Дэвид Балдаччи - End Game

They navigated a long macadam road that meandered through open fields.

Lambert pointed to several tall posts along the way.

“State-of-the-art surveillance at regular intervals. We can see anyone coming from a long way away.”

“And who exactly would be coming ?” asked Reel.

Lambert shrugged. “In an apocalypse it’s hard to say. Maybe everybody who didn’t plan ahead, I guess.”

“You mean who didn’t have the money to plan ahead?” countered Malloy.

“Well, that sort of goes without saying.”

They finally pulled up to what looked like an enormous concrete dome with a large metal door.

“Blast door,” said Lambert as he brought the SUV to a stop. “Sucker can withstand a nuclear strike. Concrete walls are nearly three meters thick. That dome can take five-hundred-mile-per-hour winds easy.”

In front of the door was a parked Hummer that was decked out with a turret machine gun. Four men in cammies and bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles were standing by the vehicle.

“So you have perimeter security as well,” noted Robie.

“Absolutely, that’s one of the chief selling points. In the event of an emergency the guards’ families will be allowed in, of course.”

“Of course,” said Reel, the disgust clear on her features, though Lambert wasn’t looking at her.

They climbed out of the truck and approached the door.

“So who buys these sorts of places?” asked Malloy.

“Wide spectrum of folks. I can’t reveal any names of course, but we’ve got hedge fund managers, investment bankers, Silicon Valley people, you know, Facebook, Yahoo, Google. Captains of industry. Names you see in the Wall Street Journal . Got one professional athlete, a golfer.”

“Silicon Valley, huh?” said Malloy. “Techies afraid of the apocalypse? I thought they believed technology was going to save the world.”

“Hell, I met this one guy in the tech world. He’s scared to death that people are going to be coming for him and other folks out there because this artificial intelligence stuff will be taking everybody’s jobs away. He told me he had attended that fancy-ass economic forum they hold every year in Switzerland and all everybody was talking about over there was building hideaways. The rich are really running scared. And you’ve got to have serious money to buy at this level. Each full-floor condo in my silo will set you back about four million. And it’s not like this is a residence used very often. So really you have to be worth well north of a hundred mill to make this work. We got a billionaire, too, although he hedges his bets even more.”

“How so?” asked Malloy.

“Well, he has a place here. But he also has an island off the coast of New Zealand. New Zealand is real popular with rich people worried about global collapse. I guess they think it’s far enough away not to be affected. But I’m like, well, you got poor people there, too. But hey, I figure if they’re that rich they must know what they’re doing. And it’s not my place to second-guess somebody who made that much money. They must be smart, right?”

“Or they inherited it,” pointed out Malloy.

“Or they get to operate on an uneven playing field because they paid off politicians to write the laws to favor them,” added Reel.

“Well, there’s some of that, sure,” conceded Lambert in a halfhearted fashion. “Thing is, folks who buy here aren’t getting a vacation home. They’re purchasing an insurance policy so that if government and civilization go into a temporary tailspin, they’ll be able to safely wait it out and come back to pick up the pieces.”

“That’s the theory anyway,” said Robie.

“It’s all theory when you think about it,” added Lambert. “No way to really predict how it will all shake out. But these people are leaders in their business. Really smart folks, like I said. By talking to a lot of them who have bought units here, I can tell they believe they’ll be able to bring civilization back online. So that’s a good thing.”

Malloy said, “But do they ever think that they might have helped contribute to society going to hell? You know, the haves and the have-nots?”

Lambert grinned. “Look, I try not to get into the middle of that argument. People can spout off facts on both sides and people believe what they want, and you’re not going to change their minds. So it’s a losing proposition. And I’m not an asshole. I’m not saying I particularly love any of this. You know, poor people beating on the door to get in and rich people saying, ‘Hell no.’ Fact is, it’s their money, so they can spend it however they want. But I’m a businessman. There was a need for this and I’m filling that need. So long as people are willing to pay enough for me to earn a profit, then that’s that. And I took a big risk with this project. The engineering was a bitch and the interior renovation was even more of a challenge. The day I closed on this sucker and we came and opened the door I thought I’d lost my mind and my money. I had to take out a big loan to do the work. And then I had to sell the units. I had to finish one model apartment before I could market it. Folks aren’t gonna shell out millions based on a picture. But I found a strategy that worked.”

“What was that?” asked Robie.

“I figured I’d go where the money is. I put ads in luxury yacht magazines and in private jet publications. I had my first customer within a month and then word spread fast. I mean the folks who can afford this place only move in pretty tight circles with other folks who have the money for a place like this. So I had the whole facility sold out in eighteen months. And there was no haggling over the price. People paid the asking. Everything was done high-end, and as you’ll see we thought of pretty much everything. And I always made sure to have my biggest, baddest, and best-armed security out there when potential owners came to visit. They appreciated that fact, I can tell you.”

“So do you have a place here?” asked Reel.

Lambert smiled. “Hell yes. I’m not going to be left outside. You can’t spend your money if you’re dead.”

“I’m thinking that all the owners don’t live around here, so how do they get here if there’s an emergency?” asked Robie.

Lambert pointed towards the east. “We got a secure FAA-approved landing strip a quarter mile that way. It’ll take jets all the way up to Triple Sevens. Folks fly in and then we motor them here to safety. See, that’s the other reason you have to have serious money to make this work. You got to have your own jet. Folks won’t have any way of getting here otherwise. If the world’s gone to hell, it’s not like you can just gas up your car and drive off down the interstate. It’ll be packed with traffic, no gas available, people maybe shooting at each other from their cars. Now, as a last resort, we will take armored vehicles to Denver and pick up folks there, if that’s the only way they can get here. But we do strongly encourage the private jet route.”

“Well, that cuts down on the riffraff,” opined Reel.

Lambert looked at her and smiled. “I’m not going to win you over on this, am I?”

“Doubtful, since I’m part of the riffraff.”

Lambert shrugged. “Hey, I get it, but I don’t make the rules. Anyway, we have room, you know, like servants’ quarters, for their pilots and their families too, like our guards here. I mean you can’t expect your pilots to fly you to safety and leave their families behind. We have that detail in our owner’s manual so that people won’t forget. Lot of details to keep straight. Hard to do in times of crisis.”

“Yeah, families,” said Robie, glancing at Reel, who now looked like she wanted to shoot Lambert.