Chapter 5: My Funny Valentine
LORENZO
North Gap, Montana
February 14th
0400 Hours
I was exhausted. Preparations had taken all night, another downside of this sort of rush job. Normally I would have taken weeks to prepare my disguise, to converse with the target, learning their speech patterns, their mannerisms, the quirks that make them who they are. Usually by the time I’m ready to impersonate someone, I’ve become that person. Give me enough time and I could fool their own mother. Today, I’d be lucky to not get shot at the first checkpoint.
Smoot’s uniform was just a touch too big, but there was no time to tailor it so that it would fit me exactly like it had fit him. The black BDUs had been in a duffle bag in the back seat of the government Chevy Tahoe.
The heater was running full blast, but I was still freezing. The road to the radar station was winding, and there was a sheer drop off one side of the mountain if you happened to hit a patch of unexpected ice. The wipers beat a steady cadence to keep off the steadily falling snow.
“Don’t let that thing intimidate you. Don’t let that thing intimidate you,” I coughed, that didn’t sound right. “Don’t let that thing intimidate you.” His accent had been Irish, Boston, but not thick. He hadn’t lived there for a long time. Don’t lay it on. Clip the words faster. “Don’t let that thing intimidate you.”
I checked my face in the rear view mirror. I wasn’t happy. The molds had barely had time to cool for the latex nose and chin, the hair color wasn’t quite the right shade of red, and even with makeup my skin tone was a little too dark to match his pasty complexion. It takes experimentation to get things like that perfect, and I didn’t have time to experiment.
This is never going to work.
I had spent half the night interrogating Smoot. He thought it was to gather intelligence about the security at the North Gap facility. That was only partly true. Mostly I was listening to how he talked, how he acted, to get a sense of him as a person. Of course, it was always better to observe a subject in their natural environment. Unfortunately, zip-tied to a chair with Shen occasionally hitting you is not a natural environment.
To say that Roger Smoot was a dirtbag was an insult to honest, decent bags of dirt. Getting inside his head had made me want to take a shower. His laptop had been in his car, filled with every weird, deviant, sicko thing you could think of. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many job opportunities for me to pretend to be a decent human being.
The headlights cut a swath through the darkness. An old sign indicted that I was only three miles from the radar station.
This is it.
My phone buzzed. “Go.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Jill?” I was surprised. I had been expecting Ling to check in to tell me they would be pulling off to await my signal. It was good to hear her voice, but right now I needed to get into character. “What’s going on?”
“You didn’t call me back last night. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Her voice cut out as she spoke. I barely had any signal.
“Sorry. I’m fine. I had a lot of stuff to take care of last night.” Like kidnapping, torture, etc. “I don’t have much time. I’ve got to go. I’m about to go get the kid. I’ll call you when I can.”
“Okay, be careful. Please.” She was tough, but I could hear the nervousness in her voice.
“I love you, Jill. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, you better be, and happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, I forgot. I’ll do something nice for you when I get home.”
“I love you, Lorenzo.” The line went dead.
Valentine’s Day. Hi-fucking-larious.
There was a guard shack at the end of the road. A hydraulic gate blocked the entrance. There was a chain link fence running around the entire property, but the real security was the host of motion detectors and thermal cameras. If Exodus had launched an attack, they would have been spotted miles away, and that probably would have ended with Valentine getting a preemptive bullet to the brain.
I stopped the Tahoe in front of the gate. The lights were on inside the shack, and a man dressed in black fatigues looked up from the flashing glare of a TV screen.
Plan A was to pass for Roger Smoot. Plan B was to pull my suppressed pistol from under the seat and shoot this man in the face. I was really rooting for Plan A. I rolled down the window. A jet of freezing air flooded the car as the intercom buzzed.
“Hey, man. How was leave?” he sounded bored. I didn’t recognize the guard from any of the personnel files, but we had no idea how up to date those were.
“Dude . . .” I could tell Smoot was a braggart, a jerk, and in his mind, a ladies’ man. “I totally scored with this hot chick. You should have seen her. Young, Asian, stacked like you wouldn’t believe.”
“In Tickville? Fuck you, you did not.” He shook his head. The gate started to rise. I waved, and put the SUV back into drive. Suddenly, the gate stopped. The intercom buzzed again. “Hey, wait a second . . . ” I placed my hand on the grip of my STI 9mm and mentally shifted to Plan B.
“Yeah?”
“You still owe me fifty bucks from poker night, asshole.”
I let go of my gun, raised my hand, and flipped him the bird. “I’ll pay you when I pay you! Now open the goddamn gate. I’m gonna be late.” He laughed, and the gate rose. I stepped on it.
My headlights illuminated a few old dilapidated houses. Cookie-cutter, cheap base housing. A deer leapt across the road, and I had to admit that my nerves were wound tight enough, that it startled me.
