From Within (23 page)

Will and Marcus walked up the long and wide concrete path that led to Cheyenne Mountain’s entrance. Two guards stood behind a concrete blockade. Any cars approaching trying to breach through security would have to slow to weave around the concrete blocks. As Marcus and Will got within twenty feet, both guards lifted their rifles and took aim. They stopped. Marcus put up his hands. He could see they were wearing all black garb. A white and blue CMA armband was attached to their right arms.

“Hello fellas,” Marcus said and took another few steps forward. “I’m Marcus Braden, I’m in charge of public relations for the CMA. I have other duties as well.”

One of the guards, once he recognized who he was aiming his gun at, lowered his rifle. He had the typical response that Marcus was getting used to. His jaw dropped open.

“It’s been all over the news that you died in a plane crash,” the guard said.

The other guard noticed out of the corner of his eye that his partner was no longer holding his weapon at ready and he quickly glanced over at Marcus. He had been focused on the younger man that approached them. Upon recognition, he did a double-take between the other guard and Marcus and then he lowered his rifle as well. Marcus and Will still stood in place.

“Yes, I’m sure everyone has seen that news by now,” Marcus said. “My future role with the CMA required that I be...reinvented.”

The two guards looked at each other in confusion.

“As far as you two should be concerned, you never saw Marcus Braden,” Marcus said. “That man did die in a plane crash.” Marcus dropped his hands from the air. He grabbed his CMA badge and held it up towards the guards. “All you know about us two is that we are two CMA employees that have been called in. You checked our badges and let us through.”

“Whoa,” one of the guards said to the other, finally breaking their awestruck silence. “I bet the news guy does spy work.”

Marcus’s heart sunk. How could they have figured him out so quickly? Had the word been spread around the entire CMA staff that Marcus had been working for their enemy?

“Yeah,” the other said in agreement and laughed. He turned to Marcus, “What do they have you doing? James Bond type-stuff?”

Marcus smiled. Now he realized that these two guards thought he was a spy for the CMA. “Just a simple newsman is all.” He kept the smile on his face as he answered. He wanted the guards to continue to think he had very important work to do for the CMA.

“Riiiight,” the guard said. “Come on forward, gentlemen.” The guard appeared serious again as he waved them in. “Let’s check your credentials and then you can get on inside. There have been other arrivals this morning so I’m guessing you all have a meeting.”

Marcus nodded. He didn’t want to get into much back and forth conversation. He had hoped asserting his dominance as they arrived would do the trick. It seemed to. The guards gave their badges nothing more than a quick glance and let them go. They were surprised that the main blast door was wide open. He assumed that it stayed closed pretty much all the time and then there’d be other doors for people to use.

They followed the instructions given by the man that drew the map so they could make it to the exact location deep inside the mountain. Marcus wished he had gotten the man’s name. They were in such a rush to get here. That man may very well have saved their plan from immediate disaster. They had hoped to cave the mountain in with the explosives. Now inside, they could see the thickness of the inner walls and the several blast door inside would make that impossible with the meager amount of explosive material they brought with them. He noted that all the inner blast doors were open as well. This was good for their plan.

Marcus quickly threw on a hat and put on a pair of awkwardly large glasses. Now that they were inside it was more likely that they could run into someone who knew that he wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t even supposed to be alive. They went winding through the halls and ended up making a few wrong turns. They tried to be casual about their lack of knowledge of their whereabouts, especially when they were around other CMA employees walking around. A couple of times they had to ask for where a specific door was. Marcus would drop back and act curious about something in the hall while Will did the talking.

They finally made it to the location after about five minutes or so of wandering. It was exactly as the man had described. It looked like a very small exposed section of what must be an extremely large, steel tank. There had to be much more of the tank beyond what they could see. They figured this must be in the engineering portion of the complex. There were a few scribbled labels on the map. It was drawn so quickly that is was difficult to understand parts of it. Large, steel pipes ran from the tank and were directed to what they guessed were pumps. There were a few of the pumps that sat in front of the steel tank. The lighting in the area was low, but they were happy about the lack of illumination on them because they were about to place plastic explosives over the entire exposed area of the tank.

They immediately went to work placing the clay-like material on piping and on the corners of the exposed area of the tank. They tried to keep it hidden on the back sides of the pipes and behind the pumps. Once they placed all that they had brought with them, Will turned and watched for anyone that might come by while Marcus placed the small metal tube detonators into the explosives. He then strung parallel wire to each detonator tube.

“Well, that was a bit easier than I expected,” Marcus said as he looked around after finishing with the detonator tubes.

“Yeah, except it’s going to be a little awkward running this wiring around these halls,” Will said. He bent down and looked in the bags. “There isn’t a whole lot of this wire left. There’s the remaining from the spool you have and then just one more spool.”

“Will,” Marcus said, “we’ll get it as far as we can and then you need to get out. Get out as fast as you can.”

