The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (37 page)

Graves nodded to the soldier, who shoved the gag back into Marnes’s mouth. The man glowered daggers at the admiral.

“No, I haven’t hurt her, Frederick,” Graves said. “Why would I?”

The soldier Graves had tasked to find the woman stepped into the room, his prisoner in tow. Graves noticed that she, too, had a gag. “In fact, here she is, right here. Safe and sound.”

Marnes’s shoulders sagged.

“Put her over there with him on that couch. Then search the room for anything useful. If he moves, shoot him.” Graves walked back out into the main command center area and spoke into his mic. “We’re all set down here, Jack. Keep an eye out for the football. Marnes says Peltmeyer—the Ops chief—took it from him. No telling what you’re walking into.”

“Roger that, sir.”

“I’m sending Indigo up to you now just in case. We’ll follow behind, but we’ll be dragging Marnes with us, so we’ll most likely see you when it’s over.”

“Yes, sir. XO out.”

Graves turned to the Indigo team leader. “Double-time it to Ops. Take the stairs and stay quiet.”

The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, and his team disappeared out the door.

Graves turned back to the remaining soldiers. “Find anything?”

Hotel team’s leader shook her head. “We ain’t found shit, sir. Uh, beggin’ your pardon.”

Graves snorted. “No worries, Lieutenant. Secure the prisoners and prepare to move out.” He looked upward, as though he could see through several hundred feet of steel, earth, and concrete. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”

Level Two
Operations
Bunker Five

“Well, ain’t this fuckin’ grand?” O’Reilly said as he took a glance down the hallway toward Ops. Another shot from some rifle winged its way toward him and ricocheted before embedding itself in a stack of supply boxes. He jerked back as a reflex, though none of the shots they’d yet taken had come close to hitting him or any of the men.

“We could just throw a grenade down there, sir,” one of his men said.

O’Reilly shook his head. “Negative. One grenade and someone loses an arm, a leg, or whatever, and it’s really us or them at that point. Besides, the admiral ordered no casualties.”

The soldier pretended to mutter under his breath, and O’Reilly pretended not to hear him. That’s just how things worked. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see the same admiral he had just referenced standing next to him. He stood to give his report.

“Sir, it appears they’ve noticed us,” O’Reilly said as another shot zinged down the hall. “Recommend we use a flashbang, sir, then clear ‘em out.”

“I may have another way, Commander. The Ops chief here is a guy named Peltmeyer. I think he’s the one calling the shots. He took the football from Marnes too. I’m betting he did it to keep it out of the hands of that moron.”

“Huh. Could be, sir. Could be. But how does that help us?”

“I have an idea…” Graves popped his head up and glanced down the hall. When no shot came his way, he stepped all the way out into the view of those down the hall in their fortified positions. “Ahoy, Ops! This is Admiral Jeremiah Graves. Request parlay with your CO.”

There was a furious cascade of whispers from down the hall. Graves heard a door open and close, and then a voice yelled down the hall.

“What do you want?”

“Identify yourself, please,” Graves replied.

“Ops Chief Joshua Peltmeyer, Bunker Five. And you would be?”

“Admiral Jeremiah Graves, Commander, New Atlantic Fleet.”

“I see. What can we do for you, Admiral?”

“I’m here under the orders of the Bunker Council to arrest and detain Frederick Marnes on charges of treason.”

“The Bunker Council? Never heard of it.”

“But you have heard of former governor Angela Gates, Colonel Kimberly Blake, and her husband David Blake, current Governor of Bunker One, yes?”

There was a pause from the other end of the hall, then a man as imposing as the admiral stepped out into view. “I have. Are they this ‘Bunker Council’ then?”

“Those, and some others.”

“You’ve got Marnes already. We watched it happen. What do you need us for?”

“Are you the ones who cleared the way for us? We thought it was a little easy to get to him.”

“Marnes being gone is a good thing for everyone in this bunker. It seemed like an appropriate time to run an emergency drill.”

“For what it’s worth, thanks.”

“So, like I said, you’ve got what you came for. Why are you still here?”

“It’s not that easy. Marnes wasn’t the actual target, though he was necessary. What we need is the football. Marnes said you took it from him.”

