Centralia (26 page)

Cracking the door, Peter listened for footsteps or the scuffing of boots on concrete, but the corridor was silent and still. His little revolt and escape had yet to be detected. He poked his head out of the doorway; the corridor was empty. Slowly he closed the door behind him, then proceeded to the right down the hall, sticking close to the wall. At the end of the hallway he rounded the corner and headed in the direction the technician had indicated.

He didn’t know whether the man had told him the truth or directed him into a trap, but he had had nothing else to go on. His only protection now was diligence. At the junction of the next corridor, Peter paused and checked the hallway. It was lined with doors like the other tunnels and also was clear. Quickly he crossed the junction and headed to the next passageway.

Again he paused, waited, listened, then peered around the corner. A woman in a white lab coat was headed the opposite direction, her back to him, her heels clicking on the concrete like a clock wound too tight. Peter waited until she rounded the far corner, then shuffled down the hallway to the first door on the right. His heart pounded in his chest, filling the space between his ribs and spine, and he could feel his pulse in his fingertips. He rested his hand on the door’s handle.

Peter depressed the handle all the way and pushed open the door. Without hesitating, he stepped inside and shut the door. A light automatically flickered on, illuminating a room whose four walls were lined with gray file cabinets. In the center of the room sat a metal desk with a computer, printer, and scanner.

“The room where you can find what you’re looking for.”
Wasn’t that what the technician had said?

Peter locked the door, then sat at the desk. The computer was equipped with a fingerprint scanner. He placed his thumb on the small pad and waited. A box popped up on the monitor with a bar that traced back and forth across the screen. The word
VERIFYING
blinked in time with the bar’s movement. After a few seconds the screen went black, then blinked on again. Against a light-blue background, black text read:

Confirmed

Jedidiah Patrick

Welcome!

Peter sat back in the chair and clasped his hands to steady the tremor that had overtaken them. The computer knew him as Jedidiah Patrick, not Peter Ryan.

Moments later the screen blanked again, then sprang back to life, displaying some kind of home page with various icons. Peter clicked on the Files icon. From there he clicked on a link labeled Personal.

A list of pages appeared. Peter clicked on one labeled Family.

When the page popped up, an involuntary gasp escaped Peter’s mouth. On the screen were two photos of Karen and Lilly, the wife and daughter Peter remembered. The first was posed, Karen seated with Lilly standing by her side, her delicate hand on Karen’s shoulder. Both wore pretty dresses with small floral prints. Their smiles were forced for the camera.

The second photo was not posed; in fact, it appeared to have been taken without Karen or Lilly’s knowledge. They were by a pond, Karen squatting and holding something out to Lilly. Karen wore jeans rolled to her calves and a red-and-white gingham blouse. Lilly wore shorts and a white T-shirt with flip-flops.

Instinctively Peter reached out and touched Karen’s face on the screen.

He scanned the text on the page. It stated that Karen Aubrey Wells was born on March 6 and that Lillian Marie Patrick was born on July 12. Both correct. Except for the last name. There it was again: Patrick, not Ryan.

Peter read on as a chill like the thready legs of a thousand spiders climbed down his neck and back and caused him to shiver. The document claimed both Karen and Lilly had died in a car accident.

Peter let his hand slide off the mouse and fall onto his lap. That word
 
—
DECEASED
 
—burned a hole in his eyes, his mind, his heart. It couldn’t be true. He refused to believe it, but there it was. The images were of Karen and Lilly,
his
Karen and Lilly
 
—there was
no mistaking it. They had the right people. Was Nichols right all along? Had he been telling Peter the truth? Or was this just another trick, another step in his mind-altering torture?

“That’s what you’re looking for.”
The technician had known Peter would find the truth here.

With a numb, trembling hand, Peter forced himself to exit the file and clicked on one labeled Military.

Another photo appeared, this one of himself, a bit younger and leaner and sporting a full beard. He wore an Army uniform and looked scared or angry or maybe both.

Peter stared at the photo for what seemed a long time, studying the younger man on the screen, probing his eyes, trying to decipher what was peering back at him.