“Marcus, what are you saying?” Will asked. “We both need to make it out. We also still need to find Jackson.”

Marcus took a deep breath. He had forgotten that Thomas wanted them to find Jackson.

“How are we supposed to do that?” Marcus asked. “This place is huge.”

Will looked over at the tank and piping where they had placed the explosives and thought for a moment. “We could leave all this here while we go see if we can find him.”

“I hate to say this Will, but I think his chances are slim,” Marcus said. “We have no idea what he looks like. We don’t even know if we are calling him by his real name.” Marcus held his hands up by his sides. “Will, I’ll blow this and then hopefully I can run out of here too. I imagine some people that are near the entrance will be able to get out. I just hope that Jackson will be one of them.”

Will sighed. “He doesn’t even know that this is coming.”

“Listen, Will,” Marcus said, “The business that Jackson is in...the business that I was doing for the ARF, is a risk. It’s all volunteer. He knows that he is risking his life. I don’t want this to be the end for the guy, but this needs to get done soon. If we cut them off at the head, they shouldn’t be sending out any more bombers. Who knows what has been lost now on the east coast? Who knows where else they were planning on bombing today.”

Will dropped his shoulders. “Alright,” he said in a defeated manner. He picked up the camera bag that held the last spool of wire.

“This isn’t on you, Will,” Marcus said. “Is that the problem?”

“I’m tired of the death,” Will said. He now looked angry. “It seems like most people in the country are dead. We went into our town and there were bodies all over the place. I’ve had to kill. One of them was someone I knew.” He shook his head.

“This should be a step in the right direction to end all of that,” Marcus said. “You know this needs to be done. Think of your family. Think of that girl of yours. Lea. What happens next after they kill off everyone in the cities?”

“I know, I know,” Will said in a frustrated tone. He didn’t want Marcus to say any more about what could happen to Lea.

“You are a strong man, Will,” Marcus said. “Much more than many others. I saw how you were up there in the mountains. I know I wasn’t there long with you all, but what I saw was a leader. Look, you are even here now.”

Flashes of dead bodies lining the streets of Oakhurst started to pass through Will’s mind. The putrid mix of smells; decaying flesh and thick noxious smoke. He pictured the man he shot in the woods. He fell, probably dying immediately. He saw himself holding a gun to Tanner's head. Tanner's eyes looking into Will’s moments before he pulled the trigger. His mind moved to the bombings taking place today. How many people were still holding up in those cities? How many people who had the same mindset as him and his family? People who didn’t trust what the CMA was doing, rightfully so. Then, his thoughts went to Lea. They went to his mother and Lea’s family. To Lewis. What would happen to them if he and Marcus didn’t succeed today? Were these haunting deaths just something he was going to have to bear? He would have to bear them on his conscience so that others would stop dying. He realized this was a war and horrible things happen in war. How could he have been so naive to think that they could hide out in the woods and never have to deal with anything difficult?

“Thanks,” Will said. “I know that it needs to be done. It’s just not easy. Just a moment of weakness for me, I guess. No one goes through life expecting to live in these conditions and have to...kill people.”

“Very true,” Marcus said and then paused for a moment. He bent down and picked up the bag that held the detonation control unit. He took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” Will said.

Will regained himself from his temporary moment of vulnerability and then walked ahead of Marcus to check around the next corner. He waved Marcus on. Since they were in the engineering section of the complex, they came across some maintenance related items that lined the halls. They found a few yellow ‘Danger’ signs that are usually put up around chemical or water spills. They put the signs at the beginning and end of long hallways over the wire in a hope that if anyone came across it, they would think it was for some maintenance purpose and be none the wiser. They also found a roll of ‘CAUTION’ tape. They planned to use it at each major door they passed through to prevent anyone from finding the explosives before they could detonate them.

The remaining wire from the first spool brought them well clear of the engineering section. Marcus was relieved and beginning to think his chances were better than he originally calculated. Marcus and Will knelt to the floor to connect the next spool to the end of the wire. He picked at the plastic lining with his fingernail. He pricked his finger a few times with some of the stray fibers of copper that were already exposed.

“Marcus, is that you?” a female’s voice said.

Marcus shot up straight and whipped around.

“Ava?” Marcus said in surprise.

“You are supposed to be...I mean...I reported that you had died in a plane crash,” Ava said.

“That’s what I keep hearing,” Marcus said.

Will set his bag down on the floor next to Marcus’s. Both bags sitting together now concealed the spool of wire they had just begun working on from Ava’s view.

“I’m glad you are alive,” Ava said. She extended her arms and walked towards him.

Marcus gave her a hug as she arrived. Something about the way Ava was acting just wasn’t sitting right with him. He also wondered why she was here and not back at the camp. He was sure that everyone from WWNL would probably still be there. There wouldn’t be any plans to drop bombs on a CMA camp.

