Читать книгу The Release - Tom Isbell, Tom Isbell - Страница 17

THE THREE BROWN SHIRTS reappear, once more lugging wooden crates that they slide into the Humvee. When they return to the silo, Hope, Cat, and Sunshine rise to their feet and scamper across the snow.

They enter through the open gate and ease around the mound, stopping when they reach a thick metal door. Cat nods and the three of them step inside. When Hope’s eyes adjust to the gloom, she sees that they’re in a small antechamber. An elevator door stands straight ahead; to the side is a tube with a metal ladder descending straight down. She bends her head and listens. Voices spiral up.

With a series of hand gestures, Hope motions that she’ll go first, climbing down the ladder into the heart of the silo. She has no idea who’s down there … or what she’s getting into.

When she reaches the bottom, the first thing she sees is an open reinforced steel door. It’s easily two feet thick. Beyond it is a series of tunnels branching off in varying directions. Soldiers’ voices echo from a nearby chamber.

When Cat and Sunshine join her, they head toward the voices. On the way, Hope spies a side room, stacked with dozens and dozens of crates. More weapons.

Hope looks at Cat. Are you seeing all this?

He gives a nod.

As they tiptoe through one of the tunnels, still trying to follow the soldiers’ voices, Hope knows they’re buried beneath countless tons of earth and steel and reinforced concrete. Even if this place took a direct hit during Omega, it would have come out just fine.

They reach a cramped soldiers’ quarters: a couple of bunk beds, a primitive lavatory, a small kitchenette. In former times, soldiers lived here. Now, it’s just storage space, filled floor to ceiling with more crates.

The Brown Shirts’ voices grow suddenly louder, and Hope, Cat, and Sunshine duck into the nearest doorways. When the soldiers approach, Hope lets them walk by … and then she tiptoes forward, following. Just as her hand reaches for her knife, her shoes make a squeaking sound from the melting snow. The trailing Brown Shirt turns around.

His eyes open wide when he sees her. “Hey, you can’t—”

Hope sends her foot into the soldier’s groin. “I just did.”

His face turns strawberry as he collapses to the ground. Cat and Sunshine leap forward. The other Brown Shirts throw their crates and make a run for it, drawing weapons as they do.

“Damn it!” Cat curses, dodging the tossed crates and taking off after the soldiers. Sunshine follows.

At the first intersection of tunnels, one Brown goes right and the other goes left. With a quick nod of his head, Cat motions for Sunshine to follow the one to his right while he goes the other way.

No sooner does Cat step into the tunnel than it goes black; the soldier switched off the lights. Cat freezes, willing his eyes to adjust to the black. He tilts his head to the side, straining to hear. All he can make out is the steady, muffled, faraway sound of the soldier’s breathing. And then the click of a pistol being readied.

Cat freezes. One series of blind gunshots down this narrow tunnel and Cat’s a dead man. He presses himself against the wall.

He stands there, trying to come up with a plan. More than anything, he needs to see. From far behind him, he hears the sound of a scuffle. He can only hope Sunshine subdued the other soldier, leaving just this one.

His body folds in on itself as he lowers himself to the ground. Lying flat on the concrete floor, he removes an arrow from his quiver and nocks it. He reaches out to the side walls and gets his bearings, determining the tunnel’s direction. The fingers of his artificial arm hold the bow in place as he slowly draws back the string, aiming down the center of the tunnel. At the last moment, he alters where he points, so that when he releases the bowstring, the arrow travels no more than fifty yards before it hits a side wall.

“Shit!” the soldier cries, and takes off running.

Cat nocks a second arrow and sends it flying, then hears the satisfying sound of arrowhead entering flesh. The soldier stumbles to the ground, his gun clattering. Even in the dark, Cat is able to race forward and find the wounded soldier lying sprawled in the middle of the tunnel. Cat drags him back to the others.

When all three Brown Shirts are trussed up, Hope interrogates them.

“What’s going on here?” she asks.

The soldiers sit on the floor, wrists and ankles tethered together. They don’t answer her.

“Where’s your camp? Where’re you taking those crates?”

The Brown Shirt with the arrow jutting from his shoulder blade actually laughs. “Why should we tell you?” he says. “The only reason you’re still alive is because my gun jammed.”

He begins to turn away, but Cat grabs the soldier’s nose with his wooden pincers. “She asked you a question. Now, are you gonna answer her or not?”

His face goes pale. He tries to squirm free, but Cat’s grip won’t allow it. “The Eagle’s Nest,” the Brown Shirt sputters.

“What’s that?”

“Headquarters.”

“For who?” Again, the Brown Shirt tries to pull his nose free. Cat just pinches harder. “For who?”

“Chancellor Maddox. Who do you think?”

The hair rises on Hope’s arms, and although she knows it’s her imagination, it feels like both her scars itch at the mention of the chancellor’s name.

“You can say good-bye to those plans,” Sunshine says. “You’re not going there ever again.”

“Actually, they are,” Hope corrects him. “And they’re taking us with them.”