William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

“What’s this about some secret mission?” she asked. “If you’re looking for volunteers, Dad, you know you don’t even have to ask.”

“Yeah, I know,” Larkin said. “Which is why I didn’t ’t ask.”

Jill’s eyebrows drew down in a puzzled and maybe a little bit of an angry frown. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you’re not going.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Just like that.”

“Yep. Just like that.”

For a moment she glared at him, then said, “Mom put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t have to. It just so happens I’m in complete agreement with her. You’ll be staying here.”

“Because you think I can’t handle myself if there’s trouble?”

“You know better than that,” Larkin scoffed. “You’re staying here because your mother, your husband, and my grandkids are staying here. I can’t afford to be worrying about them while I’m trying to take care of business on the surface. And I won’t worry if I know you’re down here looking after them. Besides, you have enough medical skills that they might come in handy down here.”

“So you’re just trying to butter me up to get your way.”

Larkin grinned. “Is it working?”

She didn’t answer that. Instead, she asked, “So the rumors are true? You are going up to the surface?”

“A small group. There are some things the project needs, and we’re going to look for them.”

“It’s a scrounging party?”

“That’s right,” Larkin said with a nod. He looked around, saw that no one else was in earshot at the moment, and went on, “We need parts for the generators as well as more gasoline if we can get it.”

“The generators are failing, and that’s why the life-support systems haven’t been working at full capacity?”

“You got it, kid.”

Jill frowned and asked, “Where are you going to find parts? Everything got blown to hell.”

“We were on the outer edge of the blast wave. Not everything was destroyed. Some buildings are probably left, and what was inside them will be, too. There have to be some vehicles around, as well. Generators are basically gasoline engines. We can get some parts off cars and trucks that the engineers can rig to work. That’s what they’ve told Graham, anyway.”

Jill was thinking now. He could tell that by her expression. She said, “You can siphon gas from the tanks of any vehicles you find intact.”

“Yeah. We might even find some underground storage tanks that are still all right, like at that convenience store a few miles west of here.”

“You’re going that far away from the project?” she asked in surprise and a certain amount of alarm.

“We’ll go as far as we have to in order to get what we need,” Larkin told her. “We’ll take enough supplies for a few days.”

“This could turn out to be very dangerous. If you take me along, I’ll have your back. You know that, Dad.”

“I know,” he said. “But like I told you, it’s more important for you to stay here and keep an eye on things.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m not sure I completely trust Graham anymore.”

That surprised Jill, too. “You don’t? But without him—”

“I know, I know. We’d all be dead. Nobody’s disputing that. But he’s said and done some things—” Larkin thought about the way Moultrie had killed those surface survivors who had tried to break through the top of the service elevator. Jill didn’t know about that, and right now she didn’t need to. “Let’s just say that he worries me. Too much power can go to a guy’s head.”

“And the way he changed the food rationing without any warning was kind of, well, harsh.” Jill nodded slowly. “I guess I see what you mean. All right. I don’t like it, but I understand. I’ll stay here to guard against any more trouble. But you have to promise me you’ll be careful up there.”

“Of course. Just like I always promised your mother.”

“And you didn’t mean it then, either, did you?”

Larkin couldn’t argue with that.

A day and a half later, Larkin had his team assembled. He was taking eight men with him, so that three of the hazmet suits could remain down in the project if they were needed. He had only male volunteers, but if anyone gave him any trouble about that, he could honestly say that Jill was the only woman who had offered to come along. And if they wanted to accuse him of patriarchy, they could go right ahead and do so. He didn’t give a damn.

To keep more rumors from spreading, they assembled in the middle of the “night” when most of the project’s residents were sleeping. They would use the service elevator to reach the surface. Ruskin and the other survivors had gotten in that way, so it stood to reason Larkin and his team could get out.

He looked around at the other eight men in the hallway. Graham Moultrie was there, too, with his hands in his jeans pockets and a solemn expression on his face.

Larkin wished the hazmat suits weren’t made of bright yellow plastic. The colorful outfits would make them easier to spot on the surface, especially in the gray, overcast environment. That was what Moultrie had on hand, though, and the protection the suits offered was important, at least until Larkin could determine what the conditions were up on the surface.

They were taking along instruments that would allow them to monitor the air quality and radiation level. If those things were close enough to safe, they would remove the hazmat suits and stow them in the packs they were taking along. If they ran into trouble, it would be a lot easier to move around in a hurry without the bulky suits on.

Larkin had put some thought into selecting his team. Two of the men were engineers whose normal job was maintaining the generators and life-support systems. They would be able to tell what was needed and what they could make work. Larkin had had a long talk with them to make sure they were aware of the dangers they might encounter on the surface. Both men were willing to run that risk.

The other six members of the team were, like Larkin, members of the security force. Three of them carried pump shotguns. The other three were armed with AR-15 s, as was Larkin. Each man, including the two engineers, also had a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist, over the hazmat suit. With the protective gloves they wore, handling the guns wouldn’t be as easy as it would have been otherwise, but until they determined what the surface conditions were, they were going to err on the side of caution.

Unfortunately, caution had some inherent trade-offs, as Larkin well knew.

As they gathered in front of the service elevator, Moultrie said, “On behalf of everyone here in the Hercules Project, I want to express our appreciation to you men. This is a dangerous mission on which you’re embarking, but one that’s vital of the survival of everyone here.”

“We know that, Graham,” Larkin said, his voice muffled by the plastic helmet of the hazmat suit. It sounded odd to him in his own ears. “We’ll stay in touch as much as possible, but we may wind up going out of range of the walkie-talkies.”

“Do what you need to do,” Moultrie said with a grim nod. “Just bring us back what we need to keep going.”

Larkin returned the nod. There was nothing left to say. The group had gone over the plan, such as it was, until everyone knew exactly what they were doing. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, there were simply too many unknowns to take into account.

They were going into hostile territory, and they would have to play things by ear until they saw what it was like up there.

Even through the suit, Larkin heard the rumble that told him the hatch at the top of the shaft was opening. The elevator door slid back. The nine men trooped into it, carrying their weapons and packs.