Evenfall (163 page)

The three of them piled into the back and Jim seemed mollified despite the fact that no one had really paid any attention to him. He waited just long enough for everyone to get secured before he slammed his door shut and they took off. They lurched upward alarmingly quickly and it wasn't until that moment that Boyd realized he'd never actually been on a helicopter before; only planes, which were far different despite the fact both machines could fly.

The back of the helicopter held little more room than the SUV had so the tension resumed almost immediately. They each stayed quiet for their own reasons and once again time seemed to pass far too slowly. A few minutes into the ride, loud rock music suddenly blasted out of the cockpit ahead of them, the bass vibrating parts of the floor and walls as Jim practically screamed lyrics off key.

Boyd glanced in the direction of the sound and thought he vaguely remembered Blair and Jim talking about something related to music last time. He hadn't been paying much attention to the conversation though; he'd been far more worried about Sin and hadn't cared too much about what was happening around him as long as Sin was safe.

The thought caused him to glance toward Sin, who was looking at the wall with an expression that implied he wondered what other annoying things could possibly happen on this trip. Thierry was studiously looking at the opposite wall, seemingly ignoring the music and their presence, although he couldn't seem to stop intermittently rubbing his arms or shivering. Although they both were bloodied, they did at least seem to be okay. Boyd noticed blood spreading through the cloth Sin had tied around his thigh so he pulled the med kit over from where he'd stashed it nearby.

The noise of the box dragging across the floor caught Thierry's attention and he watched Boyd wordlessly without much of an expression on his face. Not bothering to say anything, Boyd pulled some bandages out and calmly reached over to untie the cloth and replace it with fresh bandages. Sin didn't protest and just watched him quietly, not seeming to mind the attention or the treatment that he was getting from his partner. After a moment his mouth quirked up in a slight smirk and he tilted his head to the side.

"Told you we'd do well together."

Boyd couldn't help a slight smile at that. "Occasionally you're right," he said mildly.

Sin smirked again but then he glanced at Thierry and returned to staring silently at the wall.

Boyd didn't bother to say anything further and his expression returned to default neutrality. He packed the med kit up again and put it away, knowing that Thierry was staring at him oddly but not commenting on it, before he leaned back and idly stared at the wall, wondering at Jim's taste in music.

The rest of the flight lasted in silence and without anything of import happening. By the time they started their descent toward the landing pad at the Agency's private airport, it felt like a day had passed when really it had been barely a couple of hours. Jim landed the helicopter perfectly, so gently that for a moment Boyd didn't even realize they had stopped moving. But then the music abruptly flipped off in the middle of a song and Jim could be heard yelling, "Rise and shine, sleeping beauties! Time to leave!"

Thierry was the first one off the helicopter but Sin was immediately behind him, probably partially to get out of the confines of the helicopter but also to keep the French man from potentially attempting an escape. Boyd was a little slower to crawl out and he found himself looking around the area with a strange sense of weariness, wariness, and relief. They had so far managed to successfully complete the mission, but until they made it back to the Agency with Thierry they still couldn't say it was finished.

It was odd; for a while he'd honestly thought he wouldn't live through that mission, that he'd never get free of Hale's office, but now that he was home he was reminded of Sin's ominous predictions that they wouldn't know what to expect from Connors. They may have successfully completed this but that didn't mean the future was certain. Anything could happen now; they could be disposed of entirely now that the Monterrey mess was effectively cleaned up.

And what was going to happen to Thierry? Boyd looked over at Thierry to find him peering around the airport, his skin pale, eyes dark and wary, his posture defensive. Boyd stared at him a moment but before he could do or say anything, a truck pulled up in front of them and a driver stared out at them blankly. Sin opened the passenger's door and hopped in without hesitation while Boyd and Thierry got in the back.

Once again, silence surrounded them but at least this time the ride was far shorter. As they navigated into the city, the skyscrapers that had lasted through the war loomed ominously around them. In the early morning hours, the city was dark and quiet with very little movement or sound except for the occasional police patrol that was monitoring certain curfew zones; even they knew better than to interfere with any vehicle bearing the Johnson's Pharmaceutical logo.

