The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (47 page)

“No idea, sir,” he replied, “but I still have control of the internal security cameras. They didn’t lock those down. Let me just punch it up here.”

A few seconds later, Celero directed his attention to a monitor, and Anderson saw what looked like the inside of a lab. “What is this?” the general asked. “Rotate the camera.”

“Yes, sir,” Celero said.

The camera rotated, and Anderson sighed.

Eden could just see around the man, and she wasn’t surprised at what she saw either. The camera showed a small lab enclosure with a long glass wall on one side with a heavy door leading through the material. On the other side of the wall were the nightmares they’d expected to find.

Driebachs. At least thirty or forty, from what she could see here.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Indeed, Ms. Blake,” Anderson replied. “Celero, are they locked down?”

The lieutenant typed some commands on his systems and nodded. “Yes, sir. According to what I see here, the door in the wall is locked and the lab door as well. Not sure how Marquez knew they were in there.”

“Probably the smell. Can you show me how to override the locks?”

Celero looked at Anderson like he’d grown a second and maybe a third head, and Eden was confused too.

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” the technician asked, then remembered who he was speaking to. “Uh, sir?”

“If Dagger’s men can lock it down, they can unlock it. I want to know how to reverse that if I have to.”

Celero nodded as he accepted that explanation and showed Anderson how to deal with the locks.

Eden frowned as she looked at the general and wondered why he was lying to the man. She knew him well enough to know when he was lying, and he was feeding Celero a line. But why? Was he doing it just so Celero would leave?

“Good, I’ll take it from here. Meet up with the Hunters outside and get out of here.”

Celero hesitated and frowned again. “Sir, what about the missile? I can keep working. We have some time…”

Anderson shook his head. “Negative. Get clear. I’ll take it from here.” He smiled, but Eden could see it was just for effect. Not that anyone else would detect it, but she’d been around her “Uncle Frank” long enough to pick it up. He was trying to make Celero feel better about leaving, plain and simple. And it worked.

“Yes, sir,” Celero said with a relieved nod. He trusted his CO. He grabbed his pack and ran out the door.

Now it was just her and the general and the blinking light on the control panel with the patch-through from the bunkers. What was she still doing here? “Sir, should I—”

He held up a hand. “Stay here for a little longer, please, Eden. I… I need a friendly face in the room with me as long as possible.”

She blinked. He
never
called her Eden. What the fuck was going on?

Anderson tapped a few keys on the control panel and spoke. “Bunker One, are you there?”

Eden heard her father’s voice come over the speakers and saw a monitor light up, showing both her parents. “We’re here, Frank,” he said.

Her mother spoke up too. “What’s your status, sir?”

Anderson spoke again. “One minute, Colonel, Mr. Blake. Bunker Eight, how copy?”

Eden thought she recognized Morena Anderson’s voice. “I’m here, Frank, and so is Roger.” Another voice spoke, one she didn’t know. “Hey Frank, what’s this about? What’s your status?”

“Good to hear your voice again, Roger. I don’t have a lot of time, so I need you all to listen carefully.” He took a seat at the control panel and rolled the chair over to one of the stationary microphones. He folded his hands on the panel and looked straight at the camera. “We have a problem. Dagger has activated one of the ICBMs. It’s fueling now, and—”

Everyone interrupted the general by speaking at once. Their voices were shrill, and Eden winced. They were stressed, and not just by Anderson’s announcement. Eden knew the events of the last few days had been hard on them all.

“Enough!” Anderson shouted, then closed his eyes. She could almost feel him count to ten. “We don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want to waste it arguing. Dagger’s locked us out of all the missile control systems. I’ve had my best people working on it for hours, and they couldn’t break in. We’re down to the wire, and it’s almost done fueling. In less than an hour, it’ll launch.” He glanced at Eden as he continued. “I don’t have to tell you what the payload is on this thing.”

“Oh my God,” David said. “He’s actually done it. He’s going to launch the prion bomb.”

“It’s worse than that, actually.”

“Worse than a prion bomb?” David yelled.

“I’ve confirmed Driebachs are present. I’d bet it’s not just a prion bomb, but another Driebach bomb.”

