2020: Emergency Exit (34 page)

“But—” Cameron spoke up as he and the other two were given their weapons back.

“He snuck out the back entrance.” Another agent, Walker, cut him off, anticipating his question.

“Snuck?” Danny asked. “And what shield are you referring to?”

“Moore is an ex-Marine from the Special Operations Command group,” Adams explained. “He was up the tunnel with Agent Smith and put him in a chokehold until he passed out. The guy is one tough SOB. You met him. I’m sure you could tell.”

No doubt
. Danny thought. “So there are still people at NORAD?”

“Well, not actually NORAD,” Adams continued. “The orders came from Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD’s defensive retreat. And then we haven’t heard anything else since. They could all be dead too now, for all we know.”

“There’s a back entrance to this place?” Hayley asked.

“Yes. Well, there was. It is no longer operational. It connects to the Presidential Suite—or did,” another of the men, Agent Deere, volunteered.

“Okay so—” Cameron jumped back in but was again cut off, this time by Danny.

“Hang on, Cam.” Danny held up his hand. “Can you tell us about the shield?”

Agent Adams shrugged. “Sure. All the way back to the Pearl Harbor attacks, Hawaii has been kind of the key to every continent for everyone, military and trade. It’s close to Australia, close to Asia, close to both of the Americas. Our Navy intelligence office is there, and the Marines have an intelligence branch there too. Our second biggest Air Force base is there, and they essentially have another Pentagon in Hawaii.” Danny knew all of this already.

“Anyway, with so many defense secrets and our most advanced weaponry all in one place, the government invested billions in protecting it, most of our national defense budget in fact in the past few years. There’s a perimeter ‘fence,’ so to speak, kind of like those invisible dog fences, that destroys anything coming within a ten-mile radius of any of the islands when it’s activated…a laser grid if you will. Supposedly, it’s impossible to penetrate, but there are rocket launchers set up around the islands in case any planes, boats, or missiles did miraculously get through.” Adams looked around to make sure we were all following.

“That’s the shield?” Danny asked.

“Yes and no,” Adams replied. “That’s above ground. All the engineers and rocket scientists who left NASA years ago have been developing a surface-level barrier for protection against tsunamis as well. From what I understand, there’s a reef-like wall that can rise up out of the water and slow or even deter an approaching wall of water up to forty or fifty feet, or so. Whether it stays up or is just fired up to counter whatever is coming, I don’t know, but I’ve heard it’s incredible. The wall stimulates a controlled wave in the opposite direction to counteract the tsunami. It could foreseeably be used for other defensive purposes as well.”

“How long have they had that?” Danny was thinking back to the tsunami a couple years ago that had flooded the islands.

“Well, it’s been in development for nearly a decade now.” Adams replied. “It malfunctioned a few years ago. Who knows if, or how well, it actually works now. It does have to be activated. But then it could have been. We don’t know. Hawaii was hit in this too, but last we heard it’s at least still ours, so if that’s where you’re headed, you still have a chance.”

“Yeah,” Danny replied. “We intercepted a radio message in Minnesota…” His voice trailed off as he saw the agents nodding knowingly.

“Military vet in Montana,” Walker said solemnly. “We think they got him. He was one of ours, stationed at Moore’s private island.”

Everyone was quiet for a minute. Who knows how many people the Montana man had saved. This all was a ton of information to take in.

Hayley tried to perk everyone back up. “I can’t stop envisioning a dome over Hawaii like that Jim Carrey movie,
The Truman Show
,” she smiled. Danny was imagining the same thing too.

“Sure,” Adams laughed. “I guess it could be kind of like that, except this shield-slash-dome isn’t a permanent structure, and it’s a lot bigger. It covers all the islands.” Adams continued, “The United States never wanted to get caught with their pants down again after Pearl Harbor. Not against humans. And not against Mother Nature either. This all was supposed to assure that.” He shook his head. “We just can’t fathom how the bastards pulled all of this off.”

Agent Smith cleared his throat. “Can I ask, is Moore still alive?”

Danny nodded. “Far as I know.”

