Zero Hour (Wealth of Time Series, Book 5) Page 5

  “Would you like to elaborate, Gerald?” Martin asked.

  “Certainly,” Gerald said, crossing his arms. “We’re looking for information. Chris is immortal—as we all know—but there has to be a way for him to die, or to even reverse his invincibility. We’ve tried infiltrating his inner circle in the past, but he always sniffs it out. We’re just about done with that option, and instead want someone to follow him and blend into the background. Sure, you may not get the inside scoop being in every room as him, but you may be able to learn something. I know you have the technology: hidden cameras, bugs, and all that. This mission is completely one to proceed at your own risk—as you see fit. We’re not going to demand you do anything besides report back with your daily findings. How far you push the envelope is completely up to you.”

  “I understand. I’m not afraid to take chances, but won’t make dumb mistakes either. How long of a mission is this?”

  “As long as it takes,” Gerald replied calmly. “No timeline. We’d expect you to go back to the time before Chris was even involved in the time travel world. Study what changed him. He surely wasn’t always this demon—or maybe he was. But we’ve got to know everything about him.”

  “We can compensate you,” Martin said while Arielle looked at the ceiling. “You name the price.”

  She scrunched her face. “Fifteen million sound good?”

  “Done.” Martin stood and stretched his hand over the desk for Arielle to shake. “Welcome to the team. You’ll be reporting directly to Gerald. Are you good to start tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely I am.” She had a wide grin, and turned her attention to Gerald. “I guess they just couldn’t keep us apart. Glad to be working with you again.”

  “You’re gonna do big things for us,” Gerald said. “I just know it.”

  “Shall we have a drink in my office to celebrate?” Martin asked. “Assuming the construction crew hasn’t cleaned out my drawers.”

  They shared a laugh as they exited the conference room and started down the hallway, Martin beaming with pride at his first major accomplishment as commander.

  7

  Chapter 7

  “Today will change the future for all of us,” Thaddeus said to his room full of Road Killers, a fairly mixed group of Revolters and Liberators. “Las Vegas had long been a hideout for the Road Runners—an easy place to hide. It’s even easier when you own a hotel and casino behind the Strip. Now, I wonder that would happen if the whole building came crashing down?”

  The people in the room howled like loons, some of them whistling and clapping at the violent threats, prompting Thaddeus to raise his arms to hush the crowd.

  “Simmer down. There’s plenty for everyone to do. As you’ve read in your reports, it’s going to be a complete takeover before we blow it to the sky. Like the desert needs any more heat, am I right?”

  They broke into excited laughter.

  “Timing is the most important thing today. The hotel has thirty-six floors, and we’ll be starting the fires on the penthouse at exactly two o’clock. Every floor has someone assigned to it to start their own fires, but you must stick to the schedule to ensure the person on the floor above you has had time to escape. Remember to avoid elevators, as they are likely to be halted during an emergency. If we stick to the plan, we’ll create a domino effect with the fire, and the entire building will be up in flames by 3:12 sharp. You will see your colleagues running in the stairwell with you. That’s why I asked you all to specifically wear solid black hats today. If you see someone not in a black hat while you’re escaping, shoot them. Watch out for bodies when you’re descending the stairs. Thirty-six floors is a lot to cover—there’s bound to be hotel guests making a run for it. Are we clear?”

  All seventy people in the room nodded silently.

  “Perfect. Remember to stick to your role. If you’re assigned to setting a floor on fire and run into any issues, abandon your floor at the scheduled time. There will be more than enough to make up for it.”

  Thaddeus paused to check his watch.

  “It’s 11:30 now. Take the next hour to relax, maybe grab a drink. Then grab your bottle of kerosene and let’s head over at 12:30 to get into our positions. And most importantly, don’t forget to have fun!”

