(Wrath-09)-Spiders From The Shadows (2013) (6 page)

She shook her head occasionally, as if trying to clear it. But she wasn’t trying to think more clearly. She wasn’t trying to think at all. Too much to think about already. Too much crammed inside her head. Her eyes ached and her neck was stiff. Sometimes it seemed even her brain hurt.

She thought back on everything they had told her: the pictures of the men they said were traitors, where they came from, how they got there, what they now intended to do. The truth was, she didn’t believe it. Not yet. At least, not everything, and maybe she never would. It wasn’t that she thought they were crazy. She just thought they were wrong. There was no way it could be that bad, no way the government could have slipped so far. A few traitors? Yes, maybe she could accept that, she remembered what her husband had told her, but this was very different. This wasn’t a tremor, this was an earthquake, and she almost felt the earth moving beneath her trembling knees.

Time passed. She was tired. They had left her waiting so long she was tempted to lie down on the floor.

She glanced up and down the corridor, wide enough for two forklifts to pass each other, which they often did, metal doors that led to offices, small signs with acronyms she didn’t know. She noted the metal signs over the doors, then looked to the far end of the hallway. A single elevator was waiting, its door held back, the interior empty. She turned and looked the other way to see nothing but forty feet of cinder block that ended in a cement wall.

Minutes passed as she continued to wait. Finally the metal door pushed back and a man she’d never seen before was standing there. “Mrs. Brighton,” he said.

Sara walked toward him.

He moved through the heavy door and let it close behind him. “There’s been a delay, ma’am. I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.” He motioned toward the elevator at the end of the hall and started walking.

Sara didn’t move. “I was waiting for Secretary Marino.”

“I know you were, ma’am.”

“He said—”

“The Secretary’s been delayed.”

Sara watched the stranger. Thin. Wire glasses. Much too young. She wanted to ask what was happening, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her. She hesitated a moment, then followed him down the hall.

“The Secretary thought he’d have some time to see you,” the man explained in a sincere tone. “He sends his apologies. But frankly, right now there isn’t much that he can tell you anyway. The endeavor into Raven Rock has been stalled, leaving us without access to critical information that we need before we can finalize our plan.”

“Do you think—”

He cut her off abruptly. “There really isn’t any more that I can say. We’re still in the information-gathering process. As soon as the Secretary has anything at all to go on, I know he’ll bring you into the loop. He has far too much respect for both you and your husband to of the United States?”ening the leave you hanging. Moreover, he realizes what an important role he has asked you to play. In no way, Mrs. Brighton, does he mean any disrespect by leaving you waiting. It’s just that he’s a little busy. And regarding our efforts into Raven Rock,lass="ind" aid

SEVEN

Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania

The former FBI Director let himself out of the tiny bathroom. His hands were shaking and he knew his face was ashen but there wasn’t anything he could do. If they were suspicious, they would search him. If they searched him, they would find the electrical device he had regurgitated stuffed inside his right pocket, and he would be killed. There wasn’t much more to it. In the next few minutes, he would know.

The two Marines were waiting, obviously impatient. They walked toward him as soon as he appeared. One of them glanced inside the bathroom, pushing the door back to check it out. The room reeked. He instantly recognized the smell. He hesitated just a minute but didn’t say anything.

If the Marine were being dragged to see the president, he would feel sick as well, James thought to himself.

Holding James by the elbows, the Marines started walking down the hall.

Inside his pocket, James kept the tiny drone tucked in a loose fist, protecting it as if it were as fragile as a butterfly, which, of course, it was. Ahead of him, he saw the set of double glass doors etched with the presidential seal. According to the briefing, he’d have to pass through a final electronic sensor on the other side of the glass doors.

He had to get rid of the drone before he got there or they would find it.

Twenty feet or less now.

He had to let it go.

He glanced behind him. No one was there. The hallway up ahead was crowded. More guards waited—two Army officers, one of them holding the door. Pulling his hand out of his pocket, the bug tucked gently in the open space between his fingers, he pretended to cough, and brought his other hand to his mouth as a distraction, then dropped the bug behind him on the carpet floor.

He held his breath, waiting. The men kept walking. No one said anything. One step. Two steps. Three steps. The set of double glass doors was only ten feet before him now. He faked another coughing fit, and turned his head. Looking over his shoulder, he saw tiny electronic bug was in the air, its paper-thin wings buzzing. It lurched, then climbed and landed think you should gou eto the on the ceiling, where it started crawling forward, moving toward the open door.