“You must have seen him in person?” Adams asked.

Danny nodded again. “Why did you guys let him go when he brought his daughter back?”

“We didn’t,” Agent Walker replied. “Moore brought her down the main entry stairs and left her in the hallway. Then he turned and ran. We feared he was dead. But by the time we got up there, he was gone.” Walker paused. “He looked like he was hurt bad though.”

“He’d been shot,” Danny confirmed. “Probably more than once.”

“Can I ask a question yet?” Cameron raised his hand.

Danny looked at him quizzically. “Go ahead.”

“Is there any chance all your first names are John?” Cameron asked, and everyone stared, bewildered, at him.

“What the—?” Danny asked, as two of the men shook their heads no.

“Never mind.” Cameron sighed. “It would have made sense before.” Danny was still staring at him.
Could he have picked a worse time for a dumber question?

“If I may?” Adams spoke up. “I get that you found Moore, you talked to him in person, and he even gave you the code to come pick up his daughter. But where does he want you to take her? And did he give you anything else? Or say anything else?”

Danny thought about what the Vice President had told him and what he should share. He considered asking them about the Elephant Box Moore had mentioned, but decided against it. “Sorry, guys. I really can’t say anything. You know how it goes. I can’t tell you any of what I know or how I even know it. There’s too much at stake right now. You’re welcome to come with us though—”

The words had barely left Danny’s mouth when Hayley cut in with a sharp whisper. “Danny!” The urgency in her voice captured his immediate attention, and he looked at her as she pointed at one of the monitors.

There was a man standing in the hallway.

FIFTY-FIVE: “Leverage”

When Major Eddie landed at the Alpine Visitor Center with the vice president, he was surprised to see one of The Seven commanders there to greet them. He knew it was highly unusual for any of them to leave Denver.
Why couldn’t he have just waited like the others? What was this guy up to? Had the Russian commander been the one who rerouted them?
The Russian commander halfheartedly saluted. Major Eddie noted the disrespect while pretending he didn’t and returned the salute as crisply as it was supposed to be done.

They moved the vice president into the lower level of the main building and chained him to a chair, and Eddie watched as two men with black cases entered the room and closed the door behind them.
Were they going to torture him? Was this the plan all along?
This could ruin Eddie’s opportunity to talk to the vice president alone. The Russian commander turned to him and asked him where the little girl was.

“Excuse me?” Eddie asked.

“Daughter,” the Russian replied. “His daughter.”

Eddie hadn’t heard anything about a little girl or the vice president’s daughter for that matter. “What?” he asked again.

The Russian started to get angry, and Eddie couldn’t understand anything he said. The commander’s personal interpreter was standing down the hall, and Eddie waved him over.

The troops in Estes Park had captured the vice president’s daughters a few nights ago. The older one had escaped, but the younger one was still being held at the Endovalley camp. The Russian Commander wanted to know why the major hadn’t brought her up with them.

Eddie explained to the commander, through his interpreter, that there was no little girl at the camp, and he knew nothing of her. No one had said anything to him.

This information made the Russian commander even angrier and he stormed off towards the communication room. Eddie followed him.
How much disconnect was there in this army? Communication was clearly a major issue.
The Russian tried to radio down to Denver but couldn’t get through, presumably because of the giant storm. He was, however, able to radio down to the Endovalley base camp, and he demanded to know where the little girl was.

The base commander’s explanation of her escape only burned the powerful Russian more. Over the next hour, Eddie learned a great deal through the Russian’s many rants about the vice president’s family and background. Not only was the vice president key to breaching NORAD’s bunker, but he was thought to be the only American survivor with an access code for disarming Hawaii’s defense system. The man didn’t look like he’d be hard to get information out of, but his looks were apparently deceiving. It turned out he was a military hero. And there was little chance they would be able to get a former Special Ops Marine to tell them what they needed to know, no matter how much they tortured him—unless, of course, they had his daughter. If they could torture his daughter in front of him, he’d cave.
Any man would
.