  This received a final round of hollering from the rowdy group. They had rented a meeting space in the Rio Hotel and Casino, just across the street from the Road Runner-owned Desert Oasis, an off-Strip casino and hotel meant to rival Rio and The Palms. Before the sun would set for the night, the Desert Oasis would no longer exist.

  The Road Runners held many of their secret meetings in the hotel’s underground, often containing upward of 400 members at any given time.

  400, Thaddeus kept thinking, smirking every time the number popped into his head. If that wouldn’t put a damper on the Road Runners’ collective spirits, then nothing would. By far the biggest massacre in their bloody history, Thaddeus was just glad to be the one leading the charge.

  It had been a grueling six months finding the right talent to pull off such an enormous task. Once the team was built, they needed to quickly infiltrate the proper businesses within the city, mainly the Desert Oasis hotel. Forty members of the team were hotel staff, hired on months ago in various roles to learn the ins and outs. They picked a day far out enough to guarantee they each had the day off to avoid any suspicion from the hotel management. Out of a total staff of 8,000, no one had the time to realize the connection between those who had requested the time off.

  Because the Road Runners messed up, Thaddeus thought. It wasn’t necessarily the Road Runners’ fault—they didn’t have the numbers to staff an entire hotel of their own. But they didn’t even bother installing a single member who dealt with the day-to-day, keeping themselves to positions of upper management who never mingled with hotel guests. Perhaps if they had sprinkled a few of their own among the front desk staff, the cleaning crew, and even the restaurant, they might have noticed the group of Revolters and Liberators infiltrating.

  But none of that happened, and they were now hours away from ending the existence of the newest attraction in Las Vegas. No more gourmet buffet, no more rooftop night clubs and swimming pools. Just a massive pile of forgotten memories.

  The anticipation pulsed under his skin, so Thaddeus decided to leave the Rio and get a head start. He had the entire team connected on the same radio channel, and his role was to stand on the outside corner to keep an eye on any potential police or firefighter activity that might arrive too early.

  When he stepped outside of the Rio, the typical wave of heat suffocated him, but he hardly noticed as he kept his gaze focused on the massive building across the street. The Desert Oasis had an exterior of golden windows, meant to look like sand in the desert, but just a shade darker. The building stood in the slightest U-curve, centering around the roundabout that served as the main entrance where limousines, taxis, and pedestrians alike packed into the area. The sun currently beat down on the back side of the hotel, leaving the front in a dark shade and sparing the eyes of anyone looking at its usual blinding glare.

  “You are a magnificent building,” he said. “It’s really a shame to tear all of this down for 400 Road Runners, but I suppose it’s the message we’re sending as well.”

  They had all grown an appreciation for the hotel, seeing as many of them spent the past six months working there. But like any dirty business, it was best to keep personal feelings out of the mix. He crossed the street and waited in the blistering heat for the next thirty minutes as the team gradually arrived.

  * * *

  The events started promptly at two o’clock. Moments before, everyone had given a quick shout into their radios to confirm that all were functioning. Thaddeus kept his volume low, and the radio held to his ear like a cell phone to keep any wandering eyes from spotting him looking suspicious. It was nearly impossible to stand out in Las Vegas, considering how many people flooded the sidewalks at any given moment, but he could
n’t take any chances. Not this time. Today was about executing a carefully planned drill.

  “Fire is set on the penthouse, beginning my descent,” the first voice crackled through the radio.

  Thaddeus gazed to the massive structure, knowing all hell was about to break loose inside.

  “Fire is set on the 35th floor, beginning my descent,” the next voice announced.

  They were each given instruction to inform of their progress in this specific manner, a virtual countdown for Thaddeus watching outside. From their calculations, a fire wouldn’t likely be visible until they had set floors 19 through 36 ablaze—flames and smoke possibly showing from the rooftop. Even with a gallon of kerosene per floor, fires needed time to grow and eventually rage beyond control.

  It took exactly ten seconds to run down one flight of stairs, rounding a corner with each. They calculated no more than ten minutes for the person on the penthouse to reach the safety of ground level, and that factored in plenty of time for progressing fatigue.

