“He’s helping them hunt us,” Blake said.
“No,” Hayley replied. “He’s helping them hunt me… and Flynn. He doesn’t know the rest of you are here.”
“He can’t think you blew up that building though,” I whispered.
“You’re right.” Eddie pointed at me. “He must think you are here too.”
That son of a bitch is actually helping Qi Jia hunt us with two of his men—with two other American soldiers! These are SEALs. Where is their honor? Man, if Trigger and Twix were here… Baker had let Qi Jia into the bunker and handed over our highest-ranked military officer. He’d shot and killed his own son. What can he possibly think he is going to get out of this?
At 5:00 a.m., I knew we had to make our move. Baker and his two SEALs had walked outside. Six Qi Jia soldiers were sleeping on cots in the room with the maps. Four other soldiers were on patrol, two at the front entrance of the bunker and two more beside the prisoners’ cell. This was the lowest number of soldiers that had been there yet.
The problem was the doors. We didn’t know where the other one opened into—the book didn’t say—and we also didn’t know how loud they’d be when they opened. Ideally, we’d know which door went into the cell and open the other, sneak out, and take out as many of the soldiers as we could. We needed to unlock the cell door and at least give the illusion they’d escaped another way than through the back wall of their cell. But that could easily backfire.
I turned back to everyone else. “Okay, here’s the plan. Stop me if there’s anything you don’t understand.” I glanced around at the circle of nodding heads. “Flynn, you’re staying here with Cera.”
“Danny, she’s actually good with a gun.”
I rolled my eyes. One sentence in and Hayley had already interrupted me. “Hayley, it’s not her shooting I’m worried about.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, Flynn you stay here with Cera. Eddie you too. I can’t afford to have anyone know you’re here.” I put my hand on the giant African’s shoulder. “Eddie, that’s important.”
“Understood.”
“Silas, you’re the only one in Qi Jia uniform. We’re going to open both doors simultaneously, and I want you to go out the one that doesn’t go into the cell. Keena, I want you with him. Silas, you protect her and try to keep her hidden as long as you can.
“Keena, I need you to try to get to the computers and kill the feed. Erase all evidence we were here if you can. Then I need you to close the main bunker door. We need to jam it to where it can’t be opened from the outside—ever again if necessary.
“Hayley, I need you behind those two. I’m giving you Blake’s headset and will tell you where the trouble is. You take out who you have to. Your bow is our best weapon because it’s our quietest. There are two alarms in the bunker. If Keena can cut them off, she will. Otherwise, we have to try to keep people away from them.” So far everyone seemed in tune with the plan.
“Listen, guys, I am certain someone somewhere is watching the same feed we can see from here. They will see Silas, Keena, and probably even Hayley.” I handed Hayley my hat. “Keep your heads down. Do not look up. If Keena erases all the recordings, they’re not going to have any still frames to identify us with. That said, once they see you, they’ll be coming fast. Get in and get out as quickly as you can. Blake and I will get the prisoners into the tunnel and reclose our door. Any questions?”
Eddie raised his hand. “Danny, if we don’t leave out the front, they’re going to surround this mountain.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“So how will we get out of here?”
“Honestly, Eddie, I don’t know.” That was clearly a sobering response, judging by the silence that followed my words. “We do have another option. We can sit back and watch, wait for our chance to leave, and then leave. Those prisoners will certainly be dead. The general will probably give up whatever he’s thus far refused to. The bunker will remain open, and Qi Jia will be able to launch whatever missiles remain here whenever and wherever they want. That’s the only other alternative.”
There was a lengthy pause. Blake finally broke it. “Not much of an alternative.”
“I know.” I waited for any other objections. None came. “Okay then, shall we?”
A chorus of agreement followed. Here goes nothing.
FORTY-THREE – Tunnel Rats (Danny)
The doors barely made a sound when they opened. They slowly slid into the tunnel wall leaving gaps in the walls where they had been. Given their silence, I elected to close the one leading into the cell, since no one had noticed it open—not even the prisoners. The cell was dark, but I didn’t want to chance the cell guards noticing anything.
Turned out to be a good call. When it sealed shut, we watched—on the screen—as one of the guards stood and peered into the cell. Something had caught his attention, but he didn’t seem to know quite what. He looked around for a minute and then said something to the other guard and sat back down. I turned to Silas and Keena and whispered, “Go.”
Silas crawled out the door on the right—into a storage room. Oddly, we couldn’t see him on one of the screens—which had to be by design. He came into view a minute later on a screen two guards had just passed through. We watched him walk down a hallway after them and then wave for Keena to follow him. She did with Hayley right behind her. Silas appeared on the screen in the computer room. We saw a man at one of the computers stand and stretch. The other guard in that room walked out another door into the hallway—directly into Keena’s knife. She pushed the man back into the computer room—hand over his mouth, knife in his throat—and Silas instantly tackled the guy at the computers. After a brief struggle, Silas stood up and took position by the door. Keena was typing feverishly on a laptop and I watched the monitors around her fill with code and rapidly cycle through screenshots like a slideshow.
I quickly scanned all the feeds on our big screen and saw Hayley enter the one showing the prison cell. One of the guards spotted her immediately, but she was ready for him. An arrow through his throat put him down. The other guard bolted up and turned toward Hayley, drawing his gun, but before he could raise it up, one of the prisoners behind him grabbed his arm, knocking the gun free. With his other arm the prisoner grabbed the guard’s head and slammed it into the bars, rendering him quickly unconscious. Hayley grabbed the keys off the guard she’d taken out and opened the cell door.
The six sleeping guards in the map room still hadn’t moved, and Keena still hadn’t closed the front door. Fortunately, there was no sign of Baker, his men, or any other soldiers. I punched in the code to open the door behind the cell, and it slid into the wall again. The man who had taken the handgun from the guard spun toward us, pointing his gun at Blake as Blake crawled into the cell.
“It’s okay,” Blake said standing up. “We’re here for you. Get everyone in here.”
The man with the gun glanced at Hayley, and she nodded at him. “They’re with me. Go.”
“Ava,” the man whispered at the girl holding the general’s head in her lap. “Get your dad up.”
We helped General Niles slide into the tunnel, and I took another look at the screen. For some reason, the front door to the bunker was still open. Come on, Keena. Shut that damn door. “Keena,” I spoke into the headset. I could still see her but she didn’t reply. “Keena.”