Ballard said they’d used the snow†ake. The ground assaults out of Sylvan Mountain had failed almost immediately, beaten back by Chinese air superiority as Hernandez must have expected. Hours ago, Grand Lake had dusted the Chinese as they pursued Hernandez back into the mountains, decimating many of the U.S. forces as well. It was a desperate show of strength. Both sides were frantic and outraged. The rumor was that the launch codes were locked. There could be a nuclear exchange, and Grand Lake was surely a prime target.
“You should go,” Cam said.
“You can’t help her any more. You’ve done enough.” Allison bared her teeth again in her aggressive way. “She’s not in love with you.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t love you. Not like that.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Cam said honestly. The connection he felt with Ruth was much more than as a lover. It was layered and powerful. Yes, they had been physically intimate, touching and kissing. Maybe there would be more. But his feelings for her went beyond that. He had to see this through.
“You can change your mind,” Allison said. “You can come with us anytime.”
Then she walked away. Cam went after her, although he stopped at the wide door of the tent. Two of his guards had followed him and he glanced out at the hazy night, searching among the busy lights of American planes. Would there be any warning?
Maybe it would be better just to vanish in a single white instant of nuclear ‚re. They wouldn’t suffer. They could stop running at last.
Cam thought of Nikola Ulinov, whom he could never meet. He thought of Ruth, furiously trying to outrace the tide of war. Despite everything, he felt still and quiet. He’d done what he could. Now it was out of his hands again. One way or the other he’d do everything he could to help Ruth. He continued to wait and watch as Allison joined the bustle of soldiers rushing to get out of this marked place.
24
The command bunker was hidden beneath an ordinary-looking Winnebago camper, like so many of the shelters in Grand Lake. Ruth almost didn’t get inside. The four soldiers stationed at the camper door were USAF air commandos and they’d unsafed their weapons as Ruth approached, which made her nervous and angry.
“I’m under orders, ma’am,” their captain said.
“Goddammit, so am I.”
“This is Dr. Goldman,” Estey said beside her, but Ruth thought her escort was part of the problem. Cam had asked Estey, Goodrich, and Foshtomi to stick with her. By now, the Rangers were accustomed to protecting her. Unfortunately, the USAF captain’s ‚rst responsibility was to consider everyone a threat.
“She’s the nanotech lady,” Estey said.
“I need to see Governor Shaug.” Ruth had new identi‚cation and showed it to them.
The captain didn’t move to take it, although one of his men turned his submachine gun aside and reached for the paperwork. “Call it in,” the captain told him. “The rest of you, back off a little, okay?”
“Okay,” Ruth said. They were all tense. They all expected to die and maybe it was worst for the USAF squad, standing with their backs against a safe hole — if the hole was safe. Ruth did not doubt that the bunkers could withstand conventional bombs or artillery, but Grand Lake’s engineers had almost certainly lacked the resources to build deep enough to survive a nuclear strike.
She glanced at the sky again and Foshtomi unconsciously mimicked the gesture beside her. The impulse was too powerful. Camou†age netting stretched from the camper to a nearby trailer, however, forming a roof over its door and the space in between. Ruth felt blind. It was silly, but it calmed her when she could see empty sky and she looked up again even though she knew the netting was there.
She missed Cam. They should have been together at the end, but he’d quietly listened to her and he’d nodded and then he was gone. Deborah hadn’t been so easy to convince, but she’d left, too, and now Ruth was alone. The Rangers weren’t friends. They had never warmed to her, despite her respect for them and the blood loss they’d shared.
“Foshtomi,” Ruth said. The young woman turned, and Ruth tried to smile. “Thank you,” she said.
“Sure.”
“I need these three,” Ruth said.
“No, ma’am,” the captain said. He waved for her to walk forward from the others. “We going to pat you down. Take off your jacket, please.”
“I need them,” Ruth said tightly, hoping not to let her adrenaline show in her voice. “Tell Shaug.”
“We’re locked down, ma’am.”
“Tell Shaug I need them or I can’t guarantee the next step of the booster will work. They’re some of the original carriers.” The last part was almost true. Another scientist might have questioned her, but she didn’t think Governor Shaug or the military command would argue. They were too desperate for any advances in the nanotech.
“All right.” The captain pointed for his man to return to the phone. Meanwhile, he slung his weapon and ran his hands closely over Ruth’s body, not shy at all about her crotch, waist, or armpits. He noticed her cell phone, of course, and pulled it from her front pocket.
“I need that to call the lab,” she said.
He did not ‚nd the tiny glass welds she’d made on the back sides of two of her shirt buttons.
* * * *
The stairwell went down farther than Ruth had anticipated. Her phone almost certainly wouldn’t work. That was a serious problem. Ruth looked back once before the door sealed, rubbing her thumb inside her palm as if she still had her etched stone. Then the cold in the tunnel raised goose bumps along her arms and neck and she stumbled on the concrete steps.
Estey caught her. “Careful,” he said.
The stairs were very steep. Ruth quickly passed through four giant steel doors, each one about a full story below the next. They made a series of buffers meant to absorb and de†ect a blast. Maybe the bunker would survive. Each of the barricades had to be opened and then dogged shut again by the USAF colonel who’d come to lead them inside.
A ‚fth door led to a room about the size of a small house. It was crowded with computers, display screens, and people. The uproar of voices was ampli‚ed by the bare concrete walls and ceiling. This place was a box, and Ruth guessed that it held more than a hundred soldiers. Most were seated along the banks of equipment. Others stood or walked in the paths in between. The vast majority of the uniforms were Air Force blue, but there were also people in tan or olive drab and Ruth saw more than one knot of civilians.
“This way,” the colonel said.
Ruth went left when he moved right. He seemed to be heading to a door across from them, but Ruth had seen Governor Shaug inside a glass-walled of‚ce. She walked straight at him.
“Dr. Goldman?” Estey said, and the USAF colonel hollered, “Stop that woman!” The busy people clotted around her. Two men and a woman caught her arms, one of them dropping a handful of printouts on the †oor. A fourth soldier rose from his seat with his headset cockeyed around his neck.
“Let go of me!”
“Sergeant? What’s going on?” The colonel directed his words at Estey instead of Ruth. It was another way of
