A Baneful Bequest, Part 6 of 6

Previous installments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

After three days of twelve hour shifts---punishment detail, he was sure---MacNeil was bored silly. What was there to guard at a destroyed house? It had already been swept by the intel dorks. He'd been on duty for that; they'd carted away two van-loads of junk from the wreckage.

"What the hell are we doing here?" Dickens groused from the passenger seat of the van. He was new on the guard detail, but MacNeil had worked with him several times before.

"No idea," MacNeil muttered. "There's nothing to guard."

"Did you hear what happened to Paul?"

"I haven't been to HQ in days, man."

Dickens switched the radio off, then continued, "Word is he got sent to the Blues."

"What? Jesus Christ. Why?"

"He screwed up the call to the flyboys. That," Dickens waved at the wreckage, "was supposed to be a dummy bomb to crack the building, not a live bomb to blow it to shit. My buddy told me the data on the drives we got was totally---"

Both men jerked as heavy subsonic bullets punched through the windshield and into their chests and throats.

A barely-visible figure in mottled grey and green camouflage eased open the passenger door and examined the two corpses. Definitely dead. He pulled a silver sunshade from under his shirt, unfolded it, and wedged it up behind the windshield, then locked and closed the vehicle door.

"Clear," the shadow whispered into his throat mic, fading back into the night.

"Same," confirmed his partner, halfway down the block.

"Keep on watch," their team leader ordered. "That might not be all of them."

The team leader, Daniel Rowan, nodded to the other three members of the recovery team. "Let's go."

"Northwest corner is... there," his second in command said, surveying the shattered remains of the house and referencing the small tablet strapped to her hand. It was hard to pick out the original foundations. Sturdy as the house had been, the 250 pound JDAM had still blown it across most of its large city lot.

The team worked in silence for several minutes, clearing away the wreckage and prying away the remains of the wall and floor as quietly as they could. Soon, they'd exposed a small safe door set into a concrete slab.

Rowan entered the combination, and when opened, rather than the inside of a safe there was a small, old-fashioned computer screen and swing out keyboard.

He stepped back and gestured for his second in command to take over. After a few minutes of tapping at the keys, frequently referencing her tablet, she announced that the preservation protocols were deactivated.

"Let's hope they worked," Rowan muttered, grimly. They'd never been tested quite so thoroughly before. If the bunker had been cracked...

It was another several minutes of digging to expose the opposite corner of the foundations. They had to stop at one point and hide as a police car rolled by, but its occupants apparently saw nothing amiss and drove on.

It fell to another of Rowan's team to open the emergency bunker access. The slim man assembled his tools on the bare sheet of concrete: a gold coin, several charcoal sticks, a syringe of mercury, and a small vial of blood.

He drew an intricate design on the concrete, checking several times against the second in command's tablet. Satisfied the design was complete, he drew over it with the mercury, ensuring the lines were unbroken. The gold coin went at the center of the design, with the vial on top.

"Ready," he whispered, glancing at Rowan. The team leader was crouched next to him, holding a red-lens flashlight for him. Rowan shrugged and nodded.

"Here goes..." The man rapped the vial with the hilt of a heavy dagger he'd pulled from inside his vest. It shattered, and the instant the first drop of blood touched the coin the whole pattern lit up in a brilliant golden light.

"For heaven's sake!" Rowan whispered. The last thing they needed was a fireworks show drawing attention. But the light only persisted for a few seconds, then faded. The concrete faded with it, revealing a round steel hatch.

They were in.

...

Orion awoke in a room he didn't recognize. The last thing he remembered before waking was a possessed submachine gun telling him not to worry.

The room was no prison, certainly. He was in a four-poster feather bed, and a window was open, letting in the dawn light and a pleasant breeze. The air carried a faint whiff of farm. Horses, he thought.

"Welcome back to the land of the living!" Jack's voice boomed.

"Quieter, if you don't mind," Orion muttered, having jumped half out of bed at the sudden noise. He glanced around, and saw the Thompson had been propped in an armchair in the corner of the room. "Where are we? What happened?"

"What happened is complicated to explain. Where, though, is easy: we're with---"

"Friends", a sharp voice cut him off. The speaker was in the doorway to his right. She was an older woman, conservatively dressed, with wavy gray hair tied loosely back and spilling over one shoulder. "You talk too much, Jack. What's important right now is you're safe, with friends."

Orion thought she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her. After a short pause, she continued, "It's been a long time, Orion. Welcome home."

---

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story.

I don't have anything ready for tomorrow, but I'll get something new up soon. And of course the Swords of Saint Valentine event will start on February 14th, so watch out for that!