Learning to Stand Read online

  Alex nodded her head.

  Perses moved to touch Alex but Raz stood in the way. The man gave an unearthly smile, turned in place and ran off into the dark.

  Alex raised her hand. Matthew, Troy and Vince emerged from the forest. With a nod, she walked until she reached a large granite formation. Rounding a forty foot high boulder, Alex slipped through a gap between the boulder and the dirt.

  “Head lamps,” she ordered.

  She pressed against the dirt walls of the natural cave. Certain she’d lost her mind, the men gaped at her actions.

  “These bunkers were built in the late 1920s… early ‘30s… around the time the stock market crashed.” She pushed on a wall. “This is it. Mattie? Troy? Can you stand on the right here? Raz? Vince? Over here? It’s going to take all of us to move this.”

  “What are we doing?” Troy asked. His voice echoed his suspicion that she had lost her mind.

  “Oh. Sorry. In the movies, there’s some complicated mechanism at the entrance to these places. They aren’t. There is a sliding metal door under this dirt.”

  “So we dig?” Raz asked.

  “No. No one was sure what or who would use these bunkers. They determined that a single person should be able to get into a bunker. When Army engineers designed these bunkers, they made them accessible for teams of at least twelve men. Damn the politicians, kind of thing. I’ve heard the entrances are some combination of easy and hard.”

  “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 CO2 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.
r />   “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 CO2 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.

  “I’m the Fey,” she said. She pushed up the left sleeve of her oversized jacket to show the blue Fairy tattoo.

  “The Fey is a man,” he said. “Special Forces doesn’t train women.”

  “Listen. I have about five minutes to talk to you. You can either use the time to tell me what happens in Special Forces, and then serve your full sentence. Or, you can answer my questions and get the reduction. It’s your choice.”

  Alex felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning, she looked up into Raz’s grey eyes. She gave him a vague smile. He sat down next to her.

  “Agent Rasmussen is going to tape our interaction,” Alex said.

  Raz set up a digital recording device then gave Alex a clip microphone. Noting the Weasel’s shackled hands, he clipped another microphone on to his orange corrections jumpsuit.

  “You’re not talking?” the Weasel asked Raz.

  “No,” Raz said. “Go ahead, Major.”

  “This is Major...” Alex fumbled for a moment before she remembered the fake name that belonged to her fake blond hair and fake blue eyes. “Major Alyssa Drayson. I’m in Shelter 17 speaking with...”

  She rubbed her face to avoid saying his name.

  “Are you ready to begin?” Alex asked.

  “If you can do something about the heat. It’s hotter than hell in here.”

  “Nothing can be done about the heat,” she said. “Explain to me how a decorated Secret Service officer, with almost twenty years in, winds up in the middle of an assassination attempt on the President of the United States?”

  “I needed the money,” he said.

  She shook her head at his answer. She let the silence lag to see if he would tell her more. He didn’t.

  “How much money did you receive for killing my brother, my husband and my teammate?”

  “I didn’t kill them.” The Weasel bristled as if she touched a sore nerve. “I could have, but I didn’t. This guy shot me.”

&n
bsp; “I could have killed you but didn’t either,” Raz said.

  Alex glared at Raz. He shrugged his apology.

  “Was your contract to kill them?” Alex asked.

  “Yes, as you know, my contract was to kill them in exchange for money.”

  “What kept you from killing them?” Alex asked.

  Shrugging, the Weasel looked away from her. Alex watched the man grapple with a decision. She hoped if she was silent long enough, he would tell her what she needed to know. But he wasn’t answering even the preliminary questions.

  Alex reached to turn off the recorder when an explosion went off overhead. This blast was met with an equal detonation closer to where they were.

  “That’s an explosion chain!” Vince yelled. “Everyone down!”

  F

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Raz threw himself on top of Alex. They fell backwards in her chair just before a particularly violent explosion. The lights in the room flickered, sparked then went out. The room shook. Every chair fell over. The mortar made a tinkling sound as it fell onto the concrete floor. A portion of the ceiling tiles crashed onto the table. The hot air filled with cement dust and mortar.

  And somehow, the room remained intact.

  “Was that for me?” the Weasel yelled over the explosions. He belly crawled until his face right next to Alex’s. “They want me dead.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I thought… I thought the explosions were for you or these guys or the weirdo the guards didn’t know or...”

  “OK,” Vince yelled. “That’s probably it.”

  “I...” The Weasel shook his head back and forth.

  “Call!” Alex yelled.

  “Hutchins.”

  “Olivas.”

  “Mac Clenaghan.”

  “Rasmussen.”

  “Drayson,” Alex finished. “Guards.”

  “Here.”

  “Your prisoner is over here.”

  Through the dark, a circle of light from a head light came in their direction.

  “Jeez, I knew it,” Troy said. “Do you guys ever take a break? Any chance you have, you’re humping away.”

  He reached down to help Raz up.

  “That’s you, Troy,” Alex said.

  Midway up, Raz’s back seized in spasm. Raz let out an involuntary gasp. Troy set him down next to Alex.