2020: Emergency Exit (30 page)

“That was pretty lucky,” Blake replied, looking back at me, refusing to acknowledge how he’d helped them and clearly not wanting me to either.
Classy move
. I could tell Tara was disappointed. But I could also tell she was glad they’d made it back.

She gave Danny a hug. “Thanks, Danny.” Then she hugged Cameron.

“Don’t say anything to the girl,” Danny urged Tara and Hayley, thumbing towards where she was sleeping. “We don’t know anything more about Abbey than we did before.”

“Got it,” Tara responded.

“We’ll see what we can find out later today,” he added. “There’s nothing else we can do right now.”

Tara asked me to sleep beside her that night, for the first time. I had figured that’d be the last thing she’d want. But as I lay down next to her, she pulled my arm around her chest and backed her warm body into mine. She just wanted to be held. I certainly wasn’t going to object.

FORTY-NINE: “Vail, Colorado”

We didn’t see a single sign of the jeeps all day. About midmorning a helicopter flew down to Estes Park from the summit of Trail Ridge Road, and we saw it fly back that evening. We received about two feet of snow throughout the day, and the roads were completely shut. Since nothing was going on outside, we let Danny and Cameron sleep as long as they could. Blake and I even stole a few extra hours.

Tara came in to check on me around 5 p.m. and she whispered in my ear, “You doing all right?” Her long hair tickled my neck.

I smiled and nodded. “Just thinking.”

“About?” she asked.

“A certain kiss,” I offered.

“You mean…this one?” She leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips.

Yeah, that one.
“I’m not sure,” I whispered back, and she elbowed me.

“Ha ha.” She shook her head. “Even half asleep you’re hysterical.”

“Come on. How could I possibly forget that? It was amazing. You’re amazing!”

“Thank you,” she replied in her soft almost shy voice.

“Of course.” I smiled.

“For last night too,” she added. “Thanks for holding me.”

Are you kidding? Thank you!
“Uhh—”

She interrupted my acknowledgement. “Hey, we know what the girl’s name is.”

“Really?” I sat up.

“It’s Vail,” Tara said before I could ask.

Of course it was
. “Vail from—”

“Michigan,” she answered before I could say “Colorado.” “She’s actually shared quite a bit today. She’s scared and obviously traumatized but seems to remember everything—good and bad.”

“Okay,” was pretty much all I could come up with.

“She and her sister were with their parents when the chemical bomb went off downtown,” Tara began.

“There was one here too?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. Her dad was a state trooper in Michigan. They were on their way to Vail and had stopped in Estes Park to see her grandparents, who had a home up behind the chapel at Saint Malo, near Twin Sisters. Kate said you’d know where that is.”
I did
. “Anyway, somehow her dad found out about the chemical bombs from his radio and sealed off their cabin as best he could. Her mom had been in Estes Park shopping with her grandmother when the bomb, or bombs, went off. They both died. But Vail, Abbey, her dad and grandfather survived and were fortunate there was no second wave of bombs here. They were fine until the soldiers came through and burnt the church below her grandparents’ cabin. Her dad moved them way up into the forest, but the soldiers followed the road up to the cabin and burnt it down too. So there was nowhere for them to go back to.”

“How in the world did they make it this long?” I asked. “Have you told all this to Danny?”

“He knows,” she replied. “I filled everyone else in while you and Blake slept. We’re not sure how they made it. Apparently they found another cabin somewhere up there, a hunting shack or something, and they hid out, getting by with whatever they could. One day last week her dad left to go hunting, and while he was gone a few soldiers found their shack. They killed her grandfather and took the two girls downtown to where they were holding a bunch of young girls.” Tara paused and took a deep breath. “She started to get pretty emotional again, and I didn’t want to push her, but she said there were several girls with her, and they were taken to each of the camps on a nightly rotation of sorts. If they didn’t ‘perform’ they were killed. The other night was the first time they took Abbey and Vail to the same place. When one of the drunk men started getting a little too touchy with Abbey, Vail objected. They started beating Vail, and one of the men took Abbey away. Vail started screaming, and they started beating her worse. Vail fought back and saw a soldier strangle one of the other girls in the tent with her. She panicked and ran out, trying to find her sister. But then she saw other men coming towards her, and she ran away. She feels terrible for leaving Abbey behind. I couldn’t get much out of her beyond that. She thinks Abbey is dead, and by leaving her she basically sealed her fate.”

