Exit 9

12

There were two Suburbans waiting for the flight from the Ranch when it landed at the private airfield just west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The men quickly transferred their gear-both lethal and medical-into the vehicles, then headed for the Bluff. Driving as fast as they could on the dark, winding roads, they cut what should have been at least an hour-long trip down to forty minutes.

In the event of an attack on the Bluff, protocol was to drive to a point half a mile away, then travel the rest of the way on foot via a subtly marked, seldom used path through the woods. Ideally, they would have had another team on the other side using a similar trail so they could come at the Bluff from both sides. But it would have taken at least another thirty minutes to send one of the Suburbans around that way, and Pax decided that was a delay they couldn’t afford.

After everyone donned their comm gear, Pat Solomon took point and led them through the forest with Michael right behind him, pointing out the trail indicators. When they were within one hundred yards of the fence, they stopped and gathered in a tight circle.

Pax pulled an iPad out of his bag, and opened one of the custom applications that had been developed at the Ranch. He had explained to Ash on the flight out that he should be able to tap into the Bluff’s security cameras once they were close enough.

Now his finger moved quickly over the screen, touching different points. Suddenly he froze.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

“What?” Michael asked, panic threatening to overtake him again.

“Two down in the front room. Another in the kitchen.” Pax started tapping the screen again.

“What about Janice? Can you check our room?”

“There’s no camera in there. You know that.”

“There’s one in the hall,” Michael said, moving around so he could see the screen, too. “If the door’s open, you should be able to see part of the way in.”

Pax frowned, and tapped the screen. “This one?”

“No. The next one down.”

Another tap.

“Yes. That’s it,” Michael said. He leaned in. “What is that…?”

Pax seemed to hesitate. “A leg. Looks male, though.”

“Oh, God.”

Even in the darkness, Ash could see Michael pale.

“Doesn’t mean she’s in there,” Pax said. “The only way we’re going to know is to check.”

He looked back at the screen, accessed a few more cameras, and sucked in a quick breath.

“What is it?” Ash asked.

Pax turned the tablet so they could all see.

On the screen was a view of the detention level deep below the house. The angle was from above the elevator door toward the Plexiglas wall that separated the arrival area from the detention block. Remnants of smoke hung in the air on the arrival side, and on the ground close to the elevators, obscured but not hidden by the smoke, was a body. There was no way to tell for sure if the person was dead or alive, but based on the five bloody figures sprawled on the ground on the other side of the see-through partition, it was a fair guess that no one in either half would ever take a breath again.

Pax switched to a view of the control room-bodies slumped over terminals, unmoving, with another two or three on the floor.

“We need to treat this as a poisonous gas situation,” Pax said.

“But the guards in the detention block look like they were shot,” Ash pointed out.

Pax grimaced. “Yeah. That bothers me, but I didn’t see any blood in the control room, and with that smoke, we’ve got to assume the worst.”

One of the men Ash hadn’t met until that night pulled his backpack off, and zipped it all the way open. Inside were enough gas masks for everyone, plus a few extras in case they found survivors. He passed them out.

“No one makes a move onto the detention floor until we run a check,” Pax said. “I want to know what we’re walking into first.”

There was a chorus of “Yes, sir”s.

“Any signs of who did this?” Ash asked.

Pax shook his head. “Checked cameras throughout the house and all the way to the front gate and back. Nothing. But we should proceed as if they’re still there. They have to know we’d come, so they could be waiting for us.”

More nods.

Pax pointed at four of the men. “Do a sweep all the way up to the front gate and back. We’ll wait at alpha position until you return.”

“Yes, sir.”

The men immediately headed out. Pax took a moment to report in to Matt at the Ranch, then he and the rest continued on toward the house.

Alpha position turned out to be a dense cluster of trees about a hundred and fifty yards from the house. Ash could sense Michael’s growing anxiety as they hunkered down and waited for the others to return. Each minute would be an eternity to him. Ash had been in that position himself once, and he knew there was nothing any of them could do to lessen the stress.

Finally, the others reappeared.

“Seven bodies,” one of the men reported. “All ours. Three back near the side fence. The other four near the front gate. No one else around.”

Pax closed his eyes a moment, his worst fears no doubt realized.