The ride continued quickly with the driver focusing entirely on the road and not paying them the least bit of attention until the main Johnson's skyscraper loomed in the distance. Up until then Sin had stared out the window blankly, sketching out all of the possible unpleasant scenarios that would possibly occur with Connors, but when he saw the main building his eyes narrowed and his hand slapped down on the driver's arm.

The driver looked over at him in a mixture of annoyance and alarm but Boyd leaned closer and followed Sin's narrow eyed gaze. At first he didn't see what had alarmed Sin so much and he opened his mouth to question it, but before the words could leave his mouth, he noticed that the lights of the tower flickered briefly. His eyebrows drew together and he looked at Sin questioningly.

"Power surge?" The driver ventured curiously, also shooting Sin a look.

Sin continued to stare up at the tower for a long moment before he shook his head finally. "Not likely."

A measure of alarm crept into the man's face and he slowed the car to a full stop on the side of the road as he turned to Sin entirely. Whatever anyone said about the man, in this situation he was still technically the highest ranked agent in the car. "Then what?"

"I don't know but we're not going in through the front." Sin shook his head again, face visibly troubled, before he glanced over his shoulder to look at Boyd briefly. "Switch places," He said after a moment. "Boyd's driving. We're taking another route."

The driver barely hesitated before swinging his door open and running around the side to jump in the back. He shot a glance at Thierry and clipped on his seat belt, absently checking for his weapons as he peered out the window with a baffled look on his face.

No one really seemed to know what was going on except Sin and as Boyd slid into the driver's seat, he looked at his partner again as confusion and anxiety built up inside of him. But he didn't ask any questions, not when Sin seemed hesitant to form any real conclusions, and as he followed Sin's directions towards Silver Lake Park he wondered what could be happening now.

Chapter 45

The drive to Silver Lake Park didn't take long but as they passed through the streets, everyone unconsciously glanced up at the Agency's tower looming in the distance. Approximately one minute after the initial flickering, the lights in the tower went out entirely. It was odder than it may seem to an outsider but the truth was that the tower, just like many other parts of the Agency, never shut down. Although people, especially the administrative staff and non-field agents who worked in the tower, kept specific hours there were still many people who worked
throughout
the night and early morning depending on what needed to be done for assignments.

Never in Sin's employment at the Agency had he seen the tower shut down entirely, it just didn't happen; it was almost like the moon abruptly blinking out of the sky, that's how startling it was to him. The compound operated on its own generators and electricity system so it was possible that there was a power surge or an accident but there was no reason to take unnecessary chances now. Not when so much was going on; not when they'd just, for the first time, gone head to head with Janus.

"What are we doing here?" The driver, who turned out to be Agent Brian Dibrachio, asked as he stared warily at the vine covered gates of the park. "This place is off limits-- don't you see the signs?"

"Contaminated by radiation?" Thierry queried slowly, bare toes balling up as his feet touched the cold concrete. He stared at the sign and then at Boyd, as if hoping for some kind of rational explanation but Boyd just shook his head and looked at Sin, not knowing exactly what they were doing there either.

Sin strode down the sidewalk as they trailed behind him and didn't stop until they reached a spot in the barred fence that had just a little bit wider spacing than all of the other bars. "What's off limits to civilians isn't automatically off limits to us," He said pointedly and squeezed through the bars with relatively no trouble given his lanky frame.

He raised his eyebrows and stared at Brian. "You can stay here if you want, I don't need you to come but you--" He reached through the bars and grabbed Thierry's arm, yanking him through. "Are staying close to me." Thierry yelped in protest as his feet sank into the damp earth on the other side of the fence, wrapping his arms around himself as he looked around at the park through the early morning gloom.

Boyd followed without hesitation and they looked out at Brian who stood stubbornly on the other side. However after only a moment he sighed and shook his head, not willing to look like a coward, and squeezed through the space in the bars with far more difficulty considering he had a bulkier and more muscular build. His brown eyes swept across the park, across the barren edges of the places closest to the fence and into the shadows that dominated the inner most area.

