I was pushing her off when a strong hand grabbed the collar of my vest and yanked hard, dragging me across the smooth floor and through the open door. I scrambled back when I was released, seeing Long standing in the opening, firing steadily at the infected. Johnson stepped over me and placed one hand on the inside of the door. With his other, he grabbed the back of Long’s belt and jerked him back before slamming it closed, plunging the room into total darkness.
28
“Rachel?”
I’d seen that Long and Johnson were safely inside, but hadn’t seen her.
“I’m here,” she said.
A moment later I heard a boot scrape on the floor next to me, then her hand fumbled across my shoulder. I reached up and took it in mine, squeezing it gently in relief that she was OK.
“Where are we?”
I remained on the floor for the moment. Loud thumps and screams were already coming from the heavy, steel door. If there wasn’t a way out of here, we were in a big, smelly pile of doggie doo. A few seconds later, Johnson turned on his weapon light and I got my first look at the room.
It was a small office, spartanly furnished with two, metal desks. A PC sat dark on each. Otherwise, the surface of both was as clean as I expected to see on a military base. Slowly, I got to my feet for a better look. And didn’t like what I saw.
The office was no more than twelve feet on each side. Other than the pair of desks, each with an office chair behind and a shared visitor’s chair between, it was empty. The absence of name plates on the desks told me this was an unoccupied space, probably for the use of any visiting, junior officer.
“Well fuck me,” I grumbled.
This was exactly the kind of scenario I’d dreaded being caught in since the world had become populated with raging infected. Trapped in a space where the only way out was blocked by more bodies than we could hope to successfully fight. This wasn’t good.
“Hooah, sir,” Long agreed with me in a quiet voice.
“Everyone OK?” I asked after a pause. “Any injuries that need treated?”
Everyone responded they were unhurt. Finally, a bit of good news.
“What do we do?” Rachel asked what we were all thinking.
“Working on it,” I said, giving her the jauntiest smile I could muster.
“Well, work faster,” she said. “I’ve gotta pee.”
Despite myself, I started laughing. Soon, Long and Johnson joined me. Rachel stared at us, not seeing the humor.
“Knew I should have gone with the Marines,” she groused, leaning her butt on one of the desks.
“No need to get pissy, ma’am,” Johnson said.
There was complete silence for a beat, then we roared in mirth at Rachel’s expense. After a few seconds, she cracked a smile and gave Johnson the middle finger. Finally, we regained our composure and I borrowed Long’s light and began a thorough inspection of the walls.
They were nothing more than common drywall, and sounded hollow when I tapped on them. All except for the wall facing the corridor. It was either solid building material behind the drywall, or very well insulated for sound. But that was fine. I had no desire to break through to where the infected were waiting.
“Hey. Look at this.”
I turned to see Johnson leaning over one of the desks, his light shining directly on it. The center drawer was pulled open and a large sheet of paper was spread across the surface. Stepping next to him, I looked down at a floor plan. In the top, right corner it was boldly stamped as USAF SAC – TOP SECRET.
“That says SAC,” I said, thumping the spot on the paper. “This must be at least twenty years old.”
“30,” he said, tapping a date in the bottom right corner. “We’re here.”
He pointed at a spot on the plans. I checked for the airshaft we’d climbed down, then the elevator, verifying he was right about our current location.
“OK, so we know where we are,” I said, not understanding why he was so excited.
“Bear with me, sir,” he said. “My dad was a commercial contractor. I grew up helping out with the remodel of buildings. Making a big room into several small ones, or vice versa. And that’s what the Air Force has done. See here? When this plan was printed, this room took up a helluva lot more space.”
I looked closer, following the lines he traced with his finger. Son of a bitch if he wasn’t right! This room had once been at least five times larger than it was now.
“That’s not all, sir,” he said, tapping another spot. “There used to be a hallway behind the original wall. See this? The hall had columns in it that were load bearing. That means they couldn’t take them out when they remodeled. It should still be there.”
