He shoved off his mattress and tried to ignore the screams from nearly every muscle and joint, all wanting him to lie back down. In less than a month, he’d gone from living through blizzards in the Arctic to fighting with boat hijackers in the Caribbean to leading the liberation of the survival station here in Los Angeles. His body was sick of all the activity and wanted to get somewhere it could sit around and do nothing for a while. He wasn’t opposed to the plan, but it would have to wait.
He leaned down next to Gabriel and shook the man’s shoulder.
Gabriel forced his eyes open. “Huh?” he said, still half asleep. “What?”
“I need your help.” Pax quickly explained the situation.
“Sure,” Gabriel said. “Just give me a second.”
“A second’s all you got. The longer we wait, the more likely it is we won’t be able to find them.”
From behind Pax, a woman said, “It’s okay. I think I know which direction they’re going.”
He turned to see Nyla getting to her feet.
“I don’t need both of you,” he said.
“Fine, then Gabriel can stay and make sure everything gets taken care of here,” she said. “I’m going with you.”
Gabriel frowned. “That doesn’t sound like fun. I want to go, too.”
“Tough,” she said. “You’re in charge now.”
“Oh, you didn’t mention a promotion. I assume that comes with a raise?”
“And stock options.” She picked up her pack and nodded at Pax. “Let’s go before this guy starts asking for your job.”
“He can have it if he wants it,” Pax said.
Lying back on his bed and closing his eyes, Gabriel said, “I’ll pass.”
26
“They’re trying again!” Omar shouted as his rifle barked to life.
Sealy and two of the others also opened fire on the twentieth-floor landing below them.
A bullet pinged off the stairs and ricocheted along the wall past the team. Those who hadn’t been firing quickly repositioned themselves and joined in.
Someone below shouted, “Get back! Get back!”
The bullets that had been flying up their way ceased.
“Can you and Sealy keep them pinned down while the rest of us look for a way up on twenty-one?” Ash asked Omar.
“No problem, sir.”
After checking that everyone was ready, Ash yanked open the entrance to the twenty-first floor. An empty corridor ran straight out from the doorway along the side of the building, while a perpendicular hallway went off to the right, out of sight from his position.
Ash eased out and spotted four people at the far end, looking cautiously back his way. As soon as they saw him, they disappeared around a corner.
To Chloe, he said, “Take Langenberg and Washington and check to the left. I’ll take the others and do the same to the right.”
“We’re not going to find a way up,” she said.
“We have to try.”
Ash took his group down the hall, opening every door they passed. All the rooms so far had been empty, though they saw signs people had left in a hurry. When they reached the corridor where the four people had turned down earlier, Ash and his team found that it, too, was deserted.
Halfway along it, they came to the elevators that ran only between the seven levels of the base. Yates and Ramirez worked their fingers between one set of doors and pried them open far enough for Ash to check with his penlight if they could climb up to the twenty-second floor.
He noticed there were no cables running up the shaft. He turned his light upward. Just like in the stairwell, a metal barrier sealed the space off about twelve feet above him. They weren’t getting up this way, either.
The next three rooms they checked were like all the others, but as they approached the next one, Ash heard whispers from the other side of the door. He tried the knob and found it locked. After motioning for the others to give him a little room, he turned and mule-kicked the knob.
The flimsy wood around the handle shattered and the door flew inward. Ramirez and Yates rushed through first, shouting, “Don’t move! Don’t move!”
Ash, Wicks, and Bobby joined them.
Huddled behind the table in the middle of the room was a large group of people — twenty-seven, by Ash’s quick count.
“Hands in the air,” Ash ordered.
A man near the center of the group said, “We’re not armed.”
“You’d better hope you’re right,” Ash said.
While he, Wicks, and Bobby stood guard, Ramirez and Yates worked their way through everyone, securing hands and ankles with zip ties before searching each person.
“Pistol,” Ramirez said at one point, tossing a gun onto the floor in front of Ash.
The man who’d declared they weren’t armed looked horrified. “Aiden, what were you thinking?”
The previously armed man scowled at his colleague but said nothing.
As Ramirez and Yates continued, Ash heard footsteps in the corridor.
“Stay here,” he said to the others. He moved quietly back to the door and peeked down the hall. He relaxed as soon as he realized it was Chloe, Langenberg, and Washington. He stepped out to greet them.
“We checked the other stairwells,” Chloe said. “They’re blocked.”
Ash nodded. “Same with the elevators.”
“I told you.”
Washington said, “We haven’t seen anyone, either. This place is like a ghost town.”
“You just weren’t looking in the right place,” Ash said, and led them into the room.
“I guess not,” Langenberg said.
“Is Director Johnson here?” Chloe asked, hopeful.
Ash shook his head. “On the other side of the barrier would be my guess.”
“So how are we going to get up there?”
“One thing at a time, huh?” He looked over at Ramirez. “You guys done?”
“Last one,” Ramirez said. He ran a zip tie around a man’s ankles and jerked it closed. “That’s it.”
They used the heavy table to block the doorway so no one could wiggle out, then returned to the stairwell where they’d left Omar and Sealy. But the two men were no longer on the twenty-first-floor landing. They weren’t in the stairwell at all. There were, however, five corpses wearing security uniforms outside the entrance to the twentieth floor.
Ash led the way past them and the heavily damaged door. Crumpled on the carpet just inside was another uniformed body. Ash’s team split up the same way it had before and began searching the floor.
Ash’s group passed two more bodies before they found Omar and Sealy near the elevators. On the floor lay two very alive security men.
“Captain,” Omar greeted him. “Apologies for not staying on post. We had an opportunity and I decided to pursue it.”
“Are there any more?”
“We’ve checked the entire floor, sir. This is it. Eleven in all.”
Chloe and her group came running around the corner. When she saw that Ash had already found Omar and Sealy, she rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Next time, we get to go right.”
Ash traded his rifle for the pistol at his hip. Kneeling between the guards, he put the barrel against the head of the man to his left and turned to the other one. “How do you retract the barrier below floor twenty-two?”
The man tried to spit at Ash, but only managed to dribble saliva down the side of his own cheek.
Ash looked at his colleague. “Seems your buddy’s not too concerned about your life. I’m sorry, but…” He made like he was going to pull the trigger.”
“Wait!” the guy he was pointing his gun at said. “I’ll answer! Please.”
Easing the barrel back a bit, Ash said, “Okay. Then answer.”