Joe forced a quick snort of a laugh. His wife made a good point. “That’s what I thought, too.”
A second later, he held the phone to his ear. After a couple of rings, Emily’s smooth, commanding voice answered.
“Hey, Mac. What’s up?”
He decided to dispense with the pleasantries. “Emily, we need your help.”
She yawned audibly over the phone before responding. “Sorry, I was already in bed. What’s going on?”
Joe tried to relay as much of the information as possible to the Axis director. He wanted her to hear everything and understand the gravity of the situation. After he got done explaining it all, he sat silent for a few seconds to wait for her reaction.
“You’re a hundred percent sure on all this?”
“Jenny wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true, Em. It doesn’t look good. We need to shut down that facility ASAP. And right now, you’re the only one that can do it. Jenny’s stuck in their protocol train right now. But she said we need to lock that place down immediately. Anything you can do to put Biosure under siege for a little while until she can get the cavalry there?”
The line went silent again as Emily contemplated what their next move should be. It was a dicey situation, and a huge leap of faith for her to take based on second hand information. But Joe wasn’t one to overreact. She knew that if Joe McElroy was concerned, the threat had to be real, especially if it was coming from a researcher at the CDC.
“Okay, I’ll get a team over there and get the facility secured. We’ll do it quietly. No need to go inside with guns blazing. I think we can do it by simply blocking all the ways in and out. I doubt anyone will notice at this hour. We can keep a lid on it until the CDC gets what they need to go in.”
“Sounds good, Em. Thank you,” Joe offered.
“No, Joe. If this is as bad as you and Dr. Solomon believe, everyone will need to thank you.”
He blushed a little and leaned back. As he did, something startled the dog, causing the animal to pick its head up quickly and snap to the left. Its ears perked up as well, and instantly, the animal began to growl. The old hound was a well-mannered dog unless there were strangers around. Over the years he’d stopped paying attention to the random animals that would frequent the wooded property. All were facts that caused concern on the faces of both the animal’s owners.
“What is it boy?” Helen asked.
Joe shifted forward again to see what was bothering the dog. As soon as he moved, the clock on the wall shattered behind him. The sudden noise was accompanied by the cracking sound of glass from across the room. He instinctively ducked down, risking a quick look at the window. A bullet hole was in the center of it, and the round had barely missed his head.
“Joe?” Emily’s voice carried through the speaker of the phone. He was still clutching it in his hand, having not yet ended their conversation. “Is everything okay?”
Helen had seen what happened and immediately took cover out of the window’s line of sight, careful to stay low on the ground next to Joe.
“Someone’s here,” he answered Emily’s question after a few seconds. “If I had to guess, Biosure’s boss found out about the missing sample. And they’ve sent their goons to take us out.”
“Can you hold out for a bit, Mac? I’ll get some support there as soon as I can.”
Joe gave a sympathetic look to his wife. He’d not wanted her to get into any danger. But the look she had on her face wasn’t one of fear. It was resolve.
“We’ll be fine,” he answered. “Just get your team to the Biosure labs, and if you can spare a few, send ‘em our way.”
“Will do, Mac. Hang tight.” The lights went out in the cabin just as he hit the red button to end the call.
In the darkness, they could see red dots scanning the walls of the living room from several angles. In the pale light of the cloudy sky, the dog still stood erect, pointing at the door.
“Easy, boy,” Helen calmed the animal.
“Looks like they’ve got the place surrounded,” Joe noted.
“You okay, honey?”
He grinned underneath his beard. “Yeah. They don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
Joe pushed against the heavy couch, sliding it towards the back wall and off the area rug covering that part of the floor. At the same time, Helen eased the coffee table toward the front of the house, also making sure the rug was clear of the furniture.
Joe belly crawled over to the end of the rug and sat up. He grabbed the end of it with both hands and yanked it back, revealing a portion of the floor with a distinct outline cut into it. The square had been cut about two feet wide, just big enough for a person to fit through. Helen stuck her finger into a little groove cut into the wood and lifted up the trap door. A narrow tube extended down into the footings of the house via a ladder of metal rungs.
An eerie silence crept over the house as Helen began to ease herself down the ladder. The dog began barking loudly, breaking the strange quiet. Immediately, windows started shattering as bullets rained through the panes and into the cabin. The dog continued to bark but jumped back, momentarily startled by the hail of gunfire. The only sounds coming from outside were muffled pops from the gun barrels. Joe figured they had sound suppressors.
He slid over on his butt and grabbed the dog, forcing the animal to submit by hugging it close to his chest. The canine struggled slightly but Joe held the hound firm until he hovered over the escape tube.
“Here,” he said. “Take the dog.” He lowered the animal down towards Helen who was already at the bottom standing in front of a metal door.
She stepped back up a few rungs and grabbed the dog with one hand, letting their pet down to the floor near her feet with care.
Joe was sure to stay low as he shifted into position in the makeshift hatch. He grabbed the edge of the rug and pulled it back in towards the center of the room as he ducked into the trapdoor, letting the thing shut over top of him.
Chapter 45
Joe hung onto the rungs of the ladder while Helen punched in a five-digit code on an illuminated keypad. There was a quick buzz followed by a loud click, signaling the vault-like door had unlocked.
The dog shot through the portal as soon as the door swung open. Helen and Joe followed quickly behind, the latter sure to pull the door closed behind.
Fluorescent lights flickered on automatically as they entered a room constructed out of a steel shipping container. The space was twenty feet long and eight feet wide. As the lights came to life, rows of various guns became visible on the walls: shotguns, handguns, hunting rifles, and a few AR-15s. Helen didn’t hesitate to start grabbing belts and straps, loading them up with pre-loaded magazines from shelves beneath the array of weapons.
Joe began to do the same, but hesitated for a moment as he buckled a belt around his waist. “Should we just stay down here and wait until they leave?” he wasn’t worried for himself. Joe just didn’t want anything to happen to his wife.
“And let them just wreck our home? I don’t think so.” The look that accompanied her statement left no question in his mind as to what their course of action would be. He strapped one of the assault rifles to his shoulder and grabbed a few handguns.
“You thought I was paranoid to have this place put in,” she said as she grabbed a compound bow and a quiver of arrows from a corner. “Not so paranoid now, huh?”
“To be fair,” he argued, “you wanted this bunker put in just in case the government collapsed. This is completely different.” He smiled as he finished loading a magazine into a .40 caliber Springfield.
The dog sat on the floor, watching eagerly as his two masters hurriedly moved around the room.