Exit 9 (18 page)

Judging by the exterior of the building, nothing looked amiss. That, of course, meant nothing. When he’d checked in with Bluebird upon arrival, they told him they still hadn’t been able to reach anyone inside the facility.

Staying at least a hundred yards away, he made two complete circuits of the building, but saw nothing unusual. Even the three satellite dishes on the roof that kept NB328 in contact with Bluebird looked untouched.

About the only thing he could say was that the place seemed to be too quiet. He knew that was his own bias, though, having spent much of the last several weeks in crowded, South American cities. Unless a depot was receiving a shipment, there was no reason for anyone to be outside.

The main door was in the middle of what was considered the front of the building. Perez watched it for several minutes, but decided not to approach it. If there were hostiles still around, they’d no doubt have someone posted just inside. The better bet was to use the emergency entrance. After all, it had been built for circumstances such as these.

He headed northeast to a point five hundred feet away from the building. The emergency entrances were all the same, designed to look like an abandoned concrete slab. He found it easily, but someone had released the locks that held it in place, and had slid it to the side, exposing the entrance to the tunnel.

He slipped his gun out from the holster, and pointed it at the opening. He couldn’t see far. At this angle, the sunlight went down only ten feet. Beyond that was darkness.

He circled around the hole, checking the ground for footprints. He needed to determine if it had been opened from the inside by people trying to leave, or from the outside by someone trying to get in. If it had been the latter, that would definitely be troubling, because that meant the attackers knew ahead of time about the emergency entrance, and how to open it, which meant they knew about the Project, too.

Footprints. Leading
to
the slab.

So these weren’t just some random thieves.

Perez looked at his watch. The team flying in from Mexico was not due to arrive for another hour and a half. Under normal circumstances, he would have waited, but nothing was normal anymore. He pulled out the small flashlight he carried in his pocket, and descended the steps.

__________

“I
T’S PEREZ, SIR,”
Ross said over the speakerphone.

The DOP snapped up the receiver. “Transfer him to me.”

There was a click.

“Perez?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m inside NB328.”

“And?”

There was a pause. “Everyone’s dead, sir.”

The DOP didn’t move for a full second. “Everyone?”

“Yes, sir. The entire security team.”

“And the people who did this?”

“Gone, sir.”

“What about bodies? Surely a couple of them must have been hit.”

“If they were, they’re not here now.”

The DOP was stunned. A whole security team wiped out by a local gang? How in the hell did that happen?

“Figure out what they took,” he said. “If any of it shows up somewhere, we can trace it back and deal with them.”

Perez took a moment before he replied. “This wasn’t a random robbery, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“None of the supplies are missing.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I could be mistaken. I only did a quick look-through, but…well, sir, whoever it was entered through the emergency entrance using the code.”

“The
what
?”

“It was open when I got here, so I checked the surveillance footage and the sensor logs, knowing there should be a record of the break-in. Whoever they were, apparently they were able to hack into the system before they came in, and turned off all the surveillance.”

If the DOP wasn’t stunned before, he was now. The emergency entrance? Knowing the code
and
hacking into the security system? What the hell was going on?

“And something
was
taken.”

“What?”

“The vault was open. Two of the numbered boxes are missing.”

The boxes were similar to deposit boxes in a bank. Each contained printed-out, detailed instructions to be used in specific situations. They were the hardcopy backups in case something happened to the computer system after Implementation Day. Another redundancy in the Project’s desire to make sure nothing went off track when they set about rebuilding the world in the way they knew it should be. Every depot had a set of the boxes in its vault.

That someone had purposely broken into NB328 to get to them was unbelievable. The only people who
knew
about the boxes or the vaults were members of the Project, or at least that’s what he had thought.

This was a serious breach. They had to find out who had done this and why.

“Which boxes were taken?” the DOP asked.

“J923 and T121.”

The DOP brought up the vault database and typed both numbers in. J923 contained the list of all the other depots, and T121 a list of all the primary members of the Project. Both were disturbing, the second considerably more than the first.

“Go over every square inch of that facility,” he ordered. “There has got to be some clue as to who these people are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And make it quick. I don’t want this becoming a problem.”

For several seconds, the DOP stared out the windowed wall into the Cradle.

It’s them
, he thought. The ones who had been an annoyance to the Project for years.

Somehow they had found out about the vaults and the information they contained. He knew they’d been in one of the facilities before—NB7 in eastern Oregon. But every piece of security footage from that night had been reviewed, and neither Captain Ash nor the woman who’d been with him when he rescued his kids had gone anywhere near NB7’s vault.

He picked up the phone again and called Ross. His first instructions were to assign extra protection to people on the list from box T121, and to put the depot security teams on high alert. Then he said, “Operation Pest Control is a go.”

There was a pause, then, “Yes, sir. But…”

“But what, Major?”

“These added measures are going to stretch us pretty thin. If you want Operation Pest Control to happen right away also, we’ll need to sacrifice in other areas.”

The DOP closed his eyes and stifled a groan of frustration. “As soon as feasible, then,” he ordered, and slammed the phone down.

__________

P
EREZ HAD BEEN
in error. Boxes J923 and T121 were not the only two that had been removed. In fact, the two boxes were of no importance at all to Olivia.

“These are the two we want to break into,” Olivia had instructed, indicating boxes J923 and T121. They would be the smokescreen, specifically chosen to throw her former employers off and force them to allot manpower away from what she was focused on. She then pointed at a box near the bottom: G306. “This one we use the master key on.”

Once they had the door to G306 open, Olivia removed the single sheet of paper from inside, slid the box back in place, and shut the door. She carefully folded the paper and put it in her pocket. No one would ever suspect the box had even been opened.

