Chapter Fourteen
LANA’S CONDO-COMMUNITY WAS pulverized. The eerie hulls of burnt-out cars up the road had been creepy even to Brady. The remains of Lana’s home was more what he was used to: debris surrounding a dirt crater large enough to swallow the whole community. They’d circled it twice, but the blast had scorched dirt, trees, and any traces of Lana over a hundred meters in every direction beyond the crater.
The sun sat low on the horizon, and the morning air was still and filled with the scent of fire and death. Brady scanned the surrounding forest again, trying to figure out which way Lana had gone.
“You’re certain not the road?” Dan asked. “She’s not one for roughing it.”
“But she’s smart,” Elise countered. “And she knows Greenie is after her.”
And that she holds the keys to the world’s survival in her hands, Brady added silently. He hadn’t told them about the Horsemen. Elise needed no other motivation than her friend was in trouble, and Brady hadn’t yet digested how such tiny devices could collapse the countries of the world.
“Four deer paths,” Brady said. “Two of which lead towards known emerops facilities about two to three days out. We know she was headed west, towards Colorado.”
“So did she take the northern route or the southern?” Elise pondered. “Southern.”
“Why southern?” Dan asked.
“Because I would’ve taken the northern. I don’t know, Danny,” Elise said in irritation. “None of us can think like this fed. But if we stand here talking, we’re not gonna find her.”
Brady hid a smile. He’d begun to like Elise even more since spending time with her. She still gave him the look that said she thought he was a lesser being because of his status, but she’d refused to sleep until they found her friend.
“You two team up to take the northern route,” Brady decided. “I’ll take the southern.”
Elise started off before he’d finished. Dan winked at him and followed. Brady started around the crater towards the southern route. None of them had spoken again about what to do if Lana wasn’t alive. They were going to find her either way, though he wanted nothing more than to see her well.
Even if she hated him for what he was. He still recalled the look she’d given him before they left in the ill-fated helo. She’d turned from the sweet, open Angel who kept him company on dark nights to a stranger who wanted nothing to do with him. He hadn’t expected the sudden loss to hurt like it did. He’d regretted taking her to his bed initially but now wished he’d taken up her offer to become his companion, even if only for the few nights they had together. It was better than one night.
Brady pushed her from his mind, focusing on the deer path leading away from the condo community into the forest. He looked for signs anyone had walked through the brush and branches, pausing at intervals to squat and look at his surroundings from a different angle.
“Any luck?” Tim’s voice interrupted his concentration.
“No, Tim,” Brady said dryly. “While I’m searching the ground for footprints, you think you can find her using the technological powerhouse you’re sitting on?”
“We’ve tried. She’s off the radar. I created this monster that can hack into our systems and make herself disappear.”
“That you did,” Brady agreed. “You did good, Tim.”
“Until a few weeks ago, I would’ve agreed. Can you move any faster?”
“We can find no trace of her yet. I can’t forget your deadline. It’s all I think about.”
“Brady,” Tim said, considering. “Did anything … happen between you two?”
Brady’s jaw clenched. How did he tell his closest friend and benefactor he’d had a one night stand with his daughter?
“Interesting,” Tim said. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to have to despise you. I guess this will work out after all.”
“What will?”
“If you … when you find her, I’m assigning you as her personal protection and sending you both somewhere safe.”
“My place is on the battlefield.”
“You can manage battles from a distance,” Tim replied.
“I haven’t exactly done the best job keeping her safe. You sure you want me in that role?” Brady asked.
“Absolutely.”
“You’re the boss. I gotta go,” Brady said and touched his net to close it. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Tim’s assignment irritated him. Brady belonged in the field with his men, and life after they found Lana was not going to get easier. The entire East Coast had to be purged and redeveloped.
He tried to tell himself this was why he was agitated. But it was the raw thrill at the idea of having her in his bed every night that lit his blood afire. He recalled one of their conversations from before their paths crossed, where he’d promised to marry her. He’d meant it as a joke only, something to make her feel better and take her mind off of the chaos around her.
Only now, he couldn’t help thinking she was the only woman he’d ever met he would even consider taking such an oath to. It was part of the reason why he’d turned her down as a companion. He had too much respect for her and Tim to make her a mistress when he almost felt compelled to make her something more.
