Chapter 23- Wanted Alive
“The Cave doors are open! They’re inside the tunnel!” Sylvia’s walkie-talkie crackled again.
The sanctity of the Cave was broken. Nobody could process that. The Cave had been a refuge away from Whyte and his ilk, even with the mole disturbing their safety. It was a fact they had all taken comfort in whenever they left the compound. It was a haven and would be waiting for them, to tuck them away safe and secure from the evils of the world outside, a place to permit a breather in between dealing with rogue BEPs. That safe space had been breached, and there was no place left to hide, no method of escape. The mole was running around, killing people one by one, and Whyte was descending into the depths of the mountain to slaughter all the rest. They might really die here. This thought clutched Lydia’s chest and dragged her down. Jando’s breathing beside her grew short and on the edge of hearing. She imagined his wide, quivering eyes and pale expression that matched her own.
We might die, the persistent thought continued to swim to the surface. We might actually die. All of the BEP Division snuffed out today, here, in an instant. All of this taken away. She swore she heard the engines of Whyte’s death patrols rolling into the Cave at this instant and the last screams of people already.
Aidan doubled over and she couldn’t read his face, although she was sure he had come to the same conclusion. They all had. The fear and utter shock in everyone’s eyes in the room all spoke to the same questions. What did they do? How would they survive?
Sylvia was the first to react. She jumped to her feet, barked for the guards to cover the front entrance, and directed Lydia, Aidan, and Jando to the escape vehicles. “Get over there now!” Jando helped his friends up and grabbed their arms, pulling them to the door.
As fear coiled around her heart and mind, Lydia finally came to her senses and dug her feet into the floor. “No,” she said. She knew what she had to do. “We’re agents, too.”
“In training,” Sylvia said.
“We’ve fought them before,” she said.
“Different circumstances.”
Jando leaned in. “She’s right. This is much worse. Look, they can handle it. Let’s go.” He tugged their arms. “Come on.”
“You’re letting people volunteer. We volunteer, too,” she said, yanking forward and nodding to Aidan. He returned the nod, albeit jittery. She jammed her own hands into her pockets. It was all she could do to keep them from shaking. They had to do this. If they were going to die, they may as well do it head-on and protect the others. “People are counting on all of us to do our job and help. We can’t run when we’re needed the most.” Although her feet sure wanted to. “‘We have to stay strong and work together to face whatever else Whyte throws at us,’ remember?” Sylvia frowned at her words being thrown back at her. “We’re in.”
The walkie-talkie crackled and Sylvia pulled her glove off with her teeth. She laid her fingertips against the speaker. “Say again. Didn’t catch that.”
“The first escape vehicles are leaving now,” Arthur said. “Gather who you can onto them. Everyone else, cover their retreat until the next set is loaded.”
Sylvia looked up in time to see Jando leaving the room and shrugging an apology to her. Lydia and Aidan were ahead of him. Sylvia yelled after the trio, but they hoofed it down the halls, running for the Center’s exit.
Jando caught up and stayed alongside Lydia, while Aidan lagged a little, huffing and puffing. “This is too much for us,” Jando said. “We could help the escape vehicles if we need to.”
She dodged the truth in his concern. “Whyte’s coming down here with plenty of men. Arthur needs all the people they can get to help,” she said. “Otherwise, it’ll be a massacre.” He didn’t seem hopeful and, truth be told, she was absolutely terrified. “We can help the escape vehicles once everyone else is evacuated.” If we make it that far. “For now, we hold them off. Trust me.” He grimaced, but stayed beside her, running headlong into danger with her and Aidan.
To their side, a pair of guards emerged. “Hey, that’s them! Stop!” one said.
“Guess Sylvia warned them,” Aidan said through wheezes.
“Split up! Meet at the entrance!” Lydia took off down one hall, Aidan flew over the guards, and Jando ran into a laboratory. Lydia continued down the hall, losing the guards near the front of the Center. Outside, she already heard sporadic gunfire. It had started.
She crashed into a warm body and fell on top of it. She raised a fist, prepared for the mole or anyone else. “No, please!” Gary cowered underneath her and curled into a fetal position.
