Charlotte and Kent shoved Jon inside, then Charlotte quickly slid the bars closed. She pulled a ring loaded with keys from her pocket and used one to lock the cell door. Old sheriff habits die hard.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I said.
“For what?”
“For bringing him here. We had no idea.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Charlotte said. “We should have smelled him coming. That was my job, and I let him through.”
“I can’t believe he just . . . turned on us,” Olivia said, sounding dazed.
“He didn’t turn,” I corrected. “He was never with us. Think about it. He turned us in to Chris Campbell when we tried to escape from Faneuil Hall. He was the one who got us to come to Nevada. He told us all about the radio broadcasts and pushed us to find the survivors.”
“But he wanted to blow off Nevada and go to Kentucky,” Tori said.
“Sure! He wanted to know what that was about too! When we were in Ohio, I heard him talking on the radio, but the radio wasn’t working. He was probably using that little communicator to tell the Retros that something was happening in Kentucky. I’ll bet he called in the air strike there! No, Jon didn’t turn. He was using us from the get-go.”
“Got it all figured out, do you?” Jon asked, snickering.
“Shut up, or I’ll come in there and shut you up,” Kent snarled.
“Sure, come on in, Kent. I’d love for you to try to teach me a lesson. Let’s go.”
Jon sounded odd. His breathing was heavy, and his voice was raised.
Kent made a move for the cell.
“Don’t,” Charlotte warned him.
He stopped.
Jon wrapped his fingers around the bars.
“I’ll probably get a medal for this,” he said, panting. “We knew there would be pockets of resistance. That’s why so many of us are out there.”
“I said shut up!” Kent shouted angrily.
“No, let him talk,” I said. “How many are out there, Jon?”
“More than you can imagine,” he said breathlessly. “We’re everywhere. Hiding with you in your wasted cities. Listening in on your pitiful plans. Rooting out nests of pathetic survivors. But this here . . . this was a very big prize. We expected there to be retaliation in Nevada but never like this. Not right under our noses. I’m the one who first heard the broadcast, you know. We sent a few people to investigate, but nobody broke through . . . until me. I may have saved the whole mission.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you fighting SYLO?”
“SYLO,” Jon said with disdain. “The guard dogs of a dying society. They’re nothing more than a nuisance. The mission will be completed.”
Tori and I exchanged worried looks.
“What exactly is the mission?” I asked, trying not to sound too desperate.
Jon wagged his finger at me and smiled slyly.
“You think you want to know, but trust me, you don’t.”
“But we do,” Tori insisted. “Impress us.”
She was playing to Jon’s ego.
Jon chuckled. “Evolution is about to take a dramatic leap forward. But not just yet. There are still too many of you primates left. Especially in the cities.”
He was breathing hard, as if telling the tale was exciting him.
“Primates?” Kent said. “What the hell?”
“Eradication is more complicated with dense population centers. There are too many deep caves to hide in, and we don’t want to totally decimate the infrastructure. Before we can begin to repopulate, there needs to be another wave. More pointed this time. More city-specific. We’re going back to Moscow and Beijing. London has proved difficult. So has Sydney. New York will feel another bite. Los Angeles is the closest, so it will be the first. Once those cities are cleared, we can begin.”
“Cleared?” I said soberly. “That’s what you call it? You’re talking about wiping out every last living soul.”
“Oh no. Not entirely. You primates will serve a purpose. Rebuilding a society will be labor intensive.”
“You mean you need slaves,” Tori said with disdain. “Call it what you want,” he said dismissively.
“You think we’re primates?” Kent said, incredulous. “What does that make
you
?”
Jon started yanking on bars of the cell as if trying to pull it apart. It was a sudden and violent move that surprised us all . . .
. . . and made complete sense.
“Look at me!” I yelled at him.
I flashed the light in his face and saw it. The wild eyes. The heavy breathing. I suddenly knew why he was acting so crazy.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“Get what?” Olivia asked, confused.
Jon dug into his back pocket, took out an empty baggie, and tossed it through the bars.
“From the sheriff’s pocket while she was twisting my arm,” he said. “Aren’t I clever?”
Charlotte’s hand went to her pocket.
“It’s gone,” she exclaimed.
I picked up the empty plastic bag.
“There was a ton of the Ruby in here,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t eat it all.”
“I did,” Jon said, his voice becoming a high-pitched squeal.
“My God,” Tori said with a gasp. “He’ll explode.”