Another silence from the end of the hall. A long silence, one that had Graves worried. What was going on?

“Why do you need it?”

“That’s classified, but if you and I could speak privately…”

“Classified?” Peltmeyer laughed hard. “What does that even mean anymore? But whatever. Stand down, everyone.”

The bunker’s soldiers came out of hiding, and Graves wasn’t surprised to see there were only a few of them. The bunker designers had made Ops one of the easiest places to defend, for good reason. They’d likely had no idea AEGIS soldiers would be fighting each other, though.

“Step into my office, Admiral,” Peltmeyer said and walked into Ops.

Graves started to follow, then felt a hand on his shoulder. O’Reilly looked at him.

“I’m going with you, sir. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Commander.”

O’Reilly turned to one of his men and issued orders to stand down, then joined Graves as he walked down the hall. They entered Ops together and found only Peltmeyer standing there in front of a bank of monitors, servers, and other tech. An alcove on one side must have functioned as the chief’s office. O’Reilly shut the door behind them.

“Now, what the hell is going on?” Peltmeyer asked. “Why do you need the football?”

“The short version? Bunker Nine is full of super-zombies, created by a former AEGIS member. We think he’s taken over Bunker Four and is this close to killing off the last few humans on the planet. We want the codes to launch a non-nuclear ICBM to destroy the bunker and end the threat. And the football has the only copy of those codes that is at all accessible.”

Peltmeyer’s face fell, and he went pale. “Oh, I see.”

“Yeah.”

Peltmeyer walked over to the alcove and brought out a big briefcase.

“You’ll need Marnes to access it. Probably alive, but hey, whatever works.” He handed the briefcase over. “I’m glad not to have it anymore, to tell you the truth.” Some of the tension in his stance had eased, and Graves could well believe it.

“Why did you take it from him in the first place? I mean, I’m glad you did, but it seems like an unusual thing.”

“Have you met the man? Do you really want the launch codes to all the nukes and whatever else in his hands? I did my best to offset his craziness by locking him up for a year, but even then, he’s got supporters that I couldn’t control. You’ll still have a few of those to deal with here too, by the way.”

“How do you mean?”

“Aren’t you taking over?”

If he’d been less controlled, Graves would’ve gaped at the man. “No! Of course not! That’s not our mission here. We’re just here for the football. You’ll probably need to elect a governor or something. I don’t know, that’s above my pay grade, remember? The important thing right now is we need you to lock down communications from here. We can’t have anyone coordinating with Bunker Four. Got it?”

“But if you’re not taking over… we’re fucked. We’ve got no one to lead, half the bunker’s systems don’t work, and the others only part of the time. We’re on our last legs here, Admiral. When we saw you get out of the trucks, we hoped that you might be here to take over. That’s why we made it as easy as possible for you. But if you can’t help us…” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “No, I get it. That’s not your problem. You’re going to take what you need and leave us to deal with the mess.”

Graves’s chest ached with embarrassment. “We’re not going to leave you in the lurch, Chief. We’ll get some people in to help you out, but you’re all going to have to pull more weight and work harder than you have in years. You’re going to need to learn to be self-sufficient, without mooching off your neighbors.”

Peltmeyer’s face grew red and his eyes small and hard. “Not all of us wanted that, Admiral.”

Graves shook his head and groaned. “I can’t win, can I? Big ol’ foot sandwich I keep feeding myself.” He stood a little taller and looked the chief in the eye. “Look, however stupid some of the things I’m saying may be, I swear on my oath as an officer that we will not let you down. Good enough?”

Peltmeyer stared at him for another long moment and then held out a hand. “My dad was a Navy man. Only one time in his life did he swear on his oath. I know what that means to you. That’s good enough for me. What can we do to help?”

Graves smiled and let out a long breath as he shook the chief’s hand. “Thanks. I’m much better with boats than people. What’s your comms status?”

Peltmeyer shrugged. “Most of our comms have been out for over a year now, but what little we have left, yeah, I’ll lock it down.”

“That would explain why we couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“You’ve been trying?”

