Ever Hayes - Redemption

“I don’t know how she did it,” Nicole muttered.

“She?” Reagan asked. “Who did what?”

“Keena did this,” Damien replied. “I’m sure of it. Somewhere in here is an intentional programmer glitch—a routing “malfunction” with a trigger that would default all missiles to the targets she preset. What they see wouldn’t be what they hit. Without the book she would have had to memorize a specific code and program a “mask” and override on every serial entry. But—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Tara raised her arm. “Slow way the heck down! You two are the only two who understand you two. In English… please.”

Nicole turned, nodding. “What he means is we think Keena somehow pre-programmed a majority of these missiles to strike certain cities—but she set it up before today. She would have only needed one code from Danny’s book—just one—some uniform sequence to put in every missile launch code… which was most likely the sequence she held out on until now. She could have gotten that code from Danny at any point in time.”

Reagan cleared her throat. “Uh… why would he give that to her?”

“He didn’t keep anything from them.” Damien gestured towards the Pack members. “She would’ve only needed to remember one code.”

“But how do you know she set it up before today?” Deacon asked.

“That was the ‘mask’ Damien referred to,” Nicole explained. “Keena would’ve had to bury the code of her intended target—say San Diego—somewhere in the sequence of the missile launch code for Qi Jia’s target—say… Honolulu—the place that they’d think the missile was going. On their screens they’d watch the missile close in on their target, while in actuality each missile would go to Keena’s preset target.”

“So they’d see it going to Honolulu and hitting Honolulu, but the missile would actually be hitting San Diego or something—wherever Keena set it to hit?” Tara tried to clarify Damien’s point.

“Exactly.” Damien nodded. “But she would have had to do it on every… single… missile. With her skills it might’ve taken only a few minutes per missile—but a hundred missiles times three or four minutes, that’s what…?”

“Five to seven hours,” Trigger answered immediately and everyone looked at him in surprise. “What? I like math.”

“That’s the problem,” Damien continued. “Where would she have gotten five to seven hours? She didn’t even get a half hour in there with Danny, and she couldn’t have done it around Baker. I could show you what I mean if I had a launch code. You can’t hide or skip any steps—every alteration would be obvious—and they would never have left her alone with the computer. Trust me… Baker would have seen what she was doing. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Reagan watched his face blanch suddenly.

“Holy shit!” Damien said, reaching out and putting his hand on Nicole’s shoulder beside him.

“What?” Trigger asked.

“Holy shit!” Damien said again, jumping up.

Emily and Abbey had heard plenty of cursing the past couple days but Tara still glared at Damien. “Come on.” She mouthed at him, nodding towards her daughter. She pointed at the members of the Pack. “These four are going to beat the holy mess out of you if you don’t—”

“Baker was in on it,” Damien blurted out.

“There’s no way—” Reagan snapped immediately.

“Think about it.” Damien was animated. “He had to be. He knew what she was doing. Or they were working together. That’s it. He was torturing her as much as necessary but keeping her alive. He didn’t need what she was holding out—or she wasn’t even holding out—but he…like it or not, he was a part of this.”

“I don’t believe it.” Tara was just as incredulous. “The guy you told us killed his own son and sold out his team. Sorry, I’m with Reagan on this.”

Reagan turned to address Trigger and Twix. “You guys know Baker better than anyone here. That sound reasonable to either of you?”

They looked at each other. “Well.” Twix shrugged. “If you’re asking if it’s possible that a SEAL captain sold out his team to save his own life, felt terrible about it, and found out he could redeem himself by protecting someone who could do what he couldn’t—sure…I guess that’s possible.”

There was silence in the room as everyone considered what Twix had just said.

“I’d like Danny’s perspective on it, of course,” he added.

Tara shook her head and said what everyone else was thinking. “Is it really possible one of the world’s biggest a-holes could be one of its greatest heroes?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Kate’s raspy voice startled all of us. Those were the first words she had said since Redemption.

“Kate,” Tara almost squealed. “How are you feeling?”

“Call Cheyenne Mountain.” She pointed at the red phone.

“Honey.” Reagan took her hand. “They’re all dead. They launched the missiles while you were out. They hit Colorado Springs too.”

“It’s a nuclear bunker, isn’t it?” Kate asked.

There were several nods, and Damien replied, “Yes.”

“Then call them,” Kate repeated.

Damien picked up the receiver on the red phone and dialed the Cheyenne Mountain Bunker. Everyone in Area 52 silently watched and listened as he hit the speakerphone button and set the receiver down.

They heard it start to ring. On the eighth ring Damien shook his head and reached down for the handset. And then there was a click. Then there was a voice on the other end.

Thirty minutes after the missiles annihilated the Qi Jia capitals across North America we got a phone call from Area 52. We’d been trying to reach them for the past twenty minutes but had repeatedly gotten a busy signal. Many of us didn’t even know that was possible—a phone that didn’t go straight to voicemail. How lame was that?

But where digital communication had failed us, that hard line kept us connected. When the phone rang we almost didn’t hear it. A celebration was in full swing in the Disneyland bunker. All of our new friends were as giddy as we were, well aware by now that we were exactly who we said we were. Danny holding them hostage had quickly been forgiven, and we had watched the missiles launch and hit their targets—none of which were in Hawaii.

We had been just as panicked as they were in Hawaii when the missiles launched—and just as shocked at the results. According to the Anaheim bunker’s top tech guy the three nuclear missiles that hit San Diego would have registered at a 5 to 5.5 on the Richter Scale. At almost a hundred miles from the impact zone we didn’t physically feel a thing. But emotionally , we were as high as you could get—without drugs—at this low of an elevation. Jubilant, giddy, euphoric—pick an adjective to describe insane happiness and this group was definitely that.

Everyone immediately looked to Danny for an explanation. Obviously the altered strikes had been intentionally programmed. “Had to be Keena,” he said. Danny assumed that after she hadn’t been able to close the door on the Cheyenne Mountain bunker, she’d set to work on the “next best thing.” She wanted to make absolutely certain that any missile launched from Cheyenne Mountain would never hit Hawaii. What didn’t make sense was how she’d had enough time to pull it off. I heard him say that to Blake and Blake’s reaction made it clear that he agreed. Keena had succeeded, yes—fantastic—but how? It didn’t really matter—not to anyone else in here at least—but I was carefully watching Danny and then I heard someone yelling at him.