Eden Rising (33 page)

Ash looked toward the back of the truck. “What about you?”

“All looks the same to me,” Rick said.

Ash hadn’t wanted to bring the kid along, but leaving him behind with Brandon didn’t seem like a good idea, either. Davis would have probably been able to keep Rick in check, but Ash thought it was better not to tempt fate. When Brandon asked why Rick was allowed to go but he wasn’t, Ash had said, “Because he’s sixteen and you’re not.”

“Hey, what’s that?” Gardiner said.

He was sitting behind Sorrento, his gaze locked on a parking lot, left of the vehicle. While Sorrento slowed the truck, both Ash and Chloe adjusted their positions so they could see out Gardiner’s side.

“What are you looking at?” Chloe asked.

“Up there, near the building. Gas cans, I think.”

He was right. In the floodlights that still lit up the parking lot, Ash could see over a dozen cans stacked side by side.

“Let’s check it out,” he ordered.

Sorrento pulled into the lot and stopped. As Ash and Chloe hopped out, they were greeted by a blast of frigid air, the temperature having taken a drastic downturn since their last stop. The only question now was whether they would have a wet snow or an icy rain when the storm decided it was time to open up.

Chloe knelt next to one of the cans and tilted it toward her. “These look like the same type we picked up in Sheridan.” She unscrewed the cap and gave it a sniff. “This one was full recently.”

“Looks like they were here,” Ash said.

“Only one way they could have gone.”

“Yep.”

NB219

7:49 PM MST

W
ICKS READ THROUGH
the report again, but still found he couldn’t focus on the words, his mind understandably preoccupied. Knowing it wouldn’t be any better if he tried again, he clicked the box indicating he’d read and approved it, and sent it on its way.

He glanced at the clock in the top corner of his screen. It was time to go. He opened the bottom desk drawer, reached underneath it, and pulled off the envelope he’d taped there. He stood up, stuffed the envelope in his pocket, and left his office.

“Mr. Wicks!”

Wicks looked back. Adrian Bernstein, one of the true believers who worked under him, was leaning out of his office.

“What is it?” Wicks asked.

“I just received some additional stats from western Africa. I assume you want those included in the report.”

“I was under the impression it was already included.”

“I didn’t realize you were going to send it out early. I thought I had another hour.”

“Well, you didn’t,” Wicks said. “I’ve been called into another meeting. I don’t have time to deal with this. Write up an addendum and send it out.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Bernstein said. “Would you like that broken down as—”

“Adrian, don’t make me do your job for you.”

Wicks walked quickly away before the other man could speak again.

He took a route he knew would be less trafficked so he could increase his pace without drawing undue attention. As he neared the elevator, though, he heard steps coming from the other direction. It was too late for him to head back into one of the corridors that led off the elevator lobby without being noticed by the approaching person, so he continued on.

Reaching the elevator, he realized he had a serious problem. While his own ID pass was right there in his pocket, the one he needed to swipe in front of the reader to call the elevator was still in the envelope in his pocket. How was he supposed to retrieve it without being noticed? He stared at the elevator, paralyzed by indecision.

“Evening.”

Wicks jerked back at the sound of the voice. Standing next to him was a gray jumpsuit-clad security guard named Cliff Eames.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Eames said.

Wicks attempted a disarming smile. “My fault. Lost in thought.”

“Call the elevator already?”

“What? Oh, uh, no. I…”

“No problem. I got it.”

Eames flashed his ID badge in front of the reader. Less than thirty seconds later, the door for car number two opened and the two men entered.

“Business up top?” Eames asked.

Wicks had prepared for this question, only in his mind it hadn’t been a security guard who asked, but one of the warehouse workers.

Again with the smile. “Inventory discrepancy on one of my department reports. Needed to stretch my legs, so thought I’d check it out myself. You going on duty?”

“Monitoring room tonight.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Boring, more like it.”

