“So people built the shelters to protect themselves from a direct hit,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah. Like if I shot a bazooka at you, and you protected yourself by wearing a heavy sweater.”
“They weren’t safe?” I asked.
“They were safe if there was a tornado, or a hurricane. But a nuclear missile landing nearby? No way. And you know what? If you were sitting under a nuclear attack, you’d never want to come up for air, because you’d be sucking poison. If you ask me, instant incineration is the way to go.”
“Have you ever been in one of the shelters?”
“Are you kidding? We had one under our house; my father built it himself. I took girls down there until I was twenty-two. I wish I lived there now.” He smiled at the recollection.
“Is it possible that there is one with satellite television hooked up?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Have the satellite on the house, or a nearby tree, and run the line down to the shelter. No problem. It could even be in a silo.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some people bought old silos, for beans, once the missiles were taken out. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard they turned them into like underground apartments.” He laughed. “I even heard some people built homes next to them, and use the silos as guesthouses.” He laughed again. “I got some family I’d like to put underground when they visit.”
“Is there a map of where the shelters are?”
“No, not that I know of. I’m sure some of them would be registered in town halls, or something. You know, if people had to get permits to build them. But I’m sure most of them just went ahead and did it.”
“What about the silos? Is there a map of where they would be?”
Another shrug. “Must be. The Defense Department keeps records of everything.”
I turned to Emmit. “Let’s make sure we get that.”
Emmit wrote it down, which meant I could forget it. Once Emmit wrote something down, it happened.
“I can tell you where a couple of them are, if you want to see them,” Granderson said.
“How far from here?” Emmit asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
Granderson told us where they were, and how to get there. We thanked him and left.
True to his word, we were there in twenty minutes, an old sign directing us off the road to a US Military Installation, apparently unnamed. We drove on a dirt road towards it, and in less than five minutes we were there. It was a group of small buildings, maybe barracks, and six small towers.
We parked near one of the buildings, and walked towards the towers. Everything was old and dusty, metal was rusted … it sure didn’t feel like a place that once contained enough power to wipe out a good part of the world.
Emmit and I walked towards one of the towers, and saw what used to be the hole in the ground. It was very, very large, maybe thirty feet across, and it was covered by what could best be called an enormous concrete manhole cover.
There were still warning signs, some alerting to the dangers of radiation. It didn’t seem like a current worry, since the area hadn’t been roped off, but I did feel a flash of concern.
“You think this stuff could still be radioactive?” Emmit asked.
“Let’s put it this way,” I said. “You’ve been impotent since you got out of the car.”
He laughed, but the laugh was cut short by the bullet smashing into him. He fell backwards, and I dove on top of him, rolling us over to some level of protection, behind the tower.
“Emmit, you OK?”
He didn’t answer me, but his eyes were open, and the bleeding was coming from just below his shoulder. I balled up his shirt and pressed down on the wound with one hand, as I tried to peer out to where the attack had come from. I had my gun out in the other hand, but I had no target to shoot at.
Another round of weapons fire shattered the quiet, and dirt and concrete kicked out from all around us. We were in a completely untenable position; any effort to find the person shooting at us would leave me totally vulnerable.
But I had to do something, because Emmit could well have been dying. And the way things were setting up, I was going to join him.
I started to work my way around the tower, but more shots cut me off. Then I heard a sound; it was a human sound, maybe a small shout of surprise. Or pain. Or both.
I waited sixty seconds, which in that situation was an eternity. Then I started to make my way around again, bracing myself for more gunfire.
But there was only silence.
So I kept going, gun at the ready, prepared to shoot at anything I saw. And what I saw was a man, standing off in the distance near a building, looking down.
I raised my gun, but I didn’t shoot, because the man was Chris Gallagher. And he was looking down at a body.
Gallagher looked up at me, clearly not afraid of the gun in my hand.
He bent over and seemed to be searching the pockets of the person lying at his feet. I wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, but I had Emmit to worry about.
I took off in a run towards my car, and as I passed by Gallagher I yelled, “My partner’s been hit!”
Gallagher nodded and started running back towards where we had been. I continued on to my car, and drove it to where Emmit was lying, now with Gallagher beside him and pressing down on the wound. As I approached, Gallagher picked Emmit up. It seemed effortless, amazing since Emmit weighed more than two hundred and fifty pounds.
I helped Gallagher put Emmit into the backseat, closed the door, and ran back around to the driver’s side. As I passed by Gallagher, he slipped something into my hand. I didn’t look at it; I was too busy programming the GPS to find the nearest hospital.
It was seven miles away, and while en route I called in to Barone’s office to report what had happened, and to tell them to have the hospital waiting for our arrival.
I called to Emmit a few times, but he didn’t answer. I was hoping that he was just unconscious.
When we got there, I pulled up and was immediately surrounded by emergency personnel. The hospital appeared unimpressive, a one-level place that looked more like a veterinary hospital, but the people there had their act together.
Emmit was out of the car, on a gurney, and in the hospital within a minute. By the time I got inside, he was gone, and I had to ask the person behind the desk where they had taken him.
She asked me to fill out some papers, but I refused, at least for the time being. I wanted to be with Emmit, and she understood and directed me to the area where he was being treated.
I was in the waiting room for over an hour when Captain Barone and three other cops from our station showed up. “How is Emmit?” Barone asked.
“He’s in surgery. They’re not telling me anything, but he lost a lot of blood. Did you reach his wife?”
He shook his head. “She’s on a plane to Seattle to visit her parents. There’s a message for her to call in when she lands. Who did this?”
It was then that I realized that I hadn’t looked at whatever Gallagher had given me. I took it out of my pocket. It was a Nevada Driver’s License, in the name of Frank Kagan.
I showed it to Barone. “He did.”
“How do you know that? Where is he?”
“He’s dead. Chris Gallagher killed him.”
“Excuse me?”
“This guy had us pinned down. Emmit was hit and I was next. Gallagher was there, I don’t know why, but he killed him.”
I told Barone where it happened as best as I could, and he made a phone call to dispatch officers to the scene. Then we waited on Emmit.
It was another hour and forty minutes before the doctor came out to talk to us. “He’s going to make it. He may not go dancing any time soon, but he’s going to make it.”
He went on to say that no major organs were hit, but that Emmit had lost a lot of blood, and if he had gotten to the hospital ten minutes later, it might have been too late.