Even more surprisingly, he didn’t.
Cutter moved unhurriedly to the back of the stage and placed the device on the floor.
“Is that thing really going to blow up?” Olivia asked me, incredulous.
From the nervous murmurs in the audience, most everyone was wondering the same thing.
“Last thing,” Cutter said. “Number four: Get the hell out of there.”
He walked quickly to the other Chiefs, herding them protectively to the side of the stage.
The theater had gone deathly quiet. All eyes were on the small silver disk.
“You might want to cover your ears,” Cutter announced.
Everyone did as they were told, except Cutter. I guess his ears were too tough.
“This is crazy,” Olivia cried. “He wouldn’t really—”
The disk exploded with a sharp, short boom that spewed a cloud of smoke from the detonation point.
I jumped, and I’m sure everyone else did too.
It took several seconds for the sound to stop echoing through the huge theater.
Cutter walked calmly back to center stage, waving away the smoke. “Each one of these devices holds five ounces of C-4,” he explained. “This is the result.”
There was a manhole-sized hole in the stage.
Cutter straddled the damage and said, “It’ll blast through the thin hull of a plane like paper. With nearly a thousand of these charges, we will put the enemy out of business.”
There was a stunned moment of silence, followed by an outburst of emotion. People stood and cheered. They screamed. They whistled. They clapped their hands and each other on the back. Cutter stood triumphantly over the hole in the stage and held his arms out as if to embrace the outpouring of emotion.
I have to admit, I got swept up in it too. Before that demonstration I had no idea how a group of untrained civilians could go up against the Retros. Whether it was real or wishful thinking, I now saw the possibility.
We were separated into four groups and sent to smaller rooms to continue the briefing. The four of us went with the group that ended up in a large carpeted meeting room at the Caesar’s Palace hotel. The room had windows, so we were able to see without headlamps. That was great. But there were no chairs. That wasn’t so great. We had to sit on the floor.
The four Chiefs rotated through, each giving us a little more information. With a smaller group we were able to ask questions.
“This all sounds great,” one guy asked Harris. “But there’s a whole lot of open desert between here and there. What’s stopping those Retros from taking us out before we even get there? I mean, we’ve got some nifty little bombs, but there won’t be any armored tanks running cover for us.”
“Valid question,” Harris answered with cool efficiency. “Our plan is based on one very important bit of information. We do not believe that the base is manned.”
Everyone erupted with surprise at hearing that.
Harris sat calmly, waiting for everyone to settle down again.
Kent was the one who stood and put it right to him.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “It’s an Air Force base with hundreds of planes. They’ve got to be guarding that!”
“You would think,” Harris answered. “But we have had eyes on that base for weeks. Mostly the eyes of the Paiute Native American tribe. This is their world.”
I remembered the people on horseback in the Valley of Fire who watched as we were being captured by the biker survivors. They must have been tribe members.
“When the base was operative, before the attack, you couldn’t get within five miles of the place. The perimeter was under constant surveillance. Now we have scouts who have gotten close enough to see the planes taxiing on the runways. Some have even walked right up to the aircraft parked on the periphery. They’ve taken note of all the comings and goings. Only on a rare occasion have they seen a living person. So there are people on the base, but not enough of a force to actually defend it.”
“How can that be?” someone asked from the back. “Somebody has to be operating the planes.”
“They’re drones,” I said, answering the question for Harris. “We’ve seen dozens of wrecks. Close up. They aren’t large enough for a pilot. They’re just flying weapons.”
“Exactly,” Harris said. “What we don’t know is where they are being controlled from. At Area 51 there are very few people. We’ve seen no deliveries of supplies. No arrivals or departures by plane or car.”
“So the base itself could be a drone,” Tori said, thinking aloud.
“That’s what we think. And because of that, we believe we can send in small teams to get to the planes. Starting two hours before sunset, teams of four will take off in cars, five minutes apart, headed for the base. Each team’s map will be marked with the route they should take, where they should leave the main road, and how they should approach the base. All this was provided by the Paiute. Each team member will have ten of the charges you saw Cutter demonstrate. The task is simple: Fix a charge on a plane, activate the timer, repeat the process until all the charges have been set, and get out. You should be at the base for no more than five minutes.”