It was then that Eden knew what everyone had been keeping secret for so long. Knew why Anderson hadn’t told everyone what was going on at this bunker or the others. Dagger had weaponized the prion, and he was going to launch it against someone. The idea that someone would deliberately create zombies was staggering enough. But to create Driebachs?

“Where’s it headed, Frank?” asked Roger Tate, the governor of Bunker Eight. “We need to get word to them, get them out of the area—”

“It doesn’t matter where it’s headed,” Anderson said.

“Of course it matt—”

“No, it doesn’t fucking matter!” he yelled. “Because it’s not leaving the silo.”

Eden’s mom broke in. “Sir, you said you’re locked out. I assume that means you can’t activate the auto-destruct seque—oh.”

Eden didn’t understand, and she wasn’t the only one. Her mother had put together pieces to a puzzle Eden had never seen, and super-fast to boot.

“I don’t understand, Frank,” Morena said. “What’s happening? How are you going to stop it if you’re locked out?”

Anderson looked Eden right in the eye as he continued speaking. “Every bunker has an auto-destruct sequence built in, in case of catastrophic failure or an outbreak that can’t be contained. It’s called the Wildfire Protocol, a holdover from the 70s and 80s. It’s the same sort of system they used at the CDC, though it’s combined with super-heated steam from the reactors in the case of Bunker Four.”

Eden sat down in another empty chair, stunned. She’d never realized that an auto-destruct existed. But now that she thought about it, of course it did. It would’ve had to. No one wanted thousands of walkers roaming around.

“So you’re going to set the auto-destruct for the bunker,” her father said. “I’m assuming you’ve evacuated the people?”

“Everyone is gone or will be soon. It was only about three-quarters full, so it didn’t take as long as we expected.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Dagger happened. Or his people when he wasn’t in control. Some of the stories my people have heard… I’m surprised anyone’s left, to be honest. And we found something… something horrible. Eden or Marquez can tell you more about it later.”

“Eden? Eden was there?” her mom asked, and Eden could hear the strain in her voice increase exponentially.

“She’s here now, in fact,” Anderson said as he looked at her.

“Oh my… Eden, honey, are you there? Are you okay? What happ—” Her parents were both talking at once, and she couldn’t understand them.

Eden felt tears come to her eyes as they spoke. “Mom, Dad, I’m here. I’m fine. A little shook up from fighting Driebachs, but I’m okay.”

She could hear the joy in her parents’ voices, and she knew her dad was crying from his tone. “You get out of there, Eden. You get out of there right now and get back to Des Moines. You’ve done your job. You’ve proven yourself.”

“That’s an order, young lady,” her mom said, and Eden couldn’t help but laugh in relief as she remembered all the other times her mother had told her that. It was a running joke in the small family.

One of the other people on the call cleared his throat and spoke. “I don’t want to interrupt the reunion here, and I’m sorry to do it, but what about Dagger?” Tate asked. “Is he in custody?”

“No,” Anderson said. “And therein lies the rub, as they say. He hasn’t escaped, hasn’t gotten out, so he’s still somewhere in the bunker.”

“So what?” David asked. “The things he’s done, he deserves to die. Leave him to rot in whatever hidey-hole he’s found and blow it up. There’s no choice here. We can’t let that missile out. We’ve already got one bunker full of Driebachs, and we can’t afford any more.”

“
What the fuck
?” Eden said before she could help herself. “A bunker full of Driebachs? Oh my God, earlier, you said ‘another Driebach bomb.’ Did he do this before? Is that what happened? What. The. Fuck?”

Anderson waved her questions off. “There isn’t time. Short answer is that’s why we’re doing all this. Your parents can fill you in later.”

“You keep saying other people can do stuff later, Frank,” Morena said. “You’re scaring me.”

“Yeah, that’s the bad part. Dagger’s loose somewhere in the base. When the auto-destruct warnings go off, he’ll find out what we’re up to. It would be simple to run right up here and turn it off with the override codes he stole from Yarborough.” He leaned against the chair’s back and rubbed his face, then continued. “No, someone has to stay here to keep him from shutting it down.”

For the first time, Eden noticed the deep grooves in the general’s skin and the small liver spots that had appeared. His thinning grey-white hair and the slower, deliberate way he moved. Eden had never thought of Anderson as someone who’d get old. He would be around forever.

