Author Archive: jsomers

I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

37.

One minute and forty-three seconds after Begley missed her shot, Renicks was crawling through the darkness towards the inner blast door.

They’d landed in a slight depression in the floor of a huge cavern. He judged its size by the hollow sound of the air in the gloom. His eyes were adjusting as best they could; he could see but beyond a few feet things became grainy and blurry. The floor felt sandy and shifting, like standing on a deep pour of fine gravel. Begley had led him to the lip of the depression and he’d climbed up a few feet to peer over the edge.

The outer blast door was open. He could see a sliver of it, a pale glow in the distance, reflecting back every bit of light. A soft gray glow poured from beyond it — the old mine shaft, worming up through the mountain to the surface. An experimental shaft, never intended for actual mining.

Beyond the little depression he and Begley had spilled out onto, the cavern floor was relatively flat, an irregular oval shape, the size of a baseball diamond. Thick metal conduits emerged from the rock floor just past the blast door, sprouting up from the ground like the roots of some monstrous gray metal tree. They spread out immediately, dividing into smaller and smaller pipes, bolted directly into the soft rock, running in straight lines in the direction of the inner blast door, where the conduits dove back down into the earth.

Here and there black boxes with softly glowing LED screens and a single, nonstandard-looking multi-pin jack, wide and thin. Renicks had never seen a cable that would fit the connection.

The two men crouching around one of the boxes obviously had: They had a flat, wide cable plugged into the box. The cable led to a small handheld keyboard. Both men were dressed similarly to the others they’d seen on the security screens: Black body armor, hardshell backpacks, the strange, melted-looking rifles. One was laboriously typing into the keyboard while the other read softly from a small, palm-sized book.

Begley pulled softly at his shirt and he climbed back down behind the lip of the depression to sit next to her, their backs against the rock.

She took the rifle in her hands and looked at him. Renicks nodded and put up his hands: Shooting people in the dark with an automatic weapon was, he thought, pretty clearly Begley’s department.

He watched her as she prepared, choosing a spot where she could lean forward against the slope and have her shoulders up over the edge. She steadied the gun against her shoulder and sighted. Turned slightly and sighted again. Then back again. He saw her take a deep breath, lean back slightly.

She fired.

The noise was there and gone, louder than he’d expected. The gun danced a little in her hands, and a yellow-orange flash lit up the muzzle for a second. He saw the man kneeling over the keyboard spin and drop, transformed into a ragdoll. The other rolled away almost instantly, disappearing into the shadows.

“Fuck!” Begley hissed, sliding down to join him again. “I can disable the hook up if I can get up there, but I need you to draw him off.”

Renicks nodded. His heart pounded in his chest, and dread filled every space between his thoughts. The man in the darkness was a professional. Trained in weapons, in combat. In killing. Renicks was an amateur.

He paused, thinking that he had shown a certain dumb talent for killing people. Hated himself immediately.

He nodded and leaned forward again. “Wait for my signal!”

He gave a thumb’s up, hoping he was projecting a confidence he didn’t feel, and got up into a crouch. Ran along the lip of rock as far as he could; fifteen or twenty feet away from the blast door the depression rose up to meet the rest of the floor and he lost his cover. He dropped into a crawl and moved as quickly as he could, trusting in the gloom to cover him.

He’d thrown himself into motion without allowing himself to hesitate. He knew if he stopped to think, he’d freeze up. As he moved he raced through what needed to be done. He had to distract and engage the surviving man. Keep him off of Begley. Kill him if he could.

When he reached the blast door, he pushed himself into the deepest shadow available and gave himself ten seconds to look around. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest like it was trying to break free, adrenaline soaking into everything. He tried to fix the geography in his head. The outer blast door was not directly across from the inner blast door. The inner door was also set lower; from where he lay panting in the dark, Renicks could only see the top of the other opening. A pale gray rectangle. Begley was in the depression, hidden completely by shadows. As was the surviving man, hiding somewhere else in the gloom.

He let the rifle drop. Pulled his bag around so it sat on his belly. Tore it open and dug into the contents. The Kimber. The survival kit. The bottle of Scotch, forgotten deep down on the bottom. Found Uncle Richie’s Zippo.

He went back to the survival kit: A couple of fishhooks, the water purification tablets — turned to powder in their little plastic bag — a small game snare. He put it all back into his bag.

Looked around again. He took a breath and nodded to himself. He didn’t have time for a plan. He needed to just do whatever came to mind. He reached down and took hold of his own shirt. Tore a big swatch of the fabric free with both hands. About five inches of the material. He dug the bottle of whiskey out of his bag again, took the cork between his teeth and yanked it free, spitting it out into the darkness. Took a swig. Regretted the swig immediately as his heart lurched and his head swam. He poured some of the liquor onto the torn piece of his shirt, then a bit more right onto the gritty floor of the cavern. Stuffed the fabric into the neck of the bottle until it filled it like a plug, a plume of white spilling out of the glass.

Carefully set the bottle down on the floor. Slipped the Zippo into his pocket. Getting back into a crouch, he took the Kimber from the bag and placed it in a shadowed nook right next to the blast door.

He crept back to where he’d left the bottle and rifle and picked both up. Slowly straightened up. Heart pounding, he counted to ten, wondering, far too late, if Darmity’s people had brought night vision with them.

Then he figured if they had, he would have been shot two minutes ago.

He held the rifle exactly the way you weren’t supposed to: One handed, arm outstretched. He pointed it off to the side. Tried to brace himself.

Well, so much for my marksmanship merit badge, he thought.

Squeezed the trigger.

The rifle roared for a split second, the muzzle flashing in the gloom. The rifle bucked and jumped out of his hand, straining his wrist. Biting back a cry, he stumbled a little but forced himself to watch the darkness. Just as he steadied himself, he saw it: A similar flash, then the noise of return rifle fire, aimed a few feet to his right.

He started running.

Fixing the location of the flash in his mind, he ran as fast as he could push himself, holding the improvised bomb in one hand while he dug the Zippo out of his pocket with the other. He approached at an angle, coming around in a loop so he would pass in front of the spot from the left side, from the shadows across from the open blast door.

Lungs burning, he forced himself to wait until he started the approach, looping inwards. Then he snapped the lighter open and flicked it into life, the tiny yellow flame dancing immediately. He touched it to the piece of white cloth and it flared into bright life. Without pausing to think, he threw it as he ran.

The tiny flame traced an arc across the distant, black ceiling of the cavern and smashed into dancing flames. For a moment they swirled on the floor, liquid, rising up in tongues. A second later they seemed to reach out like an arm reaching into the darkness and grabbing onto a man’s form, revealed next to the pyre as if he’d formed out of the new light itself. Then there was a man outlined in flames, running. Running. Falling to his knees. A burst of gunfire from the darkness of the downslope, and he fell backwards as if kicked.

Triumph surged through Renicks. He resisted the urge to throw his arms up in the air as he made out the dim form of Begley scrambling onto the maze of conduits. Continued to run out of sheer exhilaration. As the triumph faded into a vague, rotten horror, he passed close to where the first man had fallen, shot by Begley. He slowed to a walk, all the energy draining from him. He’d killed two people directly. Murdered them. Self-defense, maybe, but they were still dead. He’d aided in other deaths, too.

He stopped and stood for a moment. Pictured the woman up in the TV studio again. His kids were going to ask him to tell them how this all happened. He was going to have to tell them the story.

“Jack!”

He blinked in the darkness and snapped his head up. Pray for forgiveness on your own time, Jack, he told himself, and pushed himself back into motion, back towards Begley. She was crouched over the tiny handheld LED screen and keyboard, attached via the thin, broad cable to the black box on the cavern floor.

“This will take me about ten minutes,” she said without looking up.

Renicks shook off the last clinging horror and self-disgust, clearing his head. “Maybe we should go find an ax. Just cut the lines.”

She shook her head without pausing or looking up. “Can’t. Interrupt the signal improperly, the charges blow. It’s designed to prevent people from taking possession of this facility when it’s online as the new Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters.” She tapped something into the keyboard and studied the stream of data that spilled out after it. Shook her head. Finally looked up at him.

She was exhausted, and Renicks felt immediately guilty. She was in worse shape than he was. She was still focused and working to save lives — to save their lives. “I need ten minutes.”

He nodded. “What about the mine shaft?” he said. “Just making a run for it?”

She looked back down at the screen. “Aside from the potential deaths of civilians? We’re not alone in this facility yet, Jack. We walk away, Darmity gets in here five minutes later and sets the charges, we’re half a mile up that shaft when a fireball comes through, burning us alive, and then the whole damn thing just collapses. We don’t even know how many people they’ve sent. We’ve seen nine, including our friend Mr. Darmity. There could be dozens more we just haven’t seen.”

Renicks nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m not thinking. I’m — ”

Somewhere behind them, a red flashing light sparked into life. A klaxon split the silence. And a deep rumbling noise he could feel in the stone under him lurched into life. The Blast door, being opened.

In his head, Renicks heard Begley again. We’re not alone in this facility yet.

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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

36.

One minute after their decision, Renicks trotted unsteadily behind Begley, wondering how in the world she managed to almost run with a broken leg while carrying a heavy automatic rifle. He wanted to draw some blood when they were finally done with this and win a Nobel Prize analyzing her genetic code. They were retracing their steps back to the service tunnel. They passed a series of unmarked doors along the damp, finished hallway that Renicks remembered. He knew the door that led to the tunnels was rusted. There was water flowing nearby, deep underground. He could smell damp in the air and wondered how often they had to tear out the carpet and moldy drywall, replace everything dry. Every few years, he thought.

When the rusted door came into view, Begley attacked it. Tore it open with a grunt. Her own momentum carried her back into Renicks. He steadied her and pushed her gently back into forward motion.

He felt the energy. The necessity. They had, for the first time, an advantage. They were some minutes ahead of Darmity, and for the first time knew exactly where all the other players were: Above them. Everyone was above them, heading down. Heading down fast, and coming armed. But simply knowing something concrete was energizing. He hadn’t realized how long they’d been running blind, scampering from one faulty hiding place to the next, always worried about turning a corner and finding an enemy.

Running felt perfectly natural.

Three steps into the service tunnel. There was the butt end of the ladder leading up to the thirteenth level; Renicks stared at it and skidded to a halt. Stood for a second, an image of Begley sliding down the last few feet of a ladder flashing through his thoughts.

Begley skidded to a halt on the gritty, irregular floor and twisted around. “Jack!”

“Go!” he shouted back. “I’ll catch up in a second!”

She hesitated, then spun and hobbled off. He watched her for a second, knowing how much pain she had to be in. Then he tore open his bag and started riffling through its contents. Pulled the little mini-survival kit out and dug into it, extracting the fishing line. Dropping the rest of the kit back into the bag, he freed the fishing line from the plastic clip that kept it looped up and let it dangle free: About four feet of thin, shining wire.

He looked back at the ladder. Saw Begley sliding down. Wondered, for just a second, if that was a common trick. Decided it probably was.

When the ladder emerged from the channel a few feet above him, metal pieces had been welded into place, jutting back to the walls where they were attached with big, rusted bolts. To stabilize the last section of ladder. He stepped up close to the ladder. Put his face where it would be if he was sliding down, terminal velocity from above. Lined up the bolts on the sides above him. Concluded that any wire strung between those bolts would slice up through the chin.

Thought about that for a second.

Thought about Frank Darmity. Saw his flat, squinty stare. Remembered his voice on the PA, making Begley scream. Thought about the guns. These people, he reminded himself, had tried to murder millions, and had come to make sure he and Begley were dead. Would kill thousands as collateral damage if the complex was destroyed before a complete evacuation had been effected.