I pulled my phone. “Ling. I’m in.”
“Copy. We’re at the bottom of the hill.”
“There’s one man in the guard shack. I couldn’t see what kind of weapons. The glass wasn’t thick enough to be bulletproof.”
“Godspeed, Lorenzo.” Ling’s voice cut out.
Interrogating Smoot had showed me that there was no way I was going to get any weapons or electronic devices into the building. The Glock that Smoot had been carrying was personally-owned. I was going to leave it in the truck because everybody, even the guards, got checked at the entrance. Their duty weapons were stored in a locker inside.
The main building dated back to the early ‘50s. It was a three-story building, ugly and imposing, with very few windows. There were a couple of large radar dishes on the roof, and one giant revolving ball radar that had been rusted solid for decades. There was a second chain link fence around the building, only this fence was topped with razor wire. I parked next to the other cars took a deep breath, and stepped out into the cold.
Whatever is in Valentine’s head better be worth it, Bob, because I’m freezing my ass off out here.
There was a single gate in the fence. There was another intercom, a keypad, and a camera that was looking right down at me. I pushed the intercom button.
“Identify,” the bored voice said. The camera made a mechanical noise as it tracked on me.
“Roger Smoot.”
“Enter your password.” I typed in the four digit number that Smoot had indicated. Since I had been rather persuasive, I was relatively sure that he had finally given me the right number. The light blinked green. Good serial rapist.
“Stand by for thumbprint scan.”
Smoot had said that sometimes the electronics weren’t very reliable when it was below freezing. “Hurry, up man. It’s cold out here.” I dramatically shoved my hands into the pockets of my black fatigues, and found the cold lump waiting for me. The box lit up, I pulled the thing out of my pocket, and smashed it against the pad. The pad blinked twice as it scanned the print, and the gate unlocked.
I pushed the gate open and shuffled toward the main entrance. Somebody had shoveled and thrown down salt, causing a layer of cold slush to form. A heavy-set, jowly man in a black uniform and a coyote brown gun belt opened the security door for me.
“You’re late.”
“I’m hung over too,” I followed him in and nonchalantly tossed Smoot’s severed thumb in the snow behind me. He wouldn’t be missing it.
VALENTINE
There was a dull throb in the back of my head as the ceiling slowly came into focus. I didn’t move. My muscles were cramped and I ached all over. I was dizzy and nauseated on top of it. My heart was racing, as if I’d woken from a bad dream. It’s a hell of a thing, waking up and realizing you’re still in the nightmare.
But I was still in my cell, so that’s how it was. I had long since given up hope that this particular nightmare would ever end. I didn’t move, didn’t attempt to get up because I had no reason to. Why bother? What did I have to gain from getting up?
Whatever else Dr. Silvers’ machines, methods, and drugs were doing to me, having to relive the nightmares of my past were the worst. So much death. So many dead faces, blankly staring at me, silently accusing me.
The ache wasn’t as bad as it had been last time. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. A sense of ambivalence had overtaken me. It was more than ambivalence, it was apathy. I just didn’t give a damn anymore. Whatever Dr. Silvers was doing to me, it was working. I couldn’t even muster the will to sit up. My grasp was slipping. The painful memories were still painful, but more distant now. It was like being Calm, but all the time. As I lay there in the dark, I idly wondered what would happen to me if I let go entirely.
Just lay here and die, I thought. No one would blame you. No one will ever know. You’ve already been forgotten. I grew angry at the thought. So angry my body felt hot, like I was burning with a fever. My hands balled into fists, my jaw clenched. A singular, overwhelming impulse filled my consciousness: kill them all.
The fog in my mind cleared as I seethed, and I became more aware of my surroundings. Wait a minute. The lights are off. The surge of anger subsided somewhat, and my muscles relaxed. I didn’t realize it before, but the lights were off in my cell. They never turned the lights off. The maddening buzz of the fluorescent tubes had ceased. The only light came from under the door to the hall. Had the tubes finally burned out? They’d been on, constantly, from the first moment I’d been tossed into that cell. The darkness was strange, but comforting. My cell felt different. It was like hiding under the blankets when you’re a little kid. I’d given myself up to the abyss, and I felt at home in it.
I blinked hard as the room spun. I’d never done drugs in my life. Never so much as puffed a joint. Now? I could only imagine the chemical concoctions that they were pumping through my body. If I thought I had any future, I’d have been deeply concerned about the long-term side-effects. I actually made myself laugh out loud at that thought. Holy hell, I’m going insane.
“And to think we always said I was the Queen of Crazy Town.”
The voice had come from the darkness, only a few feet away. Someone was sitting on the edge of my bed. I stayed perfectly still, breathing loudly though my nose, jaw clenched, as I tried to stave off panic. My earlier sense of detachment was replaced entirely with fear.
