He cracked up laughing. “Your escape plan is to climb a ten-mile ladder? You might be able to do it, young lady, but I’m sixty-seven. I wouldn’t make it a hundred yards with the shape I’m in. Plus, you’d have to be in an environmental suit. It’s supposed to be several hundred degrees in there.”
She tried not to let his constant negativity beat her. “Where are the suits?”
“They have a closet full of them. It’s next to my living area. Trust me, none of this is going to make a bit of difference. Even if you did make it up to the top, inside or out of the tube, David probably has men guarding everywhere. You’d never make it past them without a gun.” He pointed at her blue outfit. “Especially being dressed as you are.”
A plan formed in her mind. She’d gotten Peter, Audrey, and Donovan out of the mine back home. She could get out of this one, too.
“Sir, with all due respect, I gave tours in a mine where I came from. If I say you can climb your way out of this mess, I guarantee you can. I’ll be with you the whole way. To raise our chances, we’re going to have on those suits. Once we get to the top, there’s no way they’ll know who we are. We’ll walk right on by.” She pressed her hands together with anticipation he’d agree to her plan.
As she waited, the elevator dinged, causing both to whip around to see who’d arrived.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be caught, my dear,” Tanager said sadly.
The door opened and a tall young man, dressed in blue, warily exited the car.
“Victor?” she said, both surprised and disappointed it was him.
Tanager shoved past her. “Don’t let the door close!”
CHAPTER 23
Lamar, CO
“Hold up, fella,” the man exclaimed, walking up to the side of Ted’s SUV with a clipboard. “We just got a new directive to confirm every vehicle’s occupants. I would have let you go, because frankly, it sounds like a bunch of busywork—”
Ted didn’t let him finish. “Cool then. I’ll be on my way.”
The guy kept on talking as if they were engaged in routine checkpoint pleasantries. “But I saw you have what looks like a bullet hole in your rear glass. You want to explain it?”
He couldn’t believe all his good luck was about to be washed away by an inconspicuous hole in his window. He tried to think of a viable excuse and waved the man closer as if about to tell a good story.
“I was honestly hoping no one would notice it. You know what it’s like out here in this part of the world. There’s nothing but endless farmlands and too much grass. You can see from sunrise all the way to sunset, with nothing in between. Makes for some boring guard duty, you know?”
He prayed the official would commiserate with him but gave nothing in return but a grunt.
Ted pressed on. “Well, I set up a few plastic bottles and began shooting them for target practice. I had the entire plains around me and what did I hit?”
“Your own truck.”
“My own truck,” he said with high drama.
The man looked into the rear seating area. Emily was hunkered down behind the second row. The windows back there were tinted, giving her a little more cover. If the man saw her, he didn’t show it.
“And what about that?” The guard pointed behind him.
“What?” he said, locking his spine like a high-tension electrical wire.
“That!” The guy pointed to back of Ted’s head. “You have a welt the size of a golf ball back there. Looks like you’ve been struck on the head.”
Ted sighed with relief, which instantly made him wish he could control himself. He was displaying every sign of someone who had something to hide while passing through a security checkpoint.
It wouldn’t be proper to explain he’d fallen in a farmhouse kitchen while running from search drones. “You aren’t going to believe this. After shooting out my own window, I hit my head on the rear liftgate.” He sighed again, this time sounding more upbeat. “It’s been a long freaking day.”
“Well, you can take a break while we’re talking,” the guard walked toward the bullet hole. His two buddies watched from about twenty feet away, as if unsure if they should be with their leader or stay there. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see the stamps on your book. You know, just to make sure you have clearance to travel.”
“I understand,” he said, careful to hide the bomb blast of anxiety going off in his chest. He had no papers and there was a diminishing opportunity to talk his way out of the encounter.
From the rear corner of the truck, the guard tapped metal with his clipboard. “Mind opening the back? While we’ve got all this paperwork going, we might as well confirm cargo, too.”
He sat frozen in his seat. At the same instant, he took a mental snapshot of the roadblock. The two men were still in the far lane, looking suitably bored by their mission. The nosey guard had gone around to the rear, waiting for him to pop the hatch. Emily was somewhere in the cargo space.
He acted like he was getting papers from the passenger seat so he had a private moment to communicate with her. “It looks like we’ll have to shoot our way out.”
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
The man called out again. “Whenever you’re ready, bud.” A touch of anxiety was in the guy’s voice, as if he was wondering why there was such a delay.
“All right,” Ted replied in a bored tone out his window.
The second the liftgate went up, it sounded like a grenade went off inside the cramped compartment. Emily fired the shotgun a second time, which seemed to blow his hair with the concussion.
He’d been ready with his pistol the entire time; it came over