Keeping his weight on his good ankle, he climbed up a few feet. The silence was almost perfect again, and for a second he imagined he could feel the ladder vibrating under his hands. Someone up above in the darkness, riding down. Then he hooked one arm through the rungs and hung on, looping the fishing line around the bolt on the left. Three, four times, twisted. Looped it again. Twisted. Made a knot. Pulled it over to the other side and looped it around the other bolt. Pulled it taut, as tight as he could manage. Looped and twisted until it was secure. He plucked it with one finger and climbed down to the floor.

It was invisible. Anyone sliding down the ladder would have no warning. He thought it would probably clear their body and catch the face.

Hesitated for one more second. Then turned and moved as quickly as he could after Begley.

He pushed all thoughts out of his head. Blocked out any chance of imagining someone slicing through that wire. Told himself this was war. Told himself that anyone coming down that ladder was coming to set off the charges and kill Begley and himself. Told himself a lot of things, quickly and loudly, shouting to distract himself.

He caught up with Begley quickly. The hallway seemed to be devolving. The floor had become uneven and the walls were rougher. The regular hanging lights had given way to bare bulbs sprouting from a single electrical conduit. He had the impression of coming to the edges of the complex. Everything blurry. Unfinished. It was palpably colder and damper.

Begley turned her head as he fell into step behind her.

“The charges are throughout the complex,” she said breathlessly, turning back. “Every level. Deep inside the concrete. Designed to pancake the whole goddamn place. Which will destabilize the whole mountain. Rockslides, mudslides in addition to the fireball and gas venting. You can’t get to the charges. You’d have to drill into the pour on every level, each one would take a fucking hour to get to, and they’re pressure-locked, so the minute the air hit them from a bore-hole they’d trip individually. They’re linked to the outside via dedicated satellite hookup. Designed to be separate from the Security Office, because the whole idea is to blow it out from under someone seizing the complex illegally.”

She took a few steps in silence, catching her breath.

“They ran the satellite hookup through the old mine shafts. If you want to disarm the system, you have to disconnect the hookup from the complex. If you want to set the charges off manually, you have to simulate a signal from the hookup!”

They came to a right-angle in the corridor. Renicks watched Begley limp around the corner. Lungs burning, he raced after her. His ankle shooting shards of glass up into his calf with every step.

He turned the corner and slowed just a fraction of a step. The corridor widened out into a small room. On his right was a huge steel blast door. A single sheet of steel set into the rock. A small keypad — for a moment Renicks was stupidly amused at the tiny scale of the keypad compared to the door itself, which was about ten feet high and twelve or fifteen feet wide. It was unmarked. The metal reflected the weak light back and appeared to glow a soft orange-yellow.

He turned and saw Begley continuing down the corridor, which narrowed down again, disappearing into near blackness. The electrical conduit on the ceiling ended at a junction box a few feet past the corner.

“Isn’t that the access door?” he shouted, lumbering after her.

The blue light of her tiny flashlight sprang into being ahead of him. “Yes — two sets of blast doors, one leading to the old mine shaft itself and one into here. They take time to open. Five minutes or so before a single person can squeeze through, ten minutes to full aperture. It’s a production.”

He could barely make out her outline as he closed in again. He could feel the walls narrowing down. Reached up and found he could touch the ceiling. Their sounds were muffled back at them. The corridor was shrinking.

“This,” Begley said, breathing hard as she came to a stop, “is the shortcut.”

Renicks squeezed in next to her. With his shoulder jammed into what felt like rough, raw rock, he was pressed against her tightly. He could feel her struggling for breath. Could feel her body heat. She was exhausted. He was exhausted, he realized. Heart pounding, head pounding, legs shaking. They were both close to their physical limits.

He squinted, following the weak pale light of her flashlight. The space tapered off sharply from where they were — the ceiling crashing down, the walls sucking in, until there was just a black shadow, perhaps two feet high, a foot and a half wide. If that.

“What is it?”

Begley turned to face him, giving him a sudden sense of release as he was no longer being pressed into the wall. “Just a void. I had hours to myself in this goddamn tomb, so I wandered. I read specs and old manuals. I explored. I don’t think this was here when they built the place. I think something gave way and this opened up. No one ever noticed. It’s a hole, basically. It’s wet. Water erosion, I guess, caused it.”

Renicks strained his eyes at it. It was just darkness. Shadow. “A hole.”

“It’s tight. For me. For you, it’ll be really tight. It drops you into the cavern beyond, what the old mineshaft opens into. Where the hookup is.”

“You climbed into that,” he said. He tried to imagine the frame of mind that would lead Begley to shrug and climb into it. The level of boredom required. He didn’t think he had a suitable experience with which to compare it. The idea of pushing himself into that hole, with the weight of rock around him was horrifying. He knew immediately that the only thing that would ever convince him to do so was something like Frank Darmity with an automatic weapon creeping up behind him.

He felt rather than saw her preparing. Pulling off her jacket. Leaning the rifle against the wall.

“No way to carry the guns in. But we can use the straps to pull them in after us,” she said. “Give me yours.”

He slung it off his shoulder and held it out blindly until he felt her grab it. “How come you didn’t report this? It’s a pretty major breach of security.”

She removed the strap from his rifle and hers. “I don’t know. You can’t get into the cavern from the outside except through another blast door, and getting up into the void from in there is not nearly as easy as dropping down into the cavern from here.” She tied the straps together into one, then set the safeties and looped it around the rear sights, binding them together. “It was a serious breach of protocol, I admit it, Jack. When we’re topside you can file a complaint.”

He managed a ghost of a smile. “I will. I already have to file one against Darmity, so it will be no trouble.”

“I go first. When the rifles drop in, come in after me. I’ll talk you through if you get disoriented.”

Renicks swallowed. “Jesus,” he said.

Begley paused. After a second he felt her hand on his. “You gonna be able to do this, Jack?”

He swallowed again. Felt his heart lurching in his chest, a crazy non-rhythm. He thought if his heart were doing that under any other circumstances he’d be in the car already, headed for the Emergency Room. He nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

She squeezed his hand. Then let go. Went back to work.

“We’ll be inside in thirty seconds,” she said. “It’ll take them, minimum, five minutes once they get here. That’s our window. If we can trash the hookup in five minutes, they can’t blow the place.”

He shook himself. “But can still shoot us.”

He heard her small, cute laugh. “Well, sure.” She paused. “Here, take the light. I know what I’m doing here. You’ll need it more.”

He took the flashlight from her. Watched her sit on the floor, push her legs into the shadow. He wondered if her splint was going to cause her trouble, but she made smooth progress, and he figured it was a sloping fall, a straight shot. She pushed herself forward with her hands, the straps of the guns looped around one fist, dragging them behind her. Her feet disappeared, then her legs, then her midsection, and finally her head. The rifles rattled on the stone right behind her, then were sucked into the darkness behind her. It was as if the darkness was eating her.

He waited. Realized he was waiting to hear her say she was okay, or that he should come through now. Felt stupid.

Far off, he heard a sudden shriek. There and gone.

He dropped onto the floor and pushed his feet forward until they were swallowed by the darkness. Felt no resistance. Took two quick, deep breaths. Began pushing himself into the void. He watched his legs disappear, eaten by darkness. Felt a change in temperature; it was colder once you crossed the threshold. He felt the top of the void and leaned back, getting onto his elbows. When his shoulders were slipping under, he could just see the rough line of the top of the hole. Just enough room for him to slide into. His feet were suddenly dangling over an edge, and he could see that he’d be able to just barely push himself along until gravity took over and sucked him down.

He pushed with his arms until he couldn’t go any further that way, then used his legs. His calves were bent over the unseen edge; he pulled with his hamstrings, letting his head and shoulders lie on the floor as he pulled himself further in. The dim glow of the flashlight showed him rough gray stone, droplets of milky water hanging half an inch from his eyes.

Then he stopped.

He kicked his legs but was unable to get any more purchase; they were extended out too far. He stopped breathing. He could twist his arms but they were wedged between his body and the rock and for a moment he couldn’t get them free. A black, swallowing terror welled up inside him. He thrashed for a second, kicking his legs uselessly and twisting his torso violently. One arm squeezed free, and he quickly found the inner edge of the slot with his free hand. With just his fingers he managed to slide himself another inch or so, and that was enough. His other arm squeezed free and then he was able to pull himself the rest of the way through. Just before his head cleared, gravity finally noticed him and yanked him down. He scraped his forehead on the rough stone and tumbled a few feet down a sharp, rocky incline, biting his tongue and knocking his head a few times.

He lay for a moment on a wet, sharp surface. It was painful, but he didn’t want to move again. Perhaps ever.

“Jack,” Begley whispered, almost in his ear. “You okay?”

He nodded. Felt foolish. “I’ll live,” he whispered back. He wondered why they were whispering. He didn’t see the flashlight; there was a thin film of weak, gray light that nudged the edges of things and left them indistinct. He could barely see Begley, a foot away. She looked spectral and immaterial, like a ghost come to haunt him. She held out one of the M16s.

“Good,” she said. “Because we’re not alone in here. Someone beat us to it.”

EPUB | MOBI | PDF

I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

35.

Thirty seconds after watching the woman salute Frank Darmity, Begley turned to Renicks and said “What the hell was that?”

Renicks finished his third water bottle in the last few minutes. He was feeling almost okay, though every muscle and ligament still ached. There was a thick core of exhaustion deep inside him, spreading outward, but he didn’t feel like he was going to fall over any more. “La flava regxo,” he said, hearing the tinny voices patched in from the studio. “A pass phrase. Esperanto. It means The Yellow King.”

Begley pursed her lips. “Looks like our Mr. Darmity is more highly placed in this than we thought.”

“Looks like our Mr. Darmity might be running this.”

There was a moment of silence. Renicks thought its flavor would accurately be described as horrified.

Their odds, he thought, had actually just gotten worse. The plan had been simple. Neither of them were in any shape to take on a fresh group of heavily armed, trained people. If they were here to “clean up”, lure them to a room with Mr. Darmity and let them sort each other out—he’d thought their worst-case scenario was just one of them dead. Instead of weakening or eliminating one of their enemies, they’d combined them into one more effective unit. And they still had to make it out of the complex alive.

“There were six of them when I saw the first poor bastard get gunned down,” Begley said. “Where are the other three?”

Begley leaned forward and pointed at one of the screens. “Lobby.”

Renicks followed her pointing finger and studied the screen. In the large, useless lobby, grainy and grayscaled, three men in similar body-armor were visible. One appeared to be walking the perimeter, his futuristic-looking rifle aimed down at the floor in casual competence. The other two were working together on the floor, back towards the unused desk. A large black bag lay next to them.

“Bolting down tripods for heavier guns. They’re planning to defend against an assault.”

Renicks frowned. Watched the screen intently. His head throbbed like his brain was trying to squeeze out through his eyes and ears. “They’re going to try and hold the complex? Jesus.”

Begley leaned back, letting out an explosive sigh. Renicks looked at her. She was dirty. Bloodied. Her crisp, tailored suit had been torn and sagged off of her in unfortunate ways. She stood there with her arms crossed under her breasts fiercely, chewing her lip. Her posture, he noticed, was still perfect. For a moment, he wanted to reach out and touch her. Just her shoulder, or upper arm. Just friendly contact.

He didn’t move. Looked back at the security screens.

He watched the tiny figures in the lobby for a moment. Conscious of the silence. He glanced back at the TV studio. Darmity and the other three were gone.

Suddenly it felt like they could be right outside the door. This huge underground space, he thought. Everywhere they went there could be someone with an automatic weapon waiting to kill them.

