Adrift 3: Rising (Adrift Series) (20 page)

Jerome shuddered.

Despite the nightmare on the street, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the real danger was clinging to the wall outside the window, just inches away, out of his view.

Losing my fucking mind, here.

Just like everybody else in this shithole
, his subconscious whispered back.

“Clear,” Baker said behind him, the word echoed immediately by Baldwin and Watts. The suite was secure, the door shut. Jerome’s next order would be to barricade the entry with furniture. He needed time to think.

He drew the thick curtains, cutting out almost all of the light, and blocking out the view of the ongoing destruction of Las Vegas.

When he turned away, facing into the room, he could have sworn he heard something rapping on the window behind him softly, almost playfully. The sound barely heard; teasing somehow. Daring him to look out once more.

Click, click...

At first glance, the bunker appeared small: just a narrow corridor leading into the mountain; a single tunnel down which dozens of people were moving beneath sterile white lighting that cast sharp shadows on the bare rock walls.

Conny paused just inside the entrance, where a handful of clerics were gathered, along with Andrew Lloyd, waiting for the last of the ranch’s refugees to climb the rocks and make their way inside.

Shahana was the last of them all to enter. She stared hesitantly at the Grand Cleric, and hatefully at Conny, and gasped for air, recovering from the short, strenuous climb.

Once Shahana was safely inside, Andrew pushed hard on the door, swinging its massive bulk slowly. The door looked like steel, at least three inches thick, with a narrow viewing panel made of either glass or acrylic set at head-height, which could also be sealed behind a small metal hatch. It shut with a heavy
clang
.

Andrew punched a four-digit code into a panel on the wall alongside it, and a lock engaged with a reassuringly solid
thud.

Conny had watched carefully as his fingers danced across the control panel.

4853
.

She repeated the numbers in her mind several times, committing them to memory. She was willing to accept that there was at least some possibility that she wouldn’t be able to leave the bunker for a while: maybe weeks, maybe months, depending on radiation levels outside, but she would be damned if she would allow herself to be locked in without knowing how to get back out.

Somewhere behind her, Remy cocked a leg against the wall. Making himself right at home.

Conny’s eyes briefly fell on Shahana. Without a word, the girl turned and marched away, heading down a tunnel that seemed to lead to a sort of hub, from which Conny could see much larger tunnels leading away in five directions. This first part of the bunker was narrow and claustrophobic, but each of those five tunnels would surely open out into much larger areas.

She watched as Shahana disappeared down a tunnel to the left with her head bowed, and felt a surge of remorse and pity for the girl. She looked a year or two younger than Logan. Presumably, she and her sister had been without a home, and had found their way to the ranch in the same way most vulnerable kids found their way into the clutches of cults. Now, thanks to Conny, she had nobody.

But she’s alive.

There was nothing else Conny could do for Shahana, or for anyone else, other than to keep Andrew Lloyd on track. It was he that the kids looked to. Even now, the handful of older clerics who orbited the robed Grand Cleric looked to him for guidance.

Andrew, for his part, looked to Conny with a pleading sort of desperation in his eyes.

She thought about Mancini’s first description of the man. He had been dominated by Jennifer Craven, unable to think for himself or to make his own decisions. A mouthpiece, a figurehead. A coward. At first, Conny had assumed that was just typical Mancini bluster—after all, the gruff ex-soldier probably thought
everybody
he met was a pussy—but the more time she spent with Andrew, the more she realised that the picture Mancini had painted contained more than a hint of truth.

She set her jaw. Andrew was going to have to relocate his balls pretty damn soon. There were hundreds of people relying on his leadership now.

She held his gaze, and nodded at the door.

“Will it protect us?”

Andrew’s brow furrowed. “Against radiation? Yes, we’re shielded here, and the air is filtered. Nobody will get sick as long as we keep the place sealed up. As for anything else…” his voice trailed off.

“Vampires, Andrew,” Conny said. “They’re vampires. Exactly as Jennifer Craven told you. Don’t worry; they can’t punch through solid steel. And if this place really is carved right into the rock, they won’t be able to burrow in.”

Andrew nodded.

“Rock and steel,” he said. “It took Jennifer’s father decades to build this place.”

“I want to see it,” Conny said.

“All of it?”

“Every last corner. If there’s a way in, they’ll find it.”

Andrew’s eyes widened. He pointed at the door.

“That’s the only entrance.”

“They have a way of making their own entrances.” Conny grimaced. “They move like insects. Walls; ceilings. If this place has a weakness, they’ll find it.”

Andrew looked dubious.

“The complex is large. It will take a while to check it all.”

