The Pit (The Bugging Out Series Book 4) (23 page)

Without saying so with any specificity, Schiavo had just blessed the plan that Elaine and I had devised. A plan she would be part of, and for which she needed to be as close to fully capable as possible.

“We have ninety minutes,” I said.

Hart pulled an IV line and needle from his kit.

“I need forty five,” the medic said.

Every second was of the essence, just as her health was, so Schiavo took no time to decide.

“Do it,” she said.

A minute later she was flat on the floor, a needle in her arm, blood dripping into the line that delivered it to her veins. Forty minutes after that the bag went dry.

I wasn’t there to witness the entire process, though. There was one stop I had to make before we ventured into the pit.

G
race lay on a couch in a house one block from the main street through Skagway. I found Neil with her, and Doc Allen.

“Fletch,” my friend said when he saw me come through the front door.

He came up to me and pulled me into a hug. When we eased back from each other his smile beamed under glistening eyes.

“We’re going to have a baby,” he said. “Can you believe that?”

“It’s wonderful, Neil.”

I looked past him to Grace. In her eyes I saw wondering and fear.

“Doc says she’ll be okay,” Neil said. “She’s just overwhelmed.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

My friend put a hand to my elbow and ushered me a few steps away, just out of earshot for Grace.

“What’s going to happen?”

“We’re going in to get them,” I said. “There’s a plan. I think we have a good chance.”

Even that phrasing left my friend with a pained look on my face.

“It’s going to be okay,” I assured him. “Look, we made it here. We beat every set of odds we came up against. And we’re going to keep on doing that.”

Neil shifted his gaze for a moment, to a window which looked out toward the harbor, the vessels in it half visible above rooftops.

“Do you know what sank the
Vensterdam
?” he asked me.

“The Russians did.”

“Doc Allen said that when that ship was pulling in the Russians fired on it from their boat. They weren’t even taking fire.”

“Cranston told us about that,” I said.

“Fletch, if they’ll do that to a shipload of helpless people...”

I knew what my friend meant. You wanted to believe that there was a code that warriors lived by. A code that had, in some small way, nearly pushed Schiavo to interrupt my violent and necessary interaction with Grishin. Not all warriors abided by a code such as that. It was certain that Kuratov did not.

“The plan is good, Neil. It is. I’m the one going in to get the children.”

“You?”

I nodded.

“What about Elaine?”

I hesitated just a breath. A noticeable breath.

“She’s going in with Schiavo,” I told my friend.

To that he said nothing. He’d said all he could before this moment ever came.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said, glancing past to Grace and Doc Allen. “Tell her—”

But Neil shook his head, cutting off my assurance.

“When it’s done, and Krista is back in our arms, we’ll know.”

I understood. Anything promised now was only a collection of words. They needed fact. They needed flesh and blood to embrace so they could know, so they could believe, that the horror was over.

“Y
ou’re staying,” I said.

Elaine almost didn’t react to what I’d said. She continued transferring unnecessary gear from her pack to the table just as Schiavo and her men were doing. Then, she froze, her gaze rising to see that I was standing right where I’d been, and that there was no hint about me that what I’d just told her was a joke.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I said. “You’re not going.”

Just across the table I glimpsed Schiavo glancing our way as she readied her equipment. She didn’t try to intervene, and she wouldn’t. This was between Elaine and me.

“You’re covering the entrance with the others,” I said.

Elaine dialed her gaze in hard on me.

“I thought we talked about this,” she said.

“We did,” I said. “But I can’t let you go in. I need to be focused on what has to be done. If you’re there, half of me will be wondering if you’re all right. Every distant shot I hear will be one that could have your name on it.”

“I can handle myself,” she said.

I shook my head.

“That’s not the point. If it’s that macho gene thing, I’m sorry. But from the deepest part of my being, I know that I would give my life for you. Except I won’t be with you if that becomes necessary. And that says nothing about how capable you are. It’s just the reality of what I feel for you.”

