“What’s going on?” I demanded. Matt and the others looked stunned. There was a painfully long moment when it seemed as if they didn’t know what to do.
“Talk to me, Matt,” Charlotte demanded.
Matt snapped into focus. He had gone from a jovial big brother to a man with a mission.
“Bring them below,” he said without a hint of panic. “We’ll take cover with the other Chiefs.”
“How is this possible?” Charlotte asked, though I don’t think she expected an answer.
“Let’s hope we get the chance to find out,” Matt said. “Go, now!” Matt and his friends took off running. Most of the others followed.
The rest of us gathered together in confusion. We all looked to Charlotte for answers.
“What’s happening, Charlotte?” I asked.
“They’ve found us,” she said soberly. “The Air Force is attacking.”
TWENTY-FOUR
The panic was on. Everyone scattered to find shelter.
Tori, Kent, Olivia, and I stayed with Charlotte. “We’ve gotta find Jon,” I said.
“He’s with his escort, he’ll be okay,” Charlotte said. “We’vegot to get as deep below ground as possible.”
She led us out of the indoor park, through the lobby, and straight into the darkened casino. I’d only seen casinos on TV. They were lively places full of color and light and excitement. Slot machines rang, people gathered around roulette or blackjack tables, and everybody would be having a great time, except for those who were losing, I guess. Bottom line was that they were places loaded with energy.
This casino couldn’t have been further from that. It was dark and quiet. There were long rows of dust-covered slot machines that would never again play their electronic tunes, empty tables with no gamers, and restaurants that smelled like putrid food.
Charlotte wove her way through the islands of slot machines as if she knew exactly where she was going. The rest of us followed, trusting that she wasn’t just winging it.
“We can access the underground behind the cashier’s window,” she announced.There was a far-off rumble that made Charlotte stop and listen.
“They’re here,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I can’t believe they found us.”
“Believe it, Sarge,” Kent said sarcastically. “This is old news to us.”
“It’s daytime,” I said. “They can’t penetrate the buildings with their light weapons.”
More rumbles were heard. It sounded like fast-moving thunder, but we knew what it really was. Thunder didn’t make the floor shudder.
“Those planes have plenty of firepower during the day,” I cautioned. “They can easily—”
The roof over our heads exploded, sending a shower of splintered wood and shattered plaster down on us. We all dove for cover as heavy beams plummeted to the floor.
I ducked under a large roulette table, for whatever good that would do. All around me the beams crashed to the ground, hitting the metal slot machines and crushing them under their weight. The blast ripped open a hole in the ceiling, allowing sunlight to shine in. The casino was alive again, but not in a good way.
“Keep moving!” Charlotte commanded from somewhere.
I peered out from beneath the table to look for the others. It was nearly impossible to see. The air was filled with dust and debris that reflected the sunlight to create a white haze.
“Tori!” I shouted.
“Right here,” she said calmly.
I jumped when I realized she was directly behind me. “Let’s get outta here,” I said and grabbed her hand.
We scrambled out from beneath the table and ran in the same direction we had been headed when the bomb hit.
The first bomb.
The second struck the instant we were on our feet. The pulse of energy must have traveled directly through the hole in the roof, for it made a direct hit on a row of slot machines. The heavy metal machines blew into the air like they were toys. I pulled Tori behind a pillar as two machines tumbled past, banging and clanging as their metal skins tore each time they hit the floor. The machines bounced across the casino floor, spewing coins and bashing others before coming to rest in a pile of twisted steel beams.
“There’s Olivia,” Tori shouted.
Olivia was sprinting along another row of slot machines. She was headed for a heavy gaming table where I thought she would try to take cover. Instead, she leaned down and reached out her hand.
“You stay here and you die!” she shouted.
I’d never heard her so commanding. I guess fear will do that.
A hand reached up from under the table and grabbed hers. Olivia pulled a dazed Kent to his feet. He nodded and went with her.
A second later another energy surge hit—directly on the table Kent had been hiding beneath. It exploded the table into kindling, sending sharp slivers of wood and a bloom of colorful casino chips flying everywhere. Olivia had just saved Kent’s life.
I saw Charlotte take cover behind a bar. As soon as she disappeared behind it, she screamed.
I ran for her, with Tori right behind me. After a pained scream like that, I figured she must have twisted her ankle or slammed into something sharp. I made it to the bar, circled around behind, and saw that she wasn’t hurt. At least not physically.
She was kneeling over somebody. A guy. He wasn’t moving.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“No,” she said, sounding as though she was trying to hold back her emotions.
“How?” Tori asked. “Did something hit him?”
Charlotte shook her head. She had tears in her eyes. At first I thought they were tears of sorrow, and they were. But they were just as much a show of her building rage.
“He was murdered,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Another bomb flew through the hole in the ceiling, blasting a whole in the floor that sent an avalanche of rubble into the next level down. It was far enough away that we barely paid attention.
“I’m a sheriff,” she said. “I’ve seen plenty of murder scenes. But it doesn’t take a crack detective to see what happened here.”
She rolled his head to the side, where I saw the telltale gaping red hole that was a bullet wound, square in the middle of his forehead.
“His name was Tom,” Charlotte explained. “He was my best friend here, I guess because he was a sheriff too. From LA County. We had plenty of stories to share.”
She seemed dazed, in shock from what had happened to her friend.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I said. “But we gotta get outta here.”
Several more energy bombs hit, turning the once opulent casino into a junk yard.
“This is just… wrong,” she said, sounding numb. “Why would somebody shoot him? We’re all survivors here.”
“Find the others,” Tori said. “I’ll get her to the cashier’s window.”
I crouched low and ran to the far side of the bar, where I could scan the wreckage of the casino.
“Olivia? Kent?”
No answer.
Through the haze I spotted the word “Cashier” on a wall over a long window with security bars. That was our target. I took off running while looking around for the others. When I hit the wall with the cashier’s window, I heard a voice coming from behind it. A familiar voice. I relaxed, knowing that Kent and Olivia had made it. I turned to head back for Tori and Charlotte and heard the voice again.
It wasn’t Kent’s.
It was Jon’s.
“No, end it now,” he commanded. “You were supposed to wait for nightfall. Destroying empty buildings is useless. This will only force them to crawl deeper.”
What?
I slid closer, listening intently, trying to understand what he was saying.
“It’s too late, you idiots, the rats have already gone underground,” he said to… someone. He sounded angry, which wasn’t like Jon at all. There was a sense of authority in his voice that I’d never heard before. It brought me back to the night in Ohio when I heard him talking to somebody from behind the closed door of the radio room. But the radio wasn’t working. He told me he was talking to himself. Was he doing the same thing now?