Conny shrugged. “Then we’d better get started. Trust me, a few hours spent ensuring that we really are safe will be worth it. You do
not
want one of those things getting in here.”

Andrew swallowed audibly, and started to walk down the passage toward the central hub. Conny followed, with Remy at her side and Logan immediately behind her.

“I saw what happened to your country,” Andrew said over his shoulder. “I didn’t really believe, even then. Jennifer had her...views about history, and she spun a believable tale, but...I don’t know. It all seemed so far off. So
distant
. According to her records, nothing had happened in America for centuries. Not since before the time of Columbus. She believed a rising in America was due, but she didn’t think it would happen for years yet. As a matter of fact, she believed humans would discover the vampires before they showed themselves again. Said humans were spread over every corner of the world, and that no matter where the next rising happened, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. It would be all over the news in minutes, she said. I guess she was right.”

Conny snorted.

“Not exactly. From what I heard, keeping the British rising a secret wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Dan killed some of them, and they didn’t take it well.”

“The Hermetic,” Andrew said with a nod. “For a long time, they were supposed to be a myth.”

Conny blinked at the unfamiliar word.

“They?”

Andrew paused, turning back to face her. He looked confused at the question.

“Dan thinks he is...special because of a brain injury he received a couple of years back,” Conny said. “Somehow that injury...tuned him in to the vampires’ frequency. Made some sort of connection with them. Are you saying there are other people like Dan?”

“Are?” Andrew said. “Well, I don’t know about that. But Jennifer believed there were, once. At least I think that’s what she believed. I wasn’t the one she talked to about such things, not really.”

Conny looked at him sharply.

“Who was?”

“A scientist. A historian who worked on the information she uncovered.”

“And where is this scientist now?”

Andrew looked surprised.

“Here, of course. In the archives, no doubt. That’s where he lives, I believe. Where Jennifer...kept him.”

Conny burned her gaze into Andrew’s eyes.

“I need to speak with him.”

Nobody was responding, on any channel. That was bad news for Jerome and Bravo Team but even worse news, he guessed, for Figueroa.

The Captain wasn’t the kind of leader who generally felt the need to micromanage every situation, and Jerome was well-used to the idea that Figueroa wouldn’t be checking in on his every move, but Cap always
responded
.

Given the dire situation on the top few floors of the Bellagio—and the almost certainly even graver situation down on the ground—Jerome had to consider the possibility that Baker, Watts, Baldwin and himself were the only members of the 190th still breathing.

But perhaps worst of all, even HQ back in Draper hadn’t answered him. It wasn’t an equipment malfunction, not unless it had affected all four members of Bravo at the same time. Something was wrong back in Utah.

Jerome hadn’t told the others
that
part yet. It was
his
job to communicate with HQ, not theirs. If they thought they were alone out here, without backup, what little morale they had left was likely to dry up sharply.

They had to get out.

Jerome’s mind raced through fevered scenarios, trying to engineer an exit strategy for them. The roof was easiest, of course: it just meant retracing their steps up four floors. Yet Jerome didn’t trust those floors to be as clear as he thought they were.

Frequently, he shot nervous glances at the window, uncertain whether the feeling that there had been something on the other side had just been a product of his paranoia.

Naw, face it, Jerome
,
it’s a little more than
paranoia
. It’s ball-shrivelling
fright.

Even if they did make it to the roof, without comms they wouldn’t able to call for extraction. They’d have to send up a flare and just hope somebody came to rescue them. But nobody would see a flare, not when half of the sky itself was made of fire.

He doubted there was air support over the city anyway: too dangerous to fly out there, now, after what had happened above the
Monte Carlo
.

Too dangerous to just sit in here, too.

He glanced around the rest of Bravo. They had shoved a heavy sofa up against the suite’s front door, and were now huddled together, perched on a coffee table in the centre of the lounge. Each of them faced roughly a different direction, all weapons facing outward, despite the fact that the suite had been cleared and re-cleared. Everybody was expecting to open fire at any moment; nobody knew which direction the next attack might come from.

Like we’re all afraid of ghosts
, Jerome thought.
Coming out of the damn walls to get us.
He wiped sweat from his brow.

Tried the comms again.

Just static.

Sitting in here, waiting to die. The next jet might be pointed straight at that window, coming right at us
—

“We need to bug out, Sarge,” Baker said, in a voice that rattled like an old radiator.

Jerome shook his head.

“Sarge
,” Baker repeated forcefully.

Jerome met Baker’s eyes. They were wild with concern. Weapons Sergeant Eddie Baker was a deer in fast-moving headlights now, not an experienced combat veteran. He was ready to put his head down, stick his fingers in his ears and
run.

