Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

Lazzo nodded and did so on the hallway monitor. Eddie rewound the one watching the storage room and froze the picture where the four strangers first entered the room. This was the only glimpse he’d had of them from the front. Who are you? And how did you know the girl was here?

He turned to Lazzo, who had read his mind and was holding out his camera. Eddie nodded, enhanced the frame as close and clear as he could, took a quick picture, and then hit delete on that box too. They turned the boxes off and climbed out of the room.

Eddie called off the search and sent all his men outside, except Cabo, Omar and Lazzo. The four of them walked down the hallway in the direction the white-uniformed people had gone. They eventually came to a stairwell with a gap carved through it two flights up to open air. Eddie told Cabo to climb up through the hole to wherever it led and to stay there until they came to him. He, Lazzo, and Omar turned around and exited the building with the others. Eddie ordered the soldiers—other than those who had flown down with him—to return to their camps. He then led his men to where Cabo was waiting for them.

A few inches of snow had partially filled in the four sets of tracks Cabo pointed to, but Eddie’s men would still be able to follow them. The tracks were heading north, out of town towards the mountains. Where are you going?

The men were looking to him for answers, but he still had too many questions. It was already after 4:30 a.m. It would be light in a couple of hours. The tracks would be much easier to follow then and maybe, just maybe, they would lead them straight to the girl.

Eddie and his men walked back to the helicopter, and Eddie radioed in that the Americans had all been killed, and there was no sign of the girl—which only Lazzo knew to be a lie. The Russian commander was none too happy and ordered him not to return until he found her. He gave Eddie an 11 a.m. deadline to return to the Alpine Visitor Center base with the girl.

Eddie didn’t mention the four visitors, the recordings, or the tracks. He was still not comfortable with the intentions of the Russian commander, and he didn’t want to compromise his own value to this mission or to the other commanders. He ordered his men to grab an hour or so of sleep and told them all to be ready to go at 6 a.m. sharp.

He and Lazzo stepped inside the main entry of the Stanley Hotel and sat on the cold floor. “What you think, Lazzo?” Eddie asked, looking at the still photo he’d taken of the video from the supply room monitor. Eddie stared closely at the one holding the flashlight. That person seemed to have a curved black stick on his or her back. He hadn’t noticed that before. What the heck was that?

Lazzo shrugged. “I don’t like Russian,” he finally said, speaking of the Russian commander.

Eddie agreed. “Ya. These four men in white uniforms. They look Russian to you?”

Lazzo took the camera. “Uniforms, yes.” He paused. “The people… they are white,” he said, pointing at the skin around their masked but visible eyes, and nodding, indicating it was still possible. “But no.” He handed the camera back to Eddie. “You?”

Eddie shut the camera off, leaned his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes. “No,” he said. “No way.”

The Russian might be up to something, but he wasn’t working with the men in the suits to keep this girl safe. He wanted this girl up at the Alpine base. He wanted her to get info from the Vice President. The girl was his ticket to infamy. These four people in the white uniforms—they were someone else.

It was almost 6 a.m. and starting to get light as Blake trudged through the deep snow, now carrying Reagan’s little sister. Blake was exhausted, but knew he had it much better than Cameron. He had to keep pushing forward. His thoughts drifted off to his own little sister.

Kaci wasn’t nearly as little as the vice president’s daughter, but he remembered waving goodbye to her, just days before the attacks, as she walked away from the security line at the Bismarck airport. They had gone on more than a hundred trips together in the eight years since her eighteenth birthday. This was the first time she was going alone.

The two of them had created a “bucket list” years ago, and they had checked off a dozen or so incredible destinations every year since: Cancun, New Zealand, the Dominican Republic, Alaska, a plethora of national parks—with tons of hiking, skydiving, river rafting expeditions—every imaginable kind of adventure. Their parents had died in a car accident when Blake was ten and Kaci was eight. His only aunt and uncle had taken them in but essentially ignored them for a decade, reaping the tax benefits from having dependents but neglecting their intended responsibilities. Blake had basically raised his little sister on his own.

There was one perk to their relationship with their guardians. Hawaii. Their aunt and uncle, who they privately referred to as Dick and Jane, owned a time-share on Kauai, where the four of them vacationed together every year. Or at least they traveled there together. Typically, as soon as they arrived at the condo, Dick and Jane split. Dick was a cheap strip bar savant, a womanizing drunk, and Jane was of the same class, a needy, slutty drug addict—incredible how sudden fortunes can really transform some people. Blake’s parents had left Dick and Jane with a few million in their will to raise the kids. Blake and Kaci saw little of that, but Dick and Jane still managed to burn through it like toilet paper.

Blake had done his best to shield Kaci from Dick and Jane as they grew up. Hawaii was their annual chance to “escape the tyranny,” and they took full advantage of that on each trip. They were constantly planning what they’d do when they were old enough to break off on their own. Blake could have moved out when he was eighteen, but he stayed two more years for Kaci…waited two more years to tell Dick and Jane to go screw themselves.

When Kaci turned eighteen, the two of them found an apartment together. Blake turned twenty a month later, and their family lawyer signed over twenty million dollars to him from his parents’ will. His aunt and uncle knew nothing of that money, and couldn’t have touched it if they had. Kaci would get another twenty million on her twentieth birthday as well. They were set for life.

Finally independent, they were now free to do what they wanted, spend what they wanted, and go where they wanted without their relatives having any say. Blake dropped out of college, Kaci never entered college, and they dedicated themselves to seeing the world.

Every trip was to somewhere new; they seldom returned to a place they’d already been…except Kauai. There was something special about that island. Although they never went to their aunt and uncle’s condo again, they returned to Kauai every year, sometimes even more than once, always looking to make it a permanent part of their lives, if they could find the right place. Finally, they did.

Three years ago at a bar in Kauai, Blake had met a girl named Alexa whose family owned the island of Niihau, just west of Kauai. A dramatic seismic shift had splintered the former island into two pieces. The smaller southernmost piece had slipped several hundred yards east of the larger part of the island. It was stable and secure, covered with tons of trees and beautiful beaches, but not of any use to Alexa’s family. Her family was going to keep the main island, but Alexa offered to talk to them about Blake and Kaci buying the small twenty-acre island. The family signed off, and the two of them purchased the island for a cool twenty million cash in December of 2018. That twenty million was worthless now, but the island was still Blake’s, if he could ever get there.