Marcus stepped back. “Why are you here, Ava?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“As far as I knew, it was only the top CMA staff that came here for an important meeting,” Marcus said.

She seemed dumbstruck.

“Well...why are you here?” Ava asked.

Marcus was quicker on his feet than she was. “I have other duties with the CMA that you wouldn’t know about.”

Ava burst out in laughter. It almost started to sound maniacal after she continued for so long. Marcus was puzzled. He turned to Will. He and Will both shrugged their shoulders at the same time. Ava eventually calmed back down.

“Oh Marcus,” she said, “there is so much that goes right over your head that you miss.”

Marcus tried to be persistent. “You can talk to Anthony. He’ll confirm it.”

“You are a very good liar,” Ava said. “You just don’t know who you are lying to.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes towards Ava. He studied her. He looked into her eyes. Did she have a much larger role in the CMA than he knew about? She did seem to be absent quite a bit once they moved to the CMA camp. Marcus did plenty of the newscasts without her. He was never really given a concrete  reason why she wasn’t around.

Marcus drew in a deep breath. “Who am I lying to, Ava?”

As Ava opened her mouth to answer, a group of four armed security guards quickly rounded the corner. Their guns were drawn and aimed right at Will and Marcus. Ava stepped backward and up against the wall. She gave Marcus a closed mouth smile and held up a small black device. Marcus looked back at Ava. It must have been some sort of communication device that worked inside the mountain.

“It means nothing to you at this point,” Ava said as the guards seized Marcus and Will.

*****

Marcus and Will sat side by side on the one bench against the wall in a cold, gray jail cell. The only other items in the cell were a small, metal sink that was attached to the wall next to a toilet. The sink  looked dirty and rusty and had an annoying continuous drip. The bench they sat on was solid wood. It was probably meant as a bed as well and there was absolutely no padding on it. They both hadn’t spoken much since being captured. Marcus was racking his brain trying to figure how Ava played into all of this. Had she just been in the right place at the right time to get some sort of position with the CMA? Marcus wondered if he had never spoken about the reasons behind the poor state of the country on national news if he would have some position like Ava did. Who was he kidding? He had no desire to have any position in the CMA. He would feel like he sold his soul if he tried to climb their ladder of power.

Will was defeated and depressed. He sat with his head lowered into hands. Would he ever get to see Lea again? He didn’t think so. He thought back to their last conversation before he trekked off down the mountain with Marcus. Why didn’t he just tell her then that he loved her? What was he waiting for? He knew the country wasn’t going to instantly return to what it had been before. He shook his head and continued to stare down at the floor.

They both wondered if leaving them here alone for a long time was a part of a psychological mind game. Both Marcus and Will had heard that was sometimes used in police interrogations. A suspect would think too much with all the time they had and then talk more easily after someone finally arrived.

Will finally broke the silence in between them.

“Well,” Will said as he raised his head up, “how many cities do you think they’ve bombed by now?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Marcus said. “Dozens I’m sure...at a minimum.”

“I sure hope the Oakhurst area is spared,” Will said. “I think the worst part of all this is when I think of what it will do to my mom and Lea...me never coming home. I can’t stand to think of what they will go through. I just hope they will all be able to take care of themselves and survive.”

“And to think, Marcus, you had the chance to be on the correct side of all this,” a man’s voice said.

Will and Marcus were startled. They turned from each other and saw two dark figures standing outside of their prison cell.

“I recognize that voice,” Marcus said. “Who’s there?” His voice was filled with anger.

Marcus stood from the bench and rushed to the bars. The two figures stood across from him against the opposite wall. They were still concealed in shadows. They appeared to have their arms linked together at their elbows. Marcus squinted into the darkness. They stepped forward out of the shadows.

It took Marcus a few moments to register who he was looking at.

“You!?” Marcus said as he took a step back from the bars.

Marek Dominski, the billionaire businessman, was standing in front of him with Ava hanging on his arm. Marek was someone Marcus considered more than just some acquaintance. He had interviewed Marek many times over the years.  He was considered a hero because his success in business was one of the only things that had prevented the poor economy from completely crashing to rock-bottom.
Ava...of course, her boyfriend in the financial district
.

“Marcus,” Dominski said. “this is definitely an interesting surprise.”

“Why are you doing all of this?” Marcus asked.

“I assume you are referring to the bombings,” Dominski said. “Of course that would be your question. You see Marcus, this world we live in, this current civilization is broken. If you look to the past, there were civilizations that lasted for thousands of years. It all has to do with organized control.”

Marcus interrupted him, “You are killing millions of people.”

Marek looked at Marcus in the cell for a moment before continuing. “Sometimes sacrifices need to be made when you start thinking in the long-term, Marcus,” Dominski said. A smug grin formed on his face. “Now, more importantly, why are you two here?”