The Final Day (After, #3)(101)

Pelligrino started to bluster, and Bob, contempt obvious, stepped past him. “Someone drag this bastard along,” he snapped.

John, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, could not help but smile as Pelligrino was shoved to one side, a trooper grabbing hold of him by his collar and pushing him along. He had endured far too many like him during his brief stint at the Pentagon, some of them in uniform, who were just ticket-punching their way up the career ladder and to hell with what was actually right or how many got hurt or even died as a result of their actions.

The tunnel began to widen out. The troopers keeping pace with Bob along either side advanced with weapons raised but not positioned to fire, but could do so swiftly if need be. If there was danger around the corner, Bob did not seem to show the slightest concern, walking down the middle of the paved road that leveled out and then went into a curving turn to the left at the bottom. Half a dozen troopers ahead of him reached the corner where the road turned left and came to a stop, raising weapons and shouting at someone unseen to drop their weapon and keep their hands visible.

Bob motioned for the trooper pushing Pelligrino along to bring him forward.

“Now listen carefully, Mr. Pelligrino. Do you have more armed personnel around that bend?”

He hesitated, and again Sergeant Bentley was menacingly by his side.

He could only nod.

“Then you go forward and tell them to lay their weapons down and come out with their hands up, that the fight is over and no one gets hurt. But if one of my troopers gets shot, Sergeant Bentley or my friend John Matherson here will gladly put one into you. The fight is over, Pelligrino; let’s make sure no one else gets hurt.”

The thoroughly frightened administrator was shoved forward. He cautiously advanced the last few dozen yards, turned in the middle of the road illuminated by several floodlights, and squeaked out a command for those waiting on the far side to give up.

What sounded like an argument started until Pelligrino shrieked out that they were outnumbered and everyone would die if they didn’t surrender immediately.

Seconds later, the first men and women of what John hoped was a final line of defense emerged, hands over their heads. Bob’s troopers, weapons pointed high but still aimed in their direction, shouted out for them to move up the road on the double.

Several dozen emerged, and as they were moved up the road, John could see the looks of fear.

It was the medic who was trying to follow Bentley and work on him who helped defuse the tension, walking in among them, offering reassurances, announcing that if any were hurt they should fall out and she would take care of them; otherwise, they should just keep moving up the road toward the exit. To John’s amazement, one of them was actually smoking a cigarette, the scent of it wafting around him as they passed him.

A cigarette? Here? Just what kind of place is this really?

“Any more?” Bob shouted. A trooper at the very front of the ground turned, looked back, and replied with a hand gesture that all were cleared, but John could see there was a look of confusion from the other troopers who were standing at the bend in the road.

“Let’s see if all of this was worth it,” Bob said softly, starting out again.

Whatever they were about to see, John could not get out of his mind that his friend Lee was dead. Whatever they were to find, was it worth Lee’s death?

And then he turned the corner of the road dug half a mile down into a mountain and came to a stop in silent amazement.

*

The underground cavern, if it could be called that, was illuminated nearly as bright as day and seemed to stretch off into infinity. The road, which had broadened out into four lanes as it went through the curve, emptied into a vast, open underground chamber, the road just continuing straight on until it was actually lost to view. There was a turnoff to the right, an illuminated sign overhead announcing all entering had to first report for decontamination and security clearance. Bob ignored it and up at the front with his troopers just pressed straight on, Bentley dragging Pelligrino along.

The ceiling overhead arced more than thirty feet high. The spread of the cavern from his left to right was at least several hundred yards or more.

The broad street was actually lined with barracks. World War II–era wooden barracks, row after row, each two stories high, and strangely, even topped with shingled roofs, interspersed with curved aluminum Quonset huts. At regular intervals, natural stone pillars rose from the floor to the ceiling to support the vast mountain overhead so that the interior almost looked like some strange, surreal, military cathedral.

All stood in amazement—except for Bob, who looked around, hands on his hips.

“Like I told you, John,” he said softly, “I was here once, more than twenty-five years ago as part of a drill. This was designed in the 1950s to be the fallback position for the Pentagon in the event of nuclear war.

“The barracks you see laid out down this road—it’s actually called Main Street—were left over from World War II. After the place was hollowed out, it was felt that the cheapest and easiest thing to do was just build these; we still had hundreds of them as surplus, prefabricated and sitting in a warehouse a couple of hours away. No weather here, no termites, they’ll stand a hundred years or more.

“Off to the right, there used to be a motor pool, even used to have a couple of old Sherman tanks down here, rigged up as earthmovers if we had to dig our way out if a nuke hit close by. There even used to be old-style electric golf carts for driving around inside. I think that was Ike’s idea.”