Chapter 26- Redundant and Obsolete
Mark crept up the Center’s stairs, holding tight to the railing. The only bit of light shone from underneath the doors to each floor. As he reached the second floor, he flattened beside the door and held his rifle straight up, ready to shoot. He had run out of bullets, but no one else would know that.
A herd of footsteps clopped rapidly outside the door. He flew up the stairs, clearing two or three at a time, and hid on the third-floor landing. “We’re on our way out,” Whyte’s voice echoed all around Mark. “Get Heather and yourselves out. Emeryl, tell anyone inside the Center to regroup with us at the first-floor rear exit. Everyone should be ready to leave in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mark held his breath until he heard their feet fade downstairs. He was out of time. He looked up at the third-floor door. Heather wasn’t on the first floor. He knew that much. And why would Whyte exit the second floor and leave her behind, only to ask for her to be brought down?
He entered the third floor and jogged down the halls. Every door was exactly the same, except for the different nameplates. He felt like he was back on the oil rig again. How did the employees find anything?
Soon, he heard voices nearby and snuck along to the door they were coming from. There was a large boot print on the door and scuffled marks along the floor. Bingo.
He turned the knob and kicked the door open, hitting someone with it. Much to his chagrin, however, the mercenary behind the door wasn’t knocked out, merely annoyed and sore. A gun rounded the edge of the door until the mercenary recognized him. “Oh, it’s you.” He dropped the gun and dragged Mark in, muttering under his breath. “That really hurt.”
Inside, a second mercenary lowered another to the bottom of the Cave via a rope line while Heather stood by. Mark’s face lit up and he almost ran to her. But as the grumbling mercenary walked by him to grab his gear, he saw his opportunity. He caught Heather’s eye and twisted his rifle slightly, asking her. She gave him an imperceptible headshake and glanced out the hole in the window.
Mark peered over the edge. Down below, Whyte ordered the mercenaries around while they loaded up the still-working APC and Humvees. The inoperable APC and any decimated Humvees were pushed next to the Center and planted with explosives.
After the man guarding the door slid down the rope, the remaining mercenary handed the rope to Heather. “You next.” She slid down, and then Mark, and they were escorted to Whyte. To his side, Valerie and Roy each carried one of Lydia’s arms, while Lionel weaved in and out between their bodies, his legs jammed down Lydia’s throat.
“Nice to see you survived,” Whyte said to Mark. “I was beginning to think we underestimated your durability.”
“Where are Oliver and Sheila?” he asked.
“Oliver’s with Gary,” Roy said.
“Who?”
“My inside man. Oliver was wrapping things up with him,” Whyte said, watching the mercenaries finish with the explosives on the damaged APC. Mark read between the lines all too well and his hands twitched. Whyte seemed to turn briefly to the massive burning crater in the second floor, where fire licked the upper and lower sections of the building, tasting its next meal. Mark wondered how much of that fire had been caused by Oliver.
“And Sheila’s still unaccounted for,” Whyte continued. Emeryl ran up to them, radio in hand.
“Still can’t raise Sheila at all,” he said. “No one’s seen her in a while. We did a quick sweep, but there are too many rooms to check, and some caved in from the tank.”
“Forget it then,” Whyte said. “We don’t have time to search for her. Arthur’s call will have the FBI and more BEP agents here soon enough.”
The mention of Arthur seemed to revive Lydia from her sedative state and she leapt up, decking Valerie hard enough so that her head sailed clear across to the Center’s entrance. Roy held her arm, but she grabbed his and twisted. Lionel slipped fully into her throat, choking her to the verge of passing out. Whyte stepped up and swung at her head, knocking her out and ending the short outburst.
“Stubborn to the last,” he said. “Arthur would be proud.”
Roy threw her over his shoulder and carried her out, while Valerie’s body searched for her head. She called the body to her, but it staggered around, arms out to the floor, like a drunken fool about to retch in a corner. “Over here! No, that’s a rock! Here!”
Whyte returned to the matter at hand. “What about the escaped cars? Did the helicopters find anything?”
“They found and destroyed a couple of cars outside, sir,” Emeryl said. “But there’s no sign of where their escape tunnel exits exactly. They’ll keep searching.”
“Only for another half hour,” he said. “I want to be long gone from here by the time anyone arrives. Plant the bodies and get everything else ready.”
Bodies? As the group climbed into Whyte’s car, the mercenaries unloaded the black bags they had brought in the APCs and Humvees. It was only then that Mark saw they were body bags. They unloaded the corpses and arranged them with weapons. Each wore the jacket of the Children of the New Age, a purple jacket emblazoned with a nondescript figure, his fist in the air against a white sun. In all, there were maybe forty members total, some dropped in the parking lot, others in the Center and other buildings, all set up as if they died attacking the BEP Division.
“Whew, it’s nice to have that smell out of there,” one of the mercenaries said.
The rest of the mercenaries went through their dead, burning them, stripping them of their gear and shooting them beyond recognition, or setting them up near the APC and Humvees armed with explosives.
As soon as they were done, the cars, APC, and Humvees drove out of the Cave, leaving the tank at the entrance. Its cannon rumbled several times, blowing holes in the buildings and Cave’s ceiling, collapsing rock on the battlefield. Then it joined the rest of the convoy far enough from the Cave. Whyte had his car stop in the lead and stepped out. Emeryl threw him a detonator from the APC, while the larger vehicles loaded up into the semitrailer trucks.
Whyte cradled the device and held it close to his heart. He pressed the large button on top, and a distant boom reached them after a few seconds. The mountain itself seemed to shake and fall apart from within, like Mark and Heather’s hopes. Their last decent chance, snuffed out for good.
For a minute, Whyte inhaled shaky, shivering breaths and stood there, basking in the moment. Then he tossed the detonator to Emeryl and said, “Tell them to send out the video.” He climbed back into the car and they were off.
* * *