Johnson picked up the plans and moved to the back wall of the office. Pinching the light between his shoulder and neck, he reached out and ran his hand over the drywall surface. Tapping gently, he knelt and used his knife to pry the vinyl baseboard free. There was a one-inch gap between the bottom of the wall and the floor.
He put his face against the tile and aimed the light into the space. After a quick look, he thrust his fingers into the opening and tugged. A large chunk of the wall tore free with a puff of white dust. He continued to tear pieces out of the surface, quickly exposing shiny, metal studs. Once an opening several feet wide and tall was made, he thrust his head through.
“What’s back there?”
I was getting impatient. I hadn’t forgotten all the people at the airport, waiting for us to return with fuel. We’d already been gone a long time.
Johnson pulled back and started to speak, then had to stop and sneeze from the drywall dust still floating in the air.
“Big space,” he said, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Looks like a lot of abandoned equipment.”
“Lead on,” I said, gesturing at the hole.
He was still on his knees and didn’t hesitate to squeeze between two of the studs, disappearing into the darkness. I followed, Rachel right behind. Long brought up the rear and clicked on his light once he was standing. We all looked around as they played their lights across the open space.
The room didn’t have a high ceiling, but was very large otherwise. The equipment that Johnson had mentioned looked to be computer consoles. Each was covered with heavy, translucent plastic that was coated with a thick layer of dust. Long stepped to the closest and gently moved the protective sheet aside.
It was a control station with a keyboard and an embedded CRT monitor. A large plate was attached to the top that identified it as
Soviet – East
. It had probably been used to monitor the eastern part of the old Soviet Union for missile launches. Maybe even controlled the American ICBMs that were already targeting locations within that region.
I looked it over for a moment, then pressed some buttons on the keyboard. When it didn’t respond, I looked for, and found, a master power switch. Hesitated for a second, then turned it on. The CRT hummed, flared to life and slowly brightened. But it didn’t display anything. Trying the keyboard again, I gave up and powered the station back down.
Even if I’d gotten it to work, I had no idea what to do with it. Not that it would have mattered. The Air Force might have abandoned and walled off the dated equipment, but they wouldn’t have left it connected to any of their networks.
This was interesting, and probably should have been in a Cold War museum somewhere, but we didn’t have time to play tourist. We needed to find a way out and complete our mission.
I nudged Johnson and tapped the floor plans he was holding. He nodded and peered at them for a moment, then walked to the far wall. There was a long row of tall, metal cabinets pushed against it. He took a moment to compare what was on the map with what he was seeing. Adjusting his position several feet to the right, he stepped forward and grasped one of the cabinets, rocking it in place.
“Give me a hand,” he said.
Long handed his light to Rachel and we stepped forward and helped Johnson drag the heavy locker away from the wall. Once it was clear, he shined his light on a door that had been hidden behind it. It was heavy steel, secured with a standard deadbolt. Long took his light back and held the beam on the lock as Johnson set to work with a pair of picks.
“Before you open that, what’s on the other side?”
I hoped he was sure this didn’t open into the hallway where the infected were, but wasn’t going to bet all our lives on it without asking.
“Should be the hallway I mentioned,” he said, continuing to focus on the lock.
It took him less than a minute to open the lock. Long, Rachel and I formed a small, semi-circle around the door with our rifles aimed. When we were ready, I nodded. Johnson was watching, and on my signal, he carefully pulled it open.
There was only more darkness beyond. No screaming females. No stumbling males. Just a tiled floor with a heavy layer of dust and a blank wall a few feet away. It looked like a hall. Johnson aimed his light at the floor and pointed out the undisturbed dirt. Nothing had walked through this area in a long time.
After nearly a minute, plenty of time for any infected to respond to the door opening and the lights, he stuck his head through and looked around. Taking his time, he thoroughly inspected the new space before pulling back and checking the plans.
“OK, it is the hallway,” he said, tracing a finger across the paper. “Walled up at each end, like I expected.”
“Fine, but where do we go from here?” I asked, stepping forward and taking Long’s light so I could get a look.
