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: Why the fuck is this happening?
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 had Jeeps, forty miles from the nearest road. The charging station in the pole barn, all by itself, won’t tip them off; it could be used for a hundred different kinds of equipment.”
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 not do it, if it looks too risky.”
“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.
Travis turned and sprinted up the flight they’d just come down.
He passed the hole the bunker buster had punched in the floor, and entered Defense Control, its workstations and its wall of screens dark and dead. He turned to the flat wall, with its row of giant, semi-portable mainframe computers—eight in all.