72 Hours (A Thriller) (31 page)

“I’m inside,” he said into his walkie.

*
   
*
   
*

Archer stopped.
 
Inside?

He realized it had been a mistake to leave Lindsay and the kids.

CHAPTER 95

A metal rack had shaken loose from the wall and fallen across the open door.
 
Tools and various electronic components had collapsed to the floor and scattered.
 
Lindsay scrambled on hands and knees through the mess, hoping she was moving toward the corridor.

Archer’s voice came over the radio in the darkness.

“Lindsay, where are you?”

She jerked her head blindly side to side.
 
She was desperate to answer him, to let him know that she was alive.

The children’s voices carried down the corridor.

“Mom!”

“I’m okay!” she screamed.

“Lindsay, talk to me!” Archer said.

She scrabbled toward the sound of his voice.
 
Bumped her head on the leading edge of the tabletop.
 
Jerked back.
 
Touched a hand to her forehead.
 
Ducked down among the dust and loose cabling and tangled wiring.
 
She groped randomly with an outstretched hand.

“Please answer me,” Archer called.

“I’m trying!” she said to the darkness.

*
   
*
   
*

Rain angled sharply through the narrow opening at the top of the slot canyon.
 
Thunderclaps rolled in the distance.
 
Archer ejected the magazine from his Beretta.
 
He counted the rounds and reloaded it.
 
He had to go back.
 
He scolded himself for leaving the bunker.
 
Someone had breached the tunnel.
 
One of the mercenaries.
 
Archer was keeping a running list of names in his head.
 
So far he had eliminated Echo, Bravo, and Sierra.
 
He was ready to add to the list.

He turned, reversing course, retracing his route through the limestone passage.
 
Water streamed between his legs.
 
There were still seven of them out there.
 
At least one inside the bunker.
 
Lindsay wasn’t answering the radio.
 
Not a good sign.
 
Maybe she was hurt.
 
Maybe they’d already gotten to her.
 
Maybe he had failed at his job and she was already dead.

He listened to radio chatter between Raj and Simeon.
 
Simeon was headed back inside the bunker.
 
Raj was holding his position, glassing the surrounding ridges for signs of the enemy.
 
Archer reported in, stating that he was returning to the hatch beneath the bluff.

The rain fell like sparks of yellow light through the green field of view of his night-vision goggles.
 
Water trickled down the walls of the limestone slot.

Archer was pondering the remaining seven and how to deal with them.
 
There was one already in the bunker.
 
That left six to deal with outside.
 
They had to be closing in.
 
He needed Raj to thin them out from his perch high on the ridge, take out another two or three, make things a little more manageable.
 

It would take him at least ten minutes of hard travel to reach the hatch at the bluff.
 
Maybe longer in the rain.
 
He tried to raise Lindsay again on his walkie, but again no reply.
 
There had to be an explanation for that.
 
Either she didn’t have the radio with her, or she was in serious trouble.
 
Or both.

*
   
*
   
*

They followed his tracks.
 
The tread from his shoes was pressed into the sand and mud leading away from the bodies of Bravo and Sierra.
 
The tracks had been left by a larger than average individual, and he appeared to be traveling alone.
 
The tracks would lead them right to his door.
 
He would never see them coming.

Foxtrot followed the trail of impressions up a rise through the brush.
 
He spotted the opening of the slot canyon.
 
Motioned to Alpha, pointed.

Alpha nodded.

The tracks ended where the limestone chasm began.
 

Alpha motioned for his partner to go up and over.
 
Foxtrot nodded.
 
Alpha signaled his intention to head straight in.

If the lone gunman was in there, they would find him and then kill him.
 
Problem solved.

*
   
*
   
*

Kilo and Oscar marched across a two hundred yard saddle strewn with boulders.
 
They had entered it from its northwest corner.
 
Weeds and scrub had sprouted up in the gaps between the massive rocks.
 
The men were separated by a distance of twenty yards.
 
Oscar was the first to exit the boulder field and scrabble up a severe rise to a copse of stunted trees.

The rain rattled through the branches.

Oscar paused to let Kilo catch up.
 
He settled his back against the twisted, knotty trunk of one of the wretched-looking trees.
 
Took a moment to catch his breath.

Thunder crackled.
 
Clouds lit up with electricity.

Oscar glanced at his watch.
 
Squinted uphill against the rain.
 
He made a quick calculation and knew they had to be getting close.
 
Couldn’t be more than a ridge or two away now.
 
They had drifted off course during the jump, but they’d made up ground in a hurry.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
 
Uphill.
 
Somewhere high up on the nearest ridge.
 
Just a flash of something that didn’t belong.
 
Kilo crunched through a thicket of brush, coming up alongside him.

Oscar braced his rifle against the tree trunk.
 
Put his eye to the scope.

Kilo was breathing hard.
 
“What’s up, mate?” he said.

Oscar held up a fist, flagging him to shut up.
 

