AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Wiz swiped at her tablet. “Got incoming. Full battle gear, people. Nic, Pete showed you the tunnel out, right?”
“Yes.” Nic shoved his chair back and ran for the basement door.
“You’re coded into the system and cleared to use anything in the house. Stay in the safe room unless one of us tells you to leave.” Wiz yelled down the stairs, then ran up, Tom on her heels.
Deb jogged to the kitchen and pulled a plastic cake pan out of the back of a cupboard. She loaded it with food, adding spoons and paper towels. The kids and Kim wouldn’t go hungry.
Michael yanked the box from her. “Get downstairs. You’re with Nic and Kim. Hurry.”
Deb hesitated, wanting to do more for the kids. But she couldn’t if she was dead. She ran to the couch, grabbing her pack, shoes and vest and bounded down the stairs.
Nic waited at the cutout in the wall, Michael standing next to him with her box of food. Both wore vests, helmets, backpacks and weapons. “Kids are in the bathroom with Kim. Thanks for thinking about them.”
“Be right back.” She ignored Michael’s yell, because she wasn’t crawling through a tunnel with a full bladder. She waited, and less than a minute later, Kim and the kids came out.
Kim was between the girls, holding their hands. “Come on.”
“But Mom, I’m starving and it smells so good!” Sophia pulled Kim forward.
Deb snickered. Michael didn’t understand how bad waiting with hungry kids could be. “There’s breakfast waiting for all of you, Sophia. No hogging the French toast!” Deb wagged a finger and Sophia laughed. Kim threw a “thank you!” over her shoulder before disappearing. Deb entered the bathroom, used the facilities and brushed her teeth, ignoring the almost continual buzzing of texts on her phone.
A fist pounded the door. “Come on!” Michael sounded worried.
She flushed the toilet, threw her vest over her head, and picked up her backpack. Opening the bathroom door, she almost ran into him. He grabbed her hand and ran for the vault opening, pulling her inside and closing the door with a dull thud, followed by a quiet sucking sound.
Deb leaned against the wall; the room had to be twenty feet long and ten feet deep. Shelving lined the concrete room, filled with canned and boxed food and other survival gear. Two sets of shelving separated the long, narrow room into three parts; the kid’s air mattress in the aisle on her right, and Nic and Kim’s on the left. The middle was empty; cork tiles softened the concrete floor. She followed Michael along the middle aisle, gazing in wonder.
At the back of the small room, Nic stood at a safe almost as tall as he was, filled with weapons. Another safe stood next to it, still closed. He handed Kim a taser and a pepper spray, then caressed her cheek. “Go eat. If we have to move, it will be a while, still.”
“Okay.” Kim took the box Deb had packed. “Come on girls, we’ll move the sleeping bags and eat on the air mattresses like a picnic!” Deb could hear the forced cheer, but if the girls did, they didn’t say anything.
Nic crooked his finger, then turned, leading them into a narrow concrete tunnel beyond the safes. Lights flicked on with their movement. Nic stopped about ten feet inside the tunnel, turning sideways. A door blocked the way, but it looked more like an old-fashioned submarine hatch, with a circle in the middle leading to bars crossing the door, and rubber seals around the whole thing. The bottom of the door was a foot off the ground, and the men would have to crouch to fit through. A very modern keypad gleamed in the center.
Nic tapped the door. “Pete told me this opens into a long, narrow tunnel, going about two hundred yards, uphill. We’ll have to crawl. At the end, you climb a long ladder to a hatch at the top. Monitors are mounted at the bottom of the ladder, showing the surroundings at the top. But the hatch is hidden in the middle of a group of pines, so you can’t see that far. Hopefully, we’ll still have access to Wiz’s surveillance, but whoever’s attacking has already destroyed a bunch of cameras.”
“Why won’t they quit, already?” Deb shut her mouth, aware she was wailing.
Michael pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry. People are stupid.”
Nic snorted. “This one sure is. He’s already bringing too much attention to his organization. This could be the last straw.”
Michael partially released her but kept one arm around her. “It might be. But if he’s successful making a clean sweep of all of us, then he’s got one success to bring back to his bosses.”
Nic pulled his phone from his back pocket. “Geo and his people have escaped. They’re joining Erin and Ryan at Coffee & Cars. Ryan reports a drive-by shooting, but they deployed the road barrier at the right time, and a car smashed into it, the second car rear-ended the first. Deputy sheriffs already picked up the injured occupants; the rest ran. The vehicles were full of weapons. Erin and Ryan are fine; they’re in the garage, and they’ll plan a counter attack with Geo if we need it.”
Michael huffed. “Which we might.”
Nic scrolled. “Maybe. Wiz said the fire suppression system is taking care of the fire bombs, and they’re having a great time shooting down drones from the covered patio at the top of the house. But they have to let them fly fairly close to the house, so they don’t light the ranch on fire. They’re worried the drones will deliberately drop on the ranch house, but the roof is metal with modern screened vents. Both houses have sprinkler systems that double as fire suppression, so it should be okay.”
“Wait a minute.” Deb was dumbfounded. “They’re using drones to drop fire starters?”
“Yeah.” Nic turned his phone to face Deb. A black, cylindrical drone with four spinning blades on top spit bright colored balls out the bottom. “They’re used by firefighters to start back burns in areas that can’t be safely reached on foot. Civilians shouldn’t own them, but I’m sure they’re not that hard to make, steal or buy with enough money.”
“It’s still spring, and wet, but a fire here could run across the Sapphires, and kill people, livestock, and destroy so many lives!” Deb wrapped her arms around her waist, shivering. “Koslov is evil!”
Nic and Michael nodded. “Yes. The guy is nuts.”
All their phones dinged or buzzed with notifications. Deb yanked hers from her pocket and selected the video conference link Wiz sent. For better connectivity, they moved out of the tunnel and into the main bunker, and the two men watched over her shoulder.