Sin glanced at Boyd and began walking deeper into the park as the darkness and shadows engulfed them entirely. His eyes flit around quickly, searching for a sign that anything was out of place, that anyone was close to them, but all he saw was tall dead trees. As they moved closer and finally crossed the famed lake that ran through, the place became abruptly crowded with plants, vines and wild flowers.

"This place is supposed to be off limits because of radiation," he said finally, his voice low. "But I suspect that's only because of what's in here."

Boyd looked closely around the area but all he saw was the shrubbery. Obviously this had something to do with the Agency, as Sin wouldn't have brought them there otherwise and his comment earlier about not going through the front suggested they would be using a back entrance, but all the less utilized entrances Boyd knew about were inside the compound itself and had nothing to do with Silver Lake Park. He looked over at Sin.

"Is there a path through here that leads to a back entrance to the compound?" he ventured, not fully thinking that was the case because he'd never seen anything to suggest that, yet he wasn't certain what else to deduce.

They continued to follow Sin as he shook his head, his eyes on the leaves and grass that thickened as they went in further. "There's a system of tunnels under the compound," he explained after
a while
, green eyes flicking up calmly to look at Thierry and then Brian as they narrowed slightly. "Not many people know about it since it was only used during the war and the people that do remember it are probably under the impression that it was sealed long ago. Its purpose was for shelter against nuclear bombs; its existence is the only reason why there were so many survivors at the Agency, which actually wasn't many at all considering 60% of us were wiped out."

"It's not on the blueprints, either," Boyd said, surprised by this information. "How do you know about them?"

Sin paused and stared at the ground for a moment before his gaze swept across the park again. His eyebrows twitched slightly but he began walking again, following the lake.

"Well they were built and used for the last time before my time at the Agency, back in 2000 when this area was nuked. After that they started building the shelters we'd use now because they realized that a couple of tunnels wasn't really adequate shelter for a larger group of people and that they definitely didn't have what was needed to camp out underground for an extended period of time, which is why so many of the original survivors died later on due to radiation poisoning. Not only that but the original tunnels are only built about 500 feet underground as opposed to the shelters which are about half a mile beneath the surface, so they accounted for a lot more when building those."

He stopped talking again and for a time the only sounds were their feet splashing quietly in the water but then he seemed to realize that he hadn't actually answered the question. "I found out about them years ago in the original plans for the compound but those, I assume, have since been destroyed as the compound has been rebuilt and renovated. I'm not really sure why they aren't sealed off but I assume it's for the same reason; a more secretive escape route in case there is another attack in the future."

Boyd had always wondered how Sin had managed to leave the Agency when he'd appeared at his house; he suspected he must have used the tunnel system, knowing others didn't realize it existed. "Where does it come out in the compound?"

"There's a couple of entrances on the compound but the one I use is inside of an unused lab because it's the easiest to access now."

They approached an overpass that went over the Lake and Sin led them to a partially enclosed area. There was nothing of note inside but he knelt down and indicated a hatch on the ground which looked like nothing more than a manhole or something that would be a part of a sewage or drainage system.

"Just so you know, there's no lights at all down there and it's entirely possible that it may be compromised given the fact that it seems the park has been somewhat recently inhabited."

Brian's eyes widened slightly and he stared at the cover. "So we could just go down there and be killed?"

Sin shrugged. "Maybe. It's also likely that kids snuck in the park to do whatever kids do in fenced in, prohibited areas. Like I said, you have the option of staying behind if you're not comfortable with this."

Thierry stared down dubiously. "I don't have any shoes..."

"It's not a sewer, if that's what you're worried about." A pause. "There are rats though."

Thierry's blue eyes widened slightly and he looked at Sin in horror.

Boyd considered the distance between the Agency and the park and how long it would probably take them to get there, then he looked at Thierry. "I'm guessing it will be about a half hour walk. Depending on the situation inside the Agency, there may be some shoes available then. It won't help in the meantime but we don't have anything else to work with."

"Just try to keep up," Sin said flatly; it wasn't clear if he was directing it at Thierry or Brian, but Boyd suspected he was talking to them both.

The manhole cover was removed and they peered down briefly at a long ladder that led to the tunnel below before Sin ushered them all down first, going last so that he could pull the cover closed behind them. Once the cover was closed and blocked most of the natural light, Boyd saw that Sin hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said there were no lights at all down there. It was dark, dank and smelled strongly of mildew and as they tread through the water, several times they did hear rodents scattering across the concrete. However no one complained and there was very little speaking as they moved quickly through the darkness.