Oscar studied the steep terrain set in contrast to the blustery conditions.
 
Spotted a second barely perceptible flash of movement, and settled the scope onto the distant tiny patch of hillside the movement had come from.
 
The thing that had caught his attention was light glinting off a shiny surface.
 
Polished metal or glass.
 
Someone was up there.
 
A possible sniper.
 
Waiting for them.

Oscar gauged the likely distance and angle of approach.
 
Decided they would have to move slow and low.
 
He didn’t believe they’d been spotted.
 
He intended to keep it that way.

CHAPTER 96

The walkie had skittered to a stop in a corner under the table amid a thick layer of dust and webs.
 
Lindsay swept a hand past it, paused, and backtracked a few inches.
 
She sensed its presence, clutched at it with her fingers, scraped it out from the corner and pressed it to her face.
 
She sat cross-legged beneath the table.

“Archer,” she said, holding the button down with her thumb.

“I was beginning to wonder about you,” he answered.

“There was an explosion,” she said.

“I know.”

“It knocked out the power.
 
I’m sitting in the dark.”

“Are the kids with you?”

“No.”

“Lindsay, listen to me.
 
The bunker is under attack by professional killers.
 
One of them has blasted his way into the main tunnel.
 
They are coming in after you, Lindsay.
 
I’m heading back for you as fast as I can, but it’s going to take some time.
 
Go to the secure room.
 
Hit the button under the orange light to close the door.
 
Nothing can get you there.”

“Archer, you don’t understand.
 
I can’t see anything!
 
There’s no power!
 
There’s no light!
 
I can’t find my way in the dark!”

“You’ve got to try.”

“Please hurry,” she said.

“Find your kids and shut the blast door.”

“OK, I’m going.”

“Take the radio.”

“OK.”

“Go!”

“Archer, I’m scared.”

“I know.
 
Just stay focused on taking care of yourself and your kids, Lindsay.
 
I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Hurry,” she said.

*
   
*
   
*

The Hummer was parked beside a silver International Scout.
 
Both SUV’s were caked with red dust.
 
Tango came upon them from the rear.
 
He kept the gun leveled ahead of him as he maneuvered between the vehicles.
 
Rotated right to left, left to right.
 
He could still smell the smoke and burnt chemicals from the grenades.
 
The tunnel had opened into a wide, cavernous room where he found the two SUV’s.
 
He turned the tactical light toward the ceiling.
 
In the hazy darkness he couldn’t get any real sense of the size of the room.

He found the painted steel door set into the wall and nudged it open with the muzzle of the gun.
 
He stepped through.
 
There were no lights, no electric hum of any kind, as if the power had been cut.

Tango continued through a series of low-ceilinged corridors.
 
He followed the cone of white light from the gun and proceeded silently.
 
He held his finger steady on the trigger.
 
When he heard the nearby voices of young people calling out for their mother, he knew he’d come to the right place.

CHAPTER 97

Lindsay fumbled toward the door, stepping through the spaces between the shelves of the metal rack that had blocked the path.
 
The radio was in one hand, the gun in the other.
 
She staggered forward tentatively, choosing her steps judiciously.
 
The gun clattered against a wall as she made her way by touch.
 

She shuffle-stepped sideways and put a hand out and realized she was standing beneath the doorframe.
 
She could feel the liberation of the open corridors branching out around her.
 
She remembered the corridor to the right would lead her back to the secure room.
 
Just walk, she coached herself.
 
Take it one step at a time.

She skimmed along one wall after another with robotic stiffness.
 
She caught her thigh on something unseen.
 
She stumbled, spun around and collided with a wall, then righted herself but realized the stumble had left her disoriented.
 
She no longer had any idea which direction she was facing.

She panicked.

“Ramey!” she called out.

“Mom?” came the reply floating toward her through the blackness that swallowed her.

“Please, baby, keep talking!
 
I have to follow the sound of your voice!”

Ramey and Wyatt had crowded shoulder to shoulder into the open doorway of the secure room, silhouetted from behind by the ominous orange glow.
 
The secure room had remained unaffected by the outage given its redundant independent power supply.
 

“Mom, over here!” Ramey shouted.

Lindsay pressed her back to a wall as she flicked her eyes about in the black void.
 
She scraped along the wall, feeling her way with the side of her foot, kicking it out eight or ten inches at a time.
 
She didn’t want to stumble again.

She came to a corner and slithered around it into an adjacent corridor as she continued on in darkness.

“Ramey?
 
Wyatt?” she called.

“This way, Mom!”

Their voices were growing louder, clearer.

Lindsay sighed a small breath of relief.
 
She was almost there.
 
She came to another corner.
 
Another corridor.
 
She could feel the low ceiling pressing down a few inches above her head.
 
She probed the darkness with the side of her foot and paused a moment to catch her breath.
 
She squinted into the darkness and could at last see the faintest hint of orange light pulsing warmly, bending around the next corner at the end of the corridor.