Kent asked, “And where do we go after that?”
“Anywhere you’d like,” Harris replied. “Except here or Los Angeles.”
“Or any other big city,” Kent added.
“This is way riskier than you’re thinking,” I warned. “There may not be many people there, but these planes have eyes. If one of them catches sight of a caravan of cars headed their way, I don’t care if the operator is in the cockpit or sitting at a control console in Russia: They’ll come after us.”
“Agreed,” Harris said. “It’s the riskiest aspect of the mission. Our hope is that the enemy will not anticipate us doing anything so audacious and therefore won’t be scanning the airfield for intruders. Perhaps there will be an advantage to the fact that they plan to attack Las Vegas tonight. Their attention will be focused here and not on their own base.”
Tori said, “So basically we’re just hoping they won’t be looking.”
“Yes, but our confidence is high.”
Tori and I exchanged looks. Our confidence wasn’t as high.
The briefing continued with Cutter demonstrating how to set the charges again and reminding us that they will detonate thirty minutes after the timer is activated. Matt offered us escape routes and places to disappear after the mission. Charlotte came in to announce that once the mission was complete, the Chiefs would regroup at a yet-to-be-announced location and begin transmitting again to bring the survivors back together.
The whole mission sounded shaky, but the idea of taking out seven hundred of those retro planes made me want to risk it.
By the time we had finished all of our briefings, it was midafternoon, a few hours before the sabotage teams would start heading toward Area 51. Several people came in with food. They gave us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, canned fruit, and energy drinks. It wasn’t until I had to go to the bathroom and was sent with an escort that I realized nobody was ever left alone. Matt hadn’t been kidding. Whoever stayed for the briefing now had vital information that could be sent to the Retros. They weren’t taking any chances.
I wondered if my warning to Kent and Olivia had been real. Had the people who took off really been allowed to go? Or were their bodies now lying in the desert? I didn’t want to know.
When I got back from the bathroom, I saw Kent sitting by himself at the far end of the huge room, eating his sandwich. As if the danger of this mission weren’t enough, I had the additional stress of knowing that one of my friends might be a Retro infiltrator. My hope was that Granger was wrong about that, but since Jon proved to be a rat, the possibility didn’t seem so remote.
In that split second I made a decision to try to find out if I was going to be in even more danger on this already crazy mission, so I took a chance and approached Kent.
“Nervous?” Kent asked as I walked up to him.
He had no idea how appropriate a question that was.
“I gotta ask you something,” I said while standing over him. “When we were at Faneuil Hall, where did you disappear to everyday?”
Kent stopped chewing. He wasn’t expecting that question.
“Whenever I asked, you got all angry and told me to mind my own business,” I added.
“Yeah, so?” he said casually. “Now you think it’s your business?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said boldly.
“Why do you care?” he asked evasively.
“Because after what happened with Jon, I’m not so sure I trust anybody anymore,” I said, pretty much spelling out my fear. “We were in a camp run by Retros. What were you doing?”
He
really
didn’t expect that from me. Kent sat there and stared me right in the eyes for a good long time. I tensed up, expecting him to leap up and jump me. Kent was a hothead. I knew that from playing football with him.
If he was innocent, he could easily have gotten so pissed at me for questioning him that he might lose it and lash out.
If he was guilty, he was trapped in the middle of a whole bunch of people who just might tear him apart if the truth came out.
Keeping me quiet might be his only play. If he attacked, I was ready.
He finally took a deep breath and dropped his sandwich on the floor.
“I just lost my appetite,” he said ruefully.
I didn’t relax.
“I don’t owe you any explanation, Pierce,” he said. “We’re not friends, and I’ve never liked you much. But we’ve been through a lot together, and I guess that counts for something, so I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t tell you what I was doing because I was embarrassed.”
It was my turn to be surprised.
“About what?”
“Because I didn’t want to work. You and Tori and even Olivia were all pitching in and doing your part and being good little campers, but I didn’t want any part of that.”
“So what did you do? Nap?”