“Couple more rooms. Look like offices, if that’s what they still are. Then we come to the back wall of the armory. Breach that and we have access to the elevator.”
I looked down as he tapped a spot on the map.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We stepped into the corridor and followed Johnson a few yards to the right. When he found the spot he was looking for, he used his knife to cut an opening in the drywall. Once he could get a hand inside, he removed chunks until there was a hole large enough for us to squeeze through.
More abandoned space that had just been walled off. Dark consoles with names like
China - South
,
Soviet - Arctic
and so on. I didn’t waste any more time playing with the equipment. We moved past them quietly, and were probably the first people to be here since sometime in the 80s.
It didn’t take long to reach the wall to the armory. Johnson was busily tearing away chunks of drywall when a tapping sound started from the far side. He jerked his hand back and took a step away, whipping his rifle up in surprise.
The tapping continued for several seconds before going quiet. After nearly a minute of silence, Johnson glanced over his shoulder at me. I came forward, silently, and reached out to touch the wall. Using my middle finger, I tapped it three times in quick succession, then withdrew my hand. A second later, three taps sounded in response from the other side.
29
Colonel Blanchard stood on the dusty tarmac of the main runway at Groom Lake in southern Nevada, looking around. There wasn’t much to see. The sun had set as they were landing. Now, a rapidly fading twilight gave him a few minutes to see the harsh desert terrain surrounding the highly secretive installation.
They weren’t really much closer to Hawaii, but after neutralizing the Russian ground forces with the nerve agent, he’d wanted to leave the area. Staying that close, with nearly 30,000 infected Russians wandering around, was a recipe for disaster. So, they’d packed up and moved to the abandoned Air Force installation.
“Is this really Area 51?” Nicole asked.
He turned to her, pausing as four Rangers unloaded a gurney from one of the C-130s. Nicole turned to see what he was watching, going quiet when she saw Katie, unconscious, strapped to a gurney. A mask, not unlike what the one used on Hannibal Lecter in
Silence of the Lambs
, covered the woman’s face. Dr. Kanger strode ahead of the group, ignoring her, but she noticed Joe Revard staying close and ensuring the Soldiers were as gentle as possible.
The small entourage followed Kanger across the tarmac and entered an unmarked door in the side of a massive, concrete building. The first Rangers to unload had to use a liberal application of C-4 to force their way inside. They were still putting down infected, and the Marines had formed a large perimeter to protect the area that was being cleared.
“Area 51, huh?” Colonel Pointere asked as he walked up.
Nicole stifled a snort and he gave her a questioning look.
“I just asked the same thing,” she smiled. “Think there’s really aliens here?”
“Don’t know about aliens, but one of the teams I sent in found a bio-hazard lab. That’s where Kanger is headed. We’ll see what else we come across, but I doubt there’s going to be a freezer full of little green men,” Blanchard said.
“Aliens are grey,” Nicole chided. “Don’t you know anything?”
Blanchard smiled and shook his head. He had no doubt there were many things that had gone on at this facility that were just as strange as aliens, but he’d never been one to buy into the theory that the US Government had successfully captured some.
He was happy to be here. Glad to be out of Idaho. When Pearl Harbor had suggested this location as a secure fallback, he’d immediately jumped on the idea. Hopefully, in a few days, they’d be able to continue on to Hawaii. But for now, this was home.
Pearl had suggested there might be survivors who had used the base’s remote location and underground bunkers to survive. Blanchard had hoped to find some when they arrived, but so far the search teams had turned up nothing other than empty buildings.
“Why don’t we go see what the Doctor thinks of his new lab,” Blanchard said.
“Go on ahead,” Pointere said. “I’m going to get some extra details poking around and see what there is we can use.”
“If they find aliens, I want to see,” Nicole said.
Blanchard shook his head again and headed for the door into the main facility. Nicole fell into step beside him, looking nervously over her shoulder when a far off coyote began wailing at the moon. She didn’t see the animal, but in the distance spotted the large Russian soldier exercising his dog.