Brady brooded then dismissed everything to focus on his surroundings. A couple of hours later, Dan’s voice came across his net.
“We got something.”
“What?” Brady asked, alarmed by the grimness of Dan’s voice.
“A body.” Dan added quickly, “Not Lana’s.”
Brady almost sighed in relief.
“A little old woman. Elise said she was Lana’s neighbor. I guess she tried to escape and didn’t get far. She’s dressed in grays—your grays.”
“I gave Lana a set before we left the commo site,” Brady said. His heart quickened at the first sign of proof that Lana might be alive. “Any sign they were traveling together?”
“Not likely. The body hasn’t been dead long. It looks like she was living out here, not traveling.”
“No sign of Lana?”
“None. Still not sure if she came this route.”
“Keep looking.” Brady’s attention shifted again to the forest.
He searched for another hour, finding no sign of human travelers on the trail. Frustrated, he sent Dan a rally call and returned to the crater. Elise was pacing and Dan calm.
“This isn’t working,” Brady said. “We’ve got two and a half days. She had ten. We’re looking at this all wrong.”
“We have no way of knowing where she went or how far,” Dan pointed out.
“Let’s assume she ran into no trouble and traveled all ten days with four-hour breaks every day,” Brady said. “How far could she get?”
Elise whipped out her micro and focused on the calculation. Brady tapped his foot, frustrated they’d wasted half a day without finding any trace of her.
“It depends on the route. But,” Elise paused, studying the results, before continuing. “She’s somewhere in this box.” She showed him the micro, which displayed a forty-kilometer stretch along the Mississippi that was twenty kilometers deep.
“That’s eight hundred square kilometers,” Brady said. “And you’re excluding the area on the other side of the Mississippi.”
“She can’t cross the river. The Mississippi is locked down with everything the feds have.”
“Oh dear god,” Dan said with a snort. “You can give a fed a micro …” He took it from Elise.
Brady waited impatiently as his friend manipulated the data.
“There. Forty square-kilometer area. There are three cities along the Mississippi. I recommend we start there,” Dan said. “I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that she made it all the way to the river.”
Brady looked over the newest results then called for a helo to airlift them. Half an hour later, the chopper descended near the crater. Brady and his team climbed in and were lifted up. Laser fire chased them across the sky, and he gripped th
e edge of the open bay tightly, not wanting another fall from the sky.
When they were too high for lasers to reach them, he sat and pulled out his medic bag. He felt the impact of the past few hours much more than he preferred. He shot himself up with the drugs he’d brought with him, leaning his head back against the back of the seat as they traveled.
The helo left them at Texarkana, the southernmost point on their map, before missile fire from the other side of the river erupted. Brady watched the helo lift off then turned to the abandoned city. The missile fire stopped when the helo retreated.
“The emerops facility is …” Elise frowned and trailed off. “It says it’s at the edge of the city and open.”
“Open? As in, she’s here?” Dan asked.
“No. Open as in … well, they’re all open. It must’ve happened overnight. I checked them yesterday.”
“Some glitch maybe?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Where is it?” Brady asked, gazing at the empty highway system on one side of them and the city on the other.
“About three kilometers. Follow me,” Elise said and started forward.
They jogged to the emerops facility. Brady identified it long before they arrived. It had been raided, and looters left a trail of supplies leading out of it. He poked his head into the facility but saw nothing aside from scattered supplies.
Something rustled in the back, and Brady drew a knife, entering. He followed the sounds and peered through one shelf into the aisle on the other side. A youth was stuffing a bag full of medical supplies.
“Brady!” Dan called.
The boy froze then bolted. Brady cursed and darted around the shelf, sprinting after the kid. The youth turned a corner, and Brady followed then stopped. The youth had dropped into a dark hole in the floor of the facility.
“Here, Dan!” he called and knelt. He peered into the hole. The entrance under the facility was hastily dug but the tunnel running beneath the facility had thick metal walls and concrete floors and was lit by battery-operated lanterns. “There’s a tunnel under here.”
“Underground railroad,” Dan said.
“The what?” Elise asked.
“It’s how people like us get away from people like you. It’s a series of bunkers connected by tunnels, set up by the PMF to protect the people during the East-West War.”
“Ours ran under the major cities. People have expanded them since then,” Brady added.
