William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

“Damn it, I need you for a lot more than this. We’ve stood up and fought together against Moultrie’s heavy-handed rule, haven’t we? Nothing’s going to change about that. The people are looking to you and me to lead that effort.”

“You’re talking politics. I’m talking about—”

Her arm slid around the back of his neck as she moved against him. “I know what you’re talking about,” she said as she leaned in, her face close to his. “And I still say that doesn’t have to change.”

Her mouth found his. His hand went to the towel wrapped around her and pushed it away. In the back of his head, a little voice warned, She’s playin’ you, you dumbass.

I know that , Greer told the voice. But right now, he was still getting what he wanted, and there was really no way to predict what might happen in the future. He would deal with that when the time came, he decided.

“Now,” he said in a half-whisper as his arms went around her, “just how is it you plan to get that hatch at the top of the elevator shaft open…?”

Charles Trahn was as American as could be. He had been born in Dallas, grew up in Irving, then gotten a good job in Arlington doing international accounting for a bank. He was lucky he had been in Fort Worth on the day the bomb fell, doing some work at one of the bank’s locations over there, so he’d been able to reach the Hercules Project in time to get in. He’d had to get a loan to afford the place—one of his buddies at work had helped him with that—and of course now it didn’t matter because he’d never have to pay it back.

Of course, he might never have a regular job or a home or a family, either, but he was alive and he was grateful for that every single day.

Grateful enough that when Charlotte Ruskin cornered him in his quad in the lower bunker, he didn’t want to even listen to what she was saying, let alone agree to go along with the crazy idea.

“Look, I never should have said anything to you,” he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. That wasn’t easy when he kept darting glances at Jeff Greer, who had come with her and now stood behind and to one side of her, arms crossed over his broad chest. He had the look of a guy who had played college football and then tried to stay in shape afterward, without a whole lot of success.

But he was still taller, heavier, and no doubt meaner than Charles Trahn. None of those things would have taken very much.

“You were just trying to do the right thing, Charles. We know that. And I appreciate it more than I can say. Now I need you to do the right thing again.”

Trahn glanced around the vast, dormitory-like bunker. No one was close by at the moment. If Ruskin and Greer wanted to intimidate him with their visit—and of course they did—they had chosen the right moment for it. Trahn could yell for help if they attacked him, but Greer could get in several good shots before anybody came running up to stop him. Trahn had always feared physical violence.

“What do you want?” he asked warily.

“You work rotating shifts in the Command Center, right?”

Trahn nodded. “Yeah.”

“When’s your next middle-of-the-night shift?”

“I’ve got the midnight-to-six in, uh, three days from now, I think.”

“And you have access to the controls that open and close things? Like doors?”

Trahn’s eyes got big. “Oh, hell no,” he said. “You want me to open the blast doors? I can’t do that. It takes a special access card to do that, and I don’t have it. Only a few people do. Just Mr. Moultrie and his top staff.”

“What about the hatch at the top of the freight elevator shaft?”

“It’s the same deal. It takes a card with the right chip on it.”

“But if you had that card, you could open it?”

“Yeah, more than likely, but—”

“I’m going to get that for you,” Charlotte Ruskin said. “I need to get up to the surface, so I can be with my husband again.”

“You’re leaving the project?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“But it’s dangerous up there! The radiation—”

“Have you seen the readings from the sensors, Charles? Do you really know what it’s like? Does anyone other than Moultrie and his Gestapo? I mean, people are living up there, right now. It’s been more than eight months, and my husband is still alive. How bad can it be, really?”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Anyway, it should be my choice, shouldn’t it?” she argued. “If I want to take my chances to be with him again, why shouldn’t I be allowed to do that?”

Trahn looked past her at the silent, scowling Greer. “But I thought the two of you—”

Greer broke his silence by saying, “I just want whatever makes Charlotte happy, buddy. That’s good enough for me.”

“Well…” What the woman was saying made sense, Trahn supposed. While he worried about contamination, just opening the top of the elevator shaft shouldn’t expose the rest of the project to too much of whatever was up there. Anyway, the atmosphere couldn’t be too toxic or people wouldn’t be able to live in it. Nelson Ruskin had been exposed to it for more than eight months now, and while he hadn’t looked healthy, exactly, he didn’t seem to be on the verge of dying, either. But Trahn was still worried. “I could get in a lot of trouble.”

“Hey, I’d have your back,” Greer said. “Nobody’s gonna give you trouble without going through me first.”

Trahn wasn’t sure how much that reassurance really meant, but at the same time, he could read the menace in Greer’s eyes. If he didn’t go along with what they wanted, one of these days Greer and some of his friends might catch him alone, in some isolated part of the bunker, and then there was no telling what they might do…

“All right,” Trahn said. “I don’t think you’ll be able to get one of those access cards, but if you do, I guess I can help you. Nobody could be too mad at me for helping a wife get back together with her husband, right?”

“Of course not,” Charlotte Ruskin said as she smiled and leaned in. She gave Trahn a kiss on the cheek. He felt his face warming. This was ridiculous, he told himself. She was almost old enough to be his mother. But in spite of that, she was kinda hot…

Greer stepped up, grinning, and slapped Trahn on the shoulder. “Way to go, pal,” he said. “I knew we could count on a good guy like you.”

Trahn swallowed and nodded. He liked the sound of that, too.

“Three nights from now, you said?” Charlotte Ruskin asked.

“Yep.”

“Then that’s when it’ll happen.”

Chuck Fisher’s eyebrows rose in surprise when he opened the door of his quarters in Corridor Two and saw Charlotte Ruskin standing there. He recovered quickly and asked in a cold voice, “What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Fisher shook his head. “I don’t think you and I have anything to talk about.”

“You’d be wrong,” she said. “Something’s going to happen, and you need to know about it.”

Now instead of surprise, a look of suspicion appeared on his face. “Is this some kind of threat?”

“No, it’s a warning, damn it!” Charlotte Ruskin said. “It’s about Jeff.”

“Your boyfriend?”

It was her turn to shake her head. “Not anymore,” she said. “He… he’s taken things too far, Fisher. He and some of his friends, they’re going to try to carry out a coup against Moultrie.”

Fisher took that seriously, as she had known he would. He was as devoted to Graham Moultrie as a dog is to its master. That was disgusting, as far as Charlotte was concerned, but she planned to turn Fisher’s attitude to her advantage.