Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) Page 12

  Leila cringed. “Is that…?”

  “Yes, I believe it is.”

  The horse head had once been a beautiful shade of brown, with a clean white stripe of hair running down its nose. Now, however, it was muddy and dark, the fur stained from all manner of sewage. Bloody tendrils of muscle hung from the base of the neck, and a two-foot section of spine dangled from its end, slowly swishing from side to side in the water.

  “Where would a horse come from?”

  “It must have been one of the resort’s carriage horses.”

  “Even so, what’s big enough to drag something like that down here?”

  Mason didn’t answer. He was too busy studying several deep scratches on the wall.

  “Whatever it is, it has claws.”

  “Never in my life did I think I would see a world filled with honest-to-God monsters.”

  While Mason could have pointed out that the monsters were in fact nothing more than mutated victims of the virus, it seemed rather pointless. They were living at a time of creation, and whether or not those new manifestations would ultimately wipe out what remained of mankind had yet to be seen.

  “Let’s go,” he said, continuing down the tunnel. “The bunker can’t be much farther.”

  They walked on for another five minutes, passing numerous smaller pipes that neither of them felt compelled to explore. Eventually, they arrived at an opening, the pipe around them flaring out into a rectangular box similar to the one Mason had encountered in the air shaft. The tunnel continued ahead, winding around to the right, but there was also a heavy metal grate on the ceiling overhead.

  They shined their flashlights onto the grate, studying it.

  “Where do you think it leads?” asked Leila.

  Mason squatted down. “Climb onto my shoulders, and I’ll lift you up to take a look.”

  She carefully swung her legs over. When he stood up, her head was a few inches from the bottom of the grate. She pressed her flashlight against it to light the space beyond.

  “It’s a room of some type. The walls are lined in a dark blue tile, and I see shower heads.”

  “A bathroom?”

  “More like a large spray booth.”

  “It must be a decontamination chamber used to wash off radioactive particles.”

  “Makes sense.” She pressed up on the grate with both hands. It didn’t budge. “It must be secured to the floor.”

  He squatted back down, and she crawled off of his shoulders.

  “If it really is a decontamination chamber, it’s probably inside the bunker.” She swept the bottom of the grate with her flashlight. “The hole’s plenty big enough to climb through. All we have to do is figure out a way to get through the grate.”

  “That’s going to be a trick from down here.” Mason looked around for something to use as a battering ram. Other than a soupy mix of toilet paper, plastic bags, and bloody entrails, there wasn’t much to be found. He stared back up at the grate, thinking. “We’re going to have to blow it.”

  “Blow it? Like with a bomb?”

  He slid one of the satchels around and removed the Claymore.

  “We’ll pull the C4 from one of the mines and use it to dislodge the grate.” He squatted down, drew his knife, and began to cut around the sidewall of the thick plastic housing.

  She quickly moved to stand behind him.

  “Are you sure that’s safe?”

  “C4 is very stable. Normal handling won’t set it off. Neither will a gunshot or even a match. The only way to blow it is with an intense jolt of energy. I once saw a guy roll it into small pellets and use them as fuel to warm his coffee.”

  She shook her head. “Utter madness.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t have a chance to work with explosives in Mossad.”

  “My division focused on infiltration and establishing human assets. We left the handling of explosives to the experts.” There was something about the way she said ‘experts’ that made it clear she was not at all sure that he qualified for membership.

  Bowie inched closer and sniffed the mine.

  “See, Bowie trusts me.”

  “Yeah,” she said with a smile, “but let’s not forget that he’s your dog.”

  Bowie looked up at her and tilted his head as if questioning how she could say such a thing.

  “Sorry, Bowie, but you know it’s true. You’d jump off a cliff if he told you there was cheesecake at the bottom.”

  He whined and went back to studying what his master was doing.

  When Mason finished cutting through the housing, he carefully separated the two halves. The front of the mine consisted of hundreds of tightly-spaced metal bearings firmly fixed in a solid resin. A blob of white clay-like substance sat behind the bearings, encompassing the two detonator wells. Mason peeled the C4 free and set the remainder of the mine aside.

  “Is that going to be enough?” She patted her satchel. “We could get more from this one.”

  “Better not to overdo it, or the pipe might come crashing in on us. I don’t know about you, but getting entombed in a sewer is not my idea of a happy ending.”

  “That goes double for me.” She looked back up at the grate. “I can attach the explosives if you’ll tell me where.”

  “Unfortunately, that won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the blast would go out in every direction. We need some way to direct it upward.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking around, “but how?”

  He scratched his chin, thinking.

  “A sandbag secured to the bottom of the grate would be perfect.”

  “Good luck finding anything like that down here, let alone getting it to stay up there.”