But we all come to the end sometime.

“No, no, no nononono—” Morena’s wail cut through Eden’s skull, and Anderson winced.

Her parents weren’t much better. “No fucking way,” David said. She could hear her mother cussing a blue streak in the background and threatening to fly out to Iowa just to kick Anderson’s ass.

Anderson just looked at Eden. The bags under his eyes had bags of their own. He was thinner now than she’d ever seen him. Under the harsh lights of Ops, he was the oldest person she’d ever seen. But his eyes were still bright and determined.

He let the others rant and rail and spoke to just her. “You understand, don’t you? Why this has to happen and why it has to be me?”

Eden thought for a moment, then nodded as a tear slipped from her eye. She hadn’t even realized she was crying. “Yes, sir. I… I wish there was another way, but I don’t see one. You sure he can’t get in?”

“Absolutely. This place is one big panic room as long as there’s someone inside working against anyone out there. That’s why I have to stay. It’s the only way we can be sure Dagger won’t get back in.” He smiled as he shook his head. “You know, your grandfather would be so proud of you. He talked about you a lot, said you were so much like your mother at her age. I didn’t know her back then, but I see her in you now. And your father too. I’m proud to have served with you, Eden. And to have known you.”

She couldn’t stop the tears that flowed now, and she rushed over to him. He met her halfway, and after a crushing hug, he let her go. How could he still be so strong, this whipcord-thin old man? Morena was still calling out to him through the speakers, as were her parents.

“Frank Ulysses Anderson, you answer me right now, goddamit!” Morena’s voice broke, and it hurt Eden’s heart to hear the pain and anguish in it. “You answer me, Frank!”

“I’m here, honey. I’m here.” He sat down once more and spoke into the mic. “You all know this is the right call. Someone has to stay to keep Dagger from shutting down the auto-destruct. I’m old and decrepit and losing my usefulness. I’m from the old world, and you need strong, young folks to lead you into the new one. My time is done.”

“Shut up shut up shut up,” Morena said. “You set it and get out, do you hear me? You set it and get out!”

“Morena, honey, we’ll talk in a minute, I promise. Right now, I need to say some things to the others. Is that okay?”

He could hear the tears she cried as she answered. “I guess so.”

“David, Kimberly, it’s been an honor knowing you. I wish we’d had more time. Take care of our new world. I expect you to take care of them.” Anderson looked over at Eden, who nodded.

“The honor is ours, Frank.” Eden could hear the tears in her father’s voice and knew they were both as heartbroken as she was. “Say hi to George for us. Eden, you get the hell out of there and on a plane back here as soon as fucking possible. That’s an order.”

“I will, Dad. I love you both.”

“Love you too. We’ll sign off now, Frank, and let the others know what’s going to happen.”

“Roger that, David. See you in another life.” The speaker clicked as Eden’s father hung up the line, and Anderson turned to Eden. “You heard them, Ms. Blake. Get out of here. Report to Marquez and tell him he’s in command now. You’re his XO. Take good care of these civilians.” He stood and clapped one hand on her shoulder. “They’re your responsibility now. Don’t let me down.”

Eden shook her head, unable to speak and overcome with grief. She hugged him once more, then stood at attention and saluted the general. He smiled as he returned it.

“Thank you for being with me here. I’m… I’m not sure I could have done it without your help.”

“All I did was stand here,” Eden said with a half-hearted laugh as she tried to stop crying.

“Maybe so, but it was just what I needed.” He smiled at her one more time. “Now go.”

She nodded, hefted her rifle, and turned to leave. She looked back just once at the doorway. Her last view of General Frank Anderson was him sitting back into the chair and pulling himself toward the control panel. He began to punch a sequence of commands into the keyboard. She heard him speak once more as she turned back around.

“Morena, I need you to put Donald on.”

“I can’t! He’s not here!”

“What do you mean he’s not there? Where is he?”

“He went on a rescue mission! The convoy from Bunker Seven was attacked.”

“Then you’ve gotta have our people patch me through. I have to talk to him.”

“I don’t… I can’t…”

“Honey, I don’t have much time, and there’s a lot I need to say…”

Eden wiped her tears as she ran for the emergency ladder that would take her to the surface and the waiting Humvee. She couldn’t bear to hear any more.