He leaned forward. “Wait. Look.”

Begley leaned in next to him. Their shoulders touched. He was aware of her physical presence suddenly. Warm. Solid. Comforting.

“What?”

He hesitated, trying to make the grainy security signal clearer. Trying to will it into better resolution. At the pace this complex was updated, he figured the Federal Government would get around to installing high-definition video feeds by the next century.

Then one of the three figures moved, and he had a clear view of what they were doing again. He nodded. “The tripods. Look at them.”

Begley sucked in breath. “What the hell.” She turned to look at him. “They’re oriented inward.”

Renicks nodded, leaning back. “They’re not holding the complex against an assault. They’re just making sure we don’t get out.”

Begley stepped back, turned, and began the ridiculous process of pacing in the tiny office. Three steps up, three steps back. Three steps, three steps. Then she stopped and grabbed his arm.

“Jesus, Jack, it’s the same playbook. The charges. Underneath the facility.”

Renicks blinked. Head pounding. “What?”

“They planned to blow the place. I think if they failed to pull this off, the President was supposed to blow the place and erase all evidence. But he didn’t — he killed himself. That wasn’t part of the plan. I think the idea was that Grant would be able to walk away untouched, maybe even a hero, the strong leader who guided us through a crisis. Win-win — either they launch their attack and manage their Soft Coup or whatever, or they get out of it with his image burnished and no one any wiser about whoever these crazy bastards are.”

“But then Grant goes loses his nerve. He takes the easy way out.”

“So, the backup plan. Blow this place. Destroy every single scrap of evidence.”

Renicks nodded. “There’s a lot, right? A lot of fingerprints. They re-wired the place. There’s surveillance video, access logs. The cut magnetic locks on the suite. The Brick, too.”

“Us.”

“Fucking hell.”

“This was the plan from the beginning. If they fail, blow the whole complex, make sure no one knows what’s happened here.”

Renicks nodded. “That animal wasn’t killing the other agents to keep them silent. He was killing them so they wouldn’t get in the way.”

He turned and stared at the screens again, searching for movement. The tiny office suddenly felt small. Hot.

“So what do we do?”

“We can’t go up,” Begley said immediately. “Even assuming we can slip past Darmity and his three little helpers, we hit the lobby and there’s a choke point. No other way out except the elevators. We’d be cut to ribbons. I’m willing to bet those three are ordered to fire at anything that comes up. Even their own people. No one is supposed to come out of this alive.”

“And those three? In the lobby?”

She shrugged. “Suicide. Or suicide by cop, if need be. Won’t be hard to get themselves shot once the FBI and the Marines arrive.”

Renicks suddenly shook his head. Remember, suddenly, the news feed they’d seen earlier: Bluemont being evacuated. “Doesn’t matter. Think about it. This place is rigged to be destroyed. That’s a lot of force. Even if we could teleport to the surface right now and start running — ”

Begley finished the sentence. “We’d never get clear of the blast radius.”

They stood for another few seconds in silence. Renicks swallowed, something hard and choking. All this, he thought. And then he’d thought maybe they were going to get out alive. He thought of Stan. At least someone had some idea of what had really happened. He knew Stan well enough; he would investigate. Was probably already getting into trouble over it.

He looked back at Begley. She was staring at the monitors without focus, just staring. Lost in her thoughts too.

“The charges,” he said suddenly. “They’re not designed to be set off locally, right?”

She turned to him and blinked. once. Twice. Clearing her head. “Right. They’re in place for remote detonation by order of the President.”

“So there’s no button or anything in place here, right? They can’t have a box or something, a remote detonator?”

Begley nodded slowly. “Sure, Jack, they have to … holy shit, Renicks.” She looked back at him with sudden energy. “They have to get down there. They have to set the charges manually.” She paused. “Jesus. That’s a hard suicide mission.”

It took Renicks a second or two to realize she was talking about themselves. When he looked up, she was looking right at him. He held her gaze for a moment and nodded.

“I already died once,” he said, forcing a grin he didn’t feel. His heart thudded erratically in his chest. He felt like puking. But he smiled at Begley. “What do we do?”

She smiled back. He had the impression they were both programming expressions on their faces like feeding a program into a computer: Just mechanical reactions to conscious commands. Both of them acting for the other’s benefit. He wondered if this was how his father’s patients had acted: Forced cheer, everyone in on it. Everyone smiling and saying the right things, everyone terrified and cringing underneath.

“We go down,” she said. Then her smile changed. Became more natural. He blinked and found himself smiling back, mysteriously excited.

“They’re on seven,” he said. They were buried, fourteen levels down, deep inside the mountain. “We’re ahead of them.”

She winked. Renicks thought that wink was the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen anyone do under any circumstances. “I know a shortcut,” she said.

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34.

Thirty-three seconds before he heard Marianne Begley’s voice, Frank Darmity was strapping his body armor back on, wincing a little as the blowback pushed into the wound in his abdomen, as the straps dug into his bloody shoulder. He was sweating and felt a little lightheaded. Shock, he thought. And exhaustion. He’d lost blood, suffered injury, and hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in hours. This was not professional behavior, he chastised himself. A professional keeps himself in top condition at all times. He repeated the mantra his commanders had almost literally beaten into him: There is always time to eat. There is always time to hydrate. A hungry, thirsty operative is sloppy and weak.

Except, there literally had not been time.

He adjusted the vest so the indentation where the Begley Bitch had shot him didn’t slip right into the hot, painful wound like a peg into a hole. It felt uncomfortable, out of sync, but he felt better with it on.

He hefted his rifle and checked it over, blinking sweat out of his eyes.

Amesley’s Assholes had dropped his equipment one office over from where they’d try to imprison him. It hadn’t been hard to find.

What had been hard to find was Doctor Jack Renicks’ dead body.

Renicks was another one. Sitting behind a desk. A button-pusher. He’d been looking forward to teaching the Secretary a lesson about the difference between them. But then the motherfucker had gotten all slippery and he’d wasted a lot of time chasing him, and then he’d killed himself. A coward. A bitch. He’d bitched out. And that had been an unsatisfying way for it all to go down. But Darmity was a soldier. He knew mission creep when he saw it. Once everything had gone to hell, his mission had shifted. So he’d let it go. He had to find the Begley and smother that fire.

Start with Renicks. She’d been with him, maybe planning to follow suit. He didn’t think he’d find her weeping over the corpse, but it was a starting place. So he’d gone back to the office. And found it empty. A syringe on the floor. He’d picked it up and stared at it. Then at the empty spot on the floor.

Thought he should have told Amesley to fuck off and gone for Renicks with both barrels, right away. Fuck the subtle shit. That’s where it had all gone wrong.

Just as he was slinging the rifle over his shoulder and trying to decide where to look for Begley, her voice suddenly crackled from the complex PA system.

“ … — ever we do, Jack, we have to be smart. We can ride this out.”

He blinked, staring up at the ceiling. The tiny speaker, like thousands of others throughout the complex, made her voice tinny and thin. But clear.

“We should keep moving. Hiding out someplace is just waiting to be killed.”

Renicks’ voice. Darmity straightened up and cursed. An involuntary vocalization.

“We keep moving, we actually increase our chances of just running into them, Jack. This studio is our best — ”

Darmity was out the door. Their voices were in the air. The second he stopped concentrating on them, they stopped forming into coherent words in his head. They were bird songs. Just tinny noises fluttering in the air. All they meant was that Renicks — miraculously alive — and the Begley Bitch were in the TV Studio on Level Seven, accidentally hitting the PA.

He could see how it happened. He’d been in the studio, and the PA patch-in button was right on the console in the office portion. Someone had leaned on it. Or sat on it. Or put something on top of it, and the microphone was patched through to the PA. And the studio was insulated and soundproofed and wired so that the PA didn’t cut in there, just in case the President was making an address to the nation from the Secure Facility. You didn’t want security announcements stepping on the Commander-in-Chief.

So they didn’t know they were transmitting. Announcing their location.

The studio. He trotted down the hallway with the rifle in his hands, safety off, pointed down and to the side. It made sense. The Fax line had been yanked out of the wall, but if there was a place aside from the Security Office you might be able to communicate with the outside world, that would be it. And he liked the psychology of it: They might assume he wouldn’t come back there because there had already been a close call for them there. It was the sort of half-smart thing a Softy like Renicks would think of.

As he approached the elevators, He smiled. Half smart. The studio would have been his next stop. There was an unconscious agent there that needed to be tended to.

He keyed in the call code. The indicator light blurred red for a moment, then went out. He frowned. Keyed it in again, more slowly. Sweat dripped off his nose. He felt shivery. He wondered if his wound was souring.

The indicator blurred red again. Then went off.

For a second, Darmity stood there glowering at the keypad. Renicks and Begley’s voices were still sizzling in the air around him. Had he misremembered the code? After a second, he keyed in the previous code, for when the complex had been online. It didn’t work either.

“Mother-fucker!” he spat, leaning back and kicking at the keypad. Nothing happened.

He turned away and started trotting unsteadily back the way he came. Renicks and Begley weren’t the only people who knew how to use the Access Corridors.

The voices were still in the air. “ … increase our chances … ”

By the time he crashed through the unmarked door leading to the service corridors, he was sweating freely and had given up holding his rifle carefully; he held it loosely by the barrel as he ran. Mouth open. Lungs burning.

In the service corridors there were no speakers. He could still hear their voices on the PA for a few seconds, and then they were swallowed by the walls. Then he was in the tube, sliding down the access ladder with his hands loose on the railing. He hit the landing and almost fell, staggering backwards and catching himself.

He raced down the next three ladders the same way, ran for the access door on Level Seven and burst into the hallway.

“ … can ride this … ”

Their voices, still in the air. He didn’t listen. All that mattered was that they had not yet realized their danger. They were unaware. He was creeping up behind them, and he was going to enjoy putting his foot up their ass.

He looped the rifle’s strap around his forearm and held it carefully, pointed down at an angle. The door to the studio had a big red light mounted right above it to indicate when it was in use. The bulb glowed brightly. He knew they would be in the office section; if they had moved into the set their voices would be muffled and distant.

He kept his eyes on the door as he approached. He felt tensed and ready. Limber. Oiled. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he blinked them feverishly. But didn’t stop. Didn’t hesitate.

He took the last two steps quickly and kicked the door open. The lock shattered. It was just a privacy lock, had never been intended to resist a determined Frank Darmity.

The tiny control room was the mess he remembered it from earlier.

Renicks and Begley were nowhere to be seen.

Standing amidst the chaos, arms up in the air over his head, was the agent he’d left in the studio after capturing Begley. He was filthy. He didn’t even turn to look in Darmity’s direction.

Renicks and Begley were still talking.

“ … just waiting to be killed.”

“We keep moving, we actually increase our chances of just running into them, Jack.”

A recording. Darmity stared at the agent — Simmons, he remembered — and considered. The studio control panel could digitally record sound and play it back; they had recorded a short conversation, patched through to the PA, and started a looped playback. Renicks and Begley were on set. Out of his line of sight. He saw their train of thought: He hears them, comes in guns blazing, they cut him down from an oblique angle before he even knows what’s happening.

A second before the man behind him spoke, Darmity heard the shift of fabric behind him.

“Drop the rifle,” a male voice said. Just a few feet behind him. Far enough to be out of reach. Close enough to not have to aim anything. “Just relax your hands and drop it. Do anything else, and I will shoot you dead. Don’t say a word. Don’t move anything but your hands.”

Darmity sighed and released the rifle. There were protocols.

“Good. Step into the room.”