Elaine took in what I’d just shared with her, seething silently. But not countering what I’d said.

“I need a good shooter at the entrance,” Schiavo said, and Elaine looked sharply toward her. “All I have covering that location are weak people with scrounged weapons. I could use you there, Elaine.”

There was logic to what Schiavo had just explained. And logic to what I’d said. But neither mattered to Elaine, I sensed, as she gathered up her gear and her weapon and looked between the lieutenant and me.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said sharply, then left the room.

“That went well,” Schiavo said.

“Thank you for giving me an out,” I said.

“I didn’t give you anything,” Schiavo said. “The civilians covering that entrance could end up facing elite troops on the off chance the Russians decide to make a break to the outside. I sure as hell can use her there.”

Schiavo continued readying her gear and checking the makeshift breaching charge with Lorenzen. This was going to be a full on assault in a confined space. And it had to be choreographed to the second. Even then, there was no guarantee of success. Or that we’d get the children out alive.

Or that any of us would live through it.

I looked to my pack. I wouldn’t be lugging it with me into the pit. All I’d need would fit in pockets and the tactical vest I scrounged from the garrison’s old quarters.

“You clear on the use of that charge?” Lorenzen asked.

No one was a demolitions expert. But there was enough collective knowledge to allow me some confidence in using the slender block of plastic explosive. I had a twenty second fuse with it, all that could be found among the construction supplies left when Cranston’s workers had pulled out. A third of a minute. That wasn’t much time to get clear of any blast that would seal off the chamber near where we believed the children were being held. But it was all that I had.

“I’ve got it,” I said.

But the margin worried me. A lot of what was going to happen worried me. Not returning, in particular, scared me. But not only for reasons that were obvious and personal.

Once more I looked to my pack. This time, though, I lifted it from where it sat and turned to Schiavo.

“Lieutenant...”

She paused her preparations and looked to me.

“Can I have a minute? In private?”

The interruption, so soon before we were about to set out on the mission into the pit, puzzled her.

“It’s important,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, and followed me outside.

*  *  *

W
e stood behind the store with daylight beginning to fade. I reached to my pack and retrieved the book and two vials of seeds. Elaine and Neil each held more vials in their packs.

“What is that?” Schiavo asked.

“I never told you why we went to Wyoming,” I said.

Then, I did tell her. I shared our journey, and the reason for it. The purpose. Then, I handed her the prize.

“That is the cure for the blight,” I said.

Schiavo took the notebook from me, handling it gingerly. Then a single vial of seeds.

“These grow,” she said, half asking.

“We’ve seen what grew from those seeds,” I told her.

“Neil and Elaine, too?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Trees? Vegetables? Everything?”

So simple, and yet so fantastical. What had once been ordinary was considered extraordinary.

“Everything,” I said.

She thought for a moment, then handed the items back to me.

“You trust Martin,” she said, stating a plain conclusion she’d come to.

“Completely.”

“Give those to him for safe keeping. If anything...”

She didn’t need to finish.

“When we’re done,” Schiavo began, taking a more hopeful tone, “and we have the radio, I’ll report what you’ve got there.”

That was exactly what I wanted to hear. I headed for the store’s back door to finish readying my gear.

“You could have told me earlier,” Schiavo said, her words stopping me. “But I understand. You keep your cards close until you have to play them.”

She was wise without the pretense. Smart without the superiority. Simply spoken and self-assured. There was a lot to like about Lieutenant Angela Schiavo. And even more to respect.

“Thank you,” I said.

Then we went inside together. The next time we stepped outside we’d be on our way to the pit to wrest the children from Kuratov’s grip.

S
chiavo’s team moved north from the X barrier that blocked the dirt road. I moved east and circled past the slope that led to the pit’s main entrance. The group assigned to cover that potential escape point numbered ten, including Martin and Perkins.

And Elaine.

