Interrupt (44 page)

BUNKER SEVEN FOUR

D
rew looked for Emily as he limped into the tunnel without his pack, jacket, helmet, or vest, carrying his rifle and a waterproof satchel. The electric lights were comforting. So were the sounds of his men’s boots on clean, dry concrete. Unfortunately, leaving the ready room had been complicated. Their debriefing officer had been less interested in their reports than in advising them of the developments inside the bunker.

I can’t believe it,
Drew thought.

At least eight civilians had plotted to take control of Seven Four and push the soldiers outside. Interrogations were under way. The debriefing officer hadn’t told Drew all of the conspirators’ names, but two of them had acquired handguns. Several more had hidden knives or metal bars among their belongings.

As his team shifted through the Humvees parked near the tunnel entrance, Drew nodded to a pair of Air Force sentries. Then he reached a forklift and the first stacks of pallets and crates. Beyond these fat blocks of supplies, the civilian living quarters formed three open rooms.

Shadows stretched over the uneven ceiling. Some were cast by the bumps in the rock. Most were the distorted shapes of the supplies. From deep in the tunnel, human sounds reached through the gap between the ceiling and the crates. Drew heard tense voices and a scraping metal-on-concrete noise like someone dragging a cot against the floor.

Two more Air Force sentries stood at the mouth of the walkway that led down the tunnel. They’d barred five civilians from intercepting Drew, making room for a Navy captain to speak to Drew instead.

“Commander Haldane!” one of the civilians called, a geneticist he’d met in Emily’s lab. “Sir? They said you had the blood and hair samples.”

“We want to get the purple caps under refrigeration before the RNA degrades any further,” another man said.

Drew ignored them and saluted the Navy captain. Word had obviously spread that he’d returned, but he didn’t see Emily, which made him antsy.
What if she’s one of the people in lockup?
he thought.

“Good afternoon, Commander,” the captain said.

“Sir.”

“I need a few minutes. The rest of your team is dismissed until sixteen hundred. Then you’ll rotate into the guard shift. We’re stretched thin, so make sure you get chow and hot showers. They also have a tub ready for your K-9.”

“Thank you, sir,” Macaulay said, extending his hand to Orion.

All of them smelled like sweat and mud. Orion’s damp, matted fur exuded a dog stink that wasn’t unpleasant to live with, but the odor must have been staggering to the bunker personnel—and Drew’s team had been ordered inside the complex, where they’d be in closer quarters than in the tunnel.

The military and civilian populations of Bunker Seven Four were under total quarantine from each other. If Drew was going to find Emily, the walk into the complex was his best chance unless he volunteered to
stand watch immediately. That would seem odd after a five-day mission outside.

“Give the eggheads our samples,” Drew told Bugle, handing him the satchel as one of the scientists called, “Are there notes describing each sample donor?”

“No,” Drew said. “I’ve got a lot of shorthand, but I can make sense of it for you as soon as I sit down and eat.”

“Excellent,” the scientist said. “We’re in Lab One.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Drew said. He hoped he’d find Emily in the trailers, of course. That was why he hadn’t given them his notes.

The tunnel echoed with footsteps and voices as Bugle and the rest of his team left. The scientists hurried after them.

“Walk with me,” the Navy captain said.

“Yes, sir.” Drew followed the captain through the irregular stacks of crates, boxes, plastic-wrapped pallets, and the loose items on top like sewing machines, lawn mowers, garden hoses, lamps, and coffee tables. When his scavenging crews hadn’t been able to find food or fuel, they’d taken everything else the aircraft could carry. Someday they might need motors or furniture—the furniture could serve as firewood.

Captain Fuelling was a short man with a knot in the bridge of his nose where it had been broken and healed poorly. He was also the senior ROMEO contact inside Bunker Seven Four.

It’s bad news,
Drew thought.

