“One last chance.”

  “You’re right, you’re right, gosh I’m so sorry. Can’t fool you a bit, you’re too quick. I admit it, I confess. I am actually deep-cover CIA, trying to solve the JFK assassination. Latest intel reports indicate that the third bullet was fired from the grassy knoll by a woman with a handgun. The real target was Jackie, but this chick was a crummy shot, and the bullet hit the president in the head. Too bad. But I’m hot on the trail of the suspect, and I think I’m close to an arrest.” Carson stared at her, finally turning serious to send her a clear message that he wasn’t to be fooled around with either. “Sorry, honey. If I am what you say I am, pointing a gun at my face won’t do jack squat, and you know that.”

  The woman smiled again. Not a nice smile, Carson was thinking. Needs to work on that smile.

  “You are the dumbest hick grunt I have ever met in my life, you know that? Do you always mouth off when someone has the drop on you?”

  “Only when I’m forced to strip in front of women. It unnerves me. I say things I don’t mean. Had you been gracious and civil, I would be spilling all the beans right now, every single one, revealing my secret identity, everything. It’s your own fault; now you get nothing.”

  The woman shook her head. “Okay. It’s too bad, really. I guess I’ll just have to take 905T4 to Cheyenne Mountain by myself.”

  Despite himself, Carson stared back at her in surprise. She noticed it, of course. She seemed to notice everything.

  “Ah. So.” The woman holstered her sidearm and introduced herself. “Agent Scala. Edith Scala.”

  “DHS? On the level?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you mind telling me the name of your program?”

  “I’ll say the first word, how about that? Deep.”

  “Okay. Thaw. What did your recruiter look like?”

  “Sarah Palin, twenty years older, fifty pounds heavier.”

  “Yup. Okay, Agent Scala, it’s a pleasure to meet you, even under these… austere circumstances.” He gestured at the gloomy concrete ceiling and walls. “What’s the situation?”

  “The situation is, we have work to do.”

  Chapter 11: Two Agents in a Pod

  Carson folded his arms and regarded his fellow agent cautiously. “My point is, we’re trained to operate independently and in isolation. Security protocols, counter-infiltration, all that good stuff. The mere fact of you bracing me like this is already way out of line. What’s the situation that would make you break protocol?”

  Edith folded her own arms and studied him right back for several seconds. Then she shook her head. “Buddy, you have a lot to pick up on. Come with me.”

  Scala waited while Carson collected his weapons and pack, then led the way into the safe house. It was a small, cheerless cement room, sporting only a battered, second-hand metal table and an equally battered series of metal cabinets stuffed with supplies. Four cots were leaned against the far wall. Carson wondered if this room had been discreetly arranged when the garage was built, or even more discreetly added later on. It was ventilated by means of a grated-off shaft in the wall that Carson was sure patched into the larger garage ventilation system somewhere along the line.

  Edit shut the door, slid a bar across to lock it, and sat on one of the cots. Carson put his pack down and leaned against the table. The characters POD 04 were stenciled on the wall. Carson had no idea what they meant, but assumed that there were at least four of these safe houses concealed around the area. He wished he’d been briefed on more of their locations.

  “Don’t you think it’s just a little odd,” Scala said, “that so much has gone so wrong? Don’t you kind of get the feeling that whatever we were designed for, this current mess is a little too much for our capabilities?”

  “Nope. Haven’t had that feeling.”

  “Macho posturing aside, you’re out of your depth, Carson. I’m out of my depth, and if I am, then you are too. Trust me. I’ve been in for twenty years.”

  “Trust is a little difficult for me right now,” Carson said. “You’ve confirmed your identity to my satisfaction, but that doesn’t mean much when it comes to my mission objectives, or yours. It isn’t macho posturing to believe in my own capabilities, so speak for yourself.”

  Edith nodded. “Okay, maybe that was out of line. But let me ask you something. How long were you on activation standby before going operational?”