“Man alive,” was all I could say.
It keeps getting worse
.

“Ryan, we haven’t told her anything about last night,” Tara whispered. “What could we possibly say?”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Has anything happened today at all?”

“Not as far as we can tell,” she replied as I stood and walked with her out into the main room. “It’s been a snowy mess out there all day. We haven’t seen a single vehicle. No movement from anywhere other than the one helicopter making its loop.”

“They haven’t even plowed the road?” I asked.

“Nope,” Danny chimed in. “Nothing.”

That changed about an hour later. It was starting to get dark when we saw the unmistakable lights of the snowplow coming down the hill from Estes Park, followed by four other sets of lights. Danny and Cameron went up to the ledge with their rifles while the rest of us watched on the monitor by the front entrance. The snowplow went by, then three jeeps, followed by a truck with a giant cage in the back. But the cage didn’t contain an animal. It contained a man, standing up, arms chained to the top of the cage, wearing nothing but shorts. None of us in the room had sensed Vail walking up behind us—we were all too focused on the action on the screen—but we all heard her whisper, “Daddy?”

FIFTY: “Not Adding Up”

“What?” several of us asked in chorus, all turning to face her.

She was biting her lip and looking around nervously. “I’m pretty sure that’s my dad,” she said quietly.

Danny and Cameron had joined us in the main room again. “Your what?” Danny asked.

“Her dad,” Jenna said as Vail cowered.

“Why in the world would they want your dad?” Danny asked.
Good question.
They weren’t taking any prisoners that we knew of.

When she didn’t reply, Dad answered for her, “Cause he’s the vice president.”

Vail’s lack of response confirmed his statement.
Holy…
“What?” I said, voicing the rhetorical question for everyone.

“I thought she looked familiar,” Dad nodded towards Vail.

“So your name isn’t—” Kate started.

“Vail?” she replied quietly then shook her head.

“It’s Reagan, isn’t it?” Kate continued. “Reagan Moore.”

She nodded, obviously surprised that Kate knew who she was.

“And you’re what, twenty-two?” Dad asked.

“Twenty-four,” she replied.

“Time out!” Danny cut in, holding his hands up to form a T. “It’s great someone knows who you are around here, but why lie to us? And how much of the rest of—” Danny started to ask.

“A lot of it,” she replied, still not looking at anyone. “Okay, some of it. But it was the story I was supposed to give.”

“So were you…” Tara began with an edge to her voice.

“Raped?” Reagan glared at Tara, clearly not appreciating the insinuation.

“Emily,” Hayley took her hand. “Let’s go in the other room.” Tara gave her a grateful look.

“Tara, come on,” Jenna reasoned. “You know she was. Tara, you saw the same things I did,” Jenna jumped in as soon as Emily was out of earshot. “Come on, guys!” She scolded all of us.

By Tara’s expression I knew Jenna was right. There wasn’t a doubt about the rape.

“Repeatedly,” Reagan confirmed. “Over and over by as many as twenty to thirty men. Every single one of them trying to get me to tell them where my dad was.”

“And you knew?” Danny asked, still clearly upset.

Another nod.

“Shit.” Cameron responded, shaking his head.
Wow!

“So the other night…” Danny looked at Tara and Jenna and then at Reagan. “Can you tell us now what happened?”

She sighed. “Everything else I said about my parents and grandparents is true. The rest of them are all dead. Happened just as I said. Some government men, pretty sure they were Americans, came and took Dad somewhere while we were at the safe house with Grandpa. The safe house was attacked while they were gone, and Grandpa was killed, but not before hiding Abbey and me in the underground bunker. We stayed in the bunker overnight and had no idea they were still watching the place. We came out Tuesday morning, but Dad still hadn’t come back. They must have been waiting for him, too. When we stepped out of the building, a couple of vans drove up and they grabbed us before we could get back in the bunker. Wednesday night several of the officers assigned to track down Dad came in and ‘interrogated’ me.” Her “finger quotes” needed no further explanation.

