, he was as likely to slap her on the backside as he was to reveal a national secret.

“Is this… official?”

He grinned. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Refusing to give Chappie a chance to enjoy the dance, she turned and gently closed the door.

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Rumor has it that you’ve been doing a little asking around about General Hood’s whereabouts.”

She swallowed. “So?”

“So, I’m here to offer a word of caution. Tread lightly, Dr. Green.”

Her eyes hardened. “Why?”

Chappie stepped closer and lowered his voice.

“I think you know why.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He moved even closer, and Green pressed back against the door frame.

“General, please…”

“You find it strange that Hood has disappeared only days before an inspection team is scheduled to go the bunker. And you’re wondering if maybe he’s there right now doing a little cleanup. Do I have that about right?”

She felt panic welling up in her belly. Was Chappie involved? My God, was he going to kill her?

“Dr. Green, you have a choice to make. Right here. Right now.”

“What choice?”

“You need to decide how far into this cesspool you really want to wade. Up until now, you’ve dipped a toe in by asking a few carefully worded questions under the guise of it being part of your team-building exercise. But even that might get you killed if it falls on the wrong ears.”

She started to respond, but when they heard footsteps approaching in the hall, he gently touched a finger to her lips. His hand was warm, and the soft press of his finger was incredibly intimate.

The footsteps grew louder, paused briefly, and then passed by the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she whispered, gently pushing his hand away.

“Trying to keep us both alive.” His voice too was hushed.

“You’re being melodramatic.”

“I wish that were true.”

She studied his face. “You know something.”

“I think we both do.”

She swallowed again but said nothing.

“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” he said with a grin.

She nodded ever so slightly.

“What if I told you that I have evidence that there are people inside the bunker?”

“How’s that possible? What evidence?”

“The congresswoman wasn’t so far off the mark.”

“And yet you humiliated her.”

“What can I say? I’m an ornery old bird.”

“So, how did you do it? Surely not by listening at the door.”

“We have an unmanned aerial vehicle surveying the bunker.”

“A UAV?”

He nodded. “It’s been in the air for twelve hours.”

“Even so, what could that possibly give you? The place is sealed.”

“True, but we’ve picked up a distinct thermal signature, a signature that could only come from the bunker’s generators. And last time I checked, generators don’t run themselves.”

She said nothing.

He searched her face. “But you already knew there were people inside.”

She started to deny it but stopped short as his face tightened.

“No more lies,” he growled. “I need to know what you know.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Trust me or not. You need my help.”

“Your help? Why?”

“Because our enemies are as powerful as they are ruthless.”

She thought long and hard, studying his eyes. There was an undeniable hardness in them, but there also was something else. Concern.

“I received a note from President Glass.”

His eyebrows pressed together. “When?”

“Two days ago.”

“How? Who delivered it?”

“General Carr.”

Chappie nodded. “Carr’s a good man. Did he personally confirm that she’s still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s all true… the murders, the bombings, the attack against her.”

“We don’t know that. We only have his word that—”

“Carr’s word is enough.”

She didn’t argue the point. The truth was that she had already accepted that President Glass was alive. Once that was taken as fact, the rest followed readily enough.

“So, what do we do?” she asked. “If Hood is on his way to The Greenbrier, he’s obviously going there to kill everyone inside.”

“Everyone? Who else is there?”

“Bill Baker, Tom Pinker, and Jack Fry all went to see her.”

“Does Pike know that?”

“I’m not sure. Probably.”

“But you’re certain that he doesn’t know about Carr contacting you?”

She started to say that she was but stopped herself.

“I’m not certain of anything.”

Chappie rubbed his chin. “If we wait until tomorrow to go to the bunker, it’s going to be too late.”

“Pike insisted we wait.”

“Of course he did.”

She bit her lip. “As soon as we tell the rest of the team we’re leaving early, he’ll find out. He might even stop us.”

“Which is why we’re not going to tell them.”

She looked puzzled. “We’re going to leave without the team?”

“I think we have to.”

“So, it would be just you and me?” Even as she said the words, she realized that she wasn’t as uncomfortable with the prospect of going off with him as she probably should have been.

“You, me, and about a hundred of my best.”

“We’re taking soldiers?”

“We’re sure as hell not taking ballet dancers.”

She thought about the plan. “We’d have to get out quietly, without attracting attention. That’s not easy to do with a hundred soldiers.”

“Which is why we’ll leave in stages, a few helicopters every hour, starting at nightfall. We’ll rendezvous at a staging area along the way.”

She raised her hands so that he could see them. They were shaking.

“Do you see the state I’m in, General? If you’re playing games with me…”

He reached forward and took her hands in his. She couldn’t help but notice the thick callouses covering his palms.

“We’re both trusting each other.” He gave her hands a gentle squeeze and released them. “Now, go gather up whatever you hold most precious.”

“Why?”

“Because, Dr. Green, there’s a very good chance we won’t be coming back.”

By the time President Glass awoke, General Carr had already left her small quarters, no doubt to take his turn on guard duty. At his insistence, their small team was now conducting around-the-clock foot patrols to ensure that no one could enter the facility undetected. The bunker was far too large for a single person to provide any real situational awareness, but if nothing else, a set of eyes was periodically checking the massive blast doors. Despite her protests to the contrary, General Carr continued to insist that she was too frail to participate. Interestingly enough, he had been willing to accept that her infirmity did not prevent them from sharing a beautiful night of lovemaking.

She pulled the pillow to her face and sniffed deeply. The faint odor of his scent was still there. She smiled. Carr was a good man. Not her late husband, but still, a good man. One day, she would introduce him to Samantha. Perhaps they could even become a family, rebuilding and moving on in a world that required rebuilding and moving on.

She closed her eyes and imagined her daughter’s face. It had been several months since she had last seen Samantha, but the visage of her beautiful face still burned clearly. For a time, Glass had been tricked into believing that Samantha had perished in a helicopter crash. Video taken by a military gunship later confirmed that she had in fact survived, but since then, there had been nothing. No contact. No additional sightings. No detections of her embedded tracker. She had simply vanished.

Was she even still alive?

“She’s alive,” she mouthed. Without the help of her electrolarynx, there was only the faintest whisper of sound. She tried again, harder this time, forcing the air through her throat. “She’s alive.” What came out was a throaty hiss, barely even recognizable as human speech. Even so, hearing the words made them seem more true.

The real question was where was she? And who was taking care of her? In the video, Samantha had been with a man and a woman. Were they still keeping her safe? She had also been carrying a rifle. While it seemed utterly impossible that her little girl had taken to carrying a gun, it was also somewhat comforting. Like the legendary cowgirl Calamity Jane, she had adapted to her harsh surroundings. But soon her beloved daughter could put aside such hardships, returning instead to the life of peace and safety that every child deserved.