Jon backed up until he hit the far wall, then charged at the bars. He hit them hard, bounced back, and hit them again.
“You won’t make it until tonight,” he screamed. “I’m coming for you now.”
Tori pulled out her gun.
I put my hand on hers and pushed the weapon down. “Wait,” I said.
The full effect of the Ruby was just kicking in. Jon was like an enraged animal with fire in his veins. He let out a bone-chilling howl, grabbed the bars, and furiously pulled on them. The metal squeaked and groaned, but held.
“You overdosed,” I said. “If you don’t calm down, you’re going to—”
He screamed again. It was primal and filled with anguish and anger. He grabbed the cot, lifted it up, and threw it against the bars.
“Go ahead and shoot me,” he screamed. “It’ll be like a bee sting.”
Olivia backed away, crying.
Charlotte watched in stunned wonder.
Tori, Kent, and I had been through this before. It was nothing new. The three of us watched dispassionately, waiting for the inevitable end.
“Is there anything we can do?” Charlotte asked, horrified.
I shook my head.
“No wonder he wanted me to go in there,” Kent said. “He wouldn’t have had the guts otherwise.”
Jon pulled the cot apart with his bare hands, tearing off a length of metal that he wedged into the door to try to pry it open. His hands bled, but he ignored the pain. He was stronger than the metal tool. So were the cell bars. The metal snapped in his hands.
He screamed in despair, grabbed the bars again, and shook them furiously.
“Let me out,” he begged, changing tactics. “I’ll convince them to spare your lives. I promise.”
Even through the Ruby-fueled insanity, he realized he had made a mistake. The bars were too strong. He turned and ran into the far wall, hitting it square on with a sickening thud. Jon was out of his mind, more so than Marty Wiggins or Kent’s father or anybody else who paid the price for taking too much of the Ruby.
“You have to calm down,” I said again, though I knew it was no use.
He grabbed one of the cell bars with both hands, and with a primal howl he yanked forward and back with a frightening fury.
This time the bar broke loose. He fell backward, and with an inhuman cry that showed both triumph and anguish, he landed on the floor.
Tori lifted her gun, though she didn’t need to.
Jon lay still.
We all stood there, staring at the now quiet figure on the floor. The beams from the two flashlights played over him.
“Oh, Jon,” Olivia whimpered.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked, stunned.
“His body couldn’t handle it,” I replied. “That’s what happens.”
“How horrible,” Charlotte said with a pained whisper.
“He got what he deserved,” Kent said with no sympathy. “And he did it to himself. Idiot.”
“Everything is falling apart,” Charlotte lamented.
“Not yet it isn’t,” I said. “But it will. When the sun sets, the storm of planes comes back.”
Tori said, “We’ve got to evacuate.”
“What time is sunset?” I asked Charlotte.
“Around six o’clock, give or take.”
“So we’ve got ten hours to put together a plan,” I said. “An evacuation plan?” Kent asked.
“Yes, and a plan to carry out the mission that everyone came here to do. Is that possible, Charlotte?”
Charlotte continued to stare at Jon’s lifeless body.
“Charlotte?” I said sharply.
“What?” she replied, as if snapping out of a dream.
“You’ve been calling for people to come here to fight back against the Retros. Is there a real plan for this sabotage? Are you ready?”
Charlotte looked at Jon’s lifeless body. I thought she was going to zone out again, but she said, “We were waiting for more volunteers to show up. There wasn’t any time pressure before.”
“Well, there is now,” Kent said, stating the obvious.
“I get that, junior,” Charlotte said curtly. She was beginning to sound like her old self. “Yeah, we’re ready. Let’s take this to the Chiefs.”
She went for the door, and the others followed.
I hung back with Jon’s lifeless body.
One suspect down.
Jon was a traitor. Or an infiltrator. Whatever. But his death didn’t take the heat off of the others. Jon wasn’t from Pemberwick. Granger hadn’t been hunting him.
There was still a very good possibility that there was another traitor.
I left the remains of Jon Purcell in the cage where he died. He had given us some valuable information. Disturbing information. But the power and purpose behind the Retros was still a mystery. We now knew their plan was to wipe out almost every survivor except for those they would use as slaves to prepare for their repopulation of the planet. The first big city to be targeted was Los Angeles, but when would that attack happen?
They considered us primates. Lesser forms of life. Animals. We meant nothing to them as human beings, which raised the question: What exactly were
they
?
Whoever or whatever they were, they had destroyed threequarters of the world’s population and were preparing to finish the rest.
