Chapter Thirty
There was no sound of a gun being cocked. Just a tone confident enough to imply one.
Travis stopped.
Paige and Bethany stopped behind him—he heard their breathing cut out at the same time.
“Keep your hands away from the weapons,” the man said.
“We’re not going to drop them,” Travis said. There was caution and then there was stupidity.
“I’m not going to ask you to,” the man said.
A moment later there came the soft crunch of a careful step, followed by another. Travis saw a hint of movement in the darkness, clothing catching the indirect spill of mercury light ten feet back in the tunnel.
Then the man said, “You’re Travis Chase.”
The unreal quality of the moment passed quickly. The analytical part of Travis’s mind kicked in, firing off questions. Who was still alive who could both recognize him and be inside this place? Had the voice sounded familiar? He had no immediate answer for either one.
“Who are you?” Travis said.
“I think you’ll remember me. I’m coming out now. My weapon’s holstered.”
More footsteps. Then a shape materialized out of the gloom, and a second later the man was standing right at the tunnel’s opening, hands out at his sides in a nonthreatening stance. He glanced up the flight at each of them in turn, then looked at Travis and waited for him to speak.
Travis knew him. He’d met him just over a year ago under very tense circumstances, and spent a few hours in his general vicinity. He couldn’t remember if they’d spoken directly—if so, it would’ve been just a few words. Paige and Bethany wouldn’t recognize him at all; they’d been in the same room with him for ten seconds back then, but their faces had been pressed to the floor, and there’d been a lot of shooting going on.
“Rudy Dyer,” Travis said. “Secret Service for Richard Garner.”
Travis introduced Paige and Bethany. The three of them filed down onto the walkway and into the open space at the tunnel’s mouth. Between themselves and Dyer they formed a rough square a few feet apart from one another, in which everyone could see everyone else. Travis had his back diagonal to the walkway’s railing. He turned and looked over the edge at the bottom of the shaft, now just two hundred feet below. From here he could resolve the lowest flight in the spiral. It didn’t terminate against a solid floor, but instead tied into a flat walkway like this one, which led out of sight to one side. Though he couldn’t be sure, Travis had the impression there was no floor at the bottom of the shaft. That instead the vertical channel punched down into some broader chamber beneath it, whose bottom might be dozens of feet further below, and whose width and length he couldn’t determine.
He stared a moment longer, the red glow almost hypnotizing at this range. It saturated the bottom walkway and the steps there, and every visible inch of whatever lay beneath it all.
Travis looked up and saw Dyer gazing down at it too. Then the man trailed his eyes upward until he was craning his neck to stare at the top two thirds of the shaft, rearing above them like a chimney seen from deep inside. Travis got the impression that Dyer was looking at it all for the first time.
“You came in through the other access,” Travis said.
Dyer nodded, at last leveling his gaze and turning to face the group. “I only got here half an hour ago. I was in Barbados with my wife and daughter when I got the news last night.”
“How did you know the door combination?” Paige said.
“Garner gave it to me, just after he took office again last year. He told me—” He cut himself off, looking puzzled about something. Travis realized the same puzzlement had been there, under the surface, from the moment Dyer had stepped out of the dark. The man looked from one of them to the other. At last he said, “Are you guys it? None of the others made it?”
“Others?” Travis said.
Dyer nodded. “This mine is the rally point. Everyone still alive is supposed to show up here.”
Travis thought of the people who’d been killed in unison with Garner, all over the country. The power players Peter had met with, all those years ago.
Still looking confused, Dyer said, “No offense, but I didn’t think you guys were part of the group. You’d be just about the last people I’d expect to meet in this place. How did you get the combination?”
Travis met Paige’s and Bethany’s eyes. Their bafflement matched his own. Clearly Dyer knew a lot more than the three of them did—he’d learned it directly from Garner.