Finally he scrolled down to the text below the photo. Scanning it, he felt his heart rate become even more pronounced. Words and phrases jumped out at him and seemed to sock him in the gut.

. . . Sergeant Jedidiah Patrick, First Battalion, 75th Army Ranger Regiment . . .

. . . Medal of Honor . . . Purple Heart . . . Distinguished Service Cross . . . Silver Star . . .

Once again Peter’s hand slipped off the mouse and rested in his lap. He sat there, dumbfounded, confused, an odd mixture of fear and anger growing in his chest. He had absolutely no recollection of ever earning those medals.

Back on the Files page, Peter moved the cursor to a file named Centralia and clicked. A page popped up that briefly described Sergeant Patrick’s accomplishments, the medals he’d earned, the battles he’d fought. Another paragraph described him as stable,
reliable. It included testimony from a military psychologist, stating that Jedidiah was competent and in excellent psychological health despite the combat action he’d seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scrolling down the page, Peter found the mission Patrick had volunteered for. It was called the Centralia Project. The page offered only a brief description, stating the project’s aim to develop the “perfect soldier, focused, disciplined, courageous, skilled, possessing the ability to make decisions quickly.”

It stated that “Sergeant Patrick possesses all of these qualities and would make an ideal candidate.”

At the bottom of the page was a scanned copy of a legal release form, signed by Patrick. Below the release form was an agreement to confidentiality forbidding Patrick to ever speak of the Centralia Project, the work, the members, or anything else he might know of it, with the consequence of imprisonment or death for treason if he did. Both forms were signed by Sergeant Jedidiah Patrick.

At the bottom of the page was a link that simply read MK-ULTRA (ABERNATHY). Peter clicked on it, and the screen went black with a single sentence in white letters blinking in the center of it:

Files no longer exist.

Outside the room, in the corridor, he heard a commotion, voices speaking hurriedly, someone shouting. They were looking for him.

Quickly Peter shut down the computer, crossed the room, and stood by the door, his ear to the metal. The corridor was quiet now; his pursuers had moved on to another section of the bunker.

Slowly, quietly, Peter depressed the handle and opened the door. The hallway was empty. Part of him wanted to find the nearest occupant of this subterranean tomb and just surrender, but his survival instincts wouldn’t let that happen. If there was a sliver of a possibility that Karen and Lilly were still alive, then he had to get to the top and begin the search for them. Nichols said they were dead. The computer said they were deceased. But he’d heard enough lies from Nichols that he wasn’t ready to take that at face value. For all he knew, Nichols wanted him to find that computer and read those files.

Sticking close to the wall, Peter made his way down the corridor. At the end he paused. He thought about going back to the room where the technicians were bound and conscripting one of them to lead him to the surface, but he decided against it. By the time he got there, they might be free, and he’d find himself surrounded without a weapon. No, the best decision was to keep moving through the bunker. Eventually he’d find an exit.

This end of the bunker was apparently rarely used. Peter turned down the next passageway and stopped at the first door. Behind it something hummed steadily, and beyond the hum was a rhythmic thrum, like that of a huge clothes dryer.

After looking both ways, Peter opened the door and peeked inside. The lights in this room were already on, and Peter saw rows of big machines but no sign of human presence. He ducked in and eased the door shut behind him, then turned and found himself looking down the barrel of a handgun. A sloppy move, and he couldn’t afford to get sloppy.

A man stood on the other end of the pistol, middle-aged, short gray hair, handlebar mustache, wide eyes and lips parted. His hands trembled ever so slightly. The man took two steps back, out of Peter’s reach.

Peter raised both hands and showed the man his palms. “Easy now. I don’t want any trouble.”

“You’re him, aren’t you?” the man said.

“Who?”

“The guy who escaped. You’re him.” He stood with his feet wide and the gun shoulder-high. His respiration was quick and shallow. With the gun he motioned for Peter to move to the left. “Slowly now. I don’t want any trouble either.”

As Peter sidestepped, he said, “Who are you?”

“Bob. Maintenance.”

Behind Peter was a chair. Bob motioned for Peter to sit in it.

Sitting, Peter said, “I just need to get out of here, Bob.”

Keeping the gun trained on Peter’s chest, Bob stepped backward several paces toward a small metal desk with a phone on it.