“It’s okay,” she said. The voice was familiar. Friendly. It came from nearby, but was at the same time distant. Like an echo, or a memory. I clenched my eyes shut as I realized the room was now very cold, like they’d left a window open or something. “Please,” she insisted. “You can open your eyes. It’s okay.”
If I’m insane I might as well embrace it. I willed myself to sit up. The room spun so badly that I thought I was going to fall out of bed. It settled down after a moment.
In the dim light, I couldn’t see much of her. An outline, a shadow, more of a presence. But there was no doubt about it. It was her.
It was Sarah.
I looked down at the bed. I couldn’t face her. I couldn’t bear it. I just shook my head and tried to focus. “I . . . I missed you,” I managed. The words came out as little more than a throaty whisper.
“I know,” Sarah said. There was a sadness in her voice that hadn’t been there before.
“I’m sorry I left you.”
“You didn’t. You stayed until the end, just like you said you would.”
“I . . . what . . . what are you doing here?”
“A better question is, what are you doing here, Michael?”
I looked up at her. It was easier to see now. Her face was as I remembered it. Auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her eyes were a luminescent green. I blinked hard to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. She was still there when I opened my eyes. “Even for a ghost, you’re being awfully cryptic.”
Sarah smiled as she leaned closer. “Let go. Please, just let it all go. Let me go. You’ll need to if you want to survive,” she whispered into my ear. Then she pulled away. It was like she was fading into the darkness. “You don’t have much time left.”
“Sarah wait!” The words were hollow in my empty cell. I was alone. I was sweating, breathing heavily. I was dizzy, shaking.
Oh, God. I buried my face in my hands. Oh God, oh God. What are they doing to me? Is any of this even real?
“Mr. Valentine, can I be honest with you for a moment? I’m a little disappointed in you right now.” The new voice came from my right, from the far side of the room. I could just barely see someone standing there, nothing more than a shape, out of the corner of my eye.
Gordon?
The dark figure hung there, but I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at him. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my head. The room was too cold. The air was heavy and stale, oppressive, even.
“You had a great deal of potential,” Gordon Willis said. “You still do. My former colleagues here certainly seem to have picked up on it. A lot of people would kill for some of the opportunities you’re being presented with. Heh, no irony intended, of course.”
“This isn’t happening,” I said aloud. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” I clenched my eyes shut and brought my hands up over them again. “Oh God. It’s not real. It’s the drugs. It’s just the drugs.”
“You didn’t mind your dead girlfriend visiting,” Gordon sounded disappointed. “Maybe it’s the drugs, maybe not . . . Maybe in that messed-up head of yours I represent Majestic and all it stands for, so I’m just here to gloat . . . I must admit, this isn’t what I was expecting. Of course, I wasn’t expecting you to murder me in my own home, either, so I guess you’re just full of surprises.” He laughed.
“Go away!” I screamed. “You’re not real!”
“I don’t know what to tell you about that. I’m trying to be straight with you here.”
Even in death he was full of shit. “What do you want from me?” I asked, finally looking over at him. Gordon was leaning against the wall. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, and a designer tie hung loosely around his neck. Behind it was the dark and bloody wound where I’d shot him.
“You’re a survivor, Val. You mind if I call you Val? Anyway, you’re definitely a survivor. More than you can say for me, right?” He laughed at his own joke again. “So putting yourself in my shoes, you can probably understand my surprise at finding you like this. Not at all what I was expecting. You never struck me as a quitter.”
Gordon got closer to me. I looked away and shut my eyes again. “This isn’t happening,” I repeated to myself. “It’s the drugs. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” I held myself in my arms, rocking back and forth. “God, please, make it stop. It’s not real. It’s not real.”
“There are things in motion now that can’t be stopped. You can be a part of it or not. But you’re better than this. You have a unique opportunity here. Don’t let it pass you by.”
“Leave me alone!” I jerked upright in bed. My eyes were wide, and I was covered in sweat. My heart was beating so hard that I could almost hear it. Slowly, very slowly, I looked around my room. I was alone. The lights were still off. I hadn’t dreamt that part at least.
Even as Dr. Silvers’ techniques and contrivances had torn me down, even as I wanted to just give up and die, a part of me still resisted. The more times they fed me to the machine, breaking down my will, the angrier I became. Two halves of my mind were at odds with each other. Even as I contemplated trying to kill myself, I darkly desired to kill Dr. Silvers, to kill Neville, to kill Reilly and Smoot and Davis and the rest. To kill them all. Each time they worked their horrors on me, I came out more broken, more disconnected, but at the same time stronger, angrier. Hatred and apathy battled for control of my will.
My head suddenly hurt, as if merely thinking about it was giving me a headache. What was happening to me? Was I going crazy? I could’ve sworn I actually heard an audible click as my brain shifted gears. The misery, the anger, the rage, the fear, the regret, it all coalesced, condensed into a tight little ball of determination. A familiar cold wave washed over my body then. The jumbled thoughts rapidly fluttering through my mind slowed and focused.