“All right,” he said. “You four cut through the woods and come at the house from the other side. Browne, Solomon, Ash, and I will close in from this side.”

“What about me?” Michael said.

“You stay here with Billy.”

“No way.”

“You will, or we’ll stop what we’re doing and take you out of here right now.”

Michael took several quick breaths. “She’s my wife, Pax.”

“Exactly why you’re staying here. You’re too wound up and you know it. You make a mistake in there and you could get the rest of us killed. So what’ll it be?”

He stared at Michael.

“I’ll…I’ll wait here.”

“Good.” Pax looked over at Billy. “Shoot him if he tries to leave.”

The doctor nodded. “You got it.”

Hippocratic oath or not, Ash knew he would do it.

The two teams headed out in different directions. Ash and his group caught sight of the building in less than a minute. Despite the fact that lights were on in many of the rooms, there was a definite stillness blanketing the entire site.

Pax led them to within fifty feet of the porch then stopped. The front door was open, but there were no signs of movement inside.

“In position,” one of the men on the other team reported over the comm.

“All right. We’re moving in. You cover us,” Pax said.

Staying low, Pax, Ash, Browne, and Solomon rushed the porch, their guns raised in front of them. Browne and Solomon passed through the door first, each pointing their weapon in a different direction.

“Clear,” Browne announced.

“Clear,” Solomon echoed.

Pax and Ash moved in.

The two men lying in the front room had multiple gunshot wounds, including one each to the back of their heads.

Pax said nothing, but the anger in his face was more than telling.

“Up or down?” Browne asked.

“The house first, then we’ll go down,” Pax ordered.

A sweep of the first floor revealed no one else, so they called in the other four men before heading upstairs, where they split up. Pax and Ash were the first to arrive outside Michael and Janice’s room. The body they’d seen earlier on the floor inside was another one of the guards. They checked the closet and the en suite bath, but both were empty.

“Where the hell is she?” Ash asked.

Pax shook his head, just as confused.

They returned to the first floor and met up with the others. Since there was no sign of anyone else, Pax sent one of the men to go bring Billy and Michael in. “Make sure Michael knows she wasn’t in the room, and we haven’t found her yet.”

Janice huddled against theroof of the house. She had no idea how long she’d been there. Weakened by her illness, she’d passed out at some point and woken to find that night had fully descended.

Her whole body shook from the cold. It was as if she could feel it all the way down to her bones. She needed to get back inside. She needed to get into the heat. Nighttime temperatures had been routinely dropping into the low twenties, and even occasionally the teens. If she stayed where she was, she’d die of exposure for sure.

But could she risk trying to go back inside yet? Were the others still there? She had no doubt the intruders were from the Project. Perhaps they were even attacking multiple locations, attempting to cripple the only organized opposition they faced.

Had they hit the Ranch, too? Was…was Michael okay?

Dear God, please see both of us through tonight.

She had to get closer to the window. She had to see if she could get inside. Even if the others were still around, perhaps there was someplace she could hide. Surely they had already checked the rooms. If she were able to, say, climb into her closet, chances were they would never know she was there.

You can do this.

She silently counted to three, pulled the blanket off her head, and crawled back down to the base of the dormer. She lay back, panting, the short distance having required most of her energy. She didn’t even realize she’d closed her eyes.

Nor was she aware of losing consciousness again.

Leaving two men behind to stand guard by the entrance, Pax led the others through the house to the secret elevator that went down to the detention level.

“Put your masks on now,” he said as they entered the car. “When we get to the bottom, Browne, I want you to keep your finger next to the Close Door button, but don’t push it until I say. The rest of you stay where you are while I run an air analysis.”

As they descended, Pax attached a long cable to his iPad. On the other end was a device that looked almost like a wand. He handed the computer to Ash. Holding the wand with one hand, he coiled up the cable, finishing just as the car began to slow.

He moved to the front and looked at Browne. “Be ready.”

The car came to a smooth stop. After a second’s delay, the doors slid open.

They weren’t even a foot apart when Pax tossed the wand into the arrival area, letting the cable play out as far as it could go.

As soon as it stopped moving, Pax said, “Close the door.”

Brown hit the button, and the doors slid shut around the cable.

Pax took the tablet back from Ash and studied the screen for several seconds.