  “Six weeks,” Carson said.

  “Four,” Edith said. “I’ve been operational for two more weeks than you have. It’s been bad. Denver is a picnic right now, compared to what it was two weeks ago.”

  Carson rubbed his jaw. “Why did you go operational sooner?”

  “How should I know? Maybe my objectives were more urgent, or more sensitive. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Point is, the situation is different. I wouldn’t have ambushed you like this if I didn’t think we’d stand a better chance together.”

  “A better chance of what? You’ve been operational for two weeks more than me, and I just entered Denver yesterday. Haven’t you already completed your objectives?” Carson realized even as he spoke that she couldn’t have completed at least one of her secondaries, the retrieval of 905T4, based on her earlier comment.

  Edith shook her head. “No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. My objectives are mostly gone, or rendered obsolete. I still have my primary, but it’s south of here, in Colorado Springs, and getting there isn’t as easy as it used to be. One of my secondaries, a data chip called 905T4, is unachievable. I figured it was your primary, that’s why I was waiting here for you to arrive.”

  “What do you mean, unachievable?”

  “I mean, Carson, that Longmont is a sheet of glowing radioactive slag. Or pretty close, anyway. The Fort St. Vrain nuclear reactor in Platteville took a hit from a warhead, and the winds carried the fallout west across Longmont and into the hills. Nobody is traveling north of there anymore. You can’t even approach Longmont. If there’s anyone left inside, they’re unreachable.”

  Carson was thinking fast, trying to deal with the new info. He dimly recalled local news stations yammering a few years back about investors converting Platteville’s old nuclear power plant from natural gas, which was no longer price-competitive, back into nuclear like it had been in the Seventies. They had assured everyone it was totally safe, but of course they’d say that. They weren’t counting on being hit with a missile.

  “Hold on,” he said. “All I know about is an EMP, big one, well-coordinated and somehow capable of taking out cars on the road. I haven’t heard a thing about missile.”

  “It was a tactical warhead, next-gen. Low yield. Probably one of several, all across the country. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that every nuclear site in America got one.”

  If Agent Scala’s information was accurate, Carson’s primary was gone, and he’d already found that one of his secondaries, the FBI office, was gone too. That left the militia leader assassination, and assisting authorities to regain control of other local power plants. The latter, he admitted to himself, was probably a lost cause. He doubted whether anyone had even tried to secure them or get them running again. If they had, there’d be power on in at least part of Denver.

  Maybe Scala had a point. If the attacks were way bigger and more effective than Deep Thaw had anticipated, it was possible that his objectives, all of their objectives, were obsolete.

  “So, who then?” he asked, following the next logical line of reasoning. “A missile attack points to a military aggressor. The Chinese? Russia?”

  “Nobody knows. It could be either, or both in collusion, or neither. How are we going to find out, with no comms and no satellites and no functioning intelligence organization?”

  Carson pondered that. He hadn’t given much thought to the failure of satellite networks. Of course, with all the power grids down, it would have been a matter of days before backup systems went offline and the satellites went dark. No GPS, no cell service, no satellite imagery, no tracking of terrorists’ movements.

  “Is there a ground invasion?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it.” Scala took off her cap to straighten her pony tail. Carson noticed that she had a very Roman nose, which gave her a classical, almost aristocratic appearance that seemed to fit her quiet, curt professionalism well. “The whole thing is weird. It doesn’t smell like any foreign invasion scenario I ever heard of.”

  “Yeah.” Carson frowned. “I’ve been getting the same vibe. There’s something off about the whole thing. It’s nothing like the scenarios we studied.”

  “Either way, 905T4 no longer exists. How about your secondaries?”

  “One’s gone for sure. Then, I have to take out a local militia leader.”

  “Name?”

  “Masters.”

  “Ah, yes. He and his boys caused some trouble early on, or so I heard. Harassed some of the areas on the south side of town.”