For the first time in a long time, I was Calm.
I’m getting out of this hole.
LORENZO
The first floor of the building had an entry control point, a break room, and lockers. The second floor was offices, though Smoot said they weren’t used much. The top floor was the control center, which was where I needed to go to disable communications and shut down the security cameras. The basement was where the prisoners were held, and where the uglier side of what they did here went on. Smoot had told me all about the mind games.
“You look terrible,” the guard said as he ran the metal detecting wand over me. He looked like an out-of-shape bull. There hadn’t been a file on this one.
“I was up all night, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, whatever, Roger. Grab your gear and head up to the control room.”
Luckily he gestured in the direction of the locker room while he was talking. I walked away, trying to look casual. The interior was old and run down, a relic from the Cold War. The modern computers and equipment inside looked entirely out of place. I made my way to the security lockers Smoot had told me about. I found his locker and, using his key, opened it and took stock of his equipment.
Inside were several sets of the black fatigues. Body armor, holsters, a helmet, and other gear were all in coyote tan, which must’ve looked really stupid with black uniforms. I put on Smoot’s duty belt, only to find it was a little too big for me. I had to quickly cinch it down so it wouldn’t look off. I buckled it around my waist and grabbed his issue weapon, another Glock 23. There was a knife too, a CRKT folder. I tested the edge, found it relatively sharp, then stuck it in my pocket.
Smoot told us quite a bit about the operations at North Gap. He had considered it a shit detail. Apparently Majestic had several out-of-the-way places like this. Prisoners came and went, but Smoot insisted that there weren’t that many currently being held here. All of them had been picked up domestically, and he never knew the why. He knew who Valentine was, since the Zubaran info dump had made him something of a celebrity, though he had no idea why he was still being held, nor did he care, hated the guy though. Valentine had once stabbed him in the knee with a pen. Smoot didn’t like it when I’d laughed in his face about that. I have room to talk. Valentine had done worse to me. I still can’t hear right in one ear, the bastard.
Lucky for me, not all of the staff would be on duty at any given time. They worked in shifts like anyone else, and most of them would be in their residences in the refurbished base housing, asleep. If things got loud, that would probably change in a hurry. Smoot said that there were always at least two guards in the basement level at all times. As a rule, no guns were allowed down there except under extreme circumstances. Only a moron would let somebody like Valentine anywhere near a firearm. A couple more men would be in the control room on the third floor. I found the elevator and made my way up.
The radar station was tapered, so that the top floor was not nearly as large as the bottom. There were windows at this level, but it was dark outside. There were several desks with computer monitors, and three bored-looking men in black fatigues. Bundles of cables were strung across the room. Screens for controlling and monitoring the security systems were mounted on one wall.
One of the guards was using the Mr. Coffee. The second was screwing around on Facebook, and the last one was actually doing his job and watching the camera feeds. Thankfully, none of them bothered to do more than glance in my direction.
“Smoot, what’s up, dawg?” the one at the coffee machine asked. He was tall, skinny, and dark. I remembered his picture from the files. Local law enforcement background, until he’d lost it and beaten a prisoner to death. Perfect Majestic material. He had a complicated Slavic last name. I’d just think of him as Mr. Coffee.
“Hey.” When you’re trying to impersonate somebody, it’s best not to talk much. You don’t want to give them much to work with. “’Sup?”
“You hear what happened to Randy?” the one reading Facebook asked. I drew a blank on him. “Guess what happened while you were on leave?”
“Uh . . .” I was scanning back and forth. I needed to kill their alarms. I didn’t know what kind of response would happen when a secret prison that wasn’t supposed to exist was attacked, and I didn’t care to find out. There wouldn’t be much time before one of these assholes realized I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, and I didn’t want to start shooting until I could disable the comms.
“Randy got temped to Arizona, where it’s warm. They’re actually giving him something interesting to do. Lucky son of a bitch.”
“Oh?” There was a fuse box on the wall, an ancient metal monstrosity with heavy cables running into it. I could just kill the power to the entire building. That could work. In the far corner was a big locker. That had to be where the long guns were stored.
“Uh-huh. Apparently higher authority asked Silvers if she could spare somebody for an op down there, and she picked Randy. Some FBI puke was poking around in organization business, and then he disappeared.”
Bob? “Okay.”
“Nobody knows where this FBI dude went. He just dropped off the map. They’ve been watching his house, but he hasn’t come home. His wife and kids are there, so they’re gonna raid the place, have a few words with the family. I bet the organization’s going to try to apply some leverage, if you follow me.”
Everything just changed.
“Man, wish I could’ve gone,” Mr. Coffee said, taking a sip. “Anything to get out of this shithole.”
