structure had collapsed—as if the soda can had been cleaved vertically down the middle, and one of its sides had then been crushed flat while the other remained standing.
For all that, the collapse zone looked as big as the world. Stubs of broken floors lined its curved southern sweep like massive, fractured ribs. On the opposite side, the guillotined edges of the north half’s intact levels met the open space in a rough, upright plane. It looked strangely like a stack of balconies facing inward onto the atrium of a high-rise hotel, seen from the top floor looking down. Only there were no balconies—just vivisected rooms and corridors and airducts and gushing pipes and sparking electrical conduits, all of it lit up from deep within by more backup lighting. Clothing from torn-open closets spiraled down into the heavy dust, out of sight. Travis saw a bed lying right along the cutoff, ten stories below, its topsheet held on by one corner and the rest fluttering like a streamer in the eddying air.
Two things came to him, so obvious they barely registered as isolated thoughts. First, his and Paige’s residence lay right along the cutoff. Through the dust he thought he could resolve which one was theirs, though it was hard to tell. Second, the Breach and its protective dome were probably unharmed. Level B51 was not a full floor, but simply a tunnel that extended straight north from the central elevator hub, before opening to the vast cavern housing the Breach and its fortifications.
Travis thought of the falling bomb—clear of the plane before the first Patriot hit. Not just clear.
Holt had deliberately avoided doing that. He’d settled for taking out half the complex and hoping the shockwave would kill everyone inside.
But he wouldn’t rest on that hope. Not for a minute. Which meant there was more trouble coming, and probably soon.
Travis considered that as he strained for the sound he knew he’d hear—would probably already hear if his ears weren’t ringing. He turned his head and held his breath, and finally picked it up: the crying and calling of survivors among the intact north-side floors. The sounds all came from the top five or six residence levels. It made sense: much deeper and the shockwave would’ve been unsurvivable. Even the backup lighting was sparser below that point—the air compression of the blast had destroyed most of the bulbs. Travis tried to gauge the number of voices he was hearing. Maybe a dozen. That too made sense, given that most of Border Town’s population would’ve been down in the labs at this hour. Only a few would’ve been up in the living quarters.
He twisted and looked at Paige, crouched just behind him. She could see past his head well enough to understand the situation. She could hear the cries too. So could Bethany and the half dozen others in the hall behind her—the whole crowd from Defense Control.
“Is the stairwell still there?” Paige said.
Travis nodded. He kept his eyes on hers and saw them narrow.
“There’ll be kill squads on their way here,” she said. “Won’t there?”
“Staged and ready to chopper in as soon as the bomb hit,” Travis said. “From just outside our radar field. Which is what—forty-five miles?”
“About that.”
“Figure Black Hawks. What’s their top speed?”
“About a hundred eighty miles per hour,” Paige said. “Three miles a minute. So fifteen minutes’ flight time. And the defenses up top are all dead—they run on building power.”
Travis withdrew from the hole and stood. He faced the small crowd.
Evelyn pawed tear-soaked concrete dust from beneath her eyes, her gaze sliding back and forth between Travis and Paige, the question too obvious to need voicing:
Travis didn’t answer. His mind was running the crucial math. There were six electric Jeeps up in the pole barn, fully charged. Straight-line over the desert, they could reach Casper, and they could do sixty with no trouble. The Jeeps were sandy brown, the same color as the ground, and Travis had never seen them kick up dust on the hardpan around this place. They didn’t even leave tire tracks. All of which meant they could avoid being spotted by the arriving choppers—but only with a serious head start. Travis’s gut said ten miles was the minimum safe distance; his head could do no better.
Evelyn was still waiting for an answer. So were all the others.
Travis looked at Bethany and indicated the tablet computer she was still holding. He could see its connection icon in the lower corner, red with a diagonal slash through it—Border Town’s wireless system had died with the power grid.
“From up on the surface,” Travis said, “you can get a signal from cell towers on I–25, right?”
Bethany nodded.
“Can you find out if there are spy satellites in visual range of this place?”
She nodded. “It’s not likely. One in four chance, any given hour or so.”
“Can you go up right now and find out?” Travis said. “And while you’re there, move the Jeeps outside, then scatter random clutter over where they were parked.”
She nodded again and didn’t say another word. She stepped past the hole and ran for the stairwell.
Travis turned to the others. “Look at your watches or your phones. Fix on a point in time exactly five minutes from right now.” He continued speaking as they did it. “You’re going to save who you can downstairs, but at the five-minute mark, you’re going to be sitting in the Jeeps up top, ready to go. All six Jeeps are leaving at that moment, together. Even one straggler a few minutes behind would get everyone else killed. Be there or you’re staying here.”
He didn’t wait to see what they thought of that plan. It didn’t matter what they thought. It was simply the only plan that didn’t end with everyone in the building dead. He turned and ran for the stairwell, and heard their footsteps following right behind him.
When they were two levels down Travis slowed and pulled Paige aside on a landing. He let the crowd pass.
“I have to go back up to B4 and do something,” he said. “We can’t leave that level intact for Holt’s people to find. They’ll see Defense Control and realize that’s where we would’ve watched the plane coming in. With that room still in place—and empty—they’ll know there were survivors who made it out.”
Paige’s eyes narrowed as she took his point. “If Defense Control were destroyed . . . they’d think they got us all.”
“They’d be sure of it. It wouldn’t occur to them that we left in Jeeps—that we even
Paige nodded. Then fear crept into her expression. She looked upward, as if through the wall of the stairwell, toward B4.
“What are you planning to do?” she said.
“Nothing just yet. I’ll need a few minutes to get it ready. Come up with the last of the crowd, and call out into B4 when everyone’s above that level.”
“Travis, what are you—”
“No time. I’ll be fine. I’ll be up top right behind you.” Before she could say more, he continued. “I need you to do something too.”
“I’m already on it,” she said. “I’ll do it and then help with the survivors.”
“I know what you’re planning,” he said. “What I need is for you to
“I have to try—”
“No you don’t. Not if it jeopardizes your life. If it’s too dangerous, just skip it and go right to the wounded.”
She started to protest, but he spoke over her again. “Promise.”
A second passed. She looked frustrated—but understanding.
“I promise.”
Then she was gone, down the stairs after the others.