Lydia looked him over. He was unarmed and his hands trembled in front of him, protecting his face. “Hey, it’s all right,” she said, standing up. “It’s me.”
He raised his head. “Oh, thank goodness.” He cleared his throat and stood up as well. “What’s going on? First the alarm, then I’m told I need to come with some guards while I’m in the bathroom, and when I come out to meet them, one’s dead, the other’s bleeding out, and everyone’s in a panic!” He scratched his beard and twitched like Brentle, searching the halls for anyone else. “I went to go find help, but all this excitement is playing havoc with me.”
“I’ll bet,” she said. “Look, an EMT is already on the way for that guard. Come with me instead. I’ll get you to the escape vehicles, okay?” He nodded and ran ahead of her. They reached the reception area, deserted save for one familiar face dashing in from another hall: Morella.
Lydia scrambled to a halt and searched for a quick hiding spot. But Morella saw them before she could locate one. He turned, his pistol already drawn, and Lydia moved to the receptionist’s desk, chucking a telephone at him. He sidestepped out of the way and held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa! It’s me!”
“I know,” she said. “Where have you been? Killing more people?”
“What are you talking about?” he said. “I was napping until I heard the alarm. I checked out the dormitories to make sure everyone was evacuated, and then came here.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” she said, picking up a potted plant. “Someone is a traitor here. How can we trust you?”
“We’re all on the same side,” he said, and then turned to Gary. He eyed Morella with a cocked eyebrow and sidled close to Lydia. “Fine, if it makes you feel better.” He laid his pistol on the desk and slid it across to them. They looked at it, then up at him. “Ever used one, Mr. Reece?”
“Uh, a friend let me fire his once,” he said, picking the pistol up by the handle’s end. He dangled it between his thumb and forefinger, spinning it around and examining it like a curious contraption.
Morella unholstered another pistol from his belt and showed the side to Gary. “Safety’s on the side. On, off,” he said, flipping the switch. “All you have to do is point and shoot. Got it?” Gary nodded and held the pistol, pointing it straight down. His body quivered and he took several deep breaths. “Satisfied?” Morella asked.
Lydia set the plant down and walked to him. “Fine. Let’s get him to an escape vehicle. You take the lead.”
“Fine,” Morella said. Lydia walked to the front door, switching between watching him and the fight outside, determining when it would be safe to move as he took cover by the wall corner beside her. When the gunfire was less constant for a few moments, she opened the door for Morella, but a shot rang out. She swirled around and he fell to the ground, a small hole in the center of his chest, bleeding profusely. He choked and coughed, grasping at the ever-growing red stain in his shirt and rolled onto his chest, his limbs twitching and contracting.
Gary gritted his teeth, the pistol rattling in his hand. “He was going to shoot you,” he said as Morella’s gasps became weaker, raspier. “I saw him. He pointed at you. He was going to shoot you right in the back. Then he would’ve gotten me. Probably thought I couldn’t hit him at all.”
She stared at Morella as he looked up at her and jerked his head side to side. “To shoot me,” Lydia said slowly, “he wou
ld’ve had to face me, not you. Or at least turned partway.” She stared at the bullet wound when it appeared in the brief spasms, and then at Morella’s back, where there was no entry wound, and then at Gary. Her face registered her deduction and Gary lowered his eyelids.
“Clever girl.” He fired a shot, but she ducked behind the desk and pressed her back to the wood.
Gary. Gary?! Of all people, it was him? First Whyte invaded the Cave, and now Gary revealed himself a turncoat. This was too bizarre and surreal, like some fever dream.
He shot at her spot and she slunk lower. “Guess I should’ve thought of something better.”
Lydia searched her surroundings for anything to throw at him. “You could’ve said he tried to shoot you first and you got him.” Nothing. There was nothing. She slid her hand along the desk counter and another bullet barely missed her. Wood chips bounced into the air and sprinkled her hair.
“That’s pretty good,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking straight, though. Told you all this excitement was messing with me. But I’ll remember that for next time.”
She had to keep him talking, keep him distracted. “There won’t be a next time.” She saw only one option. She spun on her heels and pushed her palms against the bottom of the counter.