Fuelling had only spoken to him in private twice before, first to establish their bona fides, then to share a covert assessment of Seven Four’s viability. The DIA considered the installation highly unstable, yet no one could spare the aircraft to relocate Seven Four’s civilian element. Not even ROMEO had tried to muster a relocation force. They’d instructed Drew to scavenge as many luxuries as his team could find, simple things like chocolate and shampoo, in hope of calming the refugees.

They should have done more.

Maybe our agency is actively taking charge,
Drew thought. They might run damage control in order to keep the imprisoned scientists working. But how?

ROMEO operatives were sanctioned to act outside the military justice code. Technically, they were federal agents. As such, they weren’t beholden to the Navy or U.S. Command.

Drew was not a thug. He would refuse to torture anyone if that’s what his superiors wanted, but he wasn’t above intimidating the eggheads who’d organized the conspiracy. A
walk outside might be exactly what they need,
he thought as Fuelling led him into a pocket of darkness where he remembered light.

One of the sleeping areas had been shut down in order to pack the civilians into fewer spaces. They didn’t have enough military personnel to secure more real estate.

In the empty space, Fuelling stopped Drew. “I have new intel and contingency plans for your ears only,” Fuelling said. “Lieutenant Buegeleisen and Sergeant Patrick are unauthorized for these directives.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Some of it may be hard to hear.”

“Is this about the civilian takeover?”

“Affirmative. There’s something you need to know,” Fuelling said, watching his eyes.

Drew waited.

Whatever Fuelling saw in him—anger, commitment—it was the correct response. Fuelling said, “The civilian insurrection wasn’t limited to this bunker.”

“I don’t understand, sir. How could they talk to each other outside this shelter?”

“I need your oath before I tell you more,” Fuelling said. “I want your word as a ROMEO operative.”

“Aye, sir,” Drew said.

Standing in the shadows, Fuelling spoke for ten minutes in a low, insistent tone. He raised his voice once when Drew objected. Then he returned to his fierce tone. His eyes gleamed ominously. His gestures were short and clipped.

Finally, Drew nodded. “Aye, sir,” he said.

Near the blast door into the complex, Drew found Bugle waiting for him. Floodlights lit the massive steel slab. Bugle rested against the pallets that separated the door from the third sleeping area in the tunnel, which danced with shadows and noise. Drew couldn’t see the civilians on the other side of the pallets, but the ceiling flickered as they gestured or paced through their lights.

“You knew!” a woman shouted. “I think you knew and now we’re stuck in here!”

They were tearing themselves apart.

Feeling uneasy, Drew walked toward his friend. He stopped when he realized Bugle’s height obscured Emily. She sat with Bugle. Darkness hid her face, but Drew would have recognized her profile and her ponytail anywhere.

“Drew,” she said from Bugle’s shadow. She stood up.

“Are you all right?” Drew said.

“I’m so glad to see you.” She lifted her chin to look at Bugle as she spoke, including Bugle in her sentiment even as she approached Drew.

Drew felt happy, too—happier than he’d anticipated. He’d been almost certain she hadn’t taken part in the conspiracy, yet he’d worried when she wasn’t at the front of the tunnel when he returned. “I, uh,” he said.

“Em’s the one who tipped off our guys about the mutiny,” Bugle said, rising from the pallet to stand close to her again. He nudged her shoulder, and she smiled, but her body language was uncomfortable. She didn’t want Bugle’s affection.

Why hadn’t Drew seen it before? Emily had put up with Bugle’s flirting because the two of them were buddies, nothing more.

She and I are a better fit.

Drew couldn’t articulate what he was thinking. “You’re the one who warned General Strickland?” he asked.

“I didn’t… It wasn’t anything special,” Emily said.

If there was shooting, we could have lost you
, Drew thought. He extended his arm as if for a handshake. Instead, she hugged him abruptly, and Drew glanced past the blond halo of her hair at Bugle, his heart pounding. Could she hear it?