“Bob, don’t pick up that phone, okay? Let’s talk about this.”

But Bob reached for the phone.

Peter stood and stepped forward, causing Bob to temporarily abandon his idea of calling for help. “You stay there, you hear me?” Bob waved the gun back and forth. His eyes were so wide Peter thought they might pop from their sockets. “Don’t you come any closer.”

Peter took another step toward the maintenance man. “Bob, you don’t want to shoot me. If you wanted to, you would have already. Put the gun down. I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get out of here. This doesn’t have to be complicated.”

“You’re makin’ it complicated. Now you just sit back down there.”

“I’m not going to sit. And you’re not going to shoot. Right?”

Another step forward. He was now no more than ten feet from Bob.

The gun teetered in Bob’s hand. “No closer. Stop!”

Ignoring Bob’s warnings, Peter inched nearer, keeping his hands where they could be seen to assure Bob he had no intention of harming him. When he was five feet away, Peter stopped.

One of Bob’s hands now rested on the phone; the other held the gun pointed at Peter’s chest.

“All I have to do is pick up the receiver,” Bob said. His voice quivered. “It automatically places a call to HQ. If I don’t respond, they’ll think something’s wrong and send someone to check on me.”

“Then don’t pick it up.”

Bob’s face twisted into a terrible grimace. “Get on your knees then.”

“I can’t do that, Bob.”

Peter kept his eyes locked on Bob’s, but in his peripheral vision he saw the man’s hand tighten around the receiver. He was going to do it.

As quickly as a snake strikes from the cover of high grass, Peter lunged at Bob, taking hold of his wrist with one hand and the handgun with the other. Before Bob could even reflexively squeeze off a shot, Peter had the gun pointed at the man’s face. Startled, Bob made to step back but stopped. He still had his hand on the phone.

“Take your hand off it, Bob.”

Bob shook his head.

Before Bob could lift the receiver, Peter slapped him across the face and shoved him back. Bob stumbled, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. But in doing so, he knocked the receiver from its cradle.

Both men stared at the phone for a second. On the other end a steady beeping began.

Peter stepped between Bob and the desk. “I’m sorry. I am. I didn’t want to hit you. But I need your help.”

Bob looked at the phone. “It’ll keep beeping until I give my password. And if I don’t within twenty seconds, they’ll send someone.”

Peter approached him and grabbed his shirt with one hand, lifted the man to his feet. He pointed the gun at Bob’s face. “Say it.”

Bob hesitated, his lips trembling, right eye twitching uncontrollably.

“Do it,” Peter said.

Bob gasped and contorted his face again.

Peter lifted the receiver and put it against Bob’s mouth. “Say it.”

But Bob refused. Finally the beeping stopped.

Peter shoved the maintenance man back. “Bob!”

“I’m sorry,” Bob said. He began to cry.

“Is there a way to the top from in here?”

Bob retreated against the wall and pointed to a door at the far end of the room. “Ventilation chimney. There’s a ladder to the top.”

“How far below are we?”

“Seventy feet.”

That wasn’t too bad. Peter had to make quick work of it, though. If security arrived while he was still on the ladder, he couldn’t trust Bob to keep his mouth shut. If they found him midway up the chimney, he’d be a dead Santa.

With the handgun tucked into the waist of his pants, Peter ran for the door, threw it open, and launched himself onto the ladder. Hand over hand he climbed, as fast as his legs could push him upward. Above him there was a grate, and on the other side of the grate was daylight. As he climbed closer to the top, he noticed trees, leaves, clouds. Freedom. He only hoped the grate was not bolted shut from the outside.

When he was ten feet from the top, his shoulders and legs now burning, his lungs working hard to deliver oxygen to his racing heart, he heard the door from the corridor to the room below slam open and men shouting.

He pressed on, ignoring the pain, ignoring the fatigue. Five rungs to go.

His single focus was on the grate above him, growing ever closer. He imagined himself pushing on it and it flying up and off the hatch.

Two rungs to go. His legs felt as though they were made of wood; his arms felt dead, limp. But still he willed himself to continue.