“Let’s see where it goes,” Dan said.
“This is why the city looks abandoned,” Elise mused. “It’s gotta be huge to contain all those people.”
“A lot of them are,” Brady agreed. He shifted and lowered himself feet first into the hole. “It runs parallel to the river.”
Dan dropped beside him, followed by Elise and the other members of their team. Emergency fracture-snaps lay to Brady’s right. He picked one up then looked down the tunnel.
“The kid went this way,” he said.
“You really want to follow?” Elise asked. “What if the entire city is down there? They’re not going to welcome us with open arms, and I don’t have much ammo.”
“Live a little, Elise,” Dan said with a smile. “This is what we call fun. Right, Brady?”
“Right,” Brady agreed and started down the tunnel.
They walked for two hours without running into any tunnels branching off from the main one.
“We’re about to walk under the next town,” Elise said with a glance at her micro.
“Is there an emerops facility here?” Brady asked. The tunnel widened, and his pace slowed as he saw another tunnel intersect it.
“No. Next town.”
“What is this?” Dan murmured.
Brady reached the intersection and saw the tunnel running perpendicular opened into a crowded underground city. Four-story buildings had been built to the ceiling, flanking a narrow pathway and canal of water, siphoned from the Mississippi. The buildings held lights and people, and the canal curved to the left, hiding the size of the city.
“We don’t have anything this elaborate where we are from,” Dan said. “This is a bunker city.”
Brady stepped into the bustling world. By the level of activity and sophistication, he judged this place had been used for longer than the past few weeks. He was more intrigued by the sight of soldiers in PMF grays as well as those in the regular military’s black uniforms. He slung his weapon over his shoulder as they walked deeper into the underground city. They received some curious looks from the inhabitants. None approached, until one of the PMF soldiers caught his eye.
Brady stopped and waited for the soldier to approach. The soldier looked over his subdued rank then at Dan and Elise.
“Welcome, sir,” he said. “May I escort you to our commander?”
“Please,” Brady replied. “This place is incredible.”
The soldier flashed a smile as he started down the narrow pathway lining the canal.
“Did I see regular army-types with PMF?” Dan asked.
“Yes, sir. We are all that’s holding the world together along the river. We combined our headquarters in Arkansas, too. The surge of refugees created a problem and we heard … well, we heard the rest of the country was destroyed,” the soldier answered.
“Not destroyed. Everything west of the river is fine. Everything east of here is a disaster,” Elise said.
“No one who went west returned,” the soldier said with a curious look at her. “We assumed the worst.”
Brady’s eyes took in the occupants of the underground world. The strain was visible in the faces of many, though those he saw were in good health and fed. The city seemed to be over capacity, with people seated outside the buildings and even more packed inside.
The soldier led them up a set of stairs winding around smaller buildings and into a building apart from the rest. He knocked on the door briskly and opened the door, motioning Brady in.
“Charlie,” Brady said as he took in the familiar commander seated at a table. The quarters were small, with nothing more than a table, a few trunks, and a cot.
“Brade!” the barrel-chested man replied, rising. “What a surprise to see you here! Shouldn’t you be back east, blowing up stuff?”
“Things went crazy,” Brady said and grunted as the large man squeezed him in a bear hug. “This is my team. You remember Dan. Elise is one of the fed’s special security types.”
Charlie greeted Dan and Elise then motioned for them to sit. Brady lifted his chin to the rest of their team, and they obediently left the commander’s small quarters.
“What brings you here?” Charlie asked, sitting on one of the trunks.
“We’re looking for someone,” Elise said and handed him her micro, which displayed Lana’s picture.
“This little girl again,” Charlie said, studying it.
“What do you mean again?” Brady asked, exchanging a look with Dan.
“The feds and PMF headquarters both issued a priority one lookout for her. Neither said why. It’d be nice to know if she’s dangerous. There’s a hefty reward out for her, too.”
The way Charlie’s gaze glowed at the mention of the reward made Brady uneasy. He suspected General Greene had issued one lookout and Tim the other.
“We haven’t found her yet,” Charlie added. “But then again, there are so many refugees trickling into the cities along the river, it’s hard to say she’s not here. We’ve been rather cut off from the rest of the world. We formed our own networks along the river and joined forces with the Twelfth Army. They took up camp about a day south of here in Arkansas.”