“You’re right. Because everyone in here is dead. Whoa!”
Lydia lifted the desk off the hinges on the wall and threw it upward. It smacked Gary in the face and he staggered, clutching his nose. “Agh! You b—oof!” She shoved the desk hard, pinning him to the wall. She pulled the desk away and he dropped to his knees. Lydia pushed the desk into his head and he collapsed face-first, his gun clattering a few feet away.
She fell onto her backside and panted, looking between an unconscious Gary and a dead Morella. What just happened? Gary. Morella. What just happened?!
Gary groaned and his fingers curled, searching for the gun, and brushing the grip. Lydia leapt quickly, fist outstretched, and smashed the gun and his fingertips. “Agh! You broke them!” he said, yanking his hand back as she swept the pistol away. She grabbed a pair of handcuffs hooked to Morella’s belt and slapped one end on Gary’s hand. She dragged him behind the desk and looped the chain around a drawer handle before attaching the other end to his free hand. “You broke my fingers!”
“I’ll do a lot worse than that,” she said, leaving to check on Morella. She rolled him over and searched for a pulse. None. His eyes were dead to the world and she closed his lids. “I’m sorry,” she said, and offered a silent prayer for him. Please accept him to one day join You in Paradise. Please reward his sacrifices and don’t let them be in vain.
“Hey,” Gary said. “Where are you?”
Lydia hopped over the desk and crouched beside him. “How? Why?” She decked his face and he held his nose.
He cursed her and sniffed. “You’re supposed to wait until I answer. Ugh, I think you broke it, too,” he said, his voice thick and nasally.
She wanted to do so much more than that. All those people put in danger or killed because of this trash. This person whom she had trusted and actually confided in. Flashbacks of sessions assaulted her, and she wondered if she had divulged any important information to him. She couldn’t remember, but to think she may have unknowingly helped him somehow made her sick. What if other people did, too?
The smug grin he wore infuriated her, and she wanted to pound it off his face and into the ground until he couldn’t even attempt a smile. But there was a more pressing matter at hand. She grabbed him by his collar and asked, “Does Whyte know about the emergency routes?”
He kicked at her and she kneeled on his shin. He continued struggling and she tugged his beard, yanking out a handful of hair. He hissed and shook in his bonds. “Does he?” She leaned into his shin harder. “You know I can snap it like a twig. Tell me.”
He gave up and sighed, staring at her for a moment. Then he laughed. A wild, uncontrollable laugh at some joke she wasn’t privy to. “You have no idea how screwed you all are.”
She pressed into his leg to its breaking point. He seethed and winced, but chuckles escaped his throat all the same. “Tell me.”
“I didn’t tell him,” he said. “I didn’t know about the routes. But if by some miracle he hasn’t found them, he soon will. No one is safe from a man who can see the future. Not you, not Arthur, or any of the blind, miserable fools here!”
She whacked his head into the desk, knocking him out, and then ran outside. Off to the side, the first escape vehicles were already gone and the hidden wall closed up. People ran and clambered for the next set of vehicles as fast as possible. At the entrance, APCs and Humvees rolled farther into the Cave. Guards and volunteers lined up against hastily placed concrete barriers and the parked cars in the lot. As soon as the first APC neared them, a series of mine explosions burst upward from underneath, rattling the APC and stopping it in its tracks. Smoke and debris covered the battlefield.
The guards and volunteers cheered until one of the Humvees opened fire on them through the smoke, with a tank approaching its rear! The Humvee’s machine gun cut down a few, and those close to the Cave entrance retreated to distant cover. An APC and the tank fired on the second wave of escape vehicles, blowing one up and catching a few people in the blast. Those that held passengers opened the hidden wall and fled, leaving behind some final escape vehicles, some cars and vans in the lot, and frightened people and guards dashing back to the Center. Several threw smoke grenades, blinding the advancing vehicles.
Several more explosions burst upward at the entrance, blinding both sides in smoke clouds. In the midst of the guards, Lydia spotted Jando and Aidan. She dashed forward, pumping her legs hard, and aided them with the retreat.
* * *