Darmity stepped into the room. Simmons stared at him. Darmity didn’t acknowledge him in any way. He turned, and found two more people: A woman with short, red hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, her angular features terse and composed, and a burly man with a shaved head, scars on his scalp like Martian canals. They both held the same model of assault rifle. They both looked, to him, like people who would not hesitate to kill him the moment he gave a wrong answer.

This was proven a moment later. The woman turned to Simmons, studied him for a moment, and then said “Kiu estas la flava regxo?”

Darmity nodded to himself. He didn’t know what the words meant, but he’d heard them before.

In the corner of his eye, Darmity saw Simmons look at him. Then back at the woman. “I don’t kn — ”

She squeezed the trigger. Four, five shots, one second. Simmons jigged and exploded, fell to the floor like a sack of corn.

She swung the rifle towards Darmity. He looked back at her.

“Kiu estas la flava regxo?” she said softly.

He nodded. Didn’t waste any time. “Trovi li en la strato de la kvar tordi.”

He didn’t know what those words meant either. He’d been taught them, and he remembered.

The woman nodded and put up her gun. The other man did as well. Darmity imagined the man behind him did the same.

The woman snapped a salute. “Sir!”

Darmity smiled and saluted back.

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33.

Five minutes before making a plan, Jack Renicks was trying to remain standing. The very slight vibration of the elevator made him feel like he was standing on a piece of plywood riding a giant wave to the beach. Sweat poured down his back at a steady rate. His heart thudded against his ribcage like it was trying to escape his chest. Waves of dizziness swept through him, making him have little gray moments, near-blackouts.

He supposed being dead for nine minutes or so would knock anyone on their ass.

“Isn’t riding the elevator dangerous? What if the doors open and there are six people with assault weapons waiting for us?”

“They can’t have beaten us down here. There’s only one elevator — if they were going to surprise us it would have been on Level Three when we got on. They’re going to follow a protocol, Jack. First step is, make sure the top level is clear. That we’re not hiding in a bathroom or something. Step two, probably, secure the elevator on the top level so we can’t use it.”

The elevator stopped. The doors split open. There was no one there.

“Jack,” Begley said. “Go grab a waste basket or something we can hold these doors open with.”

He stepped into the hall. Turned as Begley stepped forward and held the doors open. “What for?” he asked as he moved off.

“So we can secure the elevator before they do.”

He rounded the corner and headed towards the Executive Suite again. Had a gray moment, and a strange feeling of deja-vu settled over him. It was like a terrible dream, repeating over and over again. He kept heading to the Executive Suite and awful things kept happening.

He stepped around the equipment Amesley’s people had abandoned in the hall and stepped into the suite. It was exactly as they’d left it. He went into the office and grabbed the plastic trash bin, breathing harder than should have been necessary, and carried it back to the elevator.

“Jack,” Begley said briskly, “this is what the best training in the world gets you: High-tech solutions to problems.” She stepped out into the hall and released the doors. Jammed the garbage basket between them. They bounced open and stayed open.

“If we hit the emergency button, or put it into fire mode,” she said, turning and leading him back towards the suite, “that can be reversed remotely if you have the codes. Which we have to assume these people do. The doors will read someone blocking the doors and will not close under any circumstances. And the elevator won’t move if the doors are open. So if they’re sitting up on the top level calling the elevator, they’re going to have a long wait.”

Renicks smiled. “They’re going to find another way in.”

“Of course they are.”

They entered the suite again. Begley limped through the living area and headed back towards the bedrooms. When he caught up with her, she had the closet open and one of the rifles in her hands.

“This is an M16A2 Rifle,” she said. “I’m going to give you one and as many magazines as you can carry, Jack, but I don’t have time to give you any training, and you’re going to be goddamn dangerous with it.” She looked at him. “I know you’ve had some experience with small arms, Jack, and the M16 is pretty idiot-proof, but until you fire it live you don’t know it, and if you don’t know it you won’t hit anything you want to hit with it, and probably hit plenty you don’t want to hit. Like me. Okay?”

He nodded, fighting to remain standing. “So you’re saying me squeezing that trigger is a last resort.”

“That is exactly what I’m saying. I’m going to set it to a three-round burst. Not full auto. That should help you retain control and keep you from spraying the ceiling with bullets.”

She checked the rifle in her hands again, slapped a magazine into place, and handed it to him. He took it and had to catch himself.

“Heavy,” he said.

“It’s a pig,” Begley agreed. “Here.”

She pushed five magazines at him. “Put these in your bag. Did you see how I released the magazine?”

He nodded. “I think so.”

“Try it,” she said without looking at him, reaching in to select another rifle from the stock.

He tried it. The magazine slid into his hand. He slapped it back into place and felt the satisfying catch.

“There’ll be noise and smoke and a kick if you fire it,” she said, looking down at the rifle she’d chosen. “Never try to fire it without bracing it. Your shoulder will hurt like hell. It’ll get hot after a few sustained bursts.” She bent and came up with four more magazines and handed them to him as he slid the tough-looking fabric belt over his shoulder. “Here ends the instruction on the weapon. Your takeaways?”

He smiled. “Don’t fire it, but if I have to don’t fire it at you.”

“Congratulations,” she said, slamming the closet shut. “You graduate.”

He followed her back out into the living area and on to the kitchen, where they pulled some lukewarm bottles of water from the unplugged fridge. He was shivering.

“So what’s our plan?”

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Renicks thought she looked as tired as he felt, which was terrible. “They’ll spend some time trying to override the elevator. Not long; they’ll figure out we’ve manually disabled them quick enough. Say, ten minutes. They’re here to clean this mess up. Make sure no one knows exactly what’s happened here. And now that we’re offline and the crisis is over, they have a very short window before legitimate authorities show up. FBI. Marines. Hell, everyone’s on their way here right now.”

Renicks nodded. “Everybody involved so far seems to have walked into this with suicide as an option.” He thought of Grant. Smiling, smooth President Grant.

Begley nodded, eyes still closed. “They won’t waste time, and they won’t worry about someone coming in after them. I saw only six. They’ll leave one up top, in the lobby, just in case someone slips past the others. They’ll be aggressive.”

Renicks swayed on his feet. The rifle was heavy. It pulled at his shoulder like someone was pushing down from above, making him strain to remain upright. Every muscle ached like he’d been beaten up three or four times. He was nauseous and worried what vomiting all over Agent Begley might do to her opinion of him.

“That assumes you saw everything. Just six. There might be more. They might be crowding in up there.”

Begley frowned. “Sure. They might have tanks, or laser guns. But if I’m running this show from their end, it’s a small team. The legitimate authorities can’t be more than half an hour out. Marines. Secret Service. FBI. Racing here, now that the danger’s over. They don’t have time for a huge operation.”

“So — they’re here to clean this up, to stick with that charming phrase,” he said slowly. “Based on the actions of our resident psychopath Frank Darmity, that appears to be a really, really bad code for kill everybody.” He paused, working through his thick, slippery thoughts. “I can’t imagine six professionals in body armor are here to escort Mr. Darmity to freedom.”

Begley’s eyes popped open.

Renicks nodded. “We’ve got two problems. We’ve got Darmity hunting us, and we’ve got, I don’t know, Ninjas? Mercenaries? Hunting us.”

Begley stared at him. “Ninjas?”

He waved it aside. “Let’s put them in the same room.”

Begley nodded slowly. “Worse case scenario: Only Darmity gets killed.”

“Best case scenario? They all kill each other.”

She pushed off from the wall. “Or, we stick to the access corridors again, work our way up. Maybe we skip all of them, end up with just one person to deal with.”

He thought of climbing. Climbing and climbing in those tight, hot shafts. He shook his head. “And if you’re wrong — maybe you turned away from that video screen just before five hundred more showed up. We show up in the lobby and there’s an army waiting. Or they’re already in the access corridors.” He took a deep, shuddering breath.

She thought about that. “How do we get them in the same place?”

“They’re both looking for us, no matter what else they’re doing,” he said. Each word took individual effort. “Let’s make some noise.”

She studied him for a moment. Then nodded. “All right. Let’s make some noise.” She pushed off from the wall and didn’t ask him if he was okay, if she could rely on him not to pass out or stumble. He was grateful for that. Grateful she didn’t make him say that he didn’t know. That he felt weak.

“Come on, Jack,” she said, limping out of the kitchen. “Between us we have three legs, multiple contusions, and one near-death experience. I’d say we’re due some fucking luck.”

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32.

Three minutes before watching the agent be killed, Marianne Begley was trying to get Renicks to stand.

The silence oppressed her. The door hung open in exactly the way she’d found it, exactly the way Darmity had left it. The air seemed to sizzle with unused acoustics. She kept imagining she could hear someone out in the hall. A soft step outside the door. Heavy breathing. And everything she and Renicks did seemed incredibly loud to her. Every whisper a shout, every movement like boulders rolling across the floor.

She had no gun. Every few seconds she thought back to the gun she’d left on the floor of the clinic. Longed for it like a lost love.

“Can you stand? Jack, you have to be able to move. I can’t drag you.”

She whispered. Her throat hurt. Like she’d been smoking cigarettes. She hadn’t smoked since high school.

Renicks nodded. He looked awful, she thought. Pale. Dark bags under his red, swollen eyes. A film of sweat covered his forehead. “I can walk, I think. I’m gonna slow us down, though. You should go on without me. Get topside, send down help.”

She shook her head. Cleanup, the agents had said. “Darmity’s still out there. I leave you here, you’re dead. Come on, up.”

Renicks smiled. “If Darmity’s out there, what are we going to do if he comes out of the bathroom while we’re awkwardly limping down the hall? Karate moves?”

She paused. He was right, she thought. For a goddamn academic, Renicks had a sense for survival she had to admire. She thought again of the gun she’d left on the floor. It wasn’t worth it. Two rounds. If she knew where to get more ammunition … her thoughts shifted to the Security Office. She saw herself gathering up guns and radios. Darmity was out looking for her. There was a chance he was nowhere near the Security Office.

She looked down at Renicks again. “Stay here. Be quiet. Gather your strength and be ready to stand up and move,” she said briskly, turning for the door. “I’m going to get us some weapons.”

“Get big ones,” Renicks said tiredly after her. “We already shot that bastard with a normal gun.”

She slipped through the busted doorway without touching the door, leaving it in exactly the same position as before. If Darmity trawled down the hall again, she hoped he would psychologically discount that room because he’d already checked it. That he would assume they would be on the move immediately, running from him. Bullies, she thought, always assumed you were terrified of them. Always assumed you would run like a scared rabbit when you heard them coming.

The hall was empty.

She started moving towards the junction; the Security Office right around the corner. She moved slowly, listening carefully and marking the busted-open doors Darmity had left in his wake. Every few steps she paused and turned her head to make sure nothing was creeping up behind her. The silence made her skin crawl. The pain in her leg had become commonplace, though, as if her threshold for suffering had been buoyed up by the constant agony. It hurt like hell but she didn’t mind too much.

When she turned the corner, she stopped for a second in shock, staring at the bodies.

She recognized Square Jaw. He was slumped against the wall. Hands clasped weakly over his torn-open belly. Blood splattered all over him, all over the wall behind him. His eyes were open, his mouth was open. The top of his head had been blown open by a bullet and a flap of skin and hair stood up from his scalp like a cowlick.

Begley stood for a moment. Listening. Her gut told her there was no one nearby, but the bodies strewn in the entrance of the Security Office confused her. Who’d killed them? Darmity? But weren’t they on the same damn side?

Cleanup, she thought. The word was pretty generic. Might encompass anything. And Renicks had made it clear from the memo he’d deciphered on The Brick that Darmity was not part of the team here in the complex. He’d been dropped in. Inserted by the President himself. It stood to reason he might have a whole set of cleanup instructions separate from everyone else.

