Chapter 40 Eleanor's Pov
Ollie’s van was a battered Renault wagon covered in mud and stinking of engine grease and dried fish. It was the perfect disguise. We didn’t turn any more heads as we left the sunny shore and entered the shadowy mountains.
I settled into the front passenger seat while Alec rested on a makeshift bed in the back, concealed by a tarpaulin and boxes of rusty tools. Each pothole on the twisted D-roads caused him to gasp for air. I felt it all in my bones.
Ollie concentrated with tight, rapt attention, scanning between the road, the mirrors, and the small digital scanner connected to the lighter socket in the car. It searched for any police signals, any surveillance. The only sounds were the motor, the hiss of the scanner’s static, and Alec’s labored breathing.
“Tell me about the place,” Alec asked from the back, strained but clear.
“That’s an old signals intelligence post,” Ollie replied, still scanning the road. “Cold War-era leftover. It was decommissioned in the late ’90s. Some Belgian holding corporation with connections to a maritime logistics company I contracted with for the Sterling Group actually purchased it. It’s a paper trail of a shell within a shell within a bankrupt shell game, essentially. It’s a little box of a structure that exists on a ledge of a mountaintop. No power. We’ll have solar, a catchwater system, and an existing satellite link I installed in the panic room about two years ago.”
“Sounds perfect,” Alec said.
A chill coursed through my veins that had nothing to do with the coolness of the night. Bunker. End of the line. The last place you can retreat to when there’s nowhere else.
We drove for many hours, leaving the hold of the sea and entering the evergreen-clad Maritime Alps. The villages became fewer and more distant. The air lost its saltness and acquired a crisp, fresh edge.
Near dawn, Ollie turned off the pavement onto a gravel trail that was little more than a goat path. The van shuddered and bucked. For what seemed like an eternity, we moved in first gear, our headlights illuminating naked tree trunks and rocky outcroppings.
Finally, we reached a small level ledge. Below us was a deep, dark valley. In front of us, carved into the side of the mountain, was a flat grey concrete face and a heavily rusted metal door. It was more like a tomb than a structure.
“Home sweet home,” Ollie declared, turning off the engine.
The silence was loud after the drive. And then the mountains began to speak, the breeze in the pines, the birds in the distance.
We assisted Alec. In the gray dawn, Alec looked like a ghost. He was pale, with fever-bright eyes. He was leaning against Ollie as we approached the door.
Ollie punched in a code onto the old keypad. A green light began to blink. A creaky door swung open on heavy hinges. A cold, dry wind with a dusty, ozone smell blew out.
The interior was a single, large space. Concrete floor and walls, low ceiling. Minimal lighting, LEDs, likely timer-operated. Along one wall, military-issue bunks, thin mattresses on them. Some kitchenette area, camping stove and water containers. The curtained area, chemical toilet in it. On a heavy, metallic desk, computer equipment that was quiet, satellite modem as well.
This was the end of the line. The last stop.
We got Alec on to the bottom bunk. Ollie lit the portable generator somewhere out of sight and boiled water on the stove. He arrayed his medical supplies in meticulous detail.
“I have to clean the wound,” Ollie told Alec, and Alec nodded. He turned to me. “Ellie, the meds. The blue bag. There’s a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Reconstitute it with sterile water. And locate the morphine syringes.”
My hands were steady now. It was a job, a procedure. Ollie was cutting away the soaked dressing, and I was preparing the injection. The wound was not pretty, even under the bright lights, looking raw and red like a map.
Alec kept quiet as Ollie tended to the wound, removing the crude stitches. His hand closed around mine, gripping me hard. I held tight.
Ollie then sliced away at the dead tissue. Finally, Alec turned his head, his brow streaked with sweat, his eyes on mine. He was not gazing at the ceiling. Instead, he was grounding himself in my face. I held his eyes amidst his pain.
After all this had been done, after all the stitches, bandage, antibiotics, and morphine, Alec let himself slump back on the thin pillow, and his chest began to rise and fall in deeper, easier breaths.
Ollie settled back on his heels, clean hands clasped together in front of him. “He’ll be all right. The fever should break in a few hours if the medication works.”
“And if they don’t?” The question was a whisper.
“Then we have bigger issues than the Consortium.” Ollie stood up, his knees popping. “We need to secure a perimeter. I will scan the sensor cam footage. Motion sensors along the access road. You should try to get some rest.”
Sleep was not an option. While Ollie worked on the surveillance system, I investigated the tomb. There were non-perishable foods, MREs, enough water to last us weeks. A pile of wool blankets. A library of paperbacks from a previous tenant. It had the air of a time capsule in preparation for the coming apocalypse.
I pushed hard enough against the heavy door to peer out. It was dawn, and the summits were bathed in pink and gold. It was brutally cold and crisp. Looking down, all was well in our world. Down there, we existed outside our reality. Between a losing war and a plan we’d yet to formulate.
A soft sound came from the bunk. Alec was awake, watching me from the darkness.
“Come here,” he whispered, his voice softened by drugs and exhaustion.
I sat on the edge of the bunk. He reached up, cool, and traced my jaw.
“This isn’t the life I wanted for you,” he said. His morphine drip removed the shield of protection he usually maintained.
“It’s the life we have,” I said, reaching out to cover his hand with mine. “And we’re both still in it.”
He stared back at me, his blue eyes cloudy but intent. “The data drive. Tomorrow. We start building the weapon.”
“It’s already a weapon. We fired it.”
“It’s shrapnel. We need a guided missile.” His eyelids fluttered. “We need to tell the story. Not just leak documents. We need a narrative. One that names names, connects the dots, points to the guilty. We need to become a voice, not just a source.”
A publisher. A broadcaster from the mountaintop. It was a scary concept, but it was the next logical step.
“Sleep,” I told him, brushing back his hair. “We will build it tomorrow.”
He was drifting off. His last words were barely audible. “don’t let me sleep too long, Ellie. The world is moving…”
I stayed as his breaths evened out, and the quiet tapping of Ollie’s keys became the beat of the bunker. The sun rose, casting harsh
light into the concrete room.
We reached our limit. Our last resort. Yet, glancing from his slumbering features to the screens reflecting the deserted highway, I knew he was right. We had not come here to hide. We came to prepare our final broadcast. From the edge of the world, we would speak truth to power. This time, however, we would make sure that the entire world heard.