Unless we could stop them.
We had walked to the meeting along the Strip, past the destruction that the Retro planes had brought to the city. The beautiful indoor park where we had met some of the other survivors had been reduced to a pile of rubble with a few forlorn carousel horses poking their noses out of the debris. The Eiffel tower had been sheared off halfway to its peak. The upper section and the observation tower lay crumpled across the street. The only thing left of the huge bronze lion were four paws on a pedestal. The giant Coke bottle was smashed. The massive guitar had its neck broken off. Immense holes had been blown through many of the high-rise hotels. The Statue of Liberty was intact, but it lay across the road with its torch hand jammed against a broken palm tree.
As disastrous as it all appeared, Jon was right. The Retros had been shooting at empty buildings. When the final headcount was done, there was only one person who had died in the assault. It was Tom, Charlotte’s friend. And he hadn’t even died because of the attack. Jon had murdered him.
Jon himself didn’t count. He wasn’t one of us. He was a spy. His body lay alone in the cell that was normally used to hold people who tried to cheat the casino. I guess it was a fitting place for him to die.
The theater was packed, and the people were all nervously chattering.
Tori, Kent, and I took seats near the front of the large stage. We had been given that choice position because we had spent the last hour being interrogated by the Chiefs. It turned out that Charlotte was one of them. She hadn’t mentioned it before, but it made sense. She knew what she was doing.
We spent the time going over every detail of what we had learned about the Retros. After listening to what we had to say, Charlotte sent us to the Colosseum with another escort so that she and the Chiefs could factor whatever information we had given them into their plans.
The theater was fairly dark since the only lights were battery-powered floodlights that were trained on the stage. Camp lamps were scattered throughout the audience, creating an eerie atmosphere in which shadowy people moved through pools of light.
It struck me as risky to have everyone in the same room. If the Retros decided to attack early, a few well-placed bombs would wipe us out entirely.
The crowd hushed when three men and Charlotte walked onto the stage. They were the Chiefs. One of the men was Matt. The second guy went by the name of Harris. No first or last name, just Harris. He had short blond hair and walked like he had a back brace on. Though he had been living in the dark depths of Las Vegas, his white shirt looked as neat and crisp as if he had just ironed it. He definitely looked military. When we were being questioned, he hadn’t said much, but he was definitely taking it all in.
The last guy was a beefy character with a shaved head who went by the name of Cutter. Again, no first or last name. He had a thick neck and heavily muscled arms to match. During the interrogation, he was mostly interested to hear anything about how the black planes worked and what they could do. He took particular note of how we described the complete obliteration of so many of the planes when a missile struck their fuel tanks.
These people were professionals. It was easy to see why they were put in charge of planning the attack. All four strode with purpose to the center of the stage and stood in the spotlights.
“Okay, everybody,” Matt called out. He didn’t have to yell. The acoustics in the theater were perfect.
“We knew something like this would happen eventually,” he began. “What can I say? We blew it. The guy slipped through our security. But I want you to know that the kids he came with didn’t know what he was up to. They’re victims as much as we are.”
I felt the heat of a few nasty stares. I don’t think everybody agreed that we were totally innocent, and maybe they were right.
Matt continued, “It is what it is. What’s more important to know is that those planes will be back again tonight. Count on it. When it gets dark, Las Vegas will cease to exist.”
This prompted nervous murmurs from the crowd.
“Our evacuation plan has us going to Los Angeles,” Matt continued. “We can’t do that. We learned from the infiltrator that they’re planning another wave of mass executions, and the first stop will be LA.”
Once again, the crowd broke out with anxious murmurs. Matt had to raise his hands to quiet them down.
“The alternate city for us is San Diego,” he announced. “The corridor between LA and San Diego is a busy one. For those who want to go that route, it will be easy enough to disappear. My suggestion is to stay away from the city itself. Any big city. They’re going to be targeted again.”
A guy stood up in the second row and shouted, “We get it. We gotta get out. But what about the reason we came here?”
Many people shouted their support with “Yeah!” and that got everyone shouting out their opinion.
Matt quieted them down and continued.
“That’s what we’re here to decide,” he said. “We’ve got to leave here. Today. The question is, do we run? Or do we put the plan in motion that brought us here in the first place?”
Most everyone applauded and cheered the second option. These people were ready for action.
Matt beamed.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Before we go down that road, you have to understand, it’s going to be more dangerous now. We don’t believe the infiltrator had any specific knowledge of our plans, so he couldn’t pass them along. But the enemy will be on alert now. This mission was never going to be easy, but it just got a hell of a lot more difficult.”
