Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky by Ken White Read Free Book Online Page A

Newell would park the SUV in the
parking lot beside the Humvees and SUVs already there, but instead he drove
into the tunnel. About a quarter of a mile in, we reached another
checkpoint.
    “General
Bain is expecting him,” Newell told the officer who studied our
IDs
    He
nodded. “Martinez!”
    A
tiny Hispanic girl came out of the gatehouse. “Sir?”
    “Mr.
Welles needs an escort to the Deputy AG’s office.”
    “Yes,
sir.” She came around the car and opened my door. “If you’ll come with me,
Mr. Welles.”
    I
climbed out of the SUV, the officer nodded in the direction of the gatehouse
and the barrier lifted. Newell drove on into the darkness of the
tunnel.
    “This
way, sir.” Martinez started down the sidewalk that lined the road at a good
clip. I hurried to catch up. Maybe when your legs are short, you learn to
walk fast.
    Martinez
paused at an open hatch on the wall. “Watch your step and please use the
handrail, sir. The stairs are steep and we don’t want any accidents.” There
wasn’t any interest or life in her voice. This was something she’d said many
times to many visitors. All scripted.
    She
was right about one thing, though. The stairs were steep, and though she
didn’t seem to need it, I kept my hand on the rail as we
descended.
    At
the bottom of the stairs was a long corridor that curved to the left. “This
way,” she said.
    “Quite
a place you have here,” I said.
    “Yes,
sir.”
    “Been
here long?”
    “I
was assigned to the Area Three Operations Center right out of the camp,
sir.”
    “Which
camp were you in?” I asked.
    “Charlie-43,
sir. Outside Nashville.”
    I
smiled. “Spent a good amount of time in Nashville when I was in the
military. Are you from that area?”
    She
shook her head, never looking at me. “No, sir. I’m from Dallas.”
    “Were
you visiting Tennessee or just looking for someplace safe after the war
began?”
    “You
ask an awful lot of questions, sir.”
    “I’m
a detective,” I said, smiling. “I have a curious mind.” I paused. “You don’t
have to answer my questions, of course. I’m just making small
talk.”
    “Not
a problem, sir. I’ll decline to answer if you ask questions that I shouldn’t
answer.” She was silent for a moment, walking fast, her eyes straight ahead.
“I was stationed in Kentucky when the conflict began, sir. We were deployed
to Nashville. I was taken into custody there and interred.”
    “Fort
Campbell?”
    “Yes,
sir. 716 th Military Police Battalion, 101 st Airborne.”
    I
laughed. “That was my old unit.”
    “That’s
interesting, sir,” she said. She didn’t sound very interested. “When we
enter the operations room, please walk behind me, your eyes on the back of
my head. Do not look at wall displays, displays in the quads, or any written
material in the quads. Do not engage on-duty personnel or myself in
conversation. Conversation of any kind in the operations room is strongly
discouraged.”
    “I’ll
do my best.”
    “Please
do, sir,” she said. We reached the end of the corridor and she opened the
door.
    The
operations room stretched out in front of us and looked to be nearly the
size of a football field. We were on the thirty yard line, relatively close
to one end.
    The
room was laid out in groups, four desks to a group. The quads Martinez had
mentioned. Everyone I could see was either speaking softly into a headset
microphone or staring at a computer monitor. Some were doing both at the
same time.
    At
the far end of the room was a raised platform with a dozen or so desks in an
arc. Behind the desks was a huge electronic display of Area Three, with
multi-colored blotches and circles, some blinking. Some of the people at the
desks were looking out over the room, others were looking up at the
display.
    Though
Martinez was facing in the other direction and couldn’t see me checking out
the room, I didn’t want to get her in any