The Seven commanders had been assured by the Endovalley commander that the vice president’s youngest daughter was being held prisoner, which had been true at the time. But then a man—who turned out to be the VP himself—had snuck into the camp and rescued her. He had been shot multiple times but managed to escape by stealing one of their jeeps.

He had taken his daughter somewhere in the valley and hidden her there before leading soldiers on an extensive chase and eventually turning himself in. Troops had retraced the route of the pursuit, searching everywhere for her, but to no avail. The base commander had hoped to recapture the girl before Eddie and his men arrived to take the vice president, but they’d failed there too.

That was too much failure for the Russian commander. He ordered the Endovalley base commander to be replaced in the morning and assigned that task to one of his own lieutenants. Eddie knew the Endovalley commander was likely going to be dead soon.
You didn’t fail The Seven commanders like that and survive
. Now, as they stood outside the room where the VP was being tortured, even Eddie was cringing at the American’s screams.
How long could this American hold out?

Major Eddie had also been able to put together the basics of why the Russian had left Denver. While he seemed intent on masquerading as some kind of “hero to the cause” by being the one to personally break through to the vice president, Eddie could see there was definitely more involved. It clearly seemed the Russian didn’t trust, or care for, his fellow commanders. He had ambitions with this mission that had something to do with Hawaii, that much was true, but Eddie suspected his ulterior motive wasn’t solely in disarming the last protected state. The Russian had something personal to gain from Hawaii’s fall.

Perhaps it went hand in hand with Russia’s desire to have sole possession of Alaska. It would make sense from a strategic standpoint if you were planning on a bigger power move down the road. If indeed the two situations were related, then there were definitely some behind-the-scenes games going on among The Seven commanders. And if they weren’t all on the same page, Eddie knew from personal experience where divided leaders took their countries—to civil war.

FIFTY-SIX: “Underfoot”

Haunted as the hotel was supposed to be, the man in the hallway was no ghost. And he was walking their way. The agents had been so preoccupied they hadn’t even noticed, and the door above them was still open.
Had the man heard anything?
Danny shot up the ladder, quietly closed the closet door, spread the uniforms out, and slid the floor panel shut with a click, just as the man entered the room above them. There was another man in the hallway now. He too was walking their way.

The cameras made it seem like there were lights on, even though it was pitch dark. The man above them had stopped and seemed to be listening for any sound. The second man stood in the doorway now, and two more soldiers entered the hallway frame.
Man, those uniforms were hideous.
The camera audio was off, given the extreme silence of the rest of the building, but Danny was concerned about the hum of the generator. If they shut the generator off there would be no sound, but they would lose the cameras, lighting, and the heater, and the little girl would probably wake up. And who knew, the silence might then become too loud.

On the other hand, if they didn’t shut it off, there was a chance the vibration could be felt through the floor. Danny was kicking himself for not having thought about that when he was upstairs closing the door. Had he felt a vibration? Had there been any hum or sound? He couldn’t remember. Or was it…?
Shit
.
The heat escaping through the open panel
. The jeeps had to have been driving by and picked up the heat signal. But that was from their jeep. They knew there was something in the building, but they couldn’t take the THIRST system out of the truck to check it out. That’s why they didn’t know exactly where to go. They probably had picked up a sound when they entered the building and followed it to this room. There might not be a way out of this one.

Danny turned to Adams, who was looking around the room to make sure no one was moving and motioning for them to sit down on the floor. “Adams,” Danny whispered. “Which of you is best with the girl?”

“Deere. Definitely,” Adams replied.

Danny pointed at Deere and indicated he needed to go make sure she stayed quiet. Deere nodded. The men above them definitely had heard something. They weren’t moving. They were opening the locker doors one by one and pointing their guns in each one, as if they were expecting someone to jump out. This was a terrible sign. Danny couldn’t believe how careless they’d been. Noise had to carry like crazy down here. Pair that with the heat, and they’d been a dead giveaway. How had they not at least closed the door above them?
Frickin’ stupid!
The lack of other functioning monitors also limited their available intel. From the bunker they had no idea how many men might be elsewhere in the building, or outside in the parking lot.