Chapter 11 - THE QUARRY WAS HIDING MORE THAN PEOPLE
We had eighteen minutes.
Cole wanted backup.
I wanted speed.
Lauren ended the argument.
“If you call the department, Price’s people will hear it.”
Cole looked sick.
She was right.
We took two vehicles.
Mia stayed with Lauren.
Rex rode with me.
The quarry road twisted through black hills with no streetlights and no houses.
Halfway up, Rex stood in the passenger seat and stared at the shoulder.
“What?”
He barked once.
I hit the brakes.
A steel cable stretched across the road at windshield height.
Another ten feet and it would have cut through the cab.
Cole stopped behind me.
“Ambush.”
Rifle fire answered him.
We bailed out.
Rounds hit gravel and metal.
Mia crawled behind a drainage pipe with Lauren.
I moved uphill with Rex along the tree line.
Two shooters.
Maybe three.
One fired from a pickup.
The other from behind a loader.
Cole laid down enough fire to keep their heads down while Rex and I circled wide.
I reached the pickup first.
The shooter ran.
Rex chased him twenty yards, then stopped when I called him off.
I didn’t need prisoners disappearing into the dark with the dog.
We reached the quarry entrance at 12:39.
Late.
Inside the main building, doors stood open.
Computers were gone.
Desks empty.
The place had been cleaned in minutes.
Lauren ran to a steel door at the back.
“Here.”
Cole broke the lock.
A freight elevator descended underground.
The lower level was not a prison.
It was a command center.
Maps covered the walls.
Rail routes.
Power stations.
Shipping depots.
Police frequencies.
Mia looked around.
“What is all this?”
I didn’t answer.
Rex moved toward a stack of plastic cases.
He sniffed one and immediately sat.
His trained explosive alert.
“Everybody back.”
Cole’s face drained of color.
“You’re telling me those are bombs?”
“I’m telling you Rex smells explosives.”
Lauren pointed at a whiteboard.
Names were written under three columns.
DRIVERS.
LOCAL.
FEDERAL.
My name was under FEDERAL.
“Jack,” Mia whispered.
Another name had been added beneath mine.
SARAH MERCER.
My wife.
I grabbed my phone and called her.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Then one of the dark monitors in the room turned on by itself.
A live video appeared.
Sarah sat in a chair inside our home.
A man stood behind her.
Colonel Nathan Mercer.
Dead for six years.
He leaned toward the camera.
“Hello, Nomad.”
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