SecondWorld (48 page)

The SS shooters took aim, tracking their targets more easily while not giving chase.

Miller stumbled, tripping up Adler. They both fell into the hallway joining the control center with the cryogenics chamber.

Bullets flew over their heads, kill shots had they not fallen.

A spike of adrenaline cleared Miller’s morphine-dulled mind and while he gained a surge of energy, he also felt his pain more acutely. He roared in pain as he jumped up, took hold of Adler, and dove into the cryogenics chamber. He scrambled to the side as bullets pinged off the floor.

Out of sight for the moment, Miller took two deep breaths. His lungs burned. All of the exertion had drained his pony bottle’s air five minutes faster than advertised.

He took it off and tossed it aside.

Adler handed him hers, and he took two deep breaths from it before handing it back. He looked down at the woman. She’d taken two rounds, one on the side of her waist and the other on her left trapezius. Both were close to being kill shots, but they were survivable wounds. If treated.

Running feet followed a war cry from the control center. Miller chanced a look. The SS soldiers ran for the hallway door, charging like men on an ancient battlefield, Brodeur at their lead.

Miller ducked back as bullets began to fly.

They were done.

He dropped his weapon.

Raised his eyes, like he could see the sky through the hundreds of feet of stone, and said a quick prayer for Arwen.

That’s when he saw the door.

A large steel blast door hung above the hallway entrance.

Just above Miller’s head was a red button labeled
NOTFALL
in German. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but the button’s function was clear. He struggled to reach it as the sound of running boots echoed through the short hallway.

Miller lunged up and slapped the button.

The door descended.

The fastest of the Nazis dove under the falling door.

Adler shot him five times.

The second fastest made it halfway through before the door slammed down, cutting him in half.

The dull thud of human fists followed.

Miller stood and helped Adler up.

The thick blast door had a long, thin window. He walked to it and saw a sea of angry faces. Brodeur stood at the center of them, seething. The man shouted something, but Miller couldn’t hear him. He pointed at his ear and mouthed, “I can’t hear you.”

Brodeur just stared at him with the eyes of a predator; the eyes of a man who knew he would eventually get through this blast door and destroy his enemy.

But Miller knew better.

Though the cryogenics chamber was silent, save for the hum of the life-support systems, he knew the control center would be buzzing with the sound of a thousand bees. He pointed to his ear, and mouthed, “What’s that sound?”

Brodeur cocked his head slightly, then started shouting and fired two rounds in the ceiling. The pounding on the door ceased. The men surrounding him stopped moving. With a flash of recognition, the color drained from Brodeur’s face. He started to shout an order, but it was already too late.

Brodeur itched at his skin as it suddenly reddened.

The men around him began to flail and fall.

Brodeur took a step back, aimed his weapon at Miller through the window, and pulled the trigger, over and over.

The gunshots sounded like distant fireworks to Miller. The glass was several inches thick. He didn’t even flinch.

Brodeur pounded on the window with his fist. The blow left a white smear behind. Brodeur noticed it and looked at his hand. The skin hung loose over his bones as the liquefied meat inside slid down into his arm and pooled at his elbow. The look of horror on his face became disfigured as his muscles, blood, cartilage, and sinews separated into their elemental parts. His face drooped, and then fell away, leaving a blood-covered skull with eyes and bits of stringy flesh dripping down the sides. The eyes stared back at Miller’s, burning with rage. A moment later, the two orbs deflated and fell away. Brodeur’s liquid brain slid out of the eye sockets a moment before his body crashed to the floor, forming a large pool of human sludge along with a hundred other soldiers and the fifty white-clothed men who had already asphyxiated.

Miller fell away from the door and sat down.

Adler joined him. “We should move away from the door,” she said. “Just in case.”

Miller groaned and managed to pull himself away from the growing pool of blood surrounding the one and a half soldiers who made it into the room, but could go no farther. He lay back and closed his eyes. The morphine was wearing off. He was bleeding from, well, everywhere. He had killed his enemy, but it seemed they had done him in, too. It would just take a little longer.

But it was a good death.

Or was it?

“Did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Save the world?”

Adler shrugged, leaned on his chest, and closed her eyes as they both slipped into unconsciousness.

62

W
ASHINGTON
, D.C.

Arwen looked out the window. The view was distorted through the translucent oxygen tent, but she could see the red flakes well enough. The first flake had fallen two hours ago, and the man on the news said—between sobs—that soon, the people who were exposed to the air would suffer from iron poisoning. They would feel sick. Then better. And then sick again before dying.

But they wouldn’t even last that long. Not this time. The rate of oxidization was much faster than in Miami or Tokyo or Tel Aviv. Within the hour, the air would feel as thin as it was at the top of Mount Everest. An hour after that, only those with air supplies would survive. But with the red storm now projected to last a week—no one knew how long the effects would last beyond that—it was doubtful that many people, if any, would survive.

Arwen knew from experience that she could last days in her oxygen tent, but the idea of being alone that long only to die alone didn’t sit well with her.

She lifted up the oxygen tent and slid out of bed. Her wounds hurt a little less now, helped out some by the medication she’d been given. But she hadn’t seen a nurse in hours. Not since the first red flake fell. The medication would wear off soon.