The guard at the monitors finally spoke. “Screw that noise. This job is a cake walk. Steady pay, free housing, and we don’t actually do any work. I don’t know what you vaginas are whining about.”
I casually made my way over to the bank of screens, to see what he could see. The facility didn’t have a huge number of cameras, but it had enough that Ling and her people wouldn’t make it to the building undetected unless I did something.
Facebook Guy disagreed. “Dude, this place blows! It snows half the year, there’s nothing to do in town, and we don’ t get any action!”
“Action? To hell with that,” the monitor-watcher rebutted. “I was in the operations division for a while, until I got shot . . .” I recognized him from the files. Frost. Former Army, drummed out for criminal misconduct, then recruited by Majestic.
I studied the screens. Several of them showed prisoners in their cells. Most of them were sitting on their beds or on the floor, not doing anything interesting. The fourth cell was different. Unlike the others, it was dark, and the camera was on IR mode. The prisoner was sitting up in bed. It looked like he was talking to someone that wasn’t there.
“What’re you doing?” Frost asked.
“Valentine?” I nodded toward the bank.
Frost looked at the monitor I suspected, confirming I had the right man. “Yep. Your buddy. How’s the knee, by the way?” he laughed.
I smiled like that was hilarious. “What’s he doing?”
“Talking to himself,” Frost suggested. “I don’t know. Silvers made your boy down there her pet project. I don’t know what she’s doing to him, but he’s fucked up.”
“Who cares?” Mr. Coffee whined. “I’m sick of sitting up here, freezing my dick off, watching Silvers play head games with the prisoners. I want to get out there and get some action. Maybe get laid once in a while.” I casually made my way over to him, as if I was going to get a cup of coffee.
“You say that like it’s fun and all until command screws up and you get your asses shot off,” Frost said.
Mr. Coffee rebutted. “Frosty, nobody wants to hear your war stories again.” Frost gave him a dirty look and went back to watching the screens. Mr. Coffee then popped me in the shoulder. “Now this guy, he’s got a way with the ladies.” He laughed. “They should have sent you to Arizona, dawg. You’d probably get that FBI guy’s old lady to talk.” He guffawed at his own humor.
My pulse was racing. I struggled to stay in character. “Booyah! You know it, dawg!” Smoot habitually said ‘booyah’. In general, he talked like a douchebag, and anybody who said booyah and dawg I had no problem sawing their thumbs off. “When are they doing it?”
“What?” Facebook guy finally looked up from his monitor. “Geezus, Smoot, you look like shit. You got gonorrhea again?”
“When are they raiding the house in Arizona?”
“Randy said tomorrow night. Why, you wanna beg Silvers and try and get in on it?” He took another sip from his mug. “You really itching to get out of here that bad?”
I started to laugh, laugh like Mr. Coffee had said the funniest goddamn thing in the world. Then I hit him, palm-struck him in the face. I smashed his coffee mug into his teeth and up his nose. His head snapped back in a splash of coffee, blood, spittle, and broken porcelain. Before he could react, I grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face into the desk.
“What the fuck!” Frost shouted, jumping up from his row of monitors, stunned that one of his friends had just brutalized the other.
Facebook Guy was staring at me, wide-eyed, from his chair. He was in shock, stammering for words. I didn’t give him a chance to speak. I grabbed the pot of hot coffee and lobbed it at him as hard as I could. The pot shattered on his face, sending scalding hot coffee and broken glass into his eyes. He let out a blood-curdling, high-pitched scream, fell out of his chair, and clawed at his eyes.
Frost fumbled for his gun.
I was faster.
BLAM
The .40 round entered just below Frost’s left eye and took the back of his head off.
Mr. Coffee was still dazed, trying to get off the desk. No need to make extra noise, Smoot’s knife came out in a flash. I plunged it into his throat and slashed my arm outward. Mr. Coffee’s eyes were wide with shock as he gurgled and choked on his own blood. He slid down the desk in a red smear as his life poured out, but I’d already turned my attention to Facebook Guy. He couldn’t see and had panicked, ineffectually slapping at my hands until I stabbed him in the throat. His screams turned into a sickening gurgle. Warm blood spilled out of the wound, and he went limp. I stepped back, trying not to get too much of it on me.
I stood up, surveying the carnage in the control room. These motherfuckers were going after Bob’s family. My family. A radio on Frost’s desk beeped. “Control room! Report in! We heard a gunshot! Report!”
I snatched it up. “This is Smoot. Frost had a negligent discharge.”
“Frost did? You guys okay?”
I looked around at the bodies on the floor. “Uh, yeah. Scared the shit out of us. He was trying to teach us how to quick draw a pistol and he put a round into the floor.” I paused for effect and moved the radio away from my mouth. “Yeah, Frost, I’m telling on you. You almost shot me.”
“Put him on.”
“Uh, he’s kind of shaken up right now. He won’t take the radio.”