When the door opened at the top, Wicks motioned for the guard to go first and said, “Don’t work too hard.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Wicks spent a few minutes walking down aisles and acting interested in some of the items stored there. When he reached the auxiliary exit, he finally removed the badge from the envelope. He’d cloned it several days earlier from an ID belonging to a manager in an entirely different department, after receiving the message he would be having a guest.

Two other items were in the envelope: a key fob-sized signal scrambler, which, when activated, would interfere with the links to security cameras within a twenty-five-foot radius of the device; and a piece of paper with information he’d waited far too long to obtain.

He turned on the scrambler, opened the door with the cloned card, and headed down the tunnel to the outside.

NEAR FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

10:07 PM EST

“W
HY ISN’T THIS
working?” Bobby yelled in frustration.

“You’ve checked everything?” Tamara asked.

“Of course I have, like twenty thousand times.”

“You’re obviously missing something.”

He looked at her as if contemplating whether gutting her or ripping her head off would be the more enjoyable task.

“I’m just saying the answers has to be there somewhere,” she told him.

“No kidding,” he said.

“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to upset you. Look, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes. Clear your head. I’ve got a Coke that’s still cold if you want it.”

He sighed and nodded. “Yeah, all right. Toss it here.”

Surprisingly, Bobby had been able to get the uplink working for North and South America, portions of Europe, and nearly all of Asia. He also told Tamara he felt confident he could bust in on the current signal. That was not something he could test, though. They’d have to save that until they were ready to go, in case the Project Eden techs could figure out a way around it and block any future attempts. That would be disastrous.

The problem he was having was one of input, something that should have been easy to solve. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the system to accept the video file he was trying to feed it.

“Maybe if I rerouted the playback machine again,” he said, then took a drink. Not only had he tried that at least four times, he’d also worked through a dozen different playback machines.

If only it was as easy as their old stand-ups had been, Tamara thought. Back then, in their news days, all they needed was a camera and the van that linked them to the satellite and they could broadcast from anywhere.

She leaned back. “Bobby.”

“Yeah.”

“We did bring the camera, didn’t we?” They had recorded the file in Washington, DC, with the deserted White House in the background. While that image would add dramatic flare, it was the message that was important.

“It’s out in the car,” he said. “But if you think recording the message again might work, forget it. It’s not the file. I’ve tried it on a bunch of computers, and it plays perfectly.”

“No, I was thinking maybe we could do it live.”

“Live?” His eyes lost focus for a second as he fell into thought. “Probably would need to…and then…yeah, yeah…and…”

“Will it work?” she asked.

He stared at nothing for another moment before turning to her, the start of a grin on his lips. “Yeah. I think it might. It means you’ll have to keep talking until I figure out how to get the playback going, though.”

“I can do that.”

LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO

8:13 PM MST

U
NLIKE ELSEWHERE IN
the city, where parking lots and streets were all but empty, the lot serving the Mountain View Regional Medical Center and the road feeding into it were packed with cars. It was the same pattern Matt had seen in other towns, vehicles left behind by the desperate who had rushed to medical facilities only to die there.

It was heart wrenching and depressing, but the hospital was also the perfect rendezvous location. Matt parked the car Hiller had obtained for him in Alamogordo and waited. If someone from Project Eden happened to be in the area, they would drive right by and never know he was there, hidden among all the cars.

He’d been there for an hour, and had spent most of it staring out the window, trying not to think about anything. But of course that was impossible. He knew the dead in the cars surrounding him, in the homes he’d driven by to get there, in everything everywhere. Each body represented someone he should have saved. Someone he had failed.

He could have done so many things differently, small things that would have rippled out and brought about entirely different results. He could see that so clearly now. But there was no going back. There were no do-overs, no second tries. The billions who lay at his feet would always be there.

When he heard a motor in the distance, he climbed out of the car, removed from the back seat the duffel bag containing the special presents he’d brought for the principal director, and walked over to the parking lot entrance.

