Having no answer, Ryan remained silent.
“If we are able,” Doc went on, “I would like for us to find out if London still stands, if the hand of royalty still guides her destiny. To see if God saved the Queen.”
“If we can, Doc. If we can.”
“CONTE.”
“Sir.”
“What’s your situation in there, mister?” Major Drake Burroughs stared into the collapsed tunnel. A trio of baby spotlights had been rigged up using alternate power sources. A dusty haze obscured much of the scene, but enough clarity remained that he could see the broken rock and buckled steel plating that blocked passage.
“The mat-trans unit’s back on-line, Major,” Conte replied. The radio link was tenuous through the piles of debris, interrupted periodically by white noise.
“You’ll be able to make the jump, then?”
“Yes, sir. Turley believes so, sir.”
“Your equipment, soldier?” Burroughs paced, keeping the anger in check so it wouldn’t disturb his ability to command. He was still in a rage that no one had known about Walker’s bolt hole, and worse, that no one had a clue about where it might lead.
When he’d first been given the security assignment over the White Sands Ramp;D complex, he’d thought the job was just a means of shelving him from the battlefield for a while. There’d been a certain zealous General McGuire, who had accused him of taking a few liberties with the rules of the Geneva Convention during the Bosnian action.
Then the general had dropped the charges. Before all else, Drake Burroughs had always put his country first. His father, a career military man, had done the same. Before he’d gone off to the battle that had claimed his life, the elder Burroughs had given his son a hug, then stood and saluted him, saying that he was leaving the future of their country in his hands until he returned.
Drake Burroughs had taken the assignment seriously. When the destruction had rained down in 2001, he’d shown no hesitation about taking over the complex, then using Project Calypso to ensure he’d be around with enough time to rebuild.
“Our equipment is in good shape, sir.”
“All of you?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got a few rations, but if there’s a way to live off the land wherever we end up, we’ll do that.”
“Until you find Ryan Cawdor and his people,” Burroughs said. “Then you get your asses back here however you can as fast as you can before I decide to declare you AWOL.”
“Yes, sir. Turley says we’re green at this end.”
Burroughs knew he had the attention of the rest of his squad, some of whom thought he was sending Conte and the others off to die. The future that remained open to them, though they’d tried to prepare for the worst and had managed to see some of it on a local level when they’d been able to hook up video links with the outside world almost thirty years ago, had been far more disastrous than any of them could have imagined. The stories were still coming in from the scouts that reported in irregularly, journeying past the limits of the radio equipment.
“Then be about your mission, soldier,” Burroughs said. “And do your unit proud.”
“Yes, sir.”
Burroughs snapped to full attention, his hand cocked sharply against his right eyebrow. Immediately the rest of the unit around him emulated the gesture.
The soft pop that drifted over the open radio channel let him know Conte and the others had gone.
Finishing the salute, Burroughs turned on his heel, shouting orders to shut down the area. He bellowed instructions to relevant officers for reports on the wounded, the dead and the material losses they’d incurred.
Ryan Cawdor and his people may have escaped for the moment, but Burroughs knew it wouldn’t be long before Conte and his men caught up with them. The special-ops team would kill them where they found themafter asking questions about the gateway, of courseand find a way to return to White Sands. Or not.
That was a soldier’s duty.
In the meantime Burroughs had another item on the agenda, which Cawdor’s arrival had interrupted. There was a ville in Texas that the major had his eye on.