“Smoke looks like it was just there for cover,” he said, his voice both muffled by the mask and coming clearly over the radio. “There’s something else, though.” He waited for a moment, his eyes on the screen. Then his nostrils flared. “Those bastards. Double LG.”

“Double LG?” Ash said, surprised. Double LG was the nickname for a deadly nerve toxin that killed within seconds of contact. He’d never heard of anyone actually using it before.

“There’re only trace amounts left,” Pax said. “But keep the masks on. Got it?”

On Pax’s command, Browne pushed the Open Door button.

The room beyond the elevator was unchanged from their brief preview a moment earlier. With Pax in the lead, they moved out of the elevator.

As they neared the body on the floor, Pax glanced at Billy. “Check him.”

The doctor knelt beside the still form, while the others headed over to the Plexiglas wall. Where it met the outer wall was the control room, itself fronted by a glass wall. Though they’d already seen the dead men inside via the camera feed, it was still unnerving to see nearly a dozen people slumped over desks and lying on the floor, dead.

Pax tossed the sensor into the control room and read the results. “Same. Concentration’s higher, but that’s probably because the room’s smaller.” He looked up as Billy rejoined them. “Dead?”

Billy nodded.

Michael moved to the control room window. “I don’t see her. I don’t think she’s in there.”

“No, but a lot of others were,” Billy said.

Michael whipped around, his eyes on fire. “You think I don’t know that? I worked with these people every day! They were my friends! Excuse me if I’m also concerned about my wife!”

“Michael, calm down,” Pax said. “Or I swear to God I will send you back upstairs right now.”

“My fault,” Billy said, sounding like he actually meant it. “Sorry, Michael. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Michael did nothing for a moment, then gave Billy a curt nod.

For the third time, Pax did his trick with the sensor, this time throwing it into the detention block.

“It’s clear,” he announced. “Don’t think they used any gas in there. But just to be safe, keep your masks on.”

Ash had guessed as much. The intruders would have only come down here for one thing: the detainees.

While Billy and Solomon checked the downed guards to see if any of them was still alive, Pax asked Michael, “Which cells are occupied?”

Michael thought for a moment. “Three…five, seven, um, eight…and eleven.”

Ash had assumed all were full, so he was surprised to learn that most of the twenty cells were empty.

One by one, they checked each. In the first four, the prisoners had all been shot through the head. The fifth cell, though, was empty. Ash didn’t need anyone to tell him who had been held there. He’d once visited cell eleven himself.

Olivia Silva’s.

“Son of a bitch,” Pax said.

It was a noise that woke Janice. Not just any noise. Voices, indistinct and coming from the other side of the window.

She tried to peek inside, but couldn’t do so without risking being seen, so she hung back.

Once they were gone, she waited five minutes just to be sure. Then, using more strength than she thought she had, she raised the window and crawled back inside.

At first she just lay on the floor as she let the warmth of the Bluff flow over her and attempt to thaw her out. After a while, though still cold, she felt like she could stand. Using the bed to help her, she rose to her feet. That’s when she saw Robert. He was lying near the door, a drying pool of blood at his side. He could have saved himself, but had instead given his life to save her.

She knelt beside him, and brushed a strand of hair off his cheek. He was so young. How would she ever repay his sacrifice?

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something under her dresser. She leaned forward to take a better look. A pistol, probably the one Robert had been using. She picked it up and checked the mag. It was full.

Though hiding in the closet had been her initial plan, a new one had taken its place. She would find the intruders, and get a good look at them so she could identify them later. If she were really lucky, maybe she would find one alone, and take one life in payment for the many that she was sure had been lost that day.

Quickly she exchanged her sweats for more practical clothing, then checked to make sure no one was in the hallway.

Without waiting another moment, she slipped out of her room.

The mood in the elevator was somber as the team headed back up to the house. Counting the four prisoners in their cells, thirty-two were dead, and two-Janice and Olivia-were the known missing.

Not only were the losses devastating, but the numbers themselves were a problem. There had been thirty-five people at the Bluff, not thirty-four. Someone else was also missing. To try figuring out who it was, Browne and Solomon had stayed below to ID the bodies.

As soon as the doors opened at the top, they all ripped off their masks and took in deep breaths of fresh, untainted air.