She eyed the pony bottle Miller left for her. Part of her wanted to take it, load up a cart of oxygen tanks, and make for the hills like Miller would. But there was nowhere to hide.

An inch of red covered everything outside the window. She looked at the ground and saw some people standing in it, facing death head on.

When she saw smoke rising in the distance, she realized that not everyone was facing the end of the world so peacefully. Some people would probably die long before the air ran out. Some people were probably already dead.

As she feared Miller to be.

He wouldn’t have given up. And if there were red flakes falling from the sky, it meant he was dead.

Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision.

So when a distant sparkle of light caught her attention, she couldn’t tell what she’d seen.

As the newscaster’s voice suddenly grew high-pitched, Arwen wiped her eyes dry and looked in the direction the light had come from.

Up.

Then it repeated. A blue explosion of light pulsed in the sky. It reminded her of a swimming jellyfish, bursting out and then pulling in. But then it was gone again.

A moment later it repeated, but near the horizon.

Then again, above her.

And again, and again.

Soon the sky was filled with soft blue explosions.

It was beautiful.

But not nearly as beautiful as the blue sky that slowly emerged from the purple.

The newscaster was shouting now. Dancing. Hugging and kissing a camera crew.

Arwen placed her hand against the glass as the news cut to people and places all around the world. Singing and dancing filled the streets, including the one below her window.

Arwen looked up and saw a single red flake slip through the sky. It struck her window and stuck for a moment before a gust of wind carried it away.

The last red flake had fallen.

63

Miller wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious, but figured it had been several hours judging by how stiff his body felt. The flow of blood from his wounds had slowed, if not stopped. Adler lay next to him in a similar state.

He reached out and grazed her cheek with his hand. The movement caused him excruciating pain, but when her eyes flicked open and looked at him, it was worth it.

“Just to confirm,” he said. “We did save the world, right?”

She grinned weakly. “I think so.”

“You
think
so?”

“I was trained never to confirm something I haven’t seen with my own eyes.”

“Hey,” Miller said. “I just realized something.” He took a deep breath. “I’m breathing.”

Adler gave a nod. “I think the air came back on around the same time I activated the Bell. Brodeur wasn’t wearing a mask when he … melted.”

“Neither was I,” Miller said. “I guess seeing a man melt distracted me.”

“It happens,” Adler said with a grin.

“So,” Miller said. “Who trained you?”

“What?”

“You said you were
trained
to never confirm something you hadn’t seen with your own eyes. Earlier you mistakenly referred to yourself as an agent, rather than a liaison. You shoot as well as I do. So who trained you? And don’t feed me any Interpol bullshit. I’ve earned the truth.”

“My name really is Elizabeth Adler,” she said. “As is my grandmother’s, and that really is her journal. And I had no idea Gerlach was my grandfather. All that was true.”

“
But
,” Miller urged.

A loud
clunk
from the door made both of them jump. Gears within the wall ground. The door slid up with a groan.

Miller searched for his weapon, but couldn’t find it.

Shouted German commands echoed from the hallway.

Adler shouted back.

Ten men dressed in black entered. All white. Speaking German. Armed for war.

With modern weapons.

Miller tensed. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Relax,” Adler said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “They are with me.” She flashed a smile and said, “Elizabeth Adler, Special Agent with GSG-9.”

GSG-9!
The Grenzschutzgruppe 9 was Germany’s elite counterterrorism force.

“I
was
working at Interpol. Undercover. Everything I told you was true.”

“You just left out some details.”

She looked about to apologize, but Miller held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not a fan of being lied to, even by omission. But I understand the reason.”

One of the men approached Adler, said something to her, and handed her her grandmother’s journal.

Miller eyed the book and understood at once. “Seriously?”

Adler reached into the spine and pulled out a long thin tracking device.

“You weren’t waiting for me,” Miller said. “You were waiting for them.”

She confirmed it with a nod and said, “But I was glad it was you.”

“Good,” he said. “Because they were late.” Miller pushed himself onto his elbows. “You guys were late!”

The GSG-9 team ignored him as they set up a pair of stretchers. Then the men parted as Vesely entered the chamber. The Cowboy saw Adler and Miller lying on the floor, but alive, and gave a loud “Yeehaw!”

“Cowboy, you made it,” Miller said with a smile.

“I told you. I am gunslinger.” Vesely knelt down next to Miller and pointed to a hole in his hat. “They ruined my hat, though.”

Miller took Vesely’s hand and squeezed it. “We owe you our lives.”

“You can thank me later,” Vesely said, as a stretcher was slid up next to Miller.

“Vesely,” Miller said. “Do you know? Have you—”

“GSG turned computers on in next room. Screens show cities around the world,” Vesely said. “Blue sky.”

Miller felt a weight lift, both from the fight being over, and because someone was lifting him up.

Vesely turned to the GSG medic. “There is hospital here. Tenth floor.”

Miller took Vesely’s arm. “Wait.”

“What is it, Survivor?”

“There’s something I need to do, first.”

EPILOGUE

The man burned from head to toe, the pain beyond anything he’d experienced before. Consciousness came and went for several minutes. He could feel his heart beating madly. His muscles, so stiff, cramped violently. But he couldn’t scream. Something was in his mouth. Down his throat!