Offutt Air Force Base, Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command, Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

The video screen suddenly burst into light. The image was grainy and halting, but reasonably clear.

“I got it!” one of the technicians yelled from his cluttered console. “I got it! I got it! OK, he dropped the bug. It’s been deployed! I’ve got good imagery. Partial feedback . . . OK . . . OK . . . we’re good to go. I’ve got control of the Dragonfly. I say again, I’ve got control. It’s responding to my commands now. We’ve got hover. I’m moving upward. Going to get some space between the drone and the people there so they don’t see it. OK, OK, up on the ceiling . . . hooks deployed . . . we’re on the ceiling now.”

The tiny lens, no larger than a fly’s eyes, transmitted from the hallway outside the presidential suite. It showed a picture from about shoulder height, then hovered upward toward the ceiling, where it stopped and hung, suspended. The camera angle suddenly inverted as the tiny reconnaissance drone approached the ceiling, then flipped over as the bug dug its Velcro hooks into the tile. Looking down, the lens continued broadcasting to the receiver/transmitter left in the bathroom forty feet down the hall. Then, slowly, as if on tiny legs, the image started moving toward the double glass doors. Seeing through the bug’s tiny lens, the men inside Offutt’s command center were able to make out a small group of people in the hallway. Closer, almost directly below them, they saw three men, two of them in uniform, a black man in the middle, the guards’ hands on his arms. The audio started cutting through, transmitting the mix of voices from deep inside of Raven Rock.

The technicians shouted congratulations to each other.

Dragonfly was a go.

Brucius jerked forward in his seat, his chief of staff beside him, their eyes intent, their faces drawn with equal fascination and concern. Brucius couldn’t believe the image they were receiving from what was essentially a reconnaissance aircraft not much larger than a fly. The grainy image was not perfect—it paused and halted and was grainy as a first-generation security camera—but he could clearly see his best friend being led toward two Army officers waiting near a set of etched glass doors.

The Dragonfly was inching forward. James and the two guards in the hallway moved much faster. It quickly fell behind.

Brucius leaned toward the main screen on the wall. “Can you make it fly to get into the presidential office suite?” he demanded of the technicians.

“We can’t risk it, Mr. Secretary. If we fly now, they’re going to see it.”

Brucius turned around. “It’s got to get through the doorway!” he yelled.

The men were now ten paces farther up the hallway. They were walking quickly. The drone was moving forward just a bare inch at a time.

“It’s not going to make it,” the chief of staff repeated. “It’s going to get locked outside the door.”

Brucius turned back to the pilot technician. “You’ve got to take a chance and fly it. If the drone doesn’t get inside the presidential suite, all of this will be for nothing.”

The technician jerhe door as he

EIGHT

Four Miles West of Chatfield, Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee

The sun was higher in the morning sky and the air was almost comfortable. Winter would come, humid and cutting with northern wind, but now it was early fall and there was still enough warmth to let the sun heat up the earth once it was higher in the sky. Bono and Ellie walked again together, giving them time to talk. Ellie kept up a constant chatter about the secret cake she was going to decorate, the weather, Miller, her mom, pretty much anything that fluttered through her mind. She ran ahead of him, skipped back, grabbed his hand, always moving, her mood happy, the brightness back in her eyes.

Coming across the open field toward the house, Bono was happy to see Caelyn standing on the porch, waiting for them. She looked radiant in the morning sun, her blonde hair illuminated from the back. She wore blue jeans, a light sweater, and leather boots. He stopped. He couldn’t help it. It made his heart thump to see her standing there. “Hey, baby,” he said in a rather poor Humphrey Bogart imitation. “Looks like you might be looking for a man.” He turned and flexed his biceps, nodding toward his muscled arms with an exaggerated smile.

“As a matter of a fact, I am,” Caelyn answered while seeming to pay him no attention.

Bono flexed again. She pretended not to notice. He stretched his arms above his head in an exaggerated motion, his T-shirt pulled tight against his chest. Caelyn continued looking past him. “Still looking for a man,” she said.

Bono had had enough; he ran to her and lifted her into his arms, holding her weight easily above the ground. She screamed and started laughing. “Let me down!” she cried.