The crowd became instantly quiet.
“So I’m putting it out there, if anybody wants to leave, do it now. Nobody will blame you. Take a car and head out. This is your chance. But if you stay, understand that you’re in till the end. We can’t risk letting any more information get out. If you try to leave after this briefing, you will be shot. I promise you that. I’ll give you a minute to think it over.”
The normally jovial guy had suddenly turned dark. I believed he meant what he said.
Many in the crowd shared conversations, no doubt rolling around the options.
I knew Tori would want to stay. I couldn’t say the same about Kent and Olivia.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think I’m scared,” Olivia said. “I’m not a guerilla fighter.”
She got no argument from me.
“Maybe I should take Olivia out of here,” Kent offered. “She won’t make it on her own. We’ll go to Florida like she wanted in the first place.”
Tori said, “So that means you don’t want to fight, Kent?”
“No!” Kent said defensively. “I’m just thinking about Olivia. I don’t know if she can handle this.”
“I can’t,” she said, obviously shaken. “Look at me. I’m only here because I had nowhere else to go. I don’t want any part of a fight. Kent, will you stay with me?”
“You know I will,” Kent said reassuringly. “You just saved my life. I owe you, and I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
I believed he meant it. He really did care about Olivia, and now that she had saved his life he was determined to take care of her. It was out of character for him, which made it all the more noble. Though I respected his feelings, it left me with a huge dilemma. Based on what Captain Granger told me, any one of these three could be Retro infiltrators. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was a definite possibility. If Kent and Olivia walked, they could go right to the Retros and tell them we were getting ready to attack, and that would be the end of the survivors. If they wanted to leave, I would have to tell the Chiefs. I had no doubt that they’d assume the worst . . . and that could be the end of Kent and Olivia.
But if they were both innocent, then Olivia was absolutely right. There was no way she could fight, no matter what kind of fight it was.
Neither option was a good one, but if she stayed with us, at least she’d have a chance.
And I could keep an eye on her.
“You can’t leave, Olivia,” I said. “Neither of you can.”
“Why not?” she asked, holding back panic. “Matt said—”
“They’re already suspicious of us because we brought Jon in. I don’t care what Matt says, if you try to leave they’ll assume the worst, and who knows what they’ll do. They might just shoot you.”
“What?” Olivia cried. “Why?”
“That’s what they’ve done with Retros who tried to infiltrate. I think if you walk out of that door, you’re dead.”
The two of them looked sick. I was being harsh, but it was the only way I could think of to get them to stay.
Olivia looked to Kent with pleading eyes. “Would they really do that?”
Kent was visibly shaken. “I . . . I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.”
“If you stay, at least you’ve got a chance,” I said. “If you leave . . .”
I let them fill in the rest.
“Now is the time,” Matt announced to the crowd. “If you’re leaving, go now, and good luck to you.”
A handful of people got up and jogged for the exits. Their departure was met with absolute silence. There were no cheers and no insults. There was only stone-cold silence.
I looked at Kent and Olivia. Would they leave? Was I going to have to turn them in as possible traitors?
Olivia fidgeted in her seat.
Kent dropped his head into his hands.
Neither stood up.
It was settled. We would all be in it until the end, together.
When the final door slammed, Matt looked over the crowd.
“Is that it?” he called.
There was no response.
“Fine. I want one person on every door. Nobody comes in, nobody leaves.”
A group of men and women scrambled for the exit doors and took up their positions.
“My God,” Olivia whispered under her breath. “This can’t be happening.”
“Are we secure?” Matt called out.
He was answered by the teams at the doors, who each called out, “Secure!”
“All right then,” Matt bellowed. “We’ve been preparing for weeks. We’ve scouted every inch of terrain. We have the plan. We have the will. Today is the day we fight back!”
A roar of approval went up from the crowd.
Kent looked ready to puke.
“Most of you have heard bits and pieces of the plan, but we haven’t shared it all for security reasons. It’s time you heard it all.”
He stepped back, and the Chief with the short blond hair, Harris, stepped into the spotlight. He spoke with the same precision that he carried himself. His words were clipped and to the point.
“You all know me,” he announced. “You also know that I’ve run many operations for the CIA. There’s no sense in keeping that a secret since there no longer is a CIA.”
A woman appeared at the end of our aisle with two stacks of papers. She took one from each and passed them to the next person. The same thing happened all over the theater.
