Learning to Stand (4 page)

“
Who put these together?”
Matthew asked.

“
Let’s see if we can get
in,” Alex said. “I’ll tell you about it when we get
inside.”

“
What do we do?” Vince
asked.

“
The doors slide one way or
the other. Each one is a little different.”

“
On my count... One, two,
three,” Matthew said.

With Alex in the middle of the dirt wall,
the men pushed to her right. They felt the wall shift as if it
wanted to move, but couldn’t.

“
Is there a lock?” Raz
asked.

“
Say ‘Friend’ and enter.”
Troy quoted from the Lord of the Rings. In elvish, Troy said,
“Mellon.”

“
Mellon?” Alex raised an
eyebrow.

“
I assure you that ‘friend’
in elvish is ‘Mellon,’” Troy said.

Matthew, Vince and Raz clapped and Troy
bowed.

“
The last time anyone was in
these bunkers was during the Reagan years,” she said. “Let’s try
the other direction.”

They pressed on the wall again. To the men’s
surprise, the dirt wall shifted.

“
One more time,” Alex
said.

The wall slid to the left, hit something
then came bouncing back. Digging with her fingers, Alex removed
dirt and rocks from around the door’s track.

“
Try again.”

The wall slid to the left revealing a
concrete door underneath. A single padlock held the door closed.
Alex lifted the padlock then let it drop. She shook her head.

Hearing footsteps, the men raised their
weapons toward the entrance of the cave. Perses, the Weasel and two
Department of Corrections guards came through the opening. Perses
held a padlock key out to Alex.

The key fit the lock but wouldn’t turn.

“
Let me,” Raz
said.

He wiggled, giggled and worked the key in
the lock. After a few minutes, the lock opened with a resounding
click.

“
Cop luck,” Raz
said.

“
Thief experience,” Troy
said.

“
That too,” Raz
laughed.

Alex pointed to Matthew, Troy and Vince.
Straining against the weight of the door, the soldiers pulled open
the two foot thick concrete door. They peered into the dark space
on the other side of the door.

Alex stepped through the door onto a wide
concrete platform. Her motion caused a series of lights to flicker
then come on. The lights revealed a long concrete stairwell. Alex
motioned the men into the stair well.

“
I’m not going in there,”
the Weasel said.

Laughing, Troy pushed the Weasel in front of
him down the stairs. In quick order, the Department of Corrections
officers, Matthew, Vince followed by Raz went down the stairwell.
Alex nodded for Perses to go but he shook his head.

“
The Fey left by
helicopter,” Perses said in French. “But your Jakker is waiting for
his Fey.”

“
What’s going on?” Alex
asked.

“
There’s a natural gas field
under this entire area.”

“
It’s depleted,” Alex said. “There’s only
CO
₂
and
some remnant methane. Oh.”

“
Unavoidable explosion
caused by a freak compression of the carbon dioxide.”

“
Hit on me?”

“
Two contracts from the
Americas – your rodent and... The other contract is for the Fey.
The contract specifies tattoos and...” Perses lips pulled tight in
a grimace. “Female.”

“
United States?” Alex
asked.

“
As far as I can tell… yes,”
Perses said. “I’m here to assess accessibility of a contract on the
Fey. But a number of people have picked up this
contract.”

“
How many?” Alex
asked.

“
A lot. It’s a rich
contract. I’m sorry,” he said. “This one won’t be easily
avoided.”

Alex grimaced.

”
Also, you need to know. The
Boy Scout is missing.”

“
Dead?”

Alex’s voice lifted in joy. The Boy Scout
had been assigned to the Fey Special Forces Team six months before
they were killed. Incompetent, he was nothing but trouble for the
team and particularly Alex.

“
Missing. He made his last
check in and caught a ride out of Afghanistan.”

“
With whom?” Alex
asked.

“
No one seems to know how he
got out of there. No one will notice he’s gone until his next check
in.”

“
He’s after me?” Alex
asked.

“
You have to assume so,”
Perses nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

She turned to look down the stairwell where
the men had reached another door. When she looked back, Perses was
gone.

“
Can I help with the door?”
Raz asked.

“
Thanks,” she
said.

Together, they pulled on the heavy concrete
door. The door closed with a thunk. The lights flickered then went
out.

“
So we
are
in a B horror
movie,” Raz said. “I wondered when the nameless one appeared. But
this lights out thing? That confirms it.”

Matthew, Vince and Troy’s headlamps
glimmered like stars in the pitch black.

“
Hey Mattie? There’s
supposed to be a light switch there.”

“
Nothing here, Alex. We’ll
come up.”

“
There’s no room. I’m come
down to you,” she said. To Raz, she said, “Stay here until we get
lights.”

“
I’m going with
you.”

“
We can’t see the stairs,”
she said. ”Your back is bad enough without crawling down the
stairs.”

He felt around until he was touching Alex’s
shoulder. Tucked under his shoulder, she leaned into him. Her body
shook against him.

“
I hate the dark,” Alex
whispered. “Every since being stuck in the room.”

He squeezed her shoulder.

“
At least I have three days
worth of practice in the dark.”

One at a time, Alex crawled down the stairs.
She was halfway down the stairwell when the explosions started some
distance from the bunker. As the explosions moved through the
wilderness area toward them, she continued to work her way down the
stairs. A major explosion overhead stopped her in her tracks. The
concrete stairwell shook.

“
ALEX!” Raz
screamed.

She felt him fumble, slip then fall from
platform above her. He slid down the staircase. Without thinking,
she rotated on her side. Snatching at his movement, she caught the
back of Raz’s Homeland Security jacket.

