Project - 16 (33 page)

“
Are they down there? Are they inside this bunker?”

“
They have to be - where else would they be? Once you started
walking this way we knew Riley had figured it out.”

“
So you sent a drone to kill us and tie up the loose
ends?”

“
Fuck you, Miller. Who the fuck are you anyway, you piece of
shit? You're nothing, just a sad, lonely thirty-something who
thinks he can burn a few sticks and cook a rabbit and he's God's
gift to survival.”

“
Did you send the drone?”

“
You're dam right I did. If she'd followed orders I wouldn't
have had to-”

I pulled the trigger and the back of his head exploded onto
the faded steel wall of the container. The bullet passed straight
through the brain tissue and stopped in the hardwood table top. I
went over to the body of the soldier and unbuckled his belt and
holster, putting it on and taking my pack from where the other
guard had left it. Then I reloaded the pistol and went to the
entrance of the crate, peering round the corner.

Soldiers were running backwards and forwards trying to put
out fires and others were searching the area with great round
spotlights, looking for whoever was attacking them. I slipped into
the shadows, getting away from the carnage inside the container.
People were charging past me as I made my way towards the drill
where a great pillar of fire was clawing at the sky as its fuel
tank burned. Buckets and hoses were brought and I walked past them
all, heading back out the way I came. I was almost there, about to
climb the hill when a car came racing down the road, it's
headlights blinding me until I stepped out of its way. It screeched
to a halt right in front of me.

“
Get in!” cried Riley from the drivers seat. Up close it was a
CERV - one of the many discontinued hybrid vehicles I'd heard the
students crying about and one I'd tried to get my hands on for
years. It had six or seven fuel cans stacked in the back along with
Riley's bags.

I climbed in and she floored it, heading up the hill with the
headlights off. When she reached the road I'd gotten my night
vision back and I guided her for the next half an hour. We said
nothing to each other, only passing directions back and forth until
we were sure we'd left any pursuit behind. I didn't think they'd
follow us just yet anyway but once we hit a main road I told her
she could put her lights back on.

The open design of the CERV meant that I was soon freezing to
death. I dug into my pack for my coat and put it on. Riley remained
silent as she drove.

“
Thanks,” I said.

“
You knew I wouldn't leave you,” she replied. “You knew I'd
come for you. Why?”

“
Why what?”

“
Why'd you do it?”

“
So we'd be even.” She slowed to a stop and left the engine
running. Then she turned in her seat and looked at me, fixing me
with those blue eyes that nailed me every time.

“
I was in your debt,” she said. “You couldn't live with
that.”

“
No. Neither could you.” She nodded. “And I couldn't let him
live. Not after he tried to kill you.”

“
And for Piotr.”

“
And for Piotr.”

She leaned across and I met her, wrapping my arms around her
and squeezing her as tightly as I could. We stayed like that until
all the grief was gone from us, until it was wrung out like a
sponge. When we separated she turned and got out, swapping places
with me.

“
You know the roads,” she said. “But where are we going?
Home?”

“
Nope. To find Alex and Saska.”

“
But they're back there,” she said.

“
No they aren't.” I was grinning now, realising that life
seemed to fall into place as long as you were there to see it.
“We've already met them and they've already met us.”

“
I don't understand.”

“
You will.”

12.

We drove on well into the morning. I was too keyed up to
sleep but Riley wrapped herself in her coat and dozed in the
passenger seat despite the cold wind howling at us. My nightmare
wasn't realised - there were no giant tears in the road for us to
fall into and at some point I broke away, making the most of the
cross-country abilities of the CERV. We ate up the miles, reaching
the bunker at about seven o'clock. I pulled up at the gates,
turning off the engine with fuel to spare. Riley sat up and looked
around us.

“
Here?” she said. “But you checked this place at the
start!”

“
I didn't check hard enough.”

“
What makes you think they're in there?”

“
Something Corban said to me. He didn't know they were down
there in the bunker but he was drilling anyway. He must have
tracked us to this one originally but hadn't done anything about
it. That tells me he'd dismissed this one. Why? Because he already
knew about it. He was looking for the one he didn't know about.
That was their plan all along - to hide in plain sight.”

“
You're going to look like a complete dick if you're wrong,”
she said, getting a lemon sponge MRE from her bag. She passed a
chocolate one to me and we sat there eating them cold, washing them
down with bottled water.

“
What did you blow up back there?” I asked.

“
Well, they left a lot of blasting charges unattended and I
thought it was only fair to show them how unprofessional that was.
So I set some on the drill, the armoury and the toilet
block.”

“
The toilet block?”

“
Yeah, why not? I mean - their mouths were like sewers anyway
so it was kind of like a metaphor. I was sending them a
message.”

“
Do you think they got it?”

“
Probably fucking not.”

We gathered our gear and pulled some scrim netting over the
CERV. Then we walked through the gates and closed them behind
us.

“
You really think they're in here?” she asked
again.

“
Yes.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Pretty sure.”

“
On a scale? 10 being very fucking sure.”

“
8.”

“
8?”

“
Yeah, I guess.”

“
Well, at least we're not far from home.”

“
There's always a plus side.”

I led her to the concrete entrance, down the long hallway and
into the lift, pressing the button. The doors slid shut and we felt
the lurch in our stomachs as we dropped.

"It's amazing this stuff still works," she said.

"They must have got a generator going. Emergency power or
something."

