“I won’t. I trust your word that my daughter is safe.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. Don’t refer to yourself in the third person. It annoys the hell out of me.” Jill pointed at the metal ladder. “Come on, it’s getting dark, and the temperature is dropping.”
Once topside, the group had to wait until Freeni got the emergency raft inflated before paddling toward shore. Jill looked back at the submarine bobbing on the ocean’s surface and pushed a small button on a remote. A few seconds later, smoke began to billow out of the open hatch. Several loud cracking noises followed, and then the sub tilted. In a matter of minutes, the ocean had claimed its latest wreck. It was a damn shame to lose such an asset, but the wrong hands – Genjix or IXTF – could get a lot from its salvage.
The small group stood at the beach, unsure of what to do next. Jill pointed to the wooden ramp up the beach. Just past it was a highway traveling north and south. “Let’s move. No stragglers. We’re wet, and the temperature drops at night.”
It took the small group a little over three hours walking along the highway to reach their destination. The safe house at Fort Bragg ranked pretty low on the luxury scale of Prophus safe houses. It was an old trailer nestled in the back of an RV park held up by stacks of cinderblocks. Fortunately, it was a frequently-used facility, so it was relatively well-maintained and clean.
Check the emergency exit plan.
Jill watched the other four exhausted refugees march into the rusty chrome Twinkie-shaped trailer. She walked to the cliff at the back of the park overlooking Noyo Harbor and peered over the steep drop to the beach below while the others lugged the gear into the trailer. It had been over a year since she was last at this safe house. Down at the base of the cliff, hidden in the thick foliage, should be an emergency pack. Every safe house had a designated exit plan. Jumping off the cliff and tumbling down to the beach was the designated one for this trailer. It wasn’t much of an escape route, but it was better than nothing. Not much better though.
The two dummies in her life – her child and her man-child – thought it would be great fun to test it out when they had first set up the trailer. Both jumped and tumbled down the cliff enthusiastically. Roen badly sprained his ankle, and Cameron earned a gash along his arm that needed stitches.
Like father, like son.
“Let’s just hope we’ll never have to use it.”
It took Jill a few minutes to identify the marker where the pack was supposed to be hidden. Satisfied, she went back to the trailer and joined the others. The inside was cramped for five, with just enough room in the hallway for one person to walk through at a time. Ohr opened the fridge and pulled out a six-pack of beer and half a bottle of vodka.
“Any food?” Rin asked, looking over his shoulder.
He held up a bottle of Sriracha. “Ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, and this. At least you have the important stuff. How do you have a fridge full of condiments and no food?”
“The trailer wasn’t expecting company for another two weeks.” Jill made a mental note to get ahold of Faust, who ran the operations south of hers, right away. Just because her operation went dark didn’t mean it was now defunct. There were still refugees who needed help. The Patels were still scheduled to move in two days. If they missed their transport, it’d be another three weeks before they could try again. Then there was the issue of the six outlier outposts operating in her region. Most had backup protocols, but she didn’t know how thorough her cleanup operation was, or how pervasive the enemy. More of her people could be in danger. She sighed. There was so much to do. So many people depended on her.
Jill pointed to the sleeping quarters in the back. “Two to the back. One on the couch. Freeni, first watch. I’ll take second. Then Rin, Ohr, and Vladimir. Freeni, hold the fort. I’ll be back.”
She left the RV and made her way through the darkness toward the office building up front. It was a moonless night, but the sky was full of stars. She hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours and was starting to feel the effects. She wasn’t a law school student able to pull off all-nighters anymore. She wasn’t even a policy director working in Washington DC. Jill was a tired woman on the lam trying to save a bunch of Genjix refugees while her son was somewhere out there. Possibly injured. Possibly dead. She shook her head and pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Cameron was well-trained. He was smart and able. He would find her. She believed it; she had to. She had no other choice.
“Get it together, girl,” she growled. “People are depending on you.”
It took a few seconds for her to find the relic she was looking for. The sad-looking pay phone attached to the side of the office building had seen better days. The ground under it was overgrown with weeds, and the paint had long flaked off. Jill half-feared the line would be dead when she picked up the receiver. With her cell phone bricked, she had few other options. Luckily, there was a dial tone. She looked around to make sure she was alone, and dialed the emergency number.
“Twenty-four-hour wake up service. We wake up to wake you up. Can I help you?”
“Identification Baji.”
“Voice recognition matches Jill Tesser Tan. Current condition: Unknown. Base binary code required.”
“Binary code zero, zero, one, zero, one, one, one, zero, zero, one, one, zero.”
Silence.
“Baji, it’s good to hear from you. We thought we lost you when the hard line tripped.”
“Hey, Datlow. It was a Genjix raid. A full-blown assault. Vessel-led. Well-armed and coordinated.” Jill leaned against the aluminum siding and looked up at the night sky. She closed her eyes. “Did any of my people report in?”
“Six of your outposts reported in after they received the alert. Two of your occupied safe houses as well. No one from your base of operations called in. I am sorry.”
Rage welled up in Jill, not just at the Genjix, but also at everything else. At these refugees she was chaperoning. At Cameron for being missing; at Roen for not being here; at the government for not seeing things more clearly. Most of all, though, she was mad at herself for letting her people down.
Stop it. There was nothing you could do.
“I don’t subscribe to that. There is always something that can be done.”
As the infinitely wiser being, I am a better judge.
“Pulling rank on me? You haven’t done that in a while.”
I might not have the military mind of many other Quasing, but I have at the very least occupied three generals, one of them even deserving of the rank, so cut it out. You do not have time for this nonsense.
“Jill?” Datlow’s voice came across the line. “Are you there? What is your status?”
“I still have passengers embedded on the Underground Railroad. The Patel group needs to catch their ship. Put all regional stations on comm lockdown. The attack was too well-coordinated. They knew exactly how to hit us.”
“Will do. We have your manifest on file already. Hearne in Vancouver has already stepped in to assist and has rerouted the Patels through Seattle. All western stations are now on alert. Is there anything else?”
“I need a new crypto key authorized to continue operations from this location. Some of the work might have to route through Faust’s operation to complete deliverables.”
“Your base was just attacked, Jill. Surely, you can put that on hold until the situation stabilizes.”
“No. There are too many lives at stake. Get that crypto key patched via Safe House CAFB49. I need to be on-line and working as soon as possible.”
“It’ll take an hour to route.”
“One last thing. My son is missing. He might try to call in. Please let him know that I’m all right and set up a rendezvous for this location. I will try to check in every day or two.”