The twenty-five minutes it took to reach the entrance seemed like an eternity though and everyone was relieved when Sin stopped, even if the anxiety about what was going on above pressed down on everyone. More than once during their journey they paused briefly as Sin stared up at the top of the tunnel, looking perplexed. He couldn't explain it but several times it was as if he'd heard something, like a distant rumbling or thunder without sound, to indicate that something very wrong was going on up there. But he didn't know what exactly it was and he didn't want to jump to conclusions, so he continued on without comment.

However, as they climbed the ladder to the hatch that led into the lab, he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't just being paranoid and that something was happening. Something that shouldn't be happening because the Agency was supposed to be protected, safe, a haven for all of the weary agents who'd watched their families and friends burn during the war.

The hatch led to the basement of the building and they took the stairs quickly to the upper floor. A burning smell permeated the air around them and when they slid out of a side entrance and into the shadows around the lab, there was no doubt that the muted sounds he'd heard had been explosions going off above them.

Smoke drifted through the air like low hanging fog and the stench of extinguished fire was stronger than ever outside. However, despite that, the place was not active at all and for the most part the courtyard was empty. There were no patrolling guards, no agents rushing to start their day and as they looked around in relative confusion, the unmistakable sound of muffled gunfire could be heard somewhere on the complex. The distinct lack of activity made it hard to understand exactly what was happening.

Thierry looked at the three agents and seemed incredibly weary at that moment. He'd managed to escape one war zone just to be caught in another one. "What now?" he asked tiredly.

"We find General Carhart," Sin said quietly and without hesitation, mouth turned down in a confused frown.

Brian surveyed the area with wide eyes, no doubt never expecting anything like this to happen. "How the...?" he started to ask, but he trailed off and just stared dumbfounded at the scene.

Boyd searched the surroundings, feeling wary and unnerved, wondering how the hell this could have happened. The Agency had tight security in the compound and even if somehow enemies slid in unnoticed, it was a place filled with people trained to know how to respond quickly to danger. Any enemies should have been quickly neutralized in a concentrated effort. Then again, if the enemy was good enough to infiltrate the Agency, they were probably also good enough to compromise the Agency's response.

Shutting down the electricity was very intelligent, for instance; it was already dark so early in the morning without the traffic of the city or the pale ambiance of the sun to give clarity to the shadows, but Boyd had never realized how much darker it would be without the lights of Johnson's tower and the surrounding buildings to help them see. Now although he couldn't see any bodies in the courtyard, with the smell of gunpowder drifting through the air and dust from what he assumed was some kind of explosion surrounding them, he couldn't imagine there hadn't been any casualties. He also had no idea who could have managed this. Was it Janus? But how the hell did they know where the compound was? Even people in the American government had no clue this compound housed anything like the Agency; how would any of their enemies find out?

He thought he saw movement on a roof across the way, a quick darting of a figure that was there and gone before Boyd fully had the chance to see it. His eyes narrowed and he slid back further into the shadows. A sniper, perhaps, but on whose side; the Agency's or the enemy's? The sniper appeared to have been heading for the opposite direction and hadn't seemed to have noticed them, but it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered.

"Where will he be?" Boyd asked Sin, looking over at him seriously.

The other man shrugged slightly, eyes flitting around to take in the shadowy figures in the darkness.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "This has never happened before. I don't know where anyone would be. There's emergency plans in place in case of natural disaster or another attack on the city but the idea of someone actually directly invading and attacking the compound was never put on the table. It's not supposed to be possible." He paused, looking aggravated. "I'd say we head to the tower but it's right in the middle of the compound with no cover and that seems like a bad idea at the moment. If he's alive he's either fighting or giving orders, but I'm betting surviving officers are somewhere secure to keep some chain of command in order in case the heads are assassinated."

Brian paled considerably at the words but he seemed simultaneously shocked and impressed by the matter of fact way Sin spoke about the situation. He swallowed and his hand dropped down to the gun that lay at his side.