“Damn right we have.” Graves sighed, then looked at O’Reilly, who nodded. “Well, shit, Chief. We can’t leave a good man in a spot like this. I’ll take temporary command if you don’t have anyone here other than Marnes, and we’ll get you squared away. But nothing permanent. That’ll be up to you and the Council.”

Graves turned to O’Reilly. “Get the word to the Council that we’re successful here, and send the go code to Anderson.”

“Yes, sir,” O’Reilly said and moved to the communications equipment.

Graves turned back to Peltmeyer. “With any luck, they’ve already taken Bunker Four and we don’t have anything to worry about. With, as I said, any luck.”

“Sir?” O’Reilly said. “I’ve got something you need to see.”

Graves grunted and walked over to the console where the commander perched on a chair. He looked down at the screen, and he gasped. “No shit, really?”

“Yes, sir. It appears to be them, sir.”

“Get Kilo to bring him up here, and send Juliet to find them and escort them topside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Graves looked at the names glowing on the screen and shook his head. “Unbelievable. Finally, some good news.”

Outside Bunker Four
Charlotte, Iowa

The summer sun blazed down on Eden’s back. Her arm ached something fierce despite the pain meds she’d taken. To top it off, she’d been lying in the same position for going on two hours now. She couldn’t take the good meds, because they’d make her loopy and unable to fight or even walk in a straight line, much less command her squad.

As it was, they’d been waiting for word from Bunker Five for so long, she wondered if they’d gotten the right day. She stifled a yawn, then looked back through her rifle’s scope at the track in the Iowa grass. Long-term impressions from the patrols were clear.

A patrol was due anytime in the next hour. As soon as they received the go code from Graves at Bunker Five, they could take it out. Eden hoped it would be soon. She hated waiting.

There was a crackle in her ear and then a voice reporting no contacts. Dantos, she remembered. He was one of the best snipers they had and one of the most invisible. He’d infiltrated as far as he dared in a ghillie suit of his own make. From reports, he was less than a hundred yards from the bunker’s entrance. They had other snipers posted nearby to take out the guards who remained at the bunker’s topside installation. The main event was going to be the simultaneous ambush of four roving patrols.

Assuming they didn’t change things up and send five today, of course.

Anderson’s voice filled her ear. “Break-break,” he said, giving the signal for a priority transmission. “All teams, you have a go. Say again, all teams, you have a go. Out.”

And there it was, the beginning of the end. Now they just had to wait for the next patrol.

Marquez’s voice replaced that of Anderson. “All teams, action stations. Stay frosty. You know what to do. Now get it done.”

Eden gritted her teeth against the pain and shifted her position a bit. She glanced at the dirt road leading to the grassy turnoff for the patrols. Unless you knew what to look for, you would miss the buried flashbangs and other IEDs they’d planted. They’d temporarily disable the enemy vehicles and disorient their passengers. Anderson said they’d made altered devices like those used by Iraqi insurgents decades before. Whatever an Iraqi was.

She hadn’t paid too much attention to world history in school.

“Contact,” Dantos said in her ear. “Two… three… that’s it. Looks like just three this time. They’re leaving the doors open, like before.”

That was critical to their plan. Once those massive metal doors shut, nothing could open them again from outside. Nothing short of a tactical nuke anyway. They had to ambush the patrols, steal the vehicles, and take control of the main elevator before anyone inside the bunker realized what was happening. It wasn’t going to be easy, but with only three patrols, luck just might be on their side for once.

Marquez spoke once more. “Uniform, move up and prepare to engage hostiles at the installation. Teams Alpha, Papa, Tango, stay on target.”

A flurry of double clicks answered his orders, and Eden prepared to receive their guests. Recon showed the patrols would split up right after leaving the installation and disperse. They’d spend four hours patrolling and then return to the bunker. Always four hours later, on the nose. Whoever or whatever was maintaining their schedule was as good as an atomic clock, according to Celero.

Right on schedule, she heard the roar of a Humvee engine approaching. She settled her rifle into her shoulder and peered through the scope. They’d let the Humvee approach until it reached the right spot in the road and then set off the IEDs. At the same time, Uniform would nullify the installation guards and take their place. If everything went to plan, there would be enough confusion in the control room to give them the time they needed to lock down the bunker’s access to their own main elevator.