This was the only reason they had come to NB328.

19

I.D. MINUS 88 HOURS

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

“T
HERE’S NOTHING HERE,”
Blanton said.

Corey looked at his friend. “What do you mean, nothing?”

They were sitting in a booth at Old Tom’s Pub just off campus, Blanton’s laptop on the table. On the screen was the home page for Hidde-Kel Holdings.

“It’s just a bunch of corporate BS that doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s not tied to their company computer system at all. It’s just sitting on its own server all by itself.”

“All by itself?”

Blanton nodded. “Nothing else on that server at all. I’ve triple-checked.”

Corey wasn’t the computer expert that Blanton was, but like most kids his age, he had a basic understanding of how it all worked. “You can’t get into their internal systems from there?”

Blanton looked around. “Hey, hold it down. I’d rather not have a lot of people know about this, okay?”

“Sorry.” It was early evening, and the place was starting to fill up. “So you can’t get through?”

“Uh-uh. As far as I can tell, there’s no tie between them.”

“Dammit. I was really hoping you could get in that way.”

“Well, I can’t.” Blanton paused. “Not
this
way.”

Corey cocked his head. “There’s another?”

A smirk grew on his friend’s face. “This is like a challenge, you know?”

“Blanton, just tell me. Is there another way you can get me more information about them?”

“Of course there is.” Blanton began typing. “I was able to locate some of their business filings that had addresses on their main facilities. I should say, facili
ty
. Seems they only have one address.”

“You mean the one in Portland? That’s just a mail drop.”

“I
don’t
mean the one in Portland. I mean the one in Chicago.”

“Chicago? What address in Chicago? I didn’t find anything.”

“That’s because you’re not me.” Blanton hit one more key. A map of Chicago appeared on the screen with a red dot glowing northwest of downtown, right next to O’Hare Airport.

“That’s it?”

Instead of answering, Blanton zoomed in. The dot turned out to be in an industrial area tucked in the southeast corner between I-90 and I-294. The building itself was probably about ten thousand square feet, and, at least when the satellite photo was taken, had a nearly empty parking lot.

“The whole building is theirs?”

“Yep.”

“And you were able to get into their computer system?”

“Well, see, that’s the challenge. I know they have something inside. I could figure out that much. Couldn’t hack in, though. The only way to do that is if I got in close and tapped into their local signal.”

“You mean actually go up there.”

“Well, yeah.”

Blanton sounded like it had been more of an intellectual exercise than anything else, but the idea appealed to Corey. Chicago was only about five hours away by car. They could be there around midnight.

“We’ll take my car.”

Blanton had raised his glass of beer to his mouth. “Uh, excuse me?”

“Better if I drive. I’ve only had a sip. That’s your second.”

“Drive where?”

“Chicago.”

“I’m not going to Chicago.”

“Come on, Blanton. Didn’t you say this was a challenge? Don’t you want to follow that through?”

“Dude, I have class tomorrow.”

“Uh, no, you don’t. Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Okay, not really a class, but a study group.”

“Since when do you join study groups?”

“What?” Blanton said. “I can join a study group if I want.”

Corey suddenly realized the truth. “What’s her name?”

“Whose name?”

“The girl in your study group.”

Blanton blushed but shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Never mind. What time does it start?”

“Three.”

“In the afternoon?”

“Well, yeah. It’s not in the morning.”

“We’ll be back in plenty of time.”

“I’m
not
going to Chicago.”

“Who’s going to Chicago?” Jeannie asked as she walked up.

Corey scooted over so she could join them. “Blanton and I.”

“Oh, no. I’m not going.”

Jeannie looked at her boyfriend. “When?”

“As soon as I can get no-boy here out the door.”

“You’re going to Chicago tonight? Why do you want to do that?”

Corey explained about the building Blanton had found.

“Maybe you should pick another company to do the paper on,” Blanton suggested.

That was the simple solution, but Corey was way too curious about Hidde-Kel now to give up that easily. “Fine. I’ll go by myself. You don’t need to come.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jeannie offered.

Corey smiled and squeezed her hand. He then looked at Blanton. “Not up for the challenge, huh?”

His friend groaned. “I don’t want to miss my group tomorrow.”

“I already said we’d be back in time.”

“All right, all right. I’ll go. But we’re stopping at White Castle and you’re buying.”

__________

W
ITH THE STOP
for food and another two for bathroom breaks, they didn’t reach Chicago until closer to one a.m. It took them another twenty minutes to get out to O’Hare Airport.

From there it was still a little tricky getting over to the area where the building was, but after a couple of wrong turns, Corey finally pulled his old Civic onto the right road. Driving slowly, both he and Jeannie read off building addresses.

“That’s got to be it over there,” she said, pointing ahead and to the left at a long, two-story brick structure.

The only sign on the building was an address number, the same that belonged to Hidde-Kel, according to what Blanton had found out. The parking lot beside it was sealed off by an eight-foot-high, chain-link fence with barbed wire strung across the top.

“Kind of fortress-like, don’t you think?” she said.

Corey drove about half a block past, then pulled to the side of the road and looked back. There
was
something unusual about the place, but it hadn’t been the barbed wire. He turned off the engine.

“You coming?” he asked as he opened his door.

“Hell, yeah,” she said. “What about Blanton?”

He nodded in the back at his unmoving friend. “We’ll let him sleep for now.”

As they walked down the street, it felt like there wasn’t anyone else around for miles. As they neared the building, they jogged across the street. Corey led Jeannie across a short expanse of brown grass to a row of leafless hedges in front of the windows.

There was no light on inside, which was odd, because in Corey’s albeit-limited experience, most businesses left some kind of light on inside. Not Hidde-Kel, apparently.