There was no time for greetings or well wishes or final words to each other. There was only a look. Apology and love and frustration and fear volleying between us through only that visual connection.

I had no idea if I’d finally crossed some line with her that could not be ignored. This might be the end, even if we both came out of it alive. And that was all right as long as she still had a life ahead.

She looked away first. Back to the wide entrance door. I continued on, trying not to glance back. But I did. I wanted to catch as many glimpses of her as I could before everything began. And I did. Again and again. Taking in the sight of her until I crossed a small ridge and she was gone from sight.

*  *  *

B
y Grishin’s watch it was six thirty on the dot when a sharp clank resonated through the hatch from below.

I stood just to the side of the square hatch covering the dump shaft, my AR ready, set on single shot, the suppressor aimed at where the opening would appear. A second later it tipped upward and a Russian soldier with rosy cheeks poked his head through. He never even knew I was there.

A single muffled shot from my AR slammed his head to the right and his body dropped from view, slender hydraulic lifters holding the hatch open. I stepped close and aimed down into the shaft. Some weak light below cast over the body of the man I’d just shot, heaped on the concrete floor, a pair of MRE pouches at his side. I counted to five, waiting for anyone else to appear. No one did. Grishin hadn’t lied. Only one comrade of his came to meet him each night. That was what he’d said, and that, it appeared, was what had come to pass.

Six minutes...

That was how much time I had to get into position before Schiavo and her unit breached the farthest skylight. I wasted no more time, slinging my AR and climbing down into the dump shaft, stepping as softly as I could upon the rungs. In less than a minute I covered the fifty foot descent and planted my boots on the floor next to the dead Russian.

A single light glowed at what seemed half power in the space I’d entered. The solar arrays and fuel cells powering the facility were not operating at full capacity, a fact that didn’t surprise me considering the rush job that had been done during construction on everything else, the support systems included. Even in this room I could see cracks on the ceiling and the walls. Too many, I thought. I still wasn’t close to the weakened corridor that Martin had described. That, I’d hoped, had been localized. I was beginning to fear the conditions that caused it was not.

I dragged the body clear of the ladder and moved to the door. A corridor led from it, and, from memory, I knew which way I had to go, and where the turns were. I had just under five minutes to cover the distance that should only take three, but I set out with haste, wanting as much extra time as possible to deal with the threats that would certainly be waiting where the children were.

But as I made my first turn, the time table, and how I’d hoped my part of the mission would unfold, were both made impossible by what I found myself facing.

Roots, dry and knotted, hung from the structure’s ceiling, their dead bark scraping my face as I pushed through. Everything I was seeing, especially in this section of the pit, screamed haste, and corner cutting. Cranston and his people had put the pedal to the metal, pushing construction crews past the point where they could execute the plans properly.

I’d seen the same result many times in my old life as a contractor and builder. The subterranean behemoth around me was crumbling, bit by bit, and had begun to even before the blight reached this northern landscape. Roots continued to grow until killed by the death reaching down from above. They cracked the substandard concrete, invading any space they could reach. Suspended now like some tangle of jungle vines they slowed my progress as I had to push through the lacework of dead vegetation.

What section was I in? I tried to remember from the plans Cranston had provided. Everything had been numbered. Rooms were labeled Chamber 639 or Chamber 138. Why they’d chosen that terminology to describe a room, a simple space, I didn’t know, though, to me, it evoked images of confinement more than contentment.

As I’d told the others, this was a prison, in essence. To keep locked away those whose only act of merit was surviving.

I made my way through the thickest vines, a wall that had not been cracked or undermined appearing. There was a number on it. The remnants of some marking mostly spared from the intrusion of dead roots and the water that had once nourished them.

648...

Chamber 648. I tried to place myself by recalling the blueprints. Two corridors and a series of chambers lay somewhere beyond the clogged passageway I was in. One wall was bulged where I passed, evidence of a near complete structural failure just waiting to happen.