  A voice crackled through the radio every two minutes as planned. No issues or mistakes through the first half hour, for the first fifteen floors. Slightly ahead of schedule, however, was the sight of black smoke oozing from the top of the hotel. It wasn’t much, likely overlooked by the thousands of people below, but Thaddeus knew what it was, and grinned at the sight.

  “We have smoke, people,” he said into his radio, covering his mouth to keep his words for their intended audience. “Nothing to worry about yet, no one out here is paying any attention. Keep up the good work and stay on schedule.”

  The 18th floor announced their fire had been set, and they were now halfway finished. It would be another half hour until all members would be safely out of the building, but flames would certainly start to grow within the next few minutes.

  Thaddeus paced back and forth, making an effort to not hold his gaze on the building. People walked by and paid him no attention, many of them entering the hotel as if the whole thing weren’t about to come crashing down.

  He gasped at the first sight of a flame, the fiery orange breaking through the glass of the second floor from the top. “Holy shit!” Thaddeus exclaimed, a slight laugh escaping his lips. Still no one seemed to notice, so he practically whispered into his radio, “We have flames. Visible flames from the 35th floor.”

  Just as he said that, more windows blew out with monstrous clouds of fire, black smoke immediately following, chunks of glass clearly raining from above.

  “What the fuck?!” someone nearby shouted. Thaddeus swiveled around to see a young man likely in Vegas for the first time as a legal adult, eyes drawn to the top of the hotel. A crowd gathered behind him and followed his stare to the tragic scene.

  “Did something crash into the hotel?” a horrified woman asked, shielding her eyes as she gawked upward.

  “I didn’t see anything,” another said.

  “Where are we?” Thaddeus whispered into the radio and moving it straight to his ear. The radio had sounded during the commotion, but he could hardly hear over the excitement brewing outside.

  “Floor fourteen, sir,” someone replied.

  “Let’s keep it moving. Should be plenty of time, no need to panic yet.”

  Sirens had yet to sound in the distance, a good sign. And even once they did, it would take time for the emergency vehicles to reach the hotel. In all, they likely had ten more minutes before anyone arrived, and even then, their focus would be on the upper floors, not the fires burning everywhere else.

  In a matter of minutes, the crowd gathering on the corner intersection had swelled to at least one hundred people, many wandering over from the busy Strip. They watched helplessly as smoke and flames poured from the building, the chatter rising to a near panic.

  “Has any one called 9-1-1 yet?” a woman asked.

  “I did!” three different people shouted back.

  Sirens whined in the distance, prompting all of the bystanders to look around. Thaddeus knew the nearest fire station was one mile away—they might have even been able to see the flames as they loaded into the truck. Traffic had halted on the main road, everyone stopping to watch what would happen next, sure to cause a jam for the approaching firetruck.

  More glass blew out, bringing everyone’s attention back to the building.

  “No!” someone screamed. “Don’t do it!”

  Thaddeus didn’t understand, but looked up in time to see the small blip of a figure jump out of the shattered window, limbs twirling in the air like an acrobat. Time seemed to have slowed to a snail’s pace during that fall, but in reality it only took five seconds for that poor soul to splatter on the ground, exploding like a bug on a windshield.

  “Ohmygod,” an older man mumbled, clutching his stomach as he forced his way through the crowd to vomit in the same grass where Thaddeus stood.

  The group fell eerily silent, the only sounds that of the screeching fire sirens, now a couple blocks away, and the crackling of the fire that had grown to engulf the upper six floors.

  It appeared that no one inside realized what was occurring—only a handful of people had run out.

  Thaddeus raised his radio and whispered, “Send in the barricades.”

  Like everything else that had been planned to the finest detail, Thaddeus wanted minimal numbers exiting through the main entrance. Two double-decker buses had parked along the long driveway that led to the entrance’s roundabout, right where they were supposed to be. These drivers were part of the team, having driven these buses for the last three months up and down the Strip.