Slowly, she walked up to the Security Office. The bodies were warm. The blood was still fresh — already sticky, but it hadn’t been more than a few minutes. She remembered the gunshots she’d heard. Pictured it. Darmity in the office. Probably trying to figure out what had happened to the Football, why the lights had flickered. The other agents come to report in … Darmity has complete surprise. Takes them down. Comes to find her and Renicks.

She pushed herself against the wall across from Square Jaw and leaned slowly forward to peek into the office. Froze again. Director Amesley lay slumped against the wall, looking small and dry, like a puppet. Something you would prop on your lap and throw your voice with. He was a bloody mess. Anger boiled up inside her. Martin Amesley was a traitor, yes, but Begley had been proud to work with him up until a few hours ago. Whatever he had done, he had dedicated his life to the Service. He had ensured the safety of countless people, run countless investigations and run them well.

He did not deserve to be left like this.

The office appeared empty aside from Amesley and the bodies of other agents. Biting her lip, she took the risk and stepped around the empty frame where the glass doors had once been. Shattered glass crunched under her feet. She stopped just inside, near enough to the hall to dive at an angle out of the line of sight.

Nothing happened.

She stepped inside briskly, then. The chair with guns and radios piled on the seat was still there. Right where she’d left it. She checked them over — all P229s. She selected two and dropped the magazines from the other two, pushing it all into her pockets. The quiet clashed with the state of the room — shot up, screens smashed, blood on the walls. Most of the equipment had gone into maintenance mode when the complex had reset. Screen savers. Generic login screens. A few of the screens displayed some of the same security cam feeds she and Renicks had seen in the auxiliary Security Office down below. She took a moment to examine them, on the off chance they might show her where Darmity was.

They all displayed static, unmoving stilllifes from all levels of the complex, most flashing from one scene to another every few seconds in a pre-programmed cycle, others showed just one room endlessly. One showed the exterior of the Executive Suite, the cutting equipment abandoned, the double doors now hanging slack after the reset. She let her eyes sit on each screen for a moment. The last one was turned off. After a second’s hesitation, she reached out and turned it on.

It sprang to life immediately. It was the same news feed they’d seen earlier, down below. There was no sound, again. It showed an aerial view of the White House, marked FILE FOOTAGE. A nifty graphic of a map of the USA with the word emergency imprinted on it blazed in the corner. Begley spared a moment’s thought on the absurdity of the graphic, of putting thought into that graphic. She looked at the picture on the screen in tired incomprehension for a moment, then remembered to focus on the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Stared in shock.

unsubstantiated reports from the emergency bunker beneath the White House say President Charles Grant has committed suicide … no word yet from official sources … there are reports of increased Secret Service activity in the

Suicide. She’d never been introduced to Grant, though she’d been in the same room a few times. He’d been tall and thin, unnaturally tan. His white hair a perfect, gauzy coif. An easy manner, but weightless, like there was nothing behind anything he said or did. He didn’t seem the type.

Movement on one of the other screens caught her eye. It was showing the lobby way up on the surface, where she’d met Amesley, Renicks, and Darmity that afternoon. A man — she recognized him as one of the agents who’d been with Amesley in the Security Office earlier, a pudgy, disheveled boy of a man — was standing with his arms in the air. He was standing with his arms in the air because he wasn’t alone in the lobby. There were six other people, five men and one woman. They were wearing what looked to Begley like military-grade body armor. They had night-vision goggles propped on their heads. They each had a sidearm holstered on one hip and a compact hunting knife on the other, and slim, hardshell backpacks. They each had what looked to Begley like a variation on the Herstal F2000 assault rifle, though she couldn’t be sure.

They didn’t look like US military to her. They didn’t look military to her.

The woman was out in front, pointing her rifle at Amesley’s man and shouting something. The agent shouted back, waving his hands in the air as if to stress his compliance. She kept yelling at him.

Then she gunned him down.

It was eerily silent. The woman, who looked pretty on the blurry security monitor, rocked on her feet, absorbing the recoil. Amesley’s agent jigged in place for a second, his shirt and chest tearing themselves open, and then fell to the floor. The five other troops stepped forward, fanning out and eventually moving out of the camera’s field of view. The woman stepped forward slowly. As she passed the dead agent’s body she casually drew her sidearm, fired once into his head, and re-holstered the weapon.

Then she too was out of the camera’s range.

Cleanup, Begley thought again. The word had come to terrify her. Whoever had almost — but for a heart attack and a car accident — nuked the United States with its own missiles in order to engineer a Presidential coup had clearly planned for failure just as they’d planned for everything else.

Moving as fast as her leg allowed, she retraced her steps. The silence crowding her was balanced by the sudden roaring in her head. Too many things had gone sideways. Several dozen things she’d believed her entire life had proved false within the last few hours. She was relieved to slip back into the office and find Renicks standing. Leaning with his hands on the desk, gasping for air, but on his feet. So far she’d been able to rely on Jack Renicks all day, and it steadied her.

She held a gun out to him, holding it by the barrel. “Safety’s off,” she said as he took it, standing up from the desk and wobbling a little. “Come on.”

She turned and limped back towards the door. “Where are we going?” he called after her.

“To get bigger guns.”

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31.

Five minutes before finding Renicks in one of the empty offices, Frank Darmity stared at the suddenly dim Remote Launch Interface. A second before, it had been lit up green, accepting his keyed-in data. He’d been frustrated at how slow entering the codes by hand was proving to be. But at least it was progress. Then the tiny screen had flickered, gone blank for a second, and was now displaying the bright-red OFFLINE graphic, the Presidential Seal in the background.

One second after that, the lights had gone off. The emergencies had flickered on for one baleful, yellow moment, and then the regular lights had come back on again.

He sat back and let out his breath. Stared at the RLI. Then leaned forward, took it in both hands, stood up, and dashed it against the floor. It bounced. A single piece of plastic broke free and flew off into the shadows of the ruined Security Office. The box-shaped RLI bounced again and rolled a few more feet, then stopped on its side. Still lit up. Still, he thought sourly, completely functional. American-built, no doubt.

He could hear his own breath whistling in and out of his nose. He could feel his heart pounding. So close. So fucking close. And that stupid cunt and his pet agent had fucked it up.

He only indulged himself for a few seconds. A few seconds of rage. He wanted to tear all the consoles from their bolts and hurl them around the room. He wanted to set the place on fire. He wanted to break bones and inflict some goddamn suffering. Instead he took a deep breath, wincing slightly at the pinch in his side. Then he exhaled and relaxed. Worked through each muscle in his body and consciously relaxed them until he was standing at ease.

Then he picked up the automatic on the console in front of him and started walking through the debris. The overall mission had failed. But his mission had one last component.

So did everyone else’s, he reminded himself.

He stepped slowly through the wreckage and around one of the console banks. Martin Amesley sat on the floor with his back against the wall, a few feet away from the shattered front doors. He’d been shot twice in the same leg, which was stretched out in front of him like a burst sausage. Darmity could tell at a glance that the bullets had somehow missed the arteries — else Amesley would have bled out by then — but he’d lost a lot of blood in any event. The old man was surprisingly calm, though, and Darmity gave him some grudging points for that. He’d imagined Amesley as the type to cry like a baby if he got a scratch.

The old man was watching him as he turned the corner and approached. His watery eyes behind the thick lenses flicked to the gun in Darmity’s hand, and then back to his face.

“Mr. Darmity,” he said with a curt nod.

Darmity stood for a second, then knelt down on one knee right in front of the Director. Stared at him.

“You know what just happened,” he finally said.

Amesley nodded again. “We’ve failed.”

Darmity nodded, keeping his temper. “You failed, Mr. Amesley. I could have run the shit out of this operation. You tippy-toed it. You fucked it up. You should have stood aside and let a Field Man run a Field Operation.”

Amesley smiled. Darmity didn’t like it. It was a soft smile. A secret smile. A fucking Cheshire Cat. The old man thought he was smarter than everyone else.

“As you say, Mr. Darmity.”

Darmity leaned forward. “You thought you were my boss.” He tried to mimic Amesley’s subtle smile.

The older man’s face remained exactly the same: Slight smile, blank eyes. “As you say.”

Darmity felt his control slip. As you fucking say, he thought. Fucking talks like an asshole. He mastered himself. Just to show he could. There was no reason to. But he wanted Amesley to know that he was a man you had to pay attention to.

Outside, in the hall, he heard the elevator’s light ring as it arrived. Heard the doors split open. He paused, turning his head, and listened. Heard the voices of Amesley’s people. Turned back to Amesley, who was still staring back at him with that still life of an expression. Like nothing bothered him. It made Darmity want to bother him. Just to see his face change.

He stood up and pointed the gun at the old man. Amesley looked back at him. No flinch. No expression. Darmity felt anger rising in him. He wanted to think of something to say. Something devastating. Something that would make Amesley collapse.

“Well, Mr. Darmity?” Amesley said without moving. “Clean up your mess, son.”

Rage filled him. He shook with it. You pressed the button, he thought, and took one step forward. Squeezed the trigger. Again. Once more. Stood over the body. His breathing like sandpaper.

“What the fuck!”

He spun. The three of them outside the office. All of them looking haggard. Sweaty and defeated. He’d thought about them all. Nothing in-depth. He hadn’t had time to do any research, any social engineering. He’d had to observe them in tiny bursts and form assessments based on very little data — the way they took orders. The way they interacted with each other. The way they carried themselves. The way they responded to a mild insult.

That was Darmity’s favorite tactic. You learned so much from the ten seconds after you pushed someone just a little.

In any group of three or more, there was a leader. Unspoken, usually. Darmity knew without hesitation the leader was the one he thought of as the other Frat Boy. The only one left, now. Frat Boy had the easy build and good hair of the youngster who’d never been in a situation he couldn’t charm or fuck or fight his way out of. His body had never failed him, had never failed to respond to his needs.

Darmity shot him first.

Nothing fancy. He wanted to put them down; he could make sure of a kill later. So he aimed for the torso. The biggest target on the body. Frat Boy tumbled backwards, belly exploding into a geyser of blood.

The other male agent Darmity had dubbed The Monk. A ring of dark hair on his head. Should have just shaved it, accepted his fate, but was clinging to his hair like it was a life preserver. He was staring at Frat Boy. Mouth open. Frozen. A fucking moron. Darmity swung the gun in his general direction and fired. The Monk dropped.

The female agent he’d named Plumper. When he spun to put the gun on her, she shot him in the left shoulder.

He was spun around and tripped over Amesley’s outstretched legs. He hit the wall and went down onto his back. There was no pain. His left arm was numb, but there was no pain.

He propped the gun on his chest and lay still. Thinking, stupid cunt shot me, over and over. But he didn’t move. He waited. Heard the pop and scrape of glass being stepped on. Waited. When she appeared around the edge of the nearest console, gun held out in front of her in a way she probably thought was professional and badass, her free hand wrapped around her wrist, he squeezed the trigger and sent her flying backwards.

He sat up, and the pain hit all at once. He grit his teeth and examined his arm. He couldn’t see the wound through the fabric, but it was soaked through with blood. He moved the arm experimentally and found it flexible enough, checked the fabric on the back and found the exit hole. A through-and-through. The bullet had busted right through his shoulder and missed everything vital. Painful, but not immediately worrying.

He stood up. Felt dizzy for a moment, then steadied. Blood loss, he thought. He stepped over Plumper, who stared up at the ceiling with yellow, filmy eyes. He could hear someone gurgling pathetically in the near distance. Stepping back out into the hall, he found Frat Boy trying to hold his intestines in with his arms. His face was white as marble and his arms were bright red. He’d pushed himself up against the wall and kept opening his mouth and swallowing air.