  Mason let his eyes wander over the wet debris until they settled on a clear plastic garbage bag bobbing in the water. He walked over and fished it out. The bag seemed sturdy enough for what he had in mind. Placing it on the ground, he held the mouth open and used his boot to slide in a little of the sewage. Once he had enough to fill the bottom, he held up the bag to see if it leaked. It didn’t.

  Bowie sniffed the bag, shook his head, and wandered over to stand beside Leila.

  Mason chuckled. “I don’t blame you, boy. But we do what we must.”

  He spent the next couple of minutes scooping the thickest clumps of waste and slime into the bag. When he had it about half-full, he pinched the neck and pressed down to let the liquid bubble out the top. What remained was a semi-solid mass. He spun the bottom of the bag, cinching into a tight ball, and tied a knot in the neck.

  “I think we’re in business.”

  “You know what you just made, right?”

  “I made our sandbag.”

  “I was going to call it something else.”

  He carried the plastic bag back to where she was standing and set it on the floor.

  “Let me apologize in advance for what’s about to happen.”

  She looked concerned. “What are you taking about? What’s about to happen?”

  “Just climb back up and affix the C4 to the center of the grate.” He handed her the clump of clay-like material and then squatted down.

  “Wait, what was the apology for?”

  “Come on, up you go.”

  She mumbled something about men as she climbed onto his shoulders. Once he had her in position, she molded the C4 to the bottom of the grate.

  “All right, it’s in place. Now what?”

  “Press this into the center of the C4.” He handed up a blasting cap with electrical wires trailing out the end.

  She inserted the blasting cap, making sure that it was completely surrounded by the C4.

  “Now for the fun part.” Mason reached down and retrieved the plastic bag. “See if you can tie this so that it’s pressing against the back of the C4.”

  As he lifted it up to her, Mason turned his face to keep the water and sewage from dripping into his eyes or mouth.

  “You’ve got to be
kidding me,” she said, hoisting up the bag.

  “We’re adapting and overcoming.”

  She lifted it in place, and as she did, a steady stream of slimy brown liquid ran down her arms, soaking the sleeves of her shirt.

  “It’s leaking!”

  “No, that’s just what’s on the outside.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? This is disgusting!”

  “Hence the apology.”

  Cursing as she worked, Leila pulled the garbage bag’s tie strings through the grate so that the waste ball hung below like a child’s piñata.

  “There. Good enough?”

  He dared to take a quick look up.

  “You’ll have to tie it so that the mass is directly against the explosive. There can’t be any gap between them.”

  Grumbling, Leila reached back up and fed the top of the plastic bag through the grate. This allowed her to pull the ball tightly against the C4. Once it was snug, she tied a second knot to hold the bag in place.

  “That’s as good as it’s going to get.”

  Mason lowered her to the ground, and together they stepped back to examine the setup. All in all, it looked pretty good.

  “You owe me for that,” she said, fishing a rag out of her pack to wipe her arms and neck.

  “If we live through this, I’ll take you somewhere nice. Right now, let’s get back and blow this puppy.”

  Bowie’s head turned in Mason’s direction.

  “Just an expression, boy. Come on, around the curve.”

  Mason unspooled the bundle of electrical wire as they slowly retreated back down the tunnel. When he was confident they were outside of the blast zone, he plugged the wire into the M57 firing device and pulled Bowie close.

  “Ready?”

  Leila pressed her hands over her ears and nodded.

  He squeezed the clacker, and an explosion rocked the tunnel. A spray of wet sewage shot around the bend. Thankfully, it stopped short of reaching them. What was more troubling was the low moan that echoed from deeper within the tunnel.

  Bowie let out a growl.

  “I think we woke something up,” whispered Leila.

  Mason unplugged the wire and tossed it aside, stuffing the clacker back into the satchel.

  “Let’s see if we can get out of here before it decides to come looking for us.”

  They hurried ahead to inspect their handiwork. While the explosion hadn’t completely destroyed the grate, it had blown a sizable hole through it. More important was that the blast had dislodged it from the ceiling, leaving the grate canted sideways across the hole.

  Mason lifted Leila up, and she quickly shoved it out of the way.

  “What do you see?”

  Before she could answer, another moan sounded from the tunnel, this time much closer. Bowie turned toward it and hunched his back, growling.

  “Scratch that! Whatever’s up there is better than what’s down here.” Mason lifted her higher. “Up you go.”

  Leila pulled herself up through the hole and looked down.

  “I’m in,” she said, reaching for him. “Give me your hand. Hurry!”

  “Bowie first.” He scooped the dog up and fed him through the hole.

  Leila gripped Bowie by the fur on his back. At a hundred and forty pounds, it was impossible for her to lift him directly. Fortunately, he put both paws on the edge of the hole and did most of the hard work for her.

  “All right, Mason, now you.” But even as she spoke, they both knew it was too late.

  The creature had arrived.

