Overture (Earth Song) (44 page)

The
soldiers were trained to kill the enemy, but the FBI agents were trained for close quarters handgun combat. For a few seconds it was a draw with bullets whizzing in both directions. Masciler dropped and rolled to the side, his aging back creaking in protest, and came up with a Glock in each hand. The guns had no external safety, and that was part of the reason the FBI carried them.

Two-weapon
practice was mandatory for all senior agents. He put two rounds into the chest of the Master Sergeant, one from each gun. The man bucked with each hit but did not go down. Body armor, eh? Masciler snorted and shifted his aim in a split second. Two more shots found their mark on the man’s crotch. One hit square over the genitals. The armor stopped the bullet while the blunt force trauma made him drop his gun and scream in agony. The second shot hit high in on the thigh and produced a bright red fountain. Femoral artery, Masciler noted and changed his target; the sergeant was no longer a threat.

His
men accounted themselves well. They were outnumbered two to one, but the fight was over within seconds. All the soldiers had fired their M-4s empty while the agents still had rounds to spare in their weapons. All eight soldiers and their NCO were on the ground dead, dying or disabled. Two of his men had slight wounds, including the one received in the initial shot. A couple minutes later, the rest of his men came running up with their heavier machine pistols at the ready. 

“
Take this place,” he ordered his men and spat on the blood-covered ground. “Use whatever force is necessary. I want this Colonel Hotchkins taken into custody. Quickly!” The men set out in teams of three. None of this had been in the mission briefing but it didn’t matter. In ten minutes they were in control of the entrance and Hotchkins was in handcuffs.

“
What the hell is going on here?” Masciler demanded of him, “Why haven’t people been allowed to start entering the bunker?”

“
I haven’t received the order yet,” the Colonel said. He had a weeping bullet wound on his shoulder and was trying to ignore it. 

“
There’s a damned meteor storm just a couple hours away and you’re all just running around like nut jobs! I want to see this bunker and everything else.”

“
No!” the Colonel nearly screamed, veins standing out on his neck.

“
Why?”

“
It’s not time yet, we just need a few more hours…”

“
For what? All you’re doing is stocking provisions, so why can’t the civilians take shelter inside? Why did your men attack us when we tried to get in to see you? Why are you acting like this place is a nuclear storage facility?” He just glared back.

“
Bah,” Masciler spat. “I need some answers. Find this command center, we need the computer files and communications records with DC.”

“
You are not to touch anything in my office!”

“
Oh, yeah, gag that moron while you’re at it.”

The
men searched for several minutes as time ticked by before the radio crackled. “Sir, we’ve found something.”

“
What do you have, where are you?”

“
We’ve got the command center.”

“
What’s in there?”

“
Just get down here sir, and fast.”

Masciler
glanced at his senior agents, who all looked worried. “You men hold the entrance,” he said, gesturing to ten men standing nearby. “The rest come with me.”

“
Stay away from my command center,” screamed Colonel Hotchkins at Masciler’s back, “you won’t like what you find.” He was silenced a moment later as a rag was stuffed in his mouth.

“
I already think I know what I’m going to find.” He mumbled and led his men deeper into the bunker. The team he’d sent to find the command post had done so easily. Without Hotchkins screeching at them on the radio to stop all intruders, his men lost the will to fight. That was until they reached the point where the semi-trailers unloaded. Dozens of trucks waited for the smaller yard dogs that took their laden trailers to their final destination, but no more of the small trucks were arriving. The drivers stood next to their trucks and watched the FBI agents with trepidation. 

“
What’s going on here?” Masciler asked the first driver he reached.

“
Buncha’ soldiers showed up a few minutes ago and called away the yard dogs that was takin' our trailers. Now we don’t know what to do. Most of us are low on fuel; it’s been gettin' hard to find diesel.”

“
Turn off your engines until we make sense out of this.” He turned to his men. “Be ready for trouble ahead.” Those that hadn’t already done so jacked a round into the chamber while others did a press-check on their carbines and prepared.

The
sunlight at the entrance was dwindling into a small circle behind them. The cave shrank to only a few dozen yards of paved and lined concrete. A short distance ahead, they could see a barricade being quickly erected from plastic barrels by four people. “Quickly,” Masciler hissed and waved his men forward. They came at those figures low and fast, making as little noise as possible. A few meters before they reached the barricade, one man looked up.

“
Freeze! FBI, you’re under arrest!” the forwardmost agent yelled, just as they were trained.  The man produced a handgun. A heartbeat before he could fire, Masciler’s men put him down. The other three men were construction workers and surrendered immediately.

“
Cuff them to that junction box,” Masciler ordered, “and hurry up.”

They
resumed their marched down into the bowels of the Earth, the tunnel turning and descending rapidly. They reached a point where the lights were out. The group of agents paused long enough to fasten Maglite flashlights to the clips under their machine gun barrels before proceeding. “They’re going to see us coming, so be on your guard,” he warned as they proceeded.

The
agents move on for another few minutes with only occasional comments. “Wish we’d brought a car,” one of them said and earned a few chuckles. Masciler saw no reason to stop the chatter. They were much more visible from their flashlights than the hushed talk.

After
what felt like an hour of walking down the turning roadway they saw glaring search lights around the corner and a voice boomed up at them. “Halt, come no farther!”