“I heard they were headed back from Europe,” Elise said with a frown. “How did they end up here?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Tim re-routed them,” Brady said. “Greenie could’ve done a lot of damage with the Twelfth Army at his command.”
“We could’ve used some help.”
Brady glanced up at Elise’s hard tone, sensin
g she’d not yet absorbed the fact the government she served had splintered.
“What’s done is done,” he said. “We gotta move forward.”
“This is forward?” Charlie asked, tapping the screen of Elise’s micro before handing it back. “Seems an odd mission for someone of your rank, Brade, unless you lost that integrity of yours and are just after the money like I am.”
“I still got it and you still don’t. I think that’s why they stuck you in Arkansas,” Brady said. His gaze lingered on the picture of Lana. It was a recent picture, and she was smiling, her dark eyes dancing. “It’s an important mission.”
“Ah, I see,” Charlie said. “A little toy for you, I take it.”
Brady looked up. Charlie’s gaze was amused, though he said nothing of Brady’s long look at the picture. Brady began to recall why he never liked Charlie that much in the first place. It had nothing to do with Charlie illicitly selling PMF weapons overseas. It was Charlie’s seedy character that disturbed Brady. The thought of his Angel in Charlie’s reach infuriated Brady.
“Rest assured we haven’t seen her. I’m assuming she’s a fed. She’s not going to know about the underground railroad. You came from Texarkana?” Charlie asked.
“We did,” Dan answered. “She can locate and open the federal emergency supply depots. We’re trying to figure out which path she took. We thought she would be in one of them or at least, would’ve left some sign she was.”
“The supply depots we found open this morning?”
“That would be them.”
“These are the ones we searched.” Charlie pulled up a geospatial depiction on his micro and passed it to Brady. “None of these had been touched in years, from what we can tell. There was one in Randolph, according to our patrols, but the people discovered it a few weeks ago and have been using the supplies. North of Randolph, we have no idea.”
Brady studied the map. There were five within two days of the underground city. He passed it to Elise, who looked at the sites Tim had identified.
“You found all but two,” Dan said, looking over Elise’s shoulder. “So we have three to check in the box we identified, if we include the one in Randolph.”
“This definitely helps. Can you contact us if you find anything else?” Brady asked.
“Of course. You all are welcome to stay here for the night.”
“We can’t stop,” Elise said.
“Then you’re welcome to supplies.”
“We’re fine.”
Brady looked at her pointedly, and she crossed her arms.
“If you can spare someone to guide us to the first of the emerops facilities, we’d appreciate it,” Dan said. “Or send several and take whatever looters haven’t gotten to.”
“Deal,” Charlie said. “Good luck finding your girl, Brade.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” Brady said. He ignored the loaded words, rising instead.
Charlie stood and opened the door, speaking to the soldier outside.
“What do you think?” Dan asked, gazing at the micro. “These two are about fifty kilometers apart in different directions.”
“We’ll have to split up,” Brady answered. “You and Elise take this one in the south. I’ll take the northern one. We can meet up tomorrow at Randolph, unless you can’t run that fast.”
“Damn right I can run that fast,” Dan said. “Elise won’t let me stop.”
“Not until we find Lana,” Elise said.
“Tony here will take you out of the catacombs,” Charlie said, returning his attention to them. “Which direction do you want to go?”
“We’re splitting up. One north, one south,” Brady answered.
“Tony will go north. I’ll pull in someone to go south. Whoever is ready, go with Tony.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” Brady said. “When we find her, we’ll be in touch again.”
“We’ll keep looking until then. A lot of money up for grabs, Brady.”
Brady signaled to the two team members going with him then looked to Tony. The soldier led them down to the canal. Brady couldn’t help the feeling that they were still shooting in the dark. There was no way to know where Lana was; he had to hope to stumble upon her. He followed Tony through the underground world and up to the town above. The sky was dark, the stars bright without competition from man-made lighting in the streets. He breathed deeply, not realizing how musty the underground world was until he breathed fresh air.
On instinct, Brady opened the channel to Lana’s net. After a brief hesitation, he spoke.
“If you’re there, I’m coming for you. Just give me some sort of sign you’re out there.”