“Pretty much. I tried to find a place where I could just hang out, but Chris Campbell found me. I thought he was going to be all mad, but he said he had something better I could be doing. He totally busted me, so I had to go along. He didn’t take me some place to work though, he took me some place to work out.”
“Work out? You mean like at a gym?”
“Exactly. There were a bunch of younger guys working out in an empty health club place. Hardcore stuff. Lots of cardio and lifting. Chris said he picked out the most athletic guys to be part of a program to get in top shape in case the time ever came when Faneuil Hall had to be defended. I was psyched. I mean, I like working out, and I was flattered that he thought I was worthy of that responsibility. I was one of the elite who were chosen to protect us all. So here he was giving me a chance to get out of manual labor and do the exact thing I liked so much. I didn’t want to tell you guys because I knew you’d say I was slacking.”
“You know you weren’t getting in shape to defend Faneuil Hall, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I figured that out. We weren’t being trained as commandos; we were being pumped up to be the heavy-lifting slaves at Fenway Park. I thought we were something special, but we were nothing more than trained workhorses. So you can see why I wasn’t real proud about letting that out.”
“I get it,” was all I could say.
“You feel better now, Pierce?” he asked bitterly. “Does that prove I wasn’t plotting something evil?”
I almost apologized, but the truth was that while it answered one question, it didn’t prove that Kent was innocent.
“I don’t care if you like me or not,” I said. “But don’t keep any more secrets.”
Kent chuckled and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll probably all be dead soon anyway.”
“Are you two talking about me?” Olivia asked brightly as she joined us.
“I’m always talking about you,” Kent said, being all charming.
He held his hand up to her. She took it and sat down next to him. Close.
“Sit, Tucker,” she said.
“Thanks, my food’s over there. I’ll talk to you guys later.”
I left the two of them feeling only a slight bit better about Kent. At least the biggest suspicion I had about him was put to rest . . . assuming he was telling the truth. The story sure sounded like typical Kent. He had a very high opinion of himself, and if somebody stroked his ego, he’d go along. Especially if it meant getting out of work. But it still didn’t prove that he wasn’t a Retro turncoat. And I still had to worry about Tori and Olivia.
I went back to the opposite side of the ballroom to be alone. I wanted time to collect my thoughts and let all of the information sink in. I sat on the floor with my sandwich, ready to eat, but I didn’t get the chance.
“We need to talk,” Tori said.
“Sure, pull up a piece of carpet.”
She sat down and began to eat her sandwich. She didn’t jump right in with what she wanted to talk about, which meant something was bothering her. It took a good five minutes of silent eating before she finally opened up.
“I’m not going to be on your team,” she announced.
That threw me.
“Uh . . . why?”
“A lot of reasons, but mostly because I don’t trust you. There. Done. I’m sorry.”
She moved to get up, but I grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
She pulled her arm away but stayed.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I had to say something. If we left on separate teams, we might never see each other again. I couldn’t let it end like that.
“I won’t argue,” I said. “Do what you gotta do. But I want you to know that I heard everything you told me in Kentucky, and I agree with you. Every move we’ve made, that I’ve pushed you guys into making, was about me getting what I wanted. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Tori nodded. “It wasn’t all your fault,” she said. “I bought into it. I bought into
you
. I really did believe we needed each other, and for somebody who has taken care of herself for most of her life, that’s saying something.”
I couldn’t have felt any lower.
“That night,” she said. “When I begged you to come to Nevada with me . . .”
She didn’t finish the sentence. The memory stung.
I was wrong—I
could
feel lower.
“I put myself out there,” she continued, fighting back tears. “You even told me that you loved me. That moment . . . it seemed as though no matter what happened, we would have each other’s backs. Stupid me, huh? You’d already decided to take off on us and go after Granger on your own, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“You should have told me the truth, Tucker,” she said, her voice hardening. “The next morning, when I heard what you’d done, that’s when it all came clear. I can’t tell you how to feel, or what to want, but I deserve to know the truth. We all do.”
“I know,” I said. “Going after Granger was insane.”
“No,” Tori said. “Abandoning us was insane.”
I couldn’t argue with her. Here I had warned Kent about keeping secrets, and I was just as guilty as he was.