He almost asked what the hell this place was when it dawned on him.
Frowning, he said, “This is what all the fuss is about? Some damn empty missile silo? I got news for you. You can buy one of these off the Internet for a couple hundred grand. Why would someone want to pay fifty million so you could guide them here?”
For a few seconds, Dani forgot she’d been brought here against her will. She stared upward into the vast space above them as the lights came on, hardly believing she was finally seeing it with her own eyes.
There, just like Marianne had described them, were the gantries that would be lowered when a missile was in place for technicians to work on. Next to them, the conduits that carried the wires controlling the concrete doors at the very top, now buried under several feet of dirt. Off to the right, near the floor, was the hatch covering the service tunnel. And there, straight ahead, was the unassuming door behind which was her father’s unwanted legacy.
When her captor started talking, reality came crashing back. “Why would someone want to pay fifty million so you could guide them here?”
She’d been so conditioned to protect the secret that her arm felt like it weighed a ton as she lifted it and pointed at the door across the room.
The man’s gaze followed the motion. “Yeah? So? It’s a door. What about it?”
Her throat had never felt so dry, and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to answer, but her only hope lay in getting him into the other side of the facility. She swallowed. “It’s what you came for,” she said, forcing out the words.
He grimaced, his expression turning annoyed. “And what exactly would that be?”
“It’s easier if…if I show you.”
She started toward the door, hoping he would follow. After a brief hesitation, he did.
Knowing that being underground would interfere with the ability to track her phone, Orlando set her cell on top of one of the concrete blocks and climbed down the hole, leaving the door open. Descending the built-in ladder was not fun. If there were any more like it, she wouldn’t be going far. At least the baby hadn’t taken that moment to remind her it was almost time.
On the other side of the landing door, she found a spiral staircase.
Okay, she thought. This, I can do.
As she moved downward, she detected the echo of footsteps ahead. How far away was hard to tell. It wasn’t long before they went silent.
Around a hundred steps down, she stopped for a breather.
Quinn’s voice in her head was even louder now, repeatedly telling her this was a bad idea.
Bad or not, she wasn’t going to turn around now. She just prayed there was an elevator she could take back to the top.
Orbits once more made Danielle open the door.
A hallway, circular like a pipe, but made from corrugated metal. More a drainage pipe than sewer, Orbits thought.
About thirty feet in, it bent to the left. After they rounded it, they walked about the same distance before coming to another door.
“This had better be it,” he said, his patience all but gone.
Without looking back at him, she said, “It is.”
Danielle opened the door and turned on the lights.
“There are three more floors like this,” she said.
The room was full of stacked wooden crates of varying sizes, all in tidy rows.
“What do we have here?” he asked.
“See for yourself.”
He walked over to a stack of boxes that were three times as long as they were thick.
“How am I supposed to open this?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Danielle.
He considered it for a moment longer, and then said, “Screw it.”
It took two shoves to move it far enough for gravity to send it crashing to the floor. Though the top didn’t come all the way off, it ripped from two of the sides, creating a gap through which he could see the barrel end of a rifle. He worked the weapon out the hole.
An M16A2. Not the latest version but still an excellent model. This one had been prepped for long-term storage and clearly never used. He examined it, liking the feel of it in his hands. His gaze drifted to the boxes nearest him.
“All these contain weapons?” he asked, and looked over at Danielle.
Only she wasn’t there.
Quinn reached the meadow first and spotted the rectangular metal plate standing on end. When the others joined him, they spread out to approach it in a widely spaced line in case of ambush.
The plate turned out to be a door that had covered a hole in the ground. Quinn scanned the interior and saw it was empty.
“Orlando’s phone,” Nate said, picking it up off a concrete block. “At least she wanted us to find her.”
Ananke peeked into the hole. “I hate to repeat myself but horror film.”
Quinn lowered himself over the edge.
“Am I the only one who remembers what we found the last time we went below ground?” she asked.
“Stay up there if you want,” he said as he reached the landing. “We need someone to watch the entrance anyway.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t want that responsibility. I’m going with you.”
As she moved onto the ladder, Daeng said, “I’ll stay.”
Once Ananke was out of the way, Nate came down.
“Cover the door,” Quinn told them.
Moving as far to the side as he could, he opened the door on the landing.
“Clear,” Nate whispered.
They headed down the spiral staircase, moving as quickly as they dared. Just shy of the hundred and fiftieth step, they heard a distant, muffled gunshot.
While Orbits pushed on the wooden crate, Dani inched toward the still-open door. She made her escape when the box started to fall.
Holding her cuffed hands high so she could run as fast as possible, she raced down the tunnel. If she could make it across the silo and into the stairwell, he probably wouldn’t be able to catch her before she exited the top and locked him inside.
She was almost to the silo entrance when she heard Orbits enter the other end of the hall. She looked back, but he was still out of sight around the bend.
As she twisted forward and reached for the door handle, she realized it was already moving on its own.
Orlando knew what kind of place she was in before she even passed through the door at the bottom of the stairs.
Kansas countryside. A massively fortified underground facility. It had Cold War missile-launch facility written all over it.
Walking into the empty silo confirmed it.
As she leaned against the wall and caught her breath again, she took a look around. Directly across from the stairwell was the only other door. She would have liked to rest there for a little while longer, but knew there was no time to waste. She pushed herself off the wall and headed across the room.
She felt a twinge of discomfort as she neared the door, and paused for a moment. When it didn’t get worse, she grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
Less than three feet away, and coming at her fast, was Dani, eyes wide.
Orlando barely had time to turn her head before the woman knocked into her.
Orlando staggered backward, smarting from Dani’s shoulder connecting with her cheek. The collision had knocked Dani off balance and sent her down to a knee.
“That’s far enough!” Orbits yelled from beyond the door.
Dani shot a look at the open door, and then sprang to her feet and ran toward the stairwell entrance.
A bullet ripped out from the hallway, missing Orlando by a few feet. She ducked to the side and pressed herself against the wall next to the door. Three more shots, growing louder and louder, the man’s suppressor losing its effectiveness.