  “You think he’s behind the attacks?”

  “No. Just an opportunist, like all the other criminals and thugs that are having their heyday. By the time I went operational, though, he was no longer around. Probably decided to leave Denver to its meltdown and focus on territory further south. He might be holed up in a little town or ranching community, like a feudal baron. I’ve seen a few of those setting up in neighborhoods here and I’m sure it’s happening in the rural areas too. But he’s just as likely to be dead. Either way, he’s not a threat to the region, not on the level of our other problems.”

  “My last is just power plants. Secure and guard until the lights come back on.”

  Scala shook her head. “That’ll be a long time coming. The terrorists took every station and substation down in the first twenty-four hours. They were all destroyed before you or I ever left our cabins. It would take years to replace all that infrastructure even if we had trucks and factories to distribute new parts.”

  Carson gave a dry laugh. “I have wondered why they let me sit tight for so long while the world burned.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you should have left your hidey-hole a little sooner instead of waiting for your marching orders like a good little boy,” Scala said.

  Carson clenched his teeth to keep from responding sharply. For some reason, this woman was intentionally prodding him, probing for a reaction. He didn’t know why. For that matter, he didn’t know if anything she’d told him was accurate. He believed because she seemed credible, but he didn’t know. And there was little he could do in the way of verification, besides hoofing it to each of his objectives and eyeballing them personally. That would take a month or two, and would be a pointless waste of time if they really were all blown away like the FBI facility.

  “You’re right,” Carson said, eager to keep her talking so he could feel out any cracks in her story or any further revelations that might help him. “I blew it. I should have known, should have left sooner. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. What about your objectives? Are any still feasible?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Scala said, with a hint of sarcasm. “Sounds like you’re a free operator now, right? All objectives either completed or non-achievable. So, if your orders are anything like mine, at this point you’re supposed to continue the attempt to restore order, addressing problems wherever they arise, right? Link up the areas?

  “Yes.”

  “So help me complete my primary. That’s the best thing you can do right now. I just have the one left.”

  “What is it?”

  “Coded message, to be delivered to the highest ranker in Colorado Springs.”

  “Coded?”

  Scala pulled a lanyard out of her blouse, attached to which was a flash drive. “I’m assuming it’s securely encrypted, yeah. But I haven’t exactly been able to confirm without power. Every laptop I’ve found has been either fried, or the battery all used up in the first desperate days. I’m guessing the message is a directive to link up with leadership back east and establish some kind of foothold out here in the Rockies.”

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  Scala narrowed her eyes. “That was quick, Junior.”

  “Look, agent,” Carson snarled, prodding right back to see what emotional response he could get out of the ice-woman. “I’m done with the snarky attitude. First you humiliate and ridicule me, then you ask for help, but now you’re suspicious of my motives? What do you want? I could head out on my own right now if you’d prefer.”

  That had its desired effect. Scala softened up, pulled back. “Okay, Carson, okay. I’m just tense. Look, I haven’t got anything against you, all right? But this whole thing is more screwed up than I thought possible. Being good little agents isn’t going to help either of us now. Our larger purpose is to help our country, right? That means adapting to meet the situation and ditching protocol if necessary. We’ve got to move fast and hard, get ahead of this thing.”

  Carson shrugged. “Fine. When do you want to move out?”

  “Not tonight. Bad things happen around here at night.” She stood up. “Early tomorrow morning, before dawn. When all the troublemakers are sleeping it off.”

  “Sounds good, I could use some rest.”

  “I have some food here, if you’re out,” Scala offered.

  “Got some.”

  They ate quickly and in silence, a hasty field meal among professionals, even though there was no rush. Afterwards, they lay several feet apart, on cots, weapons ready to hand. It was an awkward, cold situation. Scala kept the battery lantern going, and Carson didn’t question it. Batteries were probably plentiful in the storage cabinets.