“Wait,” Danny stopped her. “The troops are here for your dad?”

She nodded. “Why else would they be here? They bombed the area. They sent a crew through and killed almost everyone else. There was no way
in
from the east, and once winter hit there’d be no way out to the west. They don’t need anyone here to guard fallen snow. And it wasn’t exactly a secret we were here,” she explained.

“Whenever the President leaves the country, they move the vice president to a secure location. Every high government official knows that, so you can bet every terrorist organization in the world probably knew that too. When they tried to get the President out of the country, his plane was shot down.”
That answered that question
. “Immediately they tried to get Dad to the Colorado safe house. The thing is, the safe location for this region is at NORAD in Colorado Springs. When the water washed out the roads south of us, we couldn’t even get to Denver. The helicopter they sent up for Dad was shot down. We tried to go down Highway 7, but it was destroyed too. We didn’t know they’d taken over Denver, but Dad got word somehow through whatever ‘underground’ was left. Then we knew we couldn’t leave. So we headed for Grandpa’s bunker. We were trapped there. And then they flew the troops in to cover the other ways out. We had nowhere to go. All I can figure is somehow they knew Dad was still up here, and they kept sending search parties to try to find him.”

She had tied together a lot of loose ends for us in a few short minutes. We were stunned. Again. None of us had even questioned the reason for the presence of the troops. We figured either Eddie had told them we were here, or Eddie was here himself. Or we figured they were just blocking the roads. But Reagan was right. Why would they have to? They weren’t worried about a handful of Americans getting out. They could easily sit down at Grand Lake or Granby on the other side of Trail Ridge Road and wait for people to come down. I felt like an idiot, and I’m sure Danny did too. Her story made a heck of a lot more sense.

“Anyway,” Reagan continued. She was clenching Jenna’s hand now. This was hard for her. “Tuesday they beat me and had me raped repeatedly, figuring they could easily break me. But after the first few times it barely even mattered anymore how many men there were or what else they were doing to me. It hurt, every single time, but I almost became numb to it. I know you can’t possibly understand that.”

Tara nodded. She had an idea.

“When I didn’t give away Dad’s location then, they beat me some more. A few hours later they beat me and raped me again. Same thing happened Thursday. Then they had me watch them give Abbey drugs, all kinds of drugs. I didn’t see them rape her or beat her. Only saw them drug her. I did all I could to convince them she had absolutely no idea where Dad was. She never did know. But then they made her watch me get raped and beaten. She didn’t say anything. She just cried. These men were ruthless.”

We were all back to wanting to kill them now.

Reagan kept talking. “Friday they brought me out here where the highest-ranking officer was, and they raped and beat me some more. When the officer left, he told his men to do what they wanted to us—not just me—us. And when the one guy started feeling up Abbey, I lost it. They gagged me so I couldn’t scream, but I was going crazy. My sister was so drugged she couldn’t have fought it off if she wanted to. He started taking off her clothes, and I couldn’t take it anymore. They left, and another girl they brought along to ‘interrogate’ was killed. I fought my way free and took off. I wanted to find Abbey, but I had no idea where to look. I saw more guys coming towards me, and I took off. Everything else is exactly like I said it.” She was sobbing again. “I’m responsible for my sister’s death.”

Danny knelt down at her feet and looked up at her face. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. I want to leave you alone, but do you have
any
idea why your dad is in that truck?”

She shook her head, and Danny stood back up to let Jenna take Reagan away. But Reagan turned back for a second and pulled away from Jenna. “They had to have gotten his attention somehow and let him know they had us. That we were still alive.” She took a few deep breaths and continued. “He must have come out of hiding to try to save us. The Secret Service guys aren’t supposed to let him out of their sight, but my dad must have found a way.” She let that sink in and turned away again with Jenna. “They never would have found him otherwise.”

FIFTY-ONE: (Eddie) “Qi Jia Command Center”