“Go, Daddy!” Ellie joined in, running to him. “Look at this! Look at this. Mom, he could make you
fly
!”

Caelyn punched Bono on the shoulders. “Put me down, you lunkhead!”

“Not until you say it!”

“Say what?”

He kept her in the air, her feet kicking at the emptiness, completely at his mercy.

“Say it!” he laughed.

“OK, OK, let me down and I will.”

He lifted her a couple of inches higher. “Come on, Caelyn, you gotta say it or I’ll ">He reached out and touchllShe really didn’t know.keep you there all day.” He pressed his fingers into her ribs.

She punched at his shoulders again, still laughing. “Let me down first.”

“Not until—”

“All right! I love you! There, I said it. Now will you please let me down?!”

He lowered his arms, letting her feet touch the ground. “There you go again,” he laughed, “getting all smoochy on me.”

“I
hate
it when you do that. You make me feel like a little kid.”

He smiled. She tried to look angry. Ellie skipped around them, laughing, “Mommy’s smoochy, Mommy’s smoochy.”

Caelyn looked down, feigning anger. “See what you did? How do you expect her to respect me when you do that?”

Bono crossed his heart. “Never again. I swear.”

Neither of them believed it.

“You still feel like walking?” Caelyn asked, nodding to the open fields behind her shoulder.

“Are you kidding? Like I would pass up the opportunity to walk in the country with such a beautiful girl?”

Ellie looked up excitedly. “Can I come, too?”

“Sure, Ellie,” Caelyn answered.

They started walking, Ellie between them. Grabbing their hands, she tried to swing, but she was too big now, and even though she bent her knees, they dragged across the wet ground. The threesome approached the end of the grass. “Which direction?” Caelyn asked.

Bono nodded toward the narrow country road that ran north. “Let’s go that way,” he said, nodding down at Ellie. “It’s much less muddy.”

They crossed the gravel driveway and started walking down the road. It was strange to see the country road so vacant and quiet. Half a mile ahead, a stalled car had been pushed off into the barrow pit; behind them, far in the distance, another couple of cars lay motionless where they had died when the EMP swept across the country not long before. Sam cocked his head and listened, noting the empty silence; a hint of wind in his ear, the sound of their shoes against the pavement, their breathing, and the movement of Ellie’s polyester jacket were the only sounds he could hear. He glanced skyward. Completely empty. Looked across the fields, left and right. Not a soul or a hint of movement anywhere.

“Kind of strange, isn’t it, honey?” Caelyn said, watching his eyes and gesturing to the empty landscape all around them.

Bono slowed and then stopped walking.

“It took a while for me to get used to it,” Caelyn continued. “The first couple of days I would sit on the front porch waiting, certain that someone would show up. I’d sit there, staring at the empty road and wondering where everyone had gone. It was kind of like the
Twilight Zone
. No one was around. For a time I wondered if we were the only ones alive. Then I saw a couple of the neighbors walking with some people who’d come down from Memphis. They stopped to talk. That was the first time I really understood what had happened. Since then, I haven’t talked to many other people.” She thought about the violent gang and the confrontation in the field. “At least, not many who I
wanted
to talk to.”

She fell silent in her memories. The sky overhead was vast, blue and empty, and the wind was pu">*******

Bono looked down the empty highway. “I think people are kind of catching their breath, you know, hiding out, hoarding their resources, protecting home court before they venture out. Some people are afraid.” He nodded over his shoulder toward the house. “Your mom is terrified, it’s pretty obvious. She tries to act brave, but that’s not how she feels. She’s becoming more and more suspicious and withdrawn. It’s understandable how she would feel that way.” He bent down, picked up a small rock, felt its round edges, tossed it up and down a couple of times, then stood and threw it across the open field. “You should have seen what it was like up in D.C. It was amazing and scary. Even now, I don’t know if I can quite figure it out. It was like everyone was instantly ready to give up. Can you imagine that? I saw people literally sit down on the side of the road and surrender, waiting to die rather than take some responsibility for themselves. It was jarring. No, it was more than that, it was shocking. I mean, they gave it up so easily. Like a bunch of helpless princesses. I mean, come on, people, are you kidding me?! You are going quit just like that? Bunch of spoiled babies. Is that the only thing you got?