Jerome drew in a deep breath.

It’s my job to keep these guys steady. Keep ‘em alive.

He stood, and made his way into the suite’s small kitchen area. At any other time, he might have taken a moment to marvel at the suite itself: all open-plan, dripping with opulence. The enormous window that he had blocked with velvet curtains offered spectacular views for anyone sitting at the fancy dining table located in front of it. Gold trim and sparkling crystal decorated virtually every inch of the furniture. The fridge looked almost big enough for Jerome to park his freaking car inside.

He pulled open the door, peered inside. The fridge was dark, the power long gone, but it was still cold. He spotted prime cuts of meat, an enormous lobster, something dark in a bowl that he guessed was caviar. An entire shelf dedicated to what looked like
seriously
expensive chocolate, and…

A-ha.

He pulled out a couple of large bottles of
Bollinger
, and slammed the fridge door shut with his hip. He hated champagne; the fizzy piss nearly always gave him fierce indigestion, and he tried to avoid it unless a glass was pressed into his hand at a wedding or some other formal function. But Bravo needed to calm the hell down. They needed to take a breath.

If Figueroa walked in the door and found them drinking, he’d have them all hauled over the coals until their nuts were overcooked, but Jerome knew deep in his gut that Figueroa wouldn’t be walking anywhere anytime soon.

“Drink,” he said, passing the bottles to Baker and Watts. “Take a fucking minute. That’s an order.”

He waited while Baker and Watts opened the bottles and took long swallows, passing them on to Baldwin and himself. Jerome chugged back a drink that he figured cost north of a grand a bottle, and grimaced.

Give me a Bud over that shit, any day.

He passed the bottle back to Baker.

“I can’t raise headquarters on the radio,” he said simply, hoping the alcohol would sufficiently dull their senses to prevent a panic. It seemed to be working: the other three soldiers just stared at him, open-mouthed. “And I think we all know that Alpha Team is gone.”

Nobody challenged that assumption.

“Take a look out the window,” Jerome continued. “Whatever this is, we already lost it. And it’s happening everywhere. I don’t think securing Las Vegas is an option any more. Do you?”

Only Baker shook his head, but Jerome could read from the expressions of the other two that they were in full agreement.

“We
do
need to bug out. But I don’t think we’re getting out of here in a helo. So we have to go down, but no more of this floor-by-floor shit. We won’t even make it down to twenty-five at this rate. We go down
fast
, get the fuck out of this hotel, and then we get out of Vegas. Anybody have a problem with that?”

Nobody did.

“Okay. We’ll go for the service stairs. Once we hit them, we move at speed. And if we see movement in there—if we see Captain Figueroa holding four aces or Jesus Christ himself, I want you to open fire. Got it?”

They nodded.

Somewhere outside the window, an enormous explosion rocked the city, and the entire suite shuddered.

“I don’t think we’re part of the army anymore,” Jerome said, “but we’re still soldiers. So be smart, and be effective. And be
fast.
”

Baker offered Jerome the half-empty champagne bottle.

He waved it away.

“Eyes open,” he growled. “Let’s move.”

Without another word, he marched to the suite’s front door and shouldered aside the couch they had used to barricade it.

He placed his fingers lightly on the door handle and held his other hand up in front of Bravo’s faces, three fingers extended.

Three.

Two.

One.

Jerome yanked the door open.

And flinched backward as a man in a Bellagio bellhop uniform swung a fire axe directly at his head.

He hit the deck as the axe lodged deep into the wooden door frame, and Watts opened fire, shredding the attacker’s body. The bellhop fell away in a haze of blood and bullets, leaving the axe still buried in the spot where Jerome’s face had been moments earlier.

He stared up at it a moment, his nerves dancing wildly.

“Okay,” he said in a faltering tone. “
Now
let’s move.”

He stood, ducking under the axe’s handle, and twisted out into the gloomy corridor. For now, the Bellagio’s emergency backup power was still operational, but it did no more than illuminate small squares of the carpet at regular intervals, like runway lights. It was enough to pick out movement, but not much else.

And there
was
movement.

Up ahead.

Streaking toward Jerome.

He dropped to one knee, taking aim, and rattled off a three-round burst, catching the incoming figure in the upper-chest region and punching them backward. They landed with a gurgle, and went still.

Jerome’s mind asked him a question he didn’t want to think about.

Got enough ammo for this?

He grimaced, pausing a moment to haul the fire axe from the doorway. The weight of the weapon in his hand felt good.

“Save your ammo if you can,” he hissed over his shoulder. “You’re gonna need it.”

With that, he took off at a controlled jog, heading for the green
exit
sign that glowed softly at the end of the hallway.