  Their job was to crash the buses into the main entrance and impede the doors. Their engines roared, loud enough to be heard over the sirens that were now navigating through a sea of cars, having less luck than Moses trying to part the Red Sea. The tires squealed, sending small puffs of smoke onto the sidewalk where a dozen people jumped away in fright.

  They peeled off, swerving at first, one bus following the other like marching ants, but regaining control just in time. All eyes focused on the buses, the flames above a mere afterthought in the heat of the moment. The lead bus barreled through a limousine and two taxi cabs, metal crunching like 1,000 cans of soda in unison. The few people who remained at the hotel entrance realized the bus was coming in their direction and scattered like flies being shooed. They gasped and screamed, everyone dodging the over-sized vehicles.

  The path had been cleared and both buses rammed into the building, causing the glass doors to shatter, their remnants spread all over the ground like snow. The bus doors swung open on both vehicles, each with a tumbling man leaping from the short stairs and dashing away from the hotel without looking back.

  Just as they had done so, the first firetruck arrived, following the same path as the buses, but stopping short of the entrance where nine firefighters jumped out and immediately looked to the top of the hotel. A couple darted toward the smashed entrance, while three more started unraveling the hose.

  They think the fire’s only up there, Thaddeus thought with a grin. They don’t even know the worst is yet to come.

  He had his radio near his head and listened as his team stuck to the plan inside. They were down to the fifth floor, ten more minutes before everything would be set aflame. They could probably all make a run for it and still be fine, but Thaddeus wasn’t one to cut corners. They had a plan that was working brilliantly, no point in stopping it now.

  A second firetruck arrived, swerving down the sidewalk as their colleagues surely had informed them of the erupting chaos. More firefighters scrambled from the truck, bolting for the two buses and rocking them back and forth in a desperate attempt to move them.

  They didn’t budge and Thaddeus chuckled to himself, knowing they had specifically picked those vehicles for that reason.

  “Are we clear yet?” he asked into the radio.

  “Last floor,” a panicked voice cried in response.

  “Perfect, let’s get the dynamite ready, folks. We have the scene we nee
d out here.”

  Thaddeus pushed his way through the crowd that had easily grown to 500 ogling people. The building would implode and collapse within itself, very much a controlled demolition, but he wanted to be further away just in case any debris managed to fly outward.

  “We’re all clear, sir,” the radio said.

  “In two minutes, detonate the bombs,” Thaddeus said calmly, like it was an order he had given hundreds of times in his life.

  Everyone from inside had been instructed to run south from the building, the opposite direction of the growing crowd where Thaddeus blended in. Two minutes was plenty of time for someone in a dead sprint to get away before it all came crashing down.

  Thaddeus took one last chance to savor the moment, admiring what he managed to put together. Surely Chris would approve, but he didn’t really care what the old man thought. This turned into a much more gorgeous gathering than he had anticipated, and this whole crowd had a front row seat to watch the collapse—both literally and figuratively—of the Road Runners.

  With a smirk unraveling across his face, Thaddeus checked his watch and spoke into the radio. “It’s showtime, folks. Thank you for all of your hard work today. Bring this beautiful building down.”

  He powered off the radio and tossed it in a nearby trashcan, walking away from the booming sound of explosions and screams.

  8

  Chapter 8

  The Road Runners had long held an open-door policy. All members were welcome to visit any offices, and even request meetings with local leadership, all the way up to the commander.

  They had always been a peaceful bunch, too, until the televised execution of Commander Strike. Now, members lived on edge and would rather give up their unique lives as Road Runners instead of living in fear from Chris Speidel and his supporters.

  Martin had insisted on keeping his headquarters in the downtown Denver office, and at the time there hadn’t been any reason to doubt the decision. Road Runners had fallen completely inactive and uninvolved with the day-to-day operations of their organization, and the office was a shell of what it once had been.