“We used gas-powered generators to power the copy machines,” Harris explained. “There’s nothing classified about the information. We got the images from the city library. One is a road map of the area. The other is a satellite photo. Please take one of each.”
When I got mine, I saw that one was a simple roadmap with Las Vegas near the bottom. There was an
X
designation in the desert that looked to be a hundred miles or so northwest of the city. The other was an aerial photo of what looked like a military air base.
“The map with Las Vegas covers several hundred miles,” Harris said. “The
X
marks the location of the airfield you see in the other photo. That base has gone by many names. Groom Lake Test Facility, Paradise Ranch, Watertown, Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center, and several more that refer to the various military detachments that have been based there over the years. It is most commonly known by the simple designation Area 51.”
Kent shot me a quick look.
“That’s where they keep the aliens!” he whispered.
“It’s no secret that this base has been used for decades in the development of advanced military aircraft. Contrary to popular myth, there are no aliens or alien spacecraft hidden there, at least to the best of my knowledge.”
I looked at Kent.
He shrugged. “That’s what
he
says.”
“I know little about the base other than the fact that its primary function was to be an aircraft design and test center. That function has changed. It is now the base from which the Air Force has been launching their attacks.”
Matt added, “We’ve had scouts observing the base for weeks. They see when the fleets take off and when they return. Our guesstimate is that at any given time there are at least seven hundred planes on the ground.”
That got gasps of surprise from the crowd.
Seven hundred planes? How could the Air Force have kept that many planes secret from the rest of the world?
Harris continued, “There are no facilities on the base for construction on such a massive scale. Our best guess is that they were assembled at several locations and brought to Nevada. Trust me when I say that the CIA was not aware of it.”
Matt said, “From what we learned, they are gearing up for another assault on major cities, starting with Los Angeles. That brings us to our mission.”
Matt looked to the bald guy, Cutter. He stepped forward and gazed at the crowd as if sizing them up.
“I have been a proud member of the United States Marine Corps Special Ops for over five years,” he began with authority. “I’ve served in Iran and Afghanistan and a few other places I’d rather not discuss, so I guess I know what I’m talking about, and what I know for certain is that this will be a hazardous undertaking,”
The guy sounded a little too proud of himself, but if he knew what he was doing, I wasn’t going to criticize.
“Our goal is simple,” he said. “We’re going to cripple the enemy.”
That got a rousing cheer and sustained applause. Cutter stood basking in it.
Matt had to step up and raise his hands to calm everyone down. I think Cutter would have liked the cheering to go on.
“As I said, this will not be easy,” Cutter continued. “Small teams will penetrate the base. Each operative will carry ten of these devices.”
He held up an object that looked like a silver hockey puck.
“We picked these up on a little shopping trip to Camp Pendleton last week. Each one of these contains enough C-4 to blow a hole through a fuselage and damage the avionics, rendering the drones inoperative. From what we’ve recently heard if the charge is anywhere near the planes power source, it’ll do more than just cripple the craft. It’ll evaporate it. Either way, if the planes can’t fly, people won’t die.”
That got more cheers.
“Catchy,” I whispered to Tori.
She rolled her eyes.
The crowd calmed down, and Cutter continued.
“These devices are completely harmless until the detonator is armed. Observe.”
He shook the silver puck. He threw it in the air and caught it. He threw it up and let it bounce off of the stage.
I have to admit, I flinched when it hit the floor.
He stomped on it with his boot. There was no boom.
“You’ll go through this again with our group leaders,” he explained. “But I will now demonstrate how to make these bad boys dangerous. One: Peel the plastic sheet off of the bottom. That will uncover a layer of adhesive. Two: Slap it onto the fuselage. Trust me, it will not come off. Three: Activate the timer. Each device will be preset to explode exactly thirty minutes after it is made active. The timing is not something you will be able to change. You prime the detonator by entering the four-digit code.”
He held the explosive up to show there was a small keypad on the opposite face from the adhesive.
“The code is the same for all the devices. Four-three-two-one. That was my idea. It’s easy to remember because there’s always a countdown before the boom.”
“He’s kind of a tool,” Tori whispered to me.
Surprisingly, the tool pressed the four buttons.
“Four-three-two-one,” he announced.
A green light appeared above the keypad.
“The green light means the clock is ticking. This particular device has been set to detonate in sixty seconds. Six-oh. The only way to disarm it is to input the code in reverse. One-two-three-four. I will not do that.”