Finally Peter reached the top. He pushed against the grate, but
it didn’t move, didn’t budge. His heart sank. His shoulders were on fire, and his legs threatened to give out and send him plummeting the seventy feet to the concrete floor below. He pushed harder but still nothing.

Peter climbed one more rung so his upper back was against the grate. Lifting with his legs, he pressed against the grate. It moaned and moved ever so little. It wasn’t bolted in place, only rusted shut. Again he pressed upward with his legs, gritting his teeth, straining every muscle. And again the grate moaned and creaked.

On the ground level the door to the ventilation duct opened. Peter looked between his feet and saw a man poke his head through the doorway and look up. He stayed like that for a full three seconds. From the ground level, anything at the top would be merely a silhouette against the daylight on the other side of the grate.

Peter remained motionless, his back against the wall of the duct, his shoulders and head against the grate.

The man stepped into the shaft and continued looking up.

Beads of sweat that had formed on Peter’s brow now gathered at the bridge of his nose. He held his breath. To move and wipe at them would certainly give away his position. The sweat moved down his nose and stopped at the tip.

Below, the man continued looking up, not sure of what he was seeing.

A droplet of sweat dislodged from the tip of Peter’s nose. Before it could hit the man below, Peter launched himself upward one more time, shoving with all his force against the grate. It creaked, snapped, gave way, and flew open, swinging up and out on hinges that moaned terribly. Sunlight rushed in like water over a breached levee.

The man at the bottom shouted something to his colleagues,
and with his torso out of the shaft, Peter heard a gunshot. A round ricocheted off the shaft. Peter twisted and writhed. Another shot sounded. Peter’s legs cleared the top of the ventilation shaft, and he tumbled to the ground, breathing heavily, sweating profusely. His legs and arms felt as lifeless as lead.

He lay there, panting like he’d just run a mile at top speed, but he knew they might start climbing at any moment. Peter sat up and slipped the gun over the edge of the chimney, firing off two rounds. He heard a low grunt and a soft expletive from below. Not a fatal wound, but certainly no fun to climb with. And now that they knew Peter was armed and shooting, they might not risk being such easy targets inside the shaft. Even so, Peter didn’t want them sneaking up behind him. He fired two more shots down the shaft and flipped the protesting grate closed again. There was a slot where the grate could be padlocked, but he didn’t see anything sturdy enough to do the job. As a last resort, he jammed the barrel of the handgun into the opening, sealing his captors below. He hated to lose the weapon, but it was better than having an armed posse right on his tail.

After a minute of rest, Peter climbed to his feet and surveyed the area. The shaft had opened into the woods surrounding Centralia. All around were trees and underbrush, leaves and dirt. He had no idea which direction to go. He wanted to get back to town and find his truck. From there he could go somewhere safe where he could think about his next move, contemplate how he would lure Nichols out, and formulate a plan.

The shaft was on an elevated area of land, and a gentle slope downward lay directly in front of Peter. He knew Centralia was in a bit of a valley with hills all around, so he figured he’d try going downhill and see where it led. It was his best guess.

After five minutes of hiking, he noticed a home set back in the trees. It was dilapidated and in ruins, the roof caved in, the windows shattered, but a sure sign that he was headed in the right direction. Another five minutes and he came across what remained of a road. The asphalt was now broken and eroded, mostly covered with dirt and overgrown with serviceberries and saplings.

Peter followed the road to the edge of Centralia. From there he stayed in the woods along the perimeter of town until he came across the service road that led to where he’d hidden his truck.

Moving carefully but quickly and staying concealed by the growth around him, Peter located his truck, found the keys he’d hidden. At the driver’s side door he reached for the handle and heard the crunch of leaves behind him. Before he could swing around, the cold, hard metal of a gun’s barrel pressed against his skull.

“Don’t make a move, Patrick.”

Habit. It was Habit.

Without saying a word, Peter lifted his hands.

“Now slowly,” Habit said, “on your knees.”

Peter did as he was told.

“I’m sorry to do this to you, Patrick. Really, I am. But don’t think you didn’t have it coming.”

The barrel pulled away, and a second later a terrible explosion went off in Peter’s head. He felt his body go limp and then sank into oblivion.