Yes, Fausto would wait the full hour, Jake felt certain of it. But, Jake reminded himself, it was no longer an hour.
He had figured on spending fifteen minutes navigating the tunnels. Ten to gather supplies. Twenty-five off the clock. The rest of his plan would take another ten minutes to execute. Thirty-five minutes total before he could engage. Jake had about a five-minute buffer, and the margin for error was wider than the Amazon. His other choice was to stand down, leave the school, get taken into custody, plead his case to Haggar, and then bury his son.
Wasn’t going to happen.
The beam from Jake’s headlamp bounced across the familiar walls, revealing all the places where he needed to duck, crawl, or slouch. Otherwise, he was running. He went under the Terry Science Center, the library, Gibson Hall, and the Society Building, where he had left a dead man splattered on the bathroom floor. Jake took the tunnel to the Groveland Gymnasium, and at last he returned to the section of tunnels that was home to his bug-out location.
For a few panicked seconds, Jake fumbled with the new key for the door lock on his bug-out location, cursing under his breath, and eventually got inside.
Jake turned on the lights and checked his stopwatch. The whole trip went faster than expected, leaving him an extra minute on his deadline. One minute added to his buffer. Aboveground they would be looking for him. There would be chatter on the Bearcat-“Has anybody seen Dent? Anybody?” Haggar would be nervous. He’d press Ellie to make Jake follow the order.
All this was happening, but none of it was of concern. If SWAT or the FBI made entry into the school, Jake would figure it out eventually. In the meantime, he’d be taking necessary action.
It didn’t take long for Jake to locate the items he had come to retrieve. The flares were stored in the larder, away from the gasoline. Nearby was a case of tactical smoke grenades, with smoke output of 25,000 cubic feet. More than enough. He grabbed a handful of Cyalume Chemlights, military-grade infrared light sticks. They were just like regular glow sticks-bend, snap, crack-but the light emitted was invisible to the naked eye. With the night vision goggles, though, a few of those sticks would provide more than enough illumination.
He had seven mags of ammo for the AK-47-one loaded, three on his chest rig, three on his battle belt. Jake decided to include a few additional mags of pistol ammo inside a small backpack, along with an extra flashlight and four pieces of the rebar he had scavenged from a construction site.
He grabbed his tactical helmet and attached the night vision optical to the J-bar. He adjusted his Kevlar, inspected his guns, and paused to check his gear in the full-length, wall-mounted mirror. His face and hands were still covered in camo paint, mixed with tunnel grime. The tactical helmet fit snugly on his head. The rest of him was geared up: chest rig, battle belt, ammo, flares, glow sticks, smoke grenades, knives, two pistols, a Glock, the Ruger, and his rifle.
He was ready for war.
CHAPTER 40
Ellie had just hung up with Jake when Haggar whistled to her from behind. She blanched when she saw him. She had shared sensitive tactical information with a possible threat. Although Jake had obtained the same intel on his own, Ellie’s actions were quite possibly criminal. Not that she regretted her choice. She believed Jake, and her goal was to convince Haggar of the same.
Haggar bounded down the trailer’s front steps with purposeful strides. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Jake,” Ellie said. She had no reason to lie, and Jake had every reason to call her.
“Is he leaving?” Haggar said. “We need him out of there, and that’s that.”
“I can’t tell you what he’s going to do,” Ellie said. That wasn’t a lie, either.
“No offense, but you two have a history, and I’m not comfortable with you talking to him without one of my agents present. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“That’s an order, Sergeant Banks.”
Haggar was a sharp-eyed leader, Ellie thought. “Yes, sir,” Ellie said.
“Look, I appreciate all your help here. We’re going to get out of this just fine. It’s going to take time, that’s all.”
“Sir, do you really believe this is terrorism?” Ellie asked.
“Who else uses dirty bombs?”
At first, Ellie wasn’t sure what to share, but she erred on the side of openness. “Jake thinks it’s about money. That’s what he said to me just now.”
“Yeah? Jake also thinks the world is coming to an end any day now. Maybe he thinks Bigfoot somehow got his hands on all that cobalt-60.”
Ellie strained to smile. “I know you’re putting extra surveillance on the Academy Building,” she said. “So you must not think he’s completely crazy.”
Haggar looked annoyed. “I take every opportunity I’m given and exploit it to my advantage,” he said. “So we’re looking at that building a little extra hard. Big deal. Doesn’t mean Jake’s on the Red Unit now. It means we have heat-detection equipment in place and it’ll help us validate his claim.”
“If you use every opportunity to your advantage, why not work with Jake? He’s on the inside. He can help.”
“He can get himself or those kids killed. That’s what I’m thinking.”
“What if he’s right?” Ellie asked. “What if there’s no bomb and we have less than an hour? We could lose the kids.”
“If that’s the case, I’m going to have a hard time sleeping at night for the rest of my life.”
“Then believe him,” Ellie said.
Haggar glanced at the trailer. For a moment, Ellie thought he was going to change his mind. “We’re working on making contact with the terrorists,” he said. “That’s the protocol and that’s the plan. I’m not about to enlist the help of a civilian under any circumstance.”
Ellie backed off. She had more that Haggar needed to know. “During our call, Jake mentioned somone named Javier,” she said. “He’s convinced this whole thing has to do with money.”
“Money?”
“That’s what he said. I mean, what terrorists do anything in the name of money?”
Haggar took a breath. He looked to the sky as if the answers would come from there. “Hell, this whole damn situation is a gigantic Charlie Foxtrot, if you ask me. Look, Ellie, if you’re hot on this Javier lead, then go figure out who he is and let me know what you learn.”
It was as much as Haggar would budge. Ellie raced her cruiser home to get Kibo before her fishing expedition began. Where she lived was en route to her destination. Hours ago, Ellie’s other two shepherds had gone to a neighbor’s, but Kibo stayed behind. He didn’t transition to new environments like the other dogs. Even though he wasn’t a trained police dog, Ellie still wanted to take him along for the ride. At that moment, she needed the comfort of his companionship. It would help to ease her unremitting worry for Jake.
Ellie arrived home a little after sunset. The clouds were gone, and a bright crescent moon shone down like a mischievous grin against a darkening sky. It didn’t take much light from town to block out the stars, but a few were twinkling off to the west. More would appear, once night settled in.
Off in the distance, SWAT helicopters, spotlights illuminated, circled over The Pep in a tight pattern. Her home was built on top of a high hill, which offered tremendous views of the valley. Far below, Ellie observed pockets of strobe light activity, patches of blue and red that appeared to burn the forest in a multicolored flame. Many of the deployed units, Ellie knew, had taken advantage of the encroaching darkness to keep well hidden. She also had a clear view of the campus buildings. Most of them still had their lights on.