The car approached, lights off. Nearing the entrance, it slowed, and then stopped entirely as the driver caught sight of Matt. For several moments the two men stared at each other across the dimly lit space between them—the presumed dead, former Project Eden member and his friend who had stayed, both older now but neither as wise as they wished they had been.

Curtis Wicks made a U-turn. As soon as he stopped at the curb, Matt opened the door and climbed in.

“Hello, Curtis,” Matt said.

“I…I don’t know what to call you,” Wicks said.

“I’ve been Matt for so long, I don’t think I could answer to anything else.”

Wicks held out his hand. “Good to see you, Matt.”

Matt shook it. “You, too, my friend. You, too.”

__________

“W
HAT ABOUT THERE?”
Sorrento asked.

The Humvee had just entered the Las Cruces city limits.

Ash looked through the light snowfall at the set of interconnected buildings Sorrento was pointing at. It appeared to be a school with several large parking areas. Perfect place for a convoy to hide.

“Yeah. Let’s take a look.”

__________

T
HE PASSING HOURS
hadn’t made Hiller like the situation any more than he had when Mr. Hamilton told him what was going to happen. Sure, Mr. Hamilton was the boss, but going off on his own? That was crazy. What could he possibly accomplish by himself? He should have, at the very least, taken one of the men with him.

But Hiller had been trained to follow orders, and Mr. Hamilton’s orders were to wait thirty minutes after he left Alamogordo, then proceed to the Las Cruces shopping center where they now were, and wait.

“Be ready,” Mr. Hamilton had said. “If I need you, I’ll call, but if nine p.m. comes and I haven’t, don’t hang around. Get to Ward Mountain as quickly as possible.”

Hiller checked his watch. There was less than an hour to the deadline.

No, he didn’t like this one bit.

NB219

8:16 PM MST

M
ATT FELT HIS
chest constrict as they pulled to a stop near the warehouse that sat above NB219. It had been a long time since he’d been so close to a Project Eden facility, and even longer since he’d been near this one, back when it was still under construction.

“We have to hurry,” Wicks said. “I have to be in my office in ten minutes. And it won’t look good if I’m late.”

He led Matt to the auxiliary entrance, located one hundred feet from the side of the warehouse. Meant primarily for emergencies, it was below ground, the door situated in a cutout that had been made to look like part of an arroyo. To open it, Wicks placed an ID card against a reader attached to the frame, and they were in.

A tunnel sloped gently upward, taking them all the way to the warehouse level. Another door, another reader. After the lock clicked open, Wicks held up a hand, telling Matt to stay put while he slipped through the doorway.

Matt was beginning to feel his friend had been gone too long when the door opened and Wicks waved him inside.

“We’re all clear,” Wicks whispered. “Here, put these on.” He was holding out a dark gray jumpsuit and matching baseball cap. “It’s what security wears.”

Matt put the duffel on the ground and donned the suit. After he zipped it up, he pulled on the hat, wearing it low so the bill would shade his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, picking up the duffel.

Wicks led him through the packed warehouse, and made Matt wait again in one of the aisles while he summoned the elevator. As soon as the doors opened, Matt walked as briskly as his bad leg would allow, from his hiding place and into the car with Wicks.

“When we get out, follow me,” Wicks instructed. “But not too close. Don’t make it look like we’re together.”

As Matt followed Wicks off the elevator two minutes later, he had another overwhelming moment of dread. He was actually here, in the belly of the beast. Suddenly the plan he’d made seemed ridiculous, impossible. There was no way it was going to work.

Stop it!
he told himself.
Take things one step at a time.

While the warehouse level had seemed deserted, down in the heart of NB219 plenty of people were passing from one hallway to another through the elevator lobby. Matt almost forgot to check for the panel but caught himself in time. It was there, all right, a few feet to the left of elevator car number one. Exactly where he remembered it.