But she could not stop his descent.

With her left hip hitting the edge of every
step, they bounced down the stairwell. Troy, Matthew and the guards
caught them near the bottom.

“
Raz?” she asked.

He groaned. Pushing herself to her hands and
knees, her metal left hip seized.

“
FUCK!”

Her voice echoed around the cement
stairwell. The men reached to help her up.

“
Wait,” Alex said. “My hip
is out.”

Troy and Vince helped Raz to his feet. Raz
groaned but managed to stand.

Alex hit at her left hip until the ball fell
into its groove. With Matthew’s help, she pushed herself to
standing with her right leg. Her left leg buckled but the hip held.
She smiled as a way of easing Matthew’s concerns and her own
fears.

“
Let’s find the light
switch,” she said.

She placed her hiking boot against the
bottom step. Feeling along the wall, she found an indentation.

“
I checked that,” Matthew
said. “It’s empty.”

“
Ok,” Alex said.

Pushing past the men, she went to the door.
She felt around the edge of the metal door. Nothing.

“
I need another light,” she
said.

Troy set a black mini Maglite in her
hands.

Returning to the indentation, she flashed
the light around the drywall. Folding her hand into a straight
fist, she bashed the back of the indentation. The drywall broke off
in chunks. Alex stepped back for Vince and Troy to clear out the
rubble. They exposed a keypad control panel.

“
Anyone know any code?” Troy
asked.

“
It’s probably Mellon,”
Vince replied.

Alex furrowed her brow at Vince. He
shrugged. Shaking her head, she punched in a series of codes. There
was a click then the door swung open causing a series of lights to
go on inside a chamber. Machine guns ready, Matthew, Troy and Vince
went through the door.

“
Clear!” Matthew called. “It
looks like a conference room.”

“
Go ahead,” Alex
said.

“
No,” the Weasel
said.

“
There’s no other way out of
this stairwell,” she said. “You heard the explosion?”

Her words were accentuated by another
explosion within the mountain.

“
That’s for you,” she
said.

Raz pushed the Weasel into the room. The
guards followed. Alex entered another code then scooted into the
room. The Weasel’s guards helped her close the door. Alex stood at
the door looking around the room.

A long dusty table sat with twenty plush
leather chairs around it. A stage was set up near the front of the
room. The best technology, circa 1983, was scattered around the
room. A wide screen projector was set up near the movie screen.
Microphones hung from the ceiling and the stage. At one end of the
stage, there was a stationary television camera. Fresh film
canisters were tucked into a shelf in its stand.

Attempting to take control of the situation,
she began giving orders.

“
Troy? I need you to find a
data input. Remember we are looking for something from the 1980s.
Thanks.”

“
Vince? I need a full
assessment of the methane panel of this region.”

“
Methane?” he asked. Vince
Hutchins was a Navy munitions specialist.

“
They used the CO
₂
to compress the methane field,” Alex
said.

“
Compress the methane then
light the field,” he said. “Never occurred to me.”

“
Never occurred to me
either, but that’s what’s going on above. Can you run
a…”

“
I’ll do it,” Vince said.
“And, sorry.”

“
I didn’t think of it
either.” Alex shrugged. “Matthew, I need you to determine how long
we can survive in this room.”

“
Raz? I need an oxygen
panel. We’ll cook without ventilation but with all the carbon
dioxide around, we can’t vent outside. This room should have oxygen
tanks. Can you find them?”

The men hopped to their activities. The
Department of Corrections guards sat the Weasel down in a
chair.

“
Troy, I need a telephone
too.”

“
I found a panel, Alex,”
Troy said. “Over here. I’ll trace the phone.”

She jogged over the panel. Set on top of a
small table, the panel was a mixture of 1920’s electricity and
1980’s technology. And the manual was... She bent under the panel
to look for the manual.

“
B horror movie,” Raz
mumbled as he walked past her.

She held up the manual to Raz. He raised his
eyebrows.

“
It’s in French.”

She confirmed his suspicion. Like all bad
movies, the documentation was in a foreign language.

He laughed.

She sat down to read the manual. Most of the
panel managed lights and recording devices. With a flick of
unmarked switch, she heard large metal fans begin to vent the room.
Alex switched them off. Until they had oxygen to replace what was
removed, they needed what they had. They were going to have to
sweat.

She looked up when Troy’s shadow fell over
the panel. He held a phone wire stripped to its four copper strands
in one hand and his Leatherman Mini-tool in the other hand.

“
I need your computer,” he
said.

She dug her pocket computer from the back
pocket of her jeans. He looked at the wire and the connection, and
then set to work.

Alex turned her attention back to her
manual. After testing all the climate control features, she sent a
ping to Cheyenne Mountain to let them know they were in this room.
Within minutes, she received a Morse code message back.

“
I’ll do it,” Matthew said.
He dropped into a chair next to her.

“
My Morse code isn’t bad,”
she said.

“
Oh really? What did you
get?”

“
Um, they want to know who’s
here?”

“
Guesser,” he said. “Don’t
worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

“
Thanks,” she
said.

Standing, she touched his shoulder. He
looked up at her and winked.

After checking in with each of the men, she
decided to use the time while they worked to speak with the Weasel
now. She moved to the end of the conference table where the Weasel
was sitting.

She held her Homeland Security badge up.

“
Can I have some privacy?”
she asked his guards.

The guards nodded then stepped away. She
pulled a chair in front of the Weasel.

“
Who are you?” the ex-agent
said.