“
Lights out,” Masciler ordered. The two agents in front dropped to their knees and fired bursts, quickly plunging them into darkness. Then the firefight started in earnest. “Echelon sweep, left!” he barked over the staccato weapons fire. Six of his men took off to the left, holding their weapons up as they ran in a crouch. The remaining men and Masciler fired intermittently from behind the cover the corner provided.

The
echelon reached their objective and an intense burst of fire followed. The men remaining with Masciler held their fire until they were called in, lest their own people got shot. The call for help never came because the tactic worked perfectly. “Echelon team: we’ve neutralized the ambush party, clear and secured.”

Everyone
else moved up to find half a dozen more men dressed in construction workers uniforms, all dead. “They wouldn’t surrender,” the head of the echelon group told Masciler.

“
No problem, let’s move on.”

They
reached the bottom. Spread out before them was the bunker, and it wasn’t what they expected. The cavern spread out for hundreds of yards in all directions. Thousands of semi-trailers were parked in neat rows as far as the eye could see. The reason the yard dogs no longer came up for loads was obvious. There was no more room. Masciler could see no signs of life.

They
moved into the nearest group of trailers. “Look at this,” the man nearest Masciler said. “The load lock is still in place!”

“
They can’t be intending to store this stuff here, are they? Right by the entrance?” another man asked. “You can barely squeeze by in single file!”

“
Pop the lock,” Masciler ordered. One of his men produced a small pry bar, standard equipment in the field, and the load lock was snapped. The door swung open to reveal the contents.

U.S. Government Property

AMERICAN CHEESE

USDA Warehouse 113-A

They opened four other trailers and each one was full of similar products. One held bacon, another cans of dried milk and yet another water. All of it marked as USDA surplus or US Army Stores. “None of this shit is civilian purchased,” one man said, stating the obvious.

“
They said they were spending billions, but the government already owns this crap.”

“
That’s enough,” Masciler said, silencing the chatter. “I want three teams to split up and figure out this rat hole. Find the exits, find the living quarters, and find someone down here in charge!” In moments, he was alone with his hand-picked team. “This is just wrong,” he said to no one in particular. The men with him started searching.

The
truck park seemed endless. Masciler occupied his mind by doing the math on how many trailers must be in the cavern. More than ten thousand was as close as he could get. They were all full of government surplus junk as far as he could tell. He had the feeling the truth was just around the corner. Actually, it was at the farthest end of the cavern.

“
We’ve found something, Chief,” reported one team.

“
What is it?”

“
We found the marines and the rest of the civilians in charge.”

“
About damn time,” Masciler said and broke into a run. He'd slowed to a walk by the time he reached them. The Marine Captain, O’Neil, and a squad of her men were all dead. They had fought it out with a lightly armed group of civilian workers. There were no survivors or clues as to why the battle was fought. Masciler surveyed the bloody scene and shook his head.

“
Search of eastern cavern completed, no exits,” was the next report.

“
Western edge done, nothing here either.”

“
That just leaves us,” Masciler said and pointed to the nearby exit, the only exit besides the one they came down through from the west. “Let’s see where that goes.”

The
men left the carnage behind them and moved cautiously through the carved doorway. Masciler already knew they wouldn’t find what was supposed to be there; the passage was too small. Nine hundred thousand were to have lived here and while the supplies looked sufficient, this small exit would only have accommodated one or two people at a time. It would take a week to admit that many people and only if they all sprinted through like Olympic athletes.

They
came running back up the passageway only a few minutes later. “Get that truck!” Masciler yelled and they all piled into the back of an electric utility vehicle. Despite it being severely overloaded, they took it anyway. The big yard dogs were parked nearby, but none of them knew how to operate one. The man who jumped behind the wheel was an expert driver who'd logged countless undercover hours. He hot-wired it and they were tearing up the spiraling ramp in less than a minute.

“
Christ, don’t kill us getting out of here!” Masciler said.

“
Sorry, sir,” the man replied and slowed slightly. He didn’t blame them for wanting to get out of there as fast as possible. The reality was even more horrible than he’d thought. They went round and round and eventually came out into the main cavern were they could see the flood lights outside. The truck’s overtaxed engine whined in protest.

As
they rocketed past the waiting truck drivers, he didn’t bother slowing to explain. The same for the dozens of soldiers and workers waiting outside; there was no time. The truck’s electric motor was smoking by the time they reached the helipad. As he’d ordered over the secure radio, their helicopters were already idling and ready for takeoff.

“
What about all these people?” an agent asked as the truck screeched to a stop between the big idling Chinooks and the lone Blackhawk. The truck gave a final shudder and smoke began pouring from under the hood. 

“
What about them?” Masciler asked back rhetorically as they ran to his chopper.

“
We have to tell them to leave, find somewhere else to hide.”

Masciler
pointed to the east as they strapped in. Flashes of light on the dark horizon like huge lightning strikes from an approaching storm could be seen. “What would you suggest we do to help them get away from that?”

The
helicopter jumped into the air and Masciler was already giving orders. “Get on the horn with Seattle while the radio holds out, tell them to have the senior staff waiting in the basement shelter and make sure we maintain a secure channel to Washington. I need to speak to the President.”

“
Not the Bureau Director?”

“
Screw her, I need the President. Pilot, I have to get to Seattle before this fucking meteor storm.”