I looked around the inside of the lift, seeing the speaker
but nothing that might indicate a camera. I was looking for a box
or a round lens - not the small square button above the lift
controls. I stared at it until I realised it was the housing for a
small dome camera that was rotating inside. I stepped back to allow
it to see Riley.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"It's a camera," I said. "Just wait a minute."

The speaker crackled into life above our heads but this time
it squelched like a radio might.

“
Aunt Claudia?” it said.

“
Alex?” cried Riley. "Is that you?"

There was another squelch, then the lift reached the bottom
floor and opened. This time there was no carpeted hallway and no
glass screen. There were no corpses either. It was a well lit
passageway with black and white checked flooring and cream walls
that led to a set of double doors at one end. On the walls were
posters warning of biological hazards, the need for cleanliness and
a request that all laboratory staff sign up for the Christmas
party.

The doors opened and there was Alex DuPont - tall, young and
still in his uniform. Next to him was a young girl who I took to be
Saska Ibromavich.

“
What the hell are you doing here?” he asked as Riley threw
her arms around him, then proceeded to get him in a head-lock and
grind his skull with her knuckles.

“
Looking for your sorry fucking ass!” she cried. “Do you know
what we've been through?” They hugged for a moment until Alex let
her go. Then he turned and gestured to the girl next to
him.

“
Claudia, I want you to meet Saska,” he said. “Saska - this is
my bad-ass Aunt Claudia.”

“
A pleasure,” replied Saska. She was pretty and very Russian
with short brown hair and sharp green eyes the colour of polished
jade. She was wearing a lab coat and running pants and a pair of
safety glasses propped on top of her head. She looked nervous but
she was making an effort to be friendly. I'd be nervous too if I
had so many people hunting me.

“
This is Miller,” said Riley and Alex raised an eyebrow as if
my name meant something to him. He extended a hand to me and we
shook. His hands were warm, moist, nervous.

“
I saw you the last time you got in the lift. If I'd known-”
he said.

“
Don't mention it. You weren't to know,” I replied. “We're
here now.”

“
But why? Did Mom send you? I thought you were in Africa?” he
said to Riley.

Saska put a hand on his arm and said, “Alex, maybe we should
all go inside. We should reset the lift too."

They led us through the double doors into a dimly lit control
room. Saska pressed a few buttons on a console and the lights in
the hallway went out, sending the lift back to the top of the
shaft. There were banks of monitors on the wall and I saw the one
from the lift interior.

"Have you had anyone else explore down here?" I
asked.

"Yes," said Saska. "Until we arrived here these cameras only
recorded something if they were triggered by the motion sensors.
You won't believe it but this facility has its own power plant and
god-knows how many gigabytes of data on its internal storage banks.
There are recordings right back to before the
catastrophe."

She began working at one of the terminals, searching for a
recording from the past.

"This one," she said, pointing to the screen. "He's the one
we're hiding from." We looked at the image of a man in DPM, riding
the lift down with two other soldiers. It was easy to identify
Corban.

"That's Colonel Corban!" said Riley. "How long ago was this
taken?"

"Last year," said Alex.

"It's like you said, Miller. He'd already checked this one."
I nodded.

"So he's been hunting us down?" asked Alex. "This is starting
to make sense."

Saska motioned us on. "Come, we can talk inside."

We walked into a dimly lit laboratory neatly lined with row
after row of test benches, work stations and glass and stainless
steel cabinets. It stank of disinfectant and chemicals but as we
walked across to the other side I could see another set of doors -
thin plastic sheet ones - which led to a recreation room. Alex
pulled the plastic aside and offered us a seat on one of the big
red settees. There was a lamp stand in the corner and piles of
books and magazines and it looked like this was where they spent a
lot of their down time. There were dirty pots and cutlery on the
stained black coffee table, unfinished sandwiches and half-drunk
cups of coffee which they both began to clear away
self-consciously.

“
Sorry, we weren't expecting guests,” said Alex, stacking
plates in his arms. Saska gathered cups with a sheepish smile.
Riley sank into the cushions and let her head flop back on the
rest, closing her eyes. I was still strung out a little and I knew
that I couldn't sleep until we'd established just what the hell was
going on. I had a pretty good idea but I still needed to confirm or
deny Piotr's concerns that he'd shared with me earlier. I felt like
that conversation had been in another life, another
time.

“
I'll make some coffee,” said Saska, but when she saw Riley's
pack for the first time she gasped and muttered something in
Russian.

“
It was Piotr's,” I said in her own language. “He died helping
us find you.”

"He died? But how?"

"Corban sent a jet to drop napalm on us. Riley and I managed
to escape the blast but Piotr died saving me."

“
What was he doing here?” she replied. “He was meant to be
back home!”

“
Your Father sent him to find you. He was worried about
you.”

She slumped into an easy chair opposite me and so I rooted in
my pack for the journal in its little plastic bag. Alex looked
bewildered as he tried to comfort her, unable to understand a word
we were saying.

“
Why is she so upset?” he cried. "What does the bag
mean?"

“
Her Father sent a friend of ours to find her and take her
home. This is his pack. He was killed by Corban,” I
said.

I felt weary now. I just wanted to get out of there and find
a corner to lie down in, to drift into a long slumber far away from
all the draining emotion around me. I had a feeling it'd be a while
before that happened. Saska was crying openly now, clutching
Piotr's pack to her chest as she rocked back and forth in Alex's
arms. When she began to calm down, I offered her the
journal.