Bugle’s face had tightened. The manner in which she’d embraced Drew, leaving Bugle, couldn’t have made her preference more clear. Drew wondered how he was going to make it up to his friend as his arm tightened on her waist.

He tried to catch Bugle’s eye, but Bugle wouldn’t look at him.

Bugle walked to the blast door, which hung open just enough to admit people in single file. The touch of a button would close it in 1.4 seconds, locking fifty tons of concrete and tempered steel against the bulkhead of the tunnel wall.

Drew stayed with Emily. Hugging her, he remembered Julie, which felt awkward and strange. Was she worth any rift between himself and Bugle?

Worse, being with him would put her in new danger.

Emily deserved to hear that P.J. was alive, but Drew couldn’t share any of the information Captain Fuelling had told him.

He’s so nervous,
Emily thought with a faint smile.
Me, too.

In a normal world, the two of them might have been separated forever by duty and sorrow. Now, in his arms, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

His uniform smelled like fresh wind and rain and dirt. Beneath it, he stank. Drew hadn’t bathed in days, but even that was a good smell, healthy and genuine. Emily thought of the rumors of the men taken into the women’s shower. Then she flushed and kept her face nestled in the crook of his neck. Was it too soon?

She’d lost Chase. He missed Julie. She still wore her rings. But with so much turmoil and death, everyone needed positive relationships.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Is there coffee?”

Despite her emotions, she balked. She wasn’t ready for a date. Not yet. Dating inside a doomsday bunker seemed unreal.

“It’s just coffee,” he said.

Emily sensed the tired grin in his voice and looked up. “I know.” She knew what she wanted. Reassurance. Safety. Friendship. More.

Drew motioned toward the blast door. “Let’s go.”

Emily kissed his cheek, then separated herself from him. She wondered if he’d sensed the conflict of attraction and guilt in her eyes.

They slipped past the blast door and its thick locking bars, which protruded from its side like cylindrical teeth. Inside, the entry room was a smooth concrete box except for its rock ceiling. Like the tunnel, the entry room was a buffer meant to deflect shock waves from the complex. A second, smaller door like a bank vault stood across from them.

“I need to tell you something,” Drew said.

Involuntarily, the fingers of her right hand gripped the rings on her left. What was he going to suggest? More than coffee? Emily tried to head him off. “Let me talk first,” she said. “Please.”

“It’s about P.J.”

Less than coffee,
she thought. He’d changed his mind. Too much had happened between them. Her words came out rushed. “Shooting P.J. wasn’t your fault, and I’m so sorry about Julie. Please don’t say you and I can’t—”

Drew stopped her. “Two days ago, my team saw P.J. outside,” he said. “Your nephew is alive.”

The reversal left her stunned. “But you shot him.”

“He’s one of the dominant Nims. He looks like his left arm hasn’t healed. Except for that, he’s fine.”

“Here? How did he get here?”

Drew held her hand tighter. “You can’t tell anyone I told you.”

A bright new optimism woke inside her. “You need to save him!” she said, but Drew shook his head.

“Promise me,” he said. “This is dangerous information. Right now, just us being together is dangerous.”

Emily stared at their intertwined hands. “What do you mean?”

“You have to trust me,” he said.

“I do.” She would have followed him anywhere.

“My team couldn’t reach him. Believe me.”

“I do.”

“If there was any chance of getting him, I would have tried,” Drew said. “We had eight men. They had ninety. But there’s more. Roell is in the area, too.”

“Marcus’s son?” Emily was astounded.

“Actually, it’s not a huge coincidence.” He told her about the massing Neanderthals and their envoys. “The flooding, the mountains, and the snow are bringing them through the middle part of the state.”

She met his eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

Kiss me,
she thought, but what she said was “I’ve completed my biomarker. I can tell you who’ll become Neanderthal in the pulse and who won’t. That’s the first step in designing a cure, but there are more things we could do with it. Scary things.”

“I’m sure,” Drew said.