Darmity felt hot and slow. Weak. He stood for a moment in the hall looking down at Frat Boy and watching him open his mouth and make this weird sucking noise, then shut it. A bloody spit balloon had formed on his lips. Darmity sympathized. Frat Boy, Amesley, all of them had been told that Cleanup meant making sure witnesses like Renicks were dead. But he had been ordered to make sure everyone was dead.

He knelt down on one knee and put the barrel of his gun against Frat Boy’s forehead and tilted his head back. The agent swiveled his eyes slowly, finally focusing on Darmity.

“Renicks,” Frat Boy managed to wheeze. “Renicks and Begley.”

Darmity nodded. “In one of the offices?”

Frat Boy nodded back. A slow, deliberate up and down.

Darmity glanced down at the floor. Blew out a little breath. Squeezed the trigger.

It was time to clean this shit up. But he wasn’t going to have to do it alone.

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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

30.

Nine minutes and fifty-two seconds before she ran out of time, Begley was on the floor next to Renicks, feigning unconsciousness. She remembered her Emergency Situations seminar: identify and protect your advantages. She had two rounds to her name and was in no shape for a physical confrontation. She judged three pursuers coming in. She’d reset the complex, she was certain of that. But she still had to bring Renicks back from the edge of death. And somehow survive herself.

So she tore off her jacket while they were forcing the last few inches from the door and the rubble of the desk. Rolled up her sleeve. Secreted the syringe Jack had given her in her pocket, needle up, and laid down next to Renicks. Pushed the gun under the exam table, just out of sight, just within reach. Just in case.

Shut her eyes. Emptied her head and steeled herself.

They came in a loud rush, smashing the desk with one last swing of the heavy door. She heard them climbing over the debris, kicking the chunks of the ruined desk out of the way. Three voices. Two men, one woman. One of them Square Jaw with the too-tight shirt and the abundance of confidence.

“Ah, look at this shit.”

“Christ.”

“Fucking hell. Check them.”

She heard shoes on the hard floor. Sensed someone coming near. Stay absolutely still, she thought. You move and you will have to go home and marry that guy Daddy set you up with and have babies. Six or seven babies. Babies until you die in childbirth.

She heard a dull metallic noise very near her ear and imagined someone putting a gun down on the floor. Felt Renicks’ body being shifted.

“He’s dead,” the woman said.

“Are you sure?” Square Jaw snapped.

“No pulse.”

“Jesus fucked. We’re into Cleanup now, you know that.”

“Shut up. Get the Old Man on the radio. What about her?”

She felt Renicks being shifted again, felt someone lean in close. Perfume. A light touch with it. Classy. Her head was shoved to one side and two fingers pushed painfully into her throat.”

“She’s alive.”

“I can’t decide,” Square Jaw said in an exasperated tone, “if that makes my job easier or harder.”

“Can’t get the old man on the radio.”

“Jesus fucked.”

She felt the woman moving away from her. She stayed perfectly still. The Old Man was Amesley; it was a common nickname for the Director. She wondered what was going to happen. The complex was offline. No missiles were going to be launched. Renicks was slipping away. She couldn’t discount the possibility of feeling the barrel of a gun against her head one second before being killed.

“This is Cleanup, Tom. We have a clear protocol.”

“It’s not Cleanup until the Old Man orders it. I’m not going to waste her and then have to explain my thought process.”

There were a few heartbeats without words. She heard people moving. Breathing.

“Grab them both. We take them back to HQ and find the Old Man. Get our orders. Easy enough to pop her up there as down here.”

“Waste of fucking time, Tom.”

“Shut the fuck up, Mel.”

She heard them moving again. Felt Renicks shift again, then be lifted up from the floor. For a moment she felt the cold empty air where he had been. Counted back in her head. Eight minutes, twenty seconds left.

Then someone grabbed her by the shoulders. Pulled her up into a sitting position. Then she was lifted, slung over someone’s shoulders. She smelled aftershave and sweat, gun powder. Let herself hang limp. Every step he took her splinted leg banged into his chest, sending a lance of pure agony through her.

She was carried quickly to the elevator. Heard the doors shut. Heard the code being entered. Felt the shift in gravity as they rose. Heard the soft ding of the alert, heard the doors open again. She was carried briskly for a few more seconds and then a door was opened. She was dropped unceremoniously on the floor, hitting her head. She managed to resist reacting in any way. She lay sprawled where she fell, a shock of pain from her leg spreading through her like poison.

She heard the door close. She checked her internal count. Seven minutes, six seconds to go.

They hadn’t searched her. She wondered if she was really alone in the room. If they weren’t testing her, waiting quietly to see if she was really unconscious. But she had no time. Either she’d fooled them or she hadn’t, and she had to revive Renicks and effect their escape before his time ran out, before they came back with a decision from Amesley. Before cleanup began in earnest.

Because suddenly, there was a chance she and Renicks might survive.

The complex was offline. Renicks had been removed as Acting President. If the plan was localized, if they hadn’t compromised the entire Continuity Plan, that might mean the emergency was over, and President Grant might no longer have the option of blowing the complex. Even if no one suspected him. The complex was no longer locked down, either. They could walk out the front door, if they could get to the front door. She thought it was suddenly reasonable that if they could get away from Amesley’s people, they might live.

If she could get to Renicks before it was too late. If she could bring him back. If he would be strong enough to climb back into the guts of the complex and climb. And climb. And climb.

She opened her eyes and sat up.

She was alone in one of the many tiny, generic offices. The room was probably eight by eight, with a small desk, a rolling chair, and a single cheap, metal filing cabinet. The door was shut and locked, but the lock was a simple deadbolt system. The complex had been designed as an emergency facility; all of the office doors locked from the outside so they could be used as temporary detention rooms if needed. The complex was also a federal facility, funded by Congress, which meant everything had been done by the lowest-bidding contractor.

Seven minutes.

She crossed to the door and checked it. No sense wasting time if the door had been left unlocked. It was bolted. She stepped back to the desk and pulled open the drawers one after another. Found a pair of scissors in the middle drawer.

Six minutes, forty seconds.

She opened the scissors up and sat by the door, broken leg stretched out straight along the wall. Jamming the blade at an angle into the latch, she closed her eyes and tried to feel it. With a jerk she snapped her arm across her body, pulling on the door handle at the same time. With a pop, the door slid open.

Six minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

Pulling herself up by the door handle, she held the door almost shut for a moment, listening. Then she eased the door open slightly and peered into the empty hallway.

Sliding the scissors into her pocket, she stepped out into the hall. Looked up one way and then the other, judging where she was. Around the corner from the Security Office, she thought, on the third level.

Six minutes, eleven seconds.

She scanned each side of the hall. They would have put Renicks in a nearby room. No reason to carry his body any further. Crossing to the one directly across from her, she tried the handle. Open. She moved to the next one, tried the handle. Found it open too. The fourth one she tried was locked. Locking the door on a dead man was exactly the sort of thing she would do herself — the crazier the situation, the more you relied on protocol, on procedure. Pulling the scissors from her pocket, she leaned down and repeated her operation and popped the lock, a few seconds faster this time. She took hold of the handle —

Gunshots froze her in place. Three. Rapid. Not far. Two almost on top of each other, then a beat, then the third.

Heart pounding, she pulled the door open and slipped into the room.

Five minutes, fifty-three seconds.

Renicks had been dumped on the floor too. He lay on his back, arms spread out from his body, legs spread. Aside from a yellow-brown bruise on his arm where he’d injected himself, he looked the same.

Two more gunshots made her jump.

“Shit,” she whispered. Cleanup, she thought. Sounds messy to me.

She yanked the syringe from her pocket. Hands trembling, heart pounding, she sat down next to him on the floor. Traced her fingers on his chest, trying to remember exactly where he’d pointed her to. She sucked in breath and raised the syringe about six inches above his chest. She knew she would need a little force to plunge the needle in deep enough.

Five and half minutes, she thought. Ready, steady —

She froze. Someone had opened one of the doors in the hall. Close by. She knew this because they had opened it via the simple expedient of kicking it in. She sat there for a second or two, listening, the syringe held just above his chest. Then another door crashed inwards. This time she heard the grunt of effort and felt the vibration. It was one of the offices right next to this one.

Five minutes, fifteen seconds.

She scrambled up, wrenching her leg painfully and biting her lip. The syringe still in her hand, she limped behind the desk and dropped down, putting her back to the door and pushing herself under it, her leg stretched out stiffly before her. She was in shadow from the knee back; the rest of her leg was in plain view to anyone who simply walked close enough to the desk.

Five minutes, five seconds. She tried to control her breathing.

Five minutes. Silence.

Her leg began to burn with a steady, throbbing pain in time with her heartbeat. She bit the inside of her cheek. Drew blood. The new pain pulled her away from her leg. She was sweating.

Four minutes, fifty seconds.

With an explosive noise like a gunshot, the door crashed inwards. She jumped a little, knocking her head on the top of the desk, then went completely still, the sudden aching in her head doing a fine job of distracting her from her leg. She hoped the noise of her impact had been swallowed up and hidden by the noise of the door.

She held her breath.

She could hear someone moving through the room. Two, three steps. Then they stopped. She heard a creaking noise — leather or straps being stretched as someone bent down.

“Check out the big brain on Mr. Renicks,” she heard Frank Darmity say in a low, relaxed voice. “Didn’t get you too far, did it?”

She held her breath and listened intently. Tried to pick out every creak of Darmity’s boots, every whistles of air going through his nostrils.

Four minutes, thirty-five seconds.

“Where’s your bitchy In-Suite, huh?” Darmity said in a low, easygoing voice. A man without problems, she thought, remembering the gunshots. A man who wasn’t worried about anything. “In one of these offices, huh.”

Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

Lungs aching, she let her breath out in a silent stream, slow and steady despite the burning in her chest. Forced herself to breathe in at the same slow rate. She heard Darmity moving again. Heard him cough. Lingering. She imagined him standing in the room looking around. Sniffing the air. Then the sound of the door swinging on a broken hinge, squealing.

Then nothing. Static. Dust hitting the carpet.

Four minutes, fifteen seconds.

She counted another ten seconds in her head, holding herself still. Heard nothing. Moving slowly, she pushed herself forward out from under the desk. Reached up and used it to pull herself back up onto her feet.

The door hung open, sagging inward on a slight angle. The door jamb had been bent. She could see a slice of the hallway outside.

Four minutes.

She moved to her left, staying in the blind side the door provided; anyone out in the hall would be unable to see her. She moved as quietly as she could to the door and stood behind it. She squinted through the gap between the door and the jamb. Strained her ears. She heard nothing. No sign of anyone moving around. She bit her lip and wondered if Darmity had left the area. Had no way of knowing. He would be back, though. He would ascertain that she wasn’t in any of the other rooms on the third level. He might assume she’d fled back into the guts of the complex, but she knew he was smart enough to think of double-checking this room.

Limping back to Renicks, she bent down and grabbed hold of one wrist. It was cold. She pulled it up and worked her way around to his other side, leaning down and taking hold of his other arm. She took one hobbling step back, pulling Renicks, and put some weight on her broken leg to gain enough leverage. Pain exploded, shooting up her side into her head, making her wince and almost overbalance.

She stopped. Breathed deeply once, twice, three times.

Three minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Tried again. Calibrated how much weight she could put on the leg, how much pain she could take before it overwhelmed her. She dragged him. Slowly, inches at a time. Arms shaking. A low growl of agony in her throat, swallowed. She pushed the door open with her butt and dropped him, leaning out to check the hall.