“For Christ’s sake. I’ll be there in a minute. Take his gun away.”
I reholstered the Glock. The security camera feed showed a man on the first floor running for the stairs. I only had a moment. I flipped the radio to the channel I knew Ling would be listening to.
“I have control of video and comms. Execute, execute!”
VALENTINE
A gunshot echoed through the quiet building. It was muffled, as if it had come from above, but there was no mistaking that sound. Something was happening. I didn’t know what, but this might be the only chance I was going to get. With the onset of the Calm, my thoughts were clear and rational. The dark, bubbling anger from before was pushed to the background. They might be distracted. I’m not going to get a better chance than this. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and stood up.
I nearly fell. My legs were weak and quivering. It took me a moment to steady myself. At last my head stopped spinning and I felt . . . not good, exactly, but better than I could recall. The Calm, with its clarity and sense of purpose, steadied me. I smiled in the darkness. I’d missed this feeling.
I was getting out, and I was going to kill as many of my captors as I could in the attempt. They might kill me, but the fear was pushed aside by the single-minded, determined focus the Calm brought with it.
I went for the door. Locked. No surprise there. There was also a camera. It was up in the corner, bolted to the ceiling so it could see the entire room. A red light glowed by the lens, as if to let me know I was being watched. I didn’t know if the camera had a night vision mode, but I assumed it did.
There was a cable leading from the camera, across the ceiling, through a small hole drilled in the wall, and out into the hallway. The rooms of this building were made of cinder blocks and concrete. They’d made no effort to hide the camera’s power and feed cable, just bolted it onto the textured ceiling. I could barely make out the black line in the darkness, but it was there, just too high for me to reach.
Stepping back across the room, I pulled my bed into place beneath the camera. This was easy, because my bed was basically a gurney with wheels. Shakily, unsteadily, I climbed up and carefully stood. I smiled for the camera as I grabbed onto the coaxial cable and tugged.
Nothing happened. Shit. I tugged harder. Still nothing. It was on there really solidly. They could see me on camera. I didn’t have time for this. I grabbed the cable with both hands and put my body weight into it. The cable ripped out of the camera. The fasteners holding it to the ceiling gave way. My bed rolled out from underneath me and toppled over with a crash. I landed hard on the floor.
Well. That probably got their attention. I didn’t have a lot of time. They’d be coming for me. I needed a weapon. I looked down at the cable in my hands, and smiled. A pair of boots stomped down the hall. Gathering up the cable in my hands, I pressed myself against the wall behind where the door swung when it opened, and waited. The heater kicked on, filling the entire hallway with an obnoxious rumbling sound.
Keys jingled, then hit the lock. I could hear voices on his radio. The volume was up too high and the tinny noise echoed in the hallway, intermixed with static.
The door swung open.
It was now or never. Stepping around the door, I looped the heavy-gauge coaxial cable around the guard’s neck and yanked it as hard as I could. I let myself fall. The thrashing guard went down with me. He was panicking, kicking, twisting, desperate for air. His hands clawed as his throat, but I held on for dear life. He tried to reach me, but I was underneath him. There was nothing he could do. His gurgles and gasps grew more desperate, his thrashing wilder. He kicked the door and the wall, tried to bash my face with the back of his head, but I didn’t let go.
Then he went limp.
I held on for a few moments longer, making sure he was done, before pushing the heavy man off and sitting up. I was panting. My arms felt like lead and my hands were raw where the coaxial cable had dug into them. Luckily my grip had lasted longer than his air.
There had only been one of them. They usually sent two or more. Something was happening, maybe related to that gunshot. I didn’t have time to sort it out. I had to move.
In the light coming from the hallway, I could see the dead man’s face. It was Reilly. His eyes were grotesquely rolled up into his head and his crushed throat was purple. I smiled viciously at the corpse and began to strip the equipment off of his duty belt.
No gun. Of course Dr. Silvers didn’t let them carry guns down here anymore. But he had other goodies for me: an aluminum side-handle baton, keys, handcuffs, and a radio. There was too much of it for me to carry in my hands. Unbuckling his duty belt, I rolled Reilly over and took it off of him. He was a fat man, and I’d lost quite a bit of weight during my stay. His belt was way too big for me. I looped it over my shoulder like a bandolier and stood up.
It was time to go.
LORENZO
Ling acknowledged she was on her way. I lunged across the control room for the weapons locker. It had an electronic lock with a keypad. I had no idea what the combination was. This was why I hated rush jobs. Given time to think I would have remembered to beat that combo out of Smoot too. I swore and futilely slammed a fist into the metal door. More guards would be here in seconds and it would be nice to have something bigger than a pistol. At least I could take everyone else’s ammo.
There was movement on one of the screens as I looted Frost’s corpse. Valentine was standing on his bed, smiling at the camera. It was almost as if he was looking right at me. His face was green and white, his eyes shining creepily in the camera’s night vision mode. He messed with the camera, and then the feed was cut.