“I need to report in,” Pax said as he pulled out his phone and walked away.

Ash and the others headed toward the front room.

It was clear to him what had happened. The Project had found out that Olivia was alive and had come for her. She had been one of their leading scientists before she was taken and her death faked. There must have been a need she filled that required her return to the fold. How had they found out, though? A leak here at the Bluff?

Perhaps the missing-

A gunshot rang out.

Moving as silently as she could, Janice listened for intruders as she made her way toward the stairs that would take her to ground level. So far she had heard nothing, and had the distinct sense the others were no longer on the second floor.

She was just starting to think that maybe they’d pulled out altogether when a male voice drifted in her direction, and was answered a moment later by a second man. They seemed to be somewhere ahead of her.

The hallway she was in T-boned with another that ran parallel to the front of the house. She turned left, heading toward the stairs, and soon discovered where the voices were coming from.

The hallway stopped at the edge of the second-floor mezzanine. There was no one there. The speakers must have been in the room below, their voices drifting upward. The problem now was, if she stepped out onto the walkway, she’d easily be seen from the lower level. She scanned ahead, and realized maybe that wasn’t correct. If she stayed low, she could use the railing as cover and get even closer to the stairs.

Not allowing any time to talk herself out of it, she dropped into a crouch and crept along the mezzanine until she was three feet short of the stairs. She peeked over the top rail. Standing together in the lower room were two men, both wearing black, with rifles slung over their shoulders.

Without warning her head began to swim. She reached out and grabbed the rail to keep from falling down.

“Did you hear that?” one of the men said. “Up by the stairs, I think.”

They’d heard her.

“We need to check,” the other one said.

“I’ll go.”

No! Oh, God, no! They knew she was here. Now they wouldn’t stop until…

…until I’m dead, too.

She had to buy time, but the only way to do that was to let them know for sure she was there. Without looking, she pointed her gun into the room toward where she thought the others were, and pulled the trigger.

Ash raised his gun, and looked back at Michael and Billy.

“Stay here,” he said.

Billy wasn’t armed, so he didn’t put up any protest, but Michael looked like he was about to.

“Stay. Here,” Ash repeated.

Not waiting to see if Michael complied, he ran to the end of the hallway and scanned the front room beyond. He could see the two men they had left behind, pressed against the wall opposite the front door.

Ash quickly waved his hand to get their attention. One of the men looked over and pointed at the mezzanine above him. Ash nodded, then held up his hand, telling them to stay put.

He turned and ran back down the hallway.

When he reached Michael and Billy, he said, “Is there another way to the second floor?”

“One of them is still here?” Michael asked.

“Is there another way or not?”

Michael nodded. “I’ll show you.”

Moving fast, Michael took him into a room that was set up as an office, then out a door on the other side. This led into a narrow corridor that fed into the kitchen. At the back of the room, next to the pantry, was a closed door. Michael wrenched it open. Beyond was a staircase.

Ash pushed past Michael and raced up. Behind him he heard the other man’s feet pounding the treads.

Instead of arguing with him, Ash looked back and said, “Stay just inside the stairwell in case they try to use it.”

Michael nodded. “Okay.”

Ash took off down the hallway. Having never been on this floor before, he let his instincts guide him. Ahead, the hallway bent to the left. He stopped just short of the turn and listened.

Silence.

Planning to move as quickly as he could to the far end, he stepped around the corner. He was instantly halted by the gun thrust in his face.

Janice headed for the back stairs, hoping the intruders weren’t guarding them, but as she neared the end of the corridor, she heard footsteps running in her direction down the intersecting hallway.

She leaned against the wall and raised her gun.

At first, the only thing Ash could see was the barrel of the pistol. Forcing himself to look beyond it, he made eye contact with the person who wanted to kill him.

“Janice?” he said, surprised.

Her eyes narrowed, confused, but she didn’t lower the weapon.

“Janice. It’s Ash. We’ve been looking for you.”

More confusion, the barrel wavering slightly.

“Please. We’re not here to hurt you. Whoever did this is gone. We just flew out from the Ranch.”

“The Ranch?”

He could see she was having a hard time understanding. She took a harder look at him.

“Ash?”

Whatever energy had been holding her up vanished. If Ash hadn’t jumped forward when he did, she would have smacked her head on the floor.