Empty. She sucked in air. Grabbed hold of him again, and dragged him out.

She chose one of the offices Darmity had kicked in, gambling on the pop psychology of it. Gambling he would think she would feel exposed in one. She pulled Renicks until he was just inside, then tried to push the door back into its exact position. The exact angle it had been hanging open.

She tried to move quickly, but she felt sweaty and shaky, unreliable. She lowered herself back onto the floor next to Renicks. Checked the syringe. Held it an inch or two above his chest again.

Three minutes, three seconds, by her count.

Taking another deep breath, she brought the needle down with a sharp jerk of her arm. Pressed the plunger all the way in one spastic motion. Yanked the syringe free. Sat there for a moment, panting. Staring at Renicks. Who looked just about as dead as he had before.

She tossed the syringe aside. Leaned over him and thought back to her CPR classes. She leaned forward again. Placed both palms of her hands flat on the center of his chest. Pushed down with most of her strength; she had no leverage and weighed half of him. Did Thirty compressions as fast as she could, trying for a steady force and speed.

Two minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Pushing one hand under his neck, she tilted his head back. Cupped open his mouth and pushed one finger inside to make sure his tongue wasn’t blocking his airway. Leaned forward and took two deep breaths to bring her own oxygen levels up. Put her mouth over his. Pinched his nose. Breathed out, pushing air into his lungs. Leaned back and took two more deep breaths. Leaned forward and repeated the process.

Tilted his head. Put her mouth on his. Breathed into him.

Two minutes, thirty.

Straightened up and positioned her aching hands on his chest again. Thirty compressions. Sweat dripped from her forehead onto his undershirt.

Two minutes, two seconds.

She straightened up again and slipped her hand under his neck … and leaped backwards with a startled grunt when he suddenly convulsed, a whole-body twitch. He raised his head and made a deep choking sound in his chest, eyes fluttering open. Then he melted back onto the floor and lay there shivering, breathing rapidly with a loud, scratchy buzzing in his chest.

Alarm swept through at all the noise he was making. She scrambled up onto her feet and stumped for the door, pushing it as far closed as it would go, then spun and sank down to the floor again, grabbing his hand. Ice cold. She leaned in close.

“Jack!” she hissed. “Jack, shut up!”

He turned his head slightly and looked at her. She was relieved to see the spark of recognition in his eyes. To see he was all there. A smile spread across her face, spontaneous and, she thought, ridiculously inappropriate. He licked his lips with a pale, yellowish tongue. Moved his lips. She leaned in close.

“Fuck,” he whispered, “me.”

She tried to stop herself, but burst into muffled, strangled laughter.

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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

29.

Six minutes and forty-five seconds before watching him die, Begley limped after Renicks, breathing hard and trying to ignore the settled, burning ache in her leg.

“This … is … not … a … good … idea, Jack,” she said, sucking in breath between each word.

He didn’t slow his pace or turn around as he led her down the corridor of the Thirteenth Level. “We know where they are, Begs — right behind us,” he said, sounding just slightly less out of breath, which annoyed her. “They won’t be on the elevators. And we have three legs between us right now, so the less ladder climbing the better.”

She sucked in a deep, painful breath and surged herself forward to draw even with him. Was amazed he knew how to get to the elevators. Each level followed the same basic floorplan in the sense of where the access tunnels led out and where the elevator shaft was, but it was still surprising.

“I want to know how they found us,” she managed, swinging her arms to compensate for her stiff leg. “And why they’re even bothering. Darmity has the RLI. You say he has the codes. If we’re holed up in the Ex Suite, why not just leave us there?”

“As for finding us, might have been a good guess — it’s the one secure place in the whole complex, right? Perfect for a hiding place. Or maybe they can still track the Brick and we just don’t know it. As to why, the memo I just read indicates Darmity’s a last-minute drop-in. They don’t know him. He seems to have his own set of orders. And he didn’t mind killing several of Amesley’s people. I’m not sure the lines of communication are open.”

They turned the corner like birds, coordinated.

“And maybe,” Renicks added as they swerved in front of the elevator bank, “they were planning to just keep us bottled up, just in case we did realize what was happening and tried to stop it.”

Begs considered. She drew the borrowed automatic and checked it. One round left in the magazine. One in the chamber. As Renicks pressed the call button she held the gun ready, safety off, finger resting lightly on the trigger. She thought, two rounds, Jesus.

They stood for a few seconds, waiting. Silence all around them. She stood breathing hard through her nose, feeling every ache and scrape, slightly dizzy. Her stomach sour. A light film of sweat all over. It was so quiet. The lighting so flat. For a second she thought she might just be in a coma somewhere, sweating out a fever and imagining her worst possible work day.

The indicator light lit up. The electronic bell dinged. The elevator doors split open. The elevator was empty.

Relaxing, she limped into the cab. Started punching in a code. Renicks reached out and put his hand on hers.

There was a crash. Muffled by the corner and the walls, but distinctly coming from the direction they’d come.

“Ninth floor,” Renicks whispered, taking his hand back.

She frowned. Heart pounding. “Why there?”

“So we can stop this.”

She chewed on that. Voices down the hall. Whispers, careful. She punched in the code and stepped back, gun held down by her leg but ready. Stared straight ahead, heart pounding.

The doors slid shut. She thought she heard something just as they did, a rustle of fabric, shoes on the carpet. Then they were rising.

“You gonna let me in on the plan, or is this a teaching moment?”

The sense of bizarre calm had returned. There were armed people chasing them. The whole complex would be destroyed within the hour. A man was trying to launch a nuclear assault on his own country not too far away. But she was standing in an elevator, waiting calmly for it to arrive at their destination. The only thing, missing, she thought, was Muzak playing softly.

“No,” Renicks said as the doors split open. “Just play along. Pay attention.”

She limped after him, fuming. “We should be going after Darmity. We can’t know that they’ll trip the charges before he manages a launch — in fact, we know the President is probably stalling, giving Darmity as much time as he can. Jack — Jack!” She stopped and caught him by the shoulder. “We should be looking for Darmity. We should be trying to stop him. Millions of lives are — ”

He nodded. “I know. Trust me. This is better. He might not be where we think he is. He might have found a way to displace. He might be barricaded better than we expect. We might not be able to get to him. Even if we can get in, he’s armed.” He shook his head. “There’s a lot of leeway in that plan. But there’s one thing I can do that ensures we stop him.”

She swallowed frustration and nodded. “Okay. And that would be?”

“Take this complex offline. Come on. They’re gonna catch up to us soon.”

He turned and walked off down the hall. She started to limp after him, frowning. Take this complex offline.

Her heart thudded in her chest. She threw herself after him in a sudden anesthetic of alarm.

He was heading for the hospital.

“Jack! Jesus Christ, Jack!”

She stopped again. He was going to kill himself. Take the complex offline — by taking the Acting President off the grid. If his vitals flatlined, the system would transfer authority to the next Secure Facility in the system. Colorado, if she remembered correctly. Which had not been hacked and seized by conspirator — as far as she knew. Where no one was waiting to launch missiles. The threat would be removed immediately.

But the only way to do that would be for Renicks to die.

She limped half a step after him again, taking a deep breath. Stopped again.

They were dead anyway.

At some point, either before Darmity launched or after, the complex would be destroyed. They would be blown up with it, a sudden, searing death.

She stood for a moment, engulfed in sudden emotion. She didn’t know what to do. Everything felt backwards. She’d only known Jack Renicks for a few hours. Didn’t know him, really. But he was her asset and letting him die — kill himself — felt so completely, totally wrong.

But it would save so many lives. Slowly, she struggled after him. Jesus, she thought, I hope he doesn’t ask me to shoot him.

She watched him step into the tiny medical center. She pushed herself to rush after him, swinging her leg awkwardly. When she stepped inside after him, he was standing with his hands on the counter by the small sink, staring down at the floor.

“We should barricade the door, just in case,” he said softly. “They’ve shown a knack for finding us.”

She stared at him for a second. Felt she should say something. Couldn’t think of anything to say.

She turned and shut the door behind her. Turned the bolt. Turned around again. “Help me with the desk.”

They both hobbled over to the small, efficient desk at the far end of the room. Taking one end each they pushed and pulled it over to the door and upended it so it fell across the doorway. Begley, catching her breath for what felt like the millionth time, examined it; if they busted the deadbolt the desk wouldn’t hold the door. But there was a drywalled bump-out just past the door, and the desk would catch it and wedge against it as the door was opened. They wouldn’t get the door more than five or six inches open. It wouldn’t stop them forever, but it would slow them down.

“Come on,” Renicks said, picking up his bag and stepping into the exam room.

She followed him slowly. Her instinct told her to talk him out of this — this was insanity. Except it wasn’t crazy. She felt strangely numb and inert. The pain in her leg had become a dull, permanent part of her. It felt natural. Watched him pull open all the cabinets, rifling through their contents. Plucking ampoules off the shelves as he went.

When he was done, he dumped seven small bottles filled with liquid and two plastic-wrapped syringe kits onto the metal table. Just as he did so, something crashed against the door in the next room, making them both jump. Then they looked at each other.

Renicks stepped around the table, unbuttoning his cuff. “Come here. Listen closely.”

She felt the curious inertia pulling at her, holding her back. She felt like she could just stand there for years, unmoving. Like it was her natural state.

Then she shook herself free and pushed herself over to stand next to him as he rolled up the sleeve of his bloody, ruin shirt. His arm was covered in dozens of angry-looking cuts and scrapes, a skein of red lines.

He took up one of the syringe kits and tore it open with his teeth. Extracted the syringe, Took the rubber tip off and tossed it aside.

In the next room, they began banging against the door repeatedly, a fast rhythm.

Renicks began filling the syringe with small amounts from several of the ampoules, holding the needle up to the light each time and flicking it with his finger.

“What is that?”

He didn’t pause. “Something I learned from my father.”

“You learned … this from your Dad?”

He continued to work. “I used to come into the office with him on weekends. He let me have a stethoscope and I helped him, getting things for him. When I was a kid there was an investigation; the family of this old man my Dad treated for decades accused my father of — ” He paused for a second, glancing at her, then set the syringe down on the metal table and picking up the second kit. “Of assisting his suicide.”

She blinked. “A mercy killing.”

“Yes. Nothing came of it. He was an old man, filled with cancer. The family wanted an autopsy. They said it wasn’t the first time. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it went away. There were rumors for years afterwards.”

He tore the second bag open and pulled out the second syringe. Tossed the rubber tip away. Began filling it the same way, from different ampoules.

“When I was eighteen, Dad took me to the office one day and told me it was true. He helped four people die. Suicide. They were all dying anyway, in a lot of pain, with nothing to look forward to except a few more months of more pain and less mobility, more pain and more humiliation. He wasn’t proud of it. He wasn’t ashamed. He considered it part of his job. To ease suffering.”

The door in the next room took a sudden heavier blow from outside, as if they’d found some sort of battering ram. Begley felt it in her feet.

“I didn’t know what to think. I was shocked. But I knew my father always did what he thought was right, no matter what. So I asked him to show me how he did it. I wanted to know that it was painless as he said it was. So he showed me. He made a cocktail of drugs, explained each one to me. Explained how it worked. Explained what would happen to the patient.”

She studied his face. It was impassive. “And you remembered that? Every detail?”

He nodded. “Every detail. I remember things. Always have.”

He set the second syringe down. Pushed the ampoules off the table into his hands and threw them onto the counter. Picked up the syringes and held them out to her, with his right hand forward.

“Take this one.”

The door boomed again, with a distinct cracking noise at the end. She reached out and took the syringe from him. It was filled with a small amount of clear liquid. Her hand, she noted with annoyance, was shaking.