What the hell was he doing? But I didn’t have time to worry about it. The door opened and another man in black fatigues appeared in the stairwell. It was the guard that had checked me at the door. He strode in purposefully, loudly cursing as he moved. “Jesus tap dancing Christ, Frost, I’ll have your ass for this. Silvers is going to blow a gasket when she . . . when she . . .” He trailed off when he saw the puddle of blood and coffee coagulating around the desks.
I came from his periphery, so fast he couldn’t react, and brutally smashed Frost’s baton onto his shoulder. He bellowed in pain and stumbled back against the wall. Spinning the baton so that the short end was forward, I punched it into his sternum. He made a noise like a cat trying to cough up a hairball, and for a moment I was afraid he was going to puke on me. I whipped the baton around and cracked him in forehead. He fell to the floor after that, blood pouring down his face. I removed his pistol and shoved it into the back of my waistband, then I stood over him, with the baton pushed against his top lip. He was too dazed to do anything.
“S . . . Smoot!” he stammered. “What are you doing?”
“Smoot’s dead.” It had to be strange to hear an alien voice coming out of a coworker’s face.
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
I cracked him in the shoulder with the baton. He cried out.
“What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Did I fucking stutter? Your name! What. Is. Your. Name.” I jabbed the nightstick into his side.
“Greg!” he blurted out, wincing with pain. “Greg Spanner!”
Spanner . . . I seemed to remember bribery, stealing from evidence rooms, and witness intimidation, so no wonder he was a supervisor here. “Okay, Greg. Listen to me very carefully. How do you check in with your command?” The longer that Majestic didn’t know that we had been here, the greater our chances of getting away.
“I can’t tell you that.” It looked like Greg was trying to find his backbone.
“That’s what those assholes said.” I gestured to the corpses. “See how that turned out? I’m not going to ask you again, Greg. You’re either an asset or a liability.”
“It’s Silvers . . . Silvers!” I jabbed him again, just to keep him talking. It wasn’t surprising that he was less than eager to lay down his life for a super-loyal organization like Majestic. “She sends in a status report every day!”
“How?”
“E-mail.” He cringed as I raised the stick, tears streaming down his cheeks. “No, really, she sends an e-mail! Every morning, really early! She works all night most of the time, and sends the SITREP in before she goes home!”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah!” He nodded rapidly. “It’s on the secure network, though!”
“Lackadaisical motherfuckers!” I spat.
VALENTINE
The hallway was dimly lit.
I crept past the other locked doors, my footsteps covered by the constant rumbling of the industrial heater. White light filled a spot on the floor further down the hall..
I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t sure what was driving me. I didn’t have a plan. There was only the powerful impulse to get out and to kill anyone who got in my way. My thoughts were a whirlwind, too jumbled for me to even follow, but occasionally they’d slow down into a moment of pure clarity. I really wanted to see the sky again. The soles on my laceless shoes were soft and didn’t make much noise.
The next section of hallway went right past Dr. Silvers’ office. Her office had a window in it, to give her a nice view of the scenic hallway I guess. Venetian blinds were hung over the window, but they were open enough that I could see through. I darted across the hall so that I was next to the window. Through the slatted blinds, I could see Dr. Silvers at her desk, idly typing away on the computer on her desk.
Ducking under the window, I crept down the hallway toward the open door. I had to move very slowly. I was far enough away from the heater that it would no longer cover any inadvertent sounds I made. Reilly’s belt was still slung over my shoulder, and I had to be careful not to let any of his equipment scrape against the concrete floor. Past the window I stood up, back to the wall, and moved on as silently as I could to her office door. It was open.
A nasal voice came from inside. “Reilly’s been gone for an awfully long time. We haven’t heard anything else about the incident upstairs, either. Do you think everything is okay?”
Dr. Silvers let out a long sigh before responding. “I’m sure they’re doing paperwork, Neville. One of those cretins almost shot his foot off. I swear I’m going to ban guns in this facility completely, take all of their toys away. I’m surrounded by idiots.”
“But what about Reilly, Doctor? It shouldn’t take that long to just check on a noise. And shouldn’t Smoot be on shift by now?” A noise? Didn’t they see me disable the camera? Wasn’t anyone monitoring the cameras?
“Smoot is probably upstairs too, gawking with the other idiots. Now quit gibbering. Go check on him yourself if you want. I’m trying to work.”
Very carefully, I peeked around the corner. The front part of her office had a countertop with a coffee machine on it. Neville was there, making a fresh pot. Seemingly unaware that Dr. Silvers didn’t want to talk to him, kept flapping his mouth at her. “Have you sent in the daily SITREP and report to higher, Doctor?”