  “Did you hear anything before it all went dark?” Carson asked. He was on his back, head resting on inter-laced fingers. “I was at the gym. Never saw a news report, got into the mountains too quickly to hear any rumors.”

  Scala’s voice was soft. “Just a bit. I was folding laundry. CNN was on in the background. They cut off some idiotic story with an emergency bulletin, so I perked up. Something had hit DC, nobody knew what. I get the impression, from what they were saying and from other things I’ve heard since, that the government was beheaded in a single stroke. Don’t know how. Don’t even know if it’s true. Maybe the President is in some bunker two hundred feet under Camp David, playing a video game and waiting it out. I don’t know. If DHS still exists, I assume our handlers are still out there, somewhere, hoping we do our jobs well. They never figured it would be this extensive. I sure didn’t.”

  “Is there any word on the larger, national or international situation?”

  “Nope. I heard, from a National Guard lieutenant that there’s a movement to consolidate power in the Midwest. Some former Congressmen, military brass, maybe some rich people with the resources. The LT made it sound like they were trying to restore the status quo. But you know, everything I’m hearing is anti-government. Even the graffiti. People are completely over it, there’s open hatred of political figures. Country’s been on the skids for years now; in hindsight this just seems like the inevitable conclusion. Catastrophic, existential failure.” She lay silent.

  “It happens. Historically, I mean.” Carson was thinking of Babylon’s last wild party, even as Darius’ bad boys were slipping under the walls by night, grinning through their beards. Or Rome imploding, those with even a little sense of irony shaking their heads in disbelief as the barbarians finished cutting down the ineffectual legions that once had made the world tremble.

  “Yeah, probably in recent history too. It’s just always been other countries, less stable regions where it wasn’t such a shock. Now the cock’s come home to roost here, and it’s hard to watch.” Scala sighed. “It’s a bad time to be rich, or military, or to work for Uncle Sam. The haves are just targets for the have-nots now, unless they’ve hired an army of mercs.” She turned to look at Carson in the low light. “That’s another problem you and I are going to be dealing with. Trust is at an all-time low. I don’t think even the best intentions and largest organization can trump people’s disgust and lack of confidence. Nobody’s flocking to anyone’s banner, you know? All I’m seeing is people hunkered down in small groups, raiding each other or trying to fend off raids. If there was an invasion, it wouldn’t meet much civilian resistance. Especially if they spearheaded their advance with truckloads of free food and medicine. If anyone comes in, anyone at all, America is over, Carson.”

  “You’re a cheerful one tonight.”

  “I’m serious. There’s no authority, and anyone who says they have some is either lying, or they’re part of the problem that got us here in the first place. We can’t trust anyone.”

  “We drew pay. We said the words. Now it’s time to follow through.”

  “Oaths of loyalty only last as long as the political entity to which you swore the oath. If the US of A is dead in the water, I don’t owe a thing to them.”

  “Then why bother with your mission objective in Colorado Springs?” Carson said. “Sounds like you would rather just walk away.” He was disturbed by her lack of respect for their mission. She almost seemed to be working him like an intelligence asset, trying to gradually turn him so he would agree with her and follow her wherever she needed.

  “No,” said Scala. “I’m just angry. Ten years I’ve been assigned to Deep Thaw. Ten years of waiting, preparing, being ready to help. And the whole time, watching the very thing I was supposed to help slowly erode, become less and less worth saving. Then, when it finally happened, I looked around and realized my heart wasn’t in it. We did this to ourselves, Carson. We’re empty. Morally, fiscally, emotionally. Now militarily.” Edith rolled over and pulled a blanket over her.

  “I’ll complete my objectives,” she said. “But only because I like flush toilets and jazz radio. I’ll do it for me, this time. Not for my country. My country is gone.”

  Carson said nothing in response. He sensed that she was wasn’t one hundred percent sincere in what she was telling him. But he didn’t know which parts of her story were suspect, and in any case, he was too tired to find out tonight.