  Chapter 11

  Exactly forty-two minutes after the attack on the RQ-7 team, the phone rang in General Reed’s office.

  Chappie snatched it up. “Go.”

  “Sir, we’ve got trouble.” It was the voice of his executive officer, Major Brent Waller. “The Shadow team’s gone dark.”

  “Dark? You sure?”

  “Yes, sir. The UAV and comm link are both down.”

  “Shit! This is Hood’s doing.”

  “It seems likely.”

  “That means he’s already on site. Double-shit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And we’re not even in the air yet.”

  Waller said nothing.

  “What’s the flight time to The Greenbrier?”

  “A little over an hour.”

  “How long until we’re ready to go?”

  “The men are ready now. Cargo might take a few more minutes to finish loading, but not long. The big delay will be our departing in stages. That’s going to add several hours to the operation.”

  “This will all be over in several hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chappie thought for a moment, finally accepting that things had gone sideways.

  “Get everyone ready to go. Now.”

  “Pike’s going to notice two dozen heavily armed helicopters lifting off.”

  “Let him notice.”

  “Yes, sir. How soon until you get here?”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “You’re going after the girl?”

  “I have to. She’s the only thing that makes this anything short of treason. Thirty minutes, Major.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll be ready.”

  Dr. Green heard a soft rap on her door. What would normally have introduced only mild curiosity, now caused her heart to pound and her palms to sweat. Nothing was normal. She was hours away from leaving her home with a man who frankly was about as stable as a three-legged cat. Together, they were going to intercept a rogue general before he could murder a woman who most would agree was the nation’s rightful president. All the while, they were living under the rule of a tyrant who was seemingly capable of any atrocity. If Pike got wind of their covert activity, there was a good chance that both of them would be victims of some unfortunate accident.

  The knock sounded again, this time a little louder.

  “Who is it?” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  “Open up. It’s Chappie.”

  She paused, paranoia and reason doing a familiar dance about whether or not he could be trusted. Finally accepting that their fates were entwined, she opened the door a few inches, her foot braced behind it.

  “What do you want, General?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what?” She noticed that he was wearing a sidearm.

  Chappie turned and looked down the hallway.

  “Not out here.”

  She considered the request, and it unsettled her more than it probably should have. The man had a way of getting under her skin.

  “Fine,” she sighed, swinging the door open.

  Chappie stepped in and quickly closed the door behind him.

  “Gather what you need, Dr. Green. We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? You said we had until nightfall.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “What things?”

  “Our recon team went dark. That means Hood’s already at the bunker. And as sure as a dog has fleas, he’s working on a way to get inside.”

  She looked over at her bunk. A pile of clothes lay beside an open suitcase.

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  “So, get ready. I’ll wait.”

  That caught her by surprise. “That’s not necessary. I’ll just meet you at the airfield.”

  “I’ll wait,” he repeated.

  “Have you suddenly become a gentleman, or is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I’ve always been a gentleman,” he said with a grin.

  She cocked an eyebrow. “And the part you’re not telling me?”

  He glance behind him to make sure the door was still closed.

  “We’re all going at once.”

  “And by ‘all,’ you mean your soldiers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But won’t Pike know you’re on your way to intercept Hood?”

  “Almost certainly.”

&
nbsp; “Then why am I going at all?”

  “Because, Dr. Green, you lend credibility to the mission. With you at my side, we’re conducting an official inquiry, albeit with a sizable military force. Without you, it starts to look a lot like an unsanctioned military operation.”

  She crossed her arms. “In other words, I’m top cover.”

  He smiled. “If that’s the way you want to see it.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that one bit.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what? Get a move on. Lives are at stake.”

  She shook her head and turned back toward the bunk.

  “You’re impossible.”

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Listen to us. We sound like an old married couple fussing over what to wear to church on Sunday.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “I suppose we do.”

  He moved closer and tossed a pile of panties and bras into the suitcase.

  “Let’s just hope we live long enough to enjoy rocking chairs and geriatric sex.”

  “General!”

  He grinned.

  It was all part of his shtick, and she shook her head, angry at herself for falling for it yet again.

  Chappie quickly tossed the remaining clothes into the suitcase, folded the flap, and zipped it up.

  Dr. Green took a moment to look around the small room. While there were a few things she would have liked to take with her, all could be lived without. If nothing else, the pandemic had helped to sharpen the sometimes blurred line that divided needs from wants. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist she had studied in college, had used a simple pyramid to describe the hierarchy of mankind’s motivations. The needs at the bottom were most critical to survival: food, water, air. Higher layers introduced luxuries that made life easier and more certain, employment and family, for example. And at the top were more esoteric conditions thought to improve the human experience, such as morality, self-esteem, and love.

  She turned back to look at General Reed, and in that brief moment of clarity accepted that even though mankind’s search for happiness had been supplanted by a quest for survival, there might still be room for something more.