Dr. Silvers muttered something to herself. “Yes, Neville, I have. Perhaps you’d also like to follow me to the restroom and remind me to wipe my ass?”
Neville laughed nervously again, even though it was pretty obvious Silvers wasn’t joking around with him. It made me happy that she found him just as insufferable as I did, but he persisted. The fool never did know when to shut his pie-hole. “Doctor, perhaps if you just called Reilly on the radio . . .” He trailed off as Dr. Silvers let out another long sigh.
“I’m sure he’s just dawdling, Neville, but if it will make you feel better. Soothing your paranoia is apparently the only way I’m going to be able to get any work done this morning.”
My eyes went wide as I remembered that Reilly’s radio was still in its pouch, on his belt, over my shoulder. Dr. Silvers hit the transmit button before I could turn his radio off. The radio squawked.
Oh shit.
I heard her stand up. “Reilly?” she asked, calling out into the hallway.
“I can’t see anything, Doctor,” Neville whined.
“Go look,” Silvers ordered.
I moved while Neville hesitated. Drawing Reilly’s baton from the belt I lunged around the corner. Neville was so shocked he didn’t even have time to react. I held the baton by the side handle, with the short end pointing forward. I was on top of Neville before he could even step back. My hand on his shoulder, I slammed the blunt aluminum baton into his gut, over and over again. I shoved him back, flipped the baton around, and whacked him upside the head. Neville’s head snapped to the side and he flopped to the floor. I didn’t let up. I raised the baton over my head, clutching it in both hands, and savagely beat the little bastard’s skull in.
Spittle flew out of my clenched teeth as I clubbed him. I was on an adrenaline high like I’d never experienced. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but killing Neville was the greatest feeling I’d ever known.
The Calm was gone. There was only rage.
Panting, sweat pouring down my face, I rose over Neville’s lifeless form. Across the room, behind her desk, Dr. Silvers was pressed up against the wall. Her eyes were wide, a look of horror covered her face. I’d never seen her afraid before, and it made me so happy I laughed out loud. She’d mashed the alarm button and a loud warbling noise began to sound. It probably alerted the entire facility. I laughed at that, too. My hope of escape was extinguished, but I wasn’t done just yet.
LORENZO
Greg Spanner, clad in black and covered in blood, blubbered on the floor of the control room after I’d beaten the hell out of him and threatened his life. Not too surprisingly, he felt talkative.
“Next question, Greg,” I said. “That weapons locker over there. What’s the combination?”
“One, twenty-five, thirteen!” he gasped, struggling to fight back tears. I had broken this guy, and he couldn’t maintain his dignity. He was scared, he was confused, and all he knew was that he didn’t want to die.
I’m good at this sort of thing. Once you push someone over the threshold, where they become more worried about living than anyone’s opinion of them, they can be very useful. It doesn’t work so well on the strong-willed, the true believers, fanatics, or people who’ve undergone intense training, but for low-level, wannabe jack-booted thugs like Spanner this technique was perfect.
“Now look at me, Greg. I’m going to go over there and see what’s in that locker. You stay right there. If you get up, I’ll shoot you. If you try to crawl away, I’ll shoot you. Are we clear?”
“Who are you?”
That was the wrong answer. I kicked Greg in the stomach. He folded onto himself like wet origami. “Am I making myself clear?” I pulled his Glock.
“Yes!” Greg cried. “I swear!”
“Good. Stay put.” I made my way across the control room and punched the numbers into the gun locker. Inside were several M4 carbines, a couple of shotguns, and ammunition for both. I took one of the carbines, turned on its EOTech sight, slammed a magazine into it, and worked the charging handle.
That’s when the alarm went off. It was an obnoxiously loud klaxon, something originally intended to alert the residents of North Gap that Soviet missiles were inbound. My first thought was that the gun safe was alarmed somehow, but I didn’t think Spanner was brave enough to try and trick me. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know!”
Stepping over Frost’s body, I checked the bank of monitors. The screen for Valentine’s cell was still dead. There was movement on another screen. Holy shit. Valentine was out of his cell, viciously beating someone with a nightstick. Even in the gritty black and white I could tell he was painting the walls down there.
The son of a bitch picked a hell of a day to escape.
“Come in Ling,” I said, keying the radio.
“I hear a siren. We just cleared the checkpoint,” Ling replied. “Status?”
“We’ve got a problem. Our boy is out of his room.”
“Say again?”
“He’s out of his cell! He’s escaping! He just beat the shit out of some skinny guy and somebody tripped the alarm.” There was motion on many of the monitors now. They were coming out of the nearby housing and running through the snow and there was movement on the level below me. “Every guard in this place is on the move.”
“You have to slow them. You have to get to Valentine before they do.”
“Then you better go loud. Greg!” I snapped as I dropped the mic. “How do I kill the power in—” He was gone. Son of a bitch. The door to the stairwell was swinging closed. He’d run for it.