“Adrenaline,” he said.

She looked into his eyes. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“Nope. We’re going with a bit of a brute force approach. But forgive me if I’m going to try and stack the odds a bit. The idea is, I die. I’ll have to actually die in the sense of my vital signs stopping. This place goes offline. Then you bring me back to life.” He tilted his head and smiled what she thought was the most charming smile she’d ever seen, under the circumstances. “If we’re not going to blow up, and we’re not going to wake up to a nuclear nightmare, well, hell, I want to be there.”

The door boomed again. The cracking noise again, louder.

“Do you know CPR?”

She nodded. She was re-certified every six months. She was watching the syringe shake in her hand. That couldn’t be right. Her hands did not shake.

“Good. I’ll self-administer the cocktail. It’s effect will be almost immediate. I assume there will be an obvious sign that the complex is offline?”

“It’ll be obvious, yes.”

“All right. As soon as you’re sure we’re in the clear, you take that syringe, you push it into my chest, here,” he pointed at a spot off to his left of his chest and above the rib cage. “You push the plunger all the way. All the way, Begs. Then you pull it out and you do chest compressions. CPR.”

She nodded, staring at his chest. Then she looked up as the door banged in five inches and smacked into the desk. She could hear voices. Three or four, men and women. “That’s it? CPR? That’s your plan to get back?”

He nodded. “You got about ten minutes, give or take. Ten minutes from when I go flatline. After that it’ll be much harder to bring me back, okay? Ten minutes.”

She smiled thinly at him, listening to the shouts and banging just a few feet away. “But no pressure, right?”

He stood up. Pushed past her and sat down on the floor. “What pressure? I’m the one saving the world here. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

The attempts on the door had become rhythmic and steady. They were ramming the door inward into the desk, pulling the door closed, then ramming it again. Trying to break the desk into pieces. It wouldn’t take long, she thought, judging by the weight of it: Particle board and wood screws, maybe a steel brace somewhere if they were lucky. The last time she’d felt lucky had been yesterday.

She set the syringe on the table as he used a piece of rubber tubing from one of the kits to tie off his arm. When he had his vein plump and firm he held the syringe in his hand. Paused. Looked up at her. Their eyes met.

She nodded. Moved awkwardly behind him and slid to the floor behind him, her splinted leg sticking out along his side. Leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his middle, pushing her cheek against his back. Closed her eyes. He was trembling, slightly. Tiny little tremors deep under the skin.

“Begs,” he suddenly said, his voice hoarse. “Marianne … I have … my daughters …”

She closed her eyes. “I’ll …” She stopped. She didn’t know what to say. What promises she could make that she had any hope of carrying out. She swallowed. “I’m here, Jack.”

He took a deep breath. She felt him moving. Imagined him pushing the needle in. Imagined him pressing the plunger. Imagined something hot and terrible leaking into him, racing around his circulatory system, heading for —

He jerked. Her eyes popped open. She felt his body tense up for a second. A tightening of every muscle. And then he relaxed. Slumped. Raising her face from his back, she hesitated, sitting there. Tears in her eyes suddenly.

The door banged inwards. There was a sharp cracking noise.

He sagged sideways. She tried to catch him, to brace him. He’d gone utterly limp. The lights flicked off. An alarm began blaring out in the hall, distant. The yellow emergency lights came on for a moment. There was a chorus of shouts from the next room. For a moment she was in the near-dark, listening to the rise and fall of the alarm.

Then the lights came back on.

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28.

Four minutes and ten seconds before toppling over a refrigerator, Jack Renicks was replaying the ELIRO memo in his head.

Dear Gerry — forgive this

The first line in English.

For a very long time now I have been plagued — blessed — with visions. They interrupt my sleep and dominate my thoughts.

He helped Begley limp to the front door again. A sense of sudden panic enveloping him. His bag was once again slung over his shoulder, the Brick shoved carelessly into it.

“How are we going to find him?”

At first I discarded the images I was being shown. Then, when I began to suspect they were not merely dreams, but rather glimpses of a future, I withheld them for some time. I feared they would not be taken seriously.

“The RLI is meant to be activated and used — if it’s closed up and moved, it will deactivate until you show up again,” Begley said breathlessly. She hopped to the keypad just inside the door and began punching keys. “He can’t risk moving it. He’ll barricade himself into the Security Office. That’s why he didn’t pursue us. He wanted us to leave the Security Office, get out of his hair.”

“How long until he can issue the launch instructions?”

The images I am shown are not happy ones, Gerry. You and I have had many talks. We both agree what needs to be done. I know you are with me on this difficult journey to rebuild our nation and cleanse our people.

The magnetic locks snapped free again, and Renicks surged forward and pulled the doors inward.

“Depends. The RLI is preprogrammed with what are considered likely targets based on the most recent red band classified alerts. If he were using a pre-loaded target, five minutes. If he was going to change out the preloads and he had a secure dongle with the data, ten minutes. If he’s got to key everything in from memory or paper, thirty minutes. Maybe more.” She limped out of the suite, gun in hand, and surveyed the hall. Then turned to wave Renicks out. “Mr. Darmity looked like he had some pretty fat fingers on him, and the keyboard on the RLI is tiny.”

You are one of my most trusted friends and colleagues in this great mission. But all men are subject to weakness. We conduct simulated launches regularly, Gerry. We have a three percent failure rate due to human refusal to launch. High-ranking people who simply refuse to launch when they are ordered to. They do not know it’s a drill, Gerry. They think they are about to kill millions of people and they cannot do it.

There is no shame in this.

Renicks stopped. “Say forty minutes. Begs, it’s been at least fifteen minutes since we hopped the elevator. Maybe more like twenty. I wasn’t paying attention. Do we have time to get down there?”

Begley spun awkwardly. “What other choice do we have, Jack?”

You may note there is a face on the team you do not recognize. Do not be alarmed. He is there as my personal agent. Martin did not know of his inclusion until this morning.

Renicks nodded. “You’re right, okay.”

They headed off down the hall, leaving the Executive Suite doors open.

The new man is there as insurance, Gerry. For both the mission and for your place in history. I do not doubt you, my friend. But I have been disappointed by others I did not doubt. So many others who seemed to be friends, who seemed to understand, but in the end did not.

They turned the corner and approached the elevator bank. Renicks felt his pulse pounding, his head throbbing with each beat. He regretted the wine. He regretted almost everything about the last twenty minutes.

I do not doubt you, but the new man is there to be certain that when the moment comes, we will fulfill our mission.

Begley stumped forward again and started keying in the code to summon the elevators.

The new man has all the information he needs to complete what I’d call a ‘rump’ of our mission. Your direct involvement is far preferable. Your glory is ensured; the new man only has the very basic data to ensure success. If you proceed as we have planned, we will accomplish far more. But if you choose not to proceed, for any reason, he will be able to at least achieve more modest goals.

She was still punching buttons when the indicator light came on, the soft ding! lilting through the air.

She straightened up, frowning. “I didn’t — ”

My man has been ordered to do nothing as long as our plans proceed. He will defer to you as long as you wish him to. He is reliable. He is a Fellow Traveler. He has been instructed, I must warn you, to use whatever tactics are necessary to ensure success.

Begley suddenly shoved Renicks to the side and hobbled backwards, bringing the gun up directly in front of the elevator doors.

They slid open.

Begley fired four times.

He will treat you with respect, Gerry. But he will need your physical presence to accomplish his mission, if you choose not to accomplish yours. And he will not be gentle. He is, in fact, incapable of gentleness. As he was trained to be.

She spun and slammed herself against the wall. Amidst shouts and cries from within, the elevator doors shut again.

“Amesley’s people,” she said, pushing off and limping back the way they came. “Come on!”

“Jesus,” Renicks hissed. “Stop a second!”

She didn’t. He moved up quickly behind her, hearing the elevator doors open behind them again. Scooped her up. Carried her around the corner and moved as quickly as he could, a lurching, gasping sort of run.

You, of all people, understand the necessity of our timeline. There can be no records. No evidence. No witnesses to crack under questioning. No impurity can ever attach itself to the events of today. Martin has accepted his role. If necessary he will wear the mask and play the part. But when I am pressured to act, as I will be, I cannot hesitate or the image we are painting will be tainted.

Renicks heard voices. Tried to picture them stepping out of the elevator. Careful. Slow. They’d just been ambushed. Begs had reminded them that she was armed too. They would creep for a few steps, afraid she was waiting right around the corner. His lungs burned. His ankle felt like it had been replaced by broken glass and small bits of stone. Sweat had instantly appeared all over his body, soaking him. The double doors of the Executive Suite seemed to remain at a fixed distance.

Move quickly. Move with certainty. Do not hesitate.

When he was still three or four steps from the doors, a gunshot. A section of wall over his shoulder exploded into dust. Begley wriggled in his arms. Put her arm up and over his shoulder as if to hug him.

“Watch your — ”

She fired twice, the first shot incredibly, painfully loud in his right ear. The second shot sounded distant, muffled. She jerked in his arms from the recoil. They crashed through the double doors.

Good luck to you, my friend. Tomorrow will be the greatest day in our nation’s history. No matter how it unfolds, your name will be on the statue. Your name will be considered one of the Second Founders. You will be remembered as a true patriot, and that is reward enough for all of us.

There was another gunshot as Renicks dropped to the floor and set Begley down roughly — not quite dropping her, but not exactly easing her down. He spun around without getting off his knees and slammed the doors shut, hearing them latch.

“How do I seal it!?”

I promise that to you, Gerry. Even if you fail. Even if you hesitate and my agent must step in to do your duty for you, your memory will never be tarnished.

Begley didn’t respond. She lurched up and hopped deliriously towards the keypad, wincing. The doors leaped behind him. He pushed back, his feet slipping out from under him. He fell to the floor with a grunt and immediately pushed himself back up. Strained back against the door as it jumped again.

“Uh, Begs?”

She pounded the wall with on hand. “They keep bumping the fucking sensors. The seal won’t engage unless the door’s flat in the frame!”

Good luck.

He let his eyes scan the room. “The lamp! Begs, get the lamp base!”

She turned and followed his pointing finger. Looked back at him. Up over his shoulder. Nodded.

“Won’t take them more than a minute!” she shouted as she limped over to the lamp. Tore off the shade. Ripped the power cord from the wall.

He nodded as the door jumped again. “We won’t need more. Out through the kitchen.

She carried the metal rod over. Slid it through the door handles. Staggered backwards, unsteady. Renicks looked at her.

“Go! I’ll be on your heels.”

She nodded. Turned and stumped off. Faster than he thought she could. He waited. Strained back against the doors. Waited.

The doors jumped again. He pushed back against them, legs and back burning. When they sagged back again, he pushed himself up in a pathetic imitation of a jump and ran after Begley. Passed her just before the kitchen and ricocheted around her. Gathered some speed and slammed himself into the refrigerator, which he’d pushed and pulled into position over the tunnel entrance. It tipped over and slammed into the countertop with a crash he barely heard, his ear ringing. He knelt and got his hands under it. Rolled it over just enough to open a wedge of darkness they could both fit through.

He turned as Begley dropped to the floor, sliding a foot or so to the entrance. Dangling her legs over the edge, she handed him the gun. He leaned back against the fridge and held it in front of him. He wasn’t familiar with it, but he assumed all guns worked basically the same.

Begley dropped into the hole and disappeared. Renicks could hear them slamming into the door again. The lamp base was made of heavy metal, but it wouldn’t last long. He gave Begley a count of ten, then pushed the gun into his waistband and dropped his legs over the edge.

Heard the door crash in as he began lowering himself down, hand over hand.

God bless.

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