The UH-60 Black Hawk settled with a jolt on the heliport. To the northwest, a short, winding road snaked upward toward a security checkpoint featuring a swing arm gate and a guard shack. Beyond the checkpoint and in-between two rows of razor-wire fences stood the imposing and dimly-lit tunnel entrance of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center.

The helicopter’s crew chief slid open the cabin door once the rotors spun to a halt. The dust from their landing began to settle, and Alex hopped out and shielded her eyes against the Colorado sun. Warm air gusted over her face and brought a smile. Colorado Springs spread out from the Front Range, granting her a view of Fort Carson at the base of the mountain all the way to Peterson Air Force Base across town.

The team had flown to Peterson onboard a C-130 from one of the Directorate’s forward outposts near Dayton, Ohio. Once there, they had parted ways: the team members heading for their post-mission equipment turn-ins and then their barracks rooms at Carson while she hopped a ride to the mountain. She would have enjoyed the flight more if not for the passenger sitting across from her under the watch of three military policemen.

A man in a blue uniform approached from a pair of idling Humvees in the adjacent lot. Her smile widened, and she waved and then ran to meet Brigadier General Eugene Lunde. As she embraced him, he set his hands on her shoulders. She winced with pain and drew back.

“Alex!” Lunde said with concern. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a bad bruise, I think. Nothing’s broken.”

Lunde gave her a broad smile and drew her to him more carefully. “Well, welcome back!”

He was tall and lanky with neatly combed grey hair and sunken cheeks. His rusty voice possessed a slight hint of a Boston accent. He was in his mid-sixties, several years older than her father, and served as the Directorate’s deputy commander. For as long as Alex could remember, he had stood by her father’s side helping to direct the facility’s day-to-day operations while also overseeing missions across the Directorate. Except for her father, Lunde was the closest she had to family.

“Your father is in a meeting. He’ll see you inside.” Lunde released her and glanced at the Black Hawk. The three guards escorted Webb from the aircraft. Although a blindfold covered Webb’s eyes, he paused and turned toward her. A chill spread across her back and shoulders despite the midday heat.

One of the guards shoved Webb forward and then guided him toward the waiting Humvees.

“He gives me the creeps,” Alex said, something she would not have admitted to anyone but Lunde. “Why are we holding him here instead of on Carson or Peterson?”

“Your father’s orders. Extra… security.”

Alex nodded, slowly. How was she supposed to sleep knowing Webb was inside the mountain? This was her home. Not a place for… him. Hopefully, they would throw Webb into a deep dark corner and toss away the key.

Lunde went on, “Your father and the Committee are considering an appropriate… response.”

“Are we going to war?”

Lunde pursed his lips before answering. “From what I heard about your experience, we already are at war.”

Her gaze drifted back across the Springs. From here, the largest hangar on Peterson stood out as a rectangular grey blotch against the green hills further east. The winged beast inside was supposedly the Directorate’s ultimate deterrent. What would happen now that deterrence had failed? Whatever the case, the NEA had brought it on themselves. Except…

Alex closed her eyes and was back on the now-sunken bridge gawking at Shepherd. His rifle’s barrel sizzled from the touch of the drizzle. An ambush or a welcoming party?

“Are you ready?” Lunde said.

“Yeah,” she answered, softly.

Alex and Lunde walked to the remaining Humvee. Lunde got into the front passenger seat while Alex moved in behind him. The driver gunned the engine and started the vehicle up the sidewinder road toward the facility’s entrance portal.

Lunde leaned over the back of his seat. “I want you to know that all of us are very proud of you.”

She frowned while struggling to avoid reliving the events of New York.

“Nothing on your mission went as we expected, but you helped to bring our men home.”

“We lost Hensley and Neill.” Saying their names caused her throat to close up and her eyes to water. “I… I didn’t help bring them home.”

“Alex, you weren’t responsible for that!” The concern and affection in his voice was too much. She put her head down and sobbed.

“Stop here for a minute, son,” Lunde said to the driver.

“Sir.”

Lunde got out of the vehicle and then scooted into the back next to Alex. He put his arms around her, avoiding her right shoulder.

“They were good men,” Alex said. “I-I should have been able to do something. I was right there. I let them get killed.”

“If you hadn’t been there, no one would have come back.”

“Shepherd would have got them back.”

Lunde released her and then smiled and gave her left shoulder a gentle squeeze. “If you feel that way, you should put in a good word with your father.”

She rubbed at her eyes. “Why? Was he angry I got captured?”

“Well… I heard him use language he’s never used before.”

“It was my fault. I should have paid more attention. But he came back for me. That’s what matters, right?”

“Your father may not see it that way. Just remember, you did well out there.” He regarded her for a moment, and after she managed a weak smile, he returned to the front seat and gestured for the driver to continue up the road.

They slowed at the security checkpoint. The driver and Lunde flashed their badges to the guard who approached from the guard shack. The young officer leaned into the vehicle and saw Alex.

“Ma’am. Welcome back!”

She recognized Lieutenant Harvey Beall. Almost the same age as Alex, he was widely reported to have a crush on the general’s daughter.

She managed a brave smile. “Hi, Harv… Lieutenant Beall.”

Beall stood straight and saluted. Ahead, the Humvee carrying Webb vanished beyond the portal. The operations center was a close-knit community, and everyone who worked here knew each other by name. Nevertheless, the facility’s entry and exit security procedures required every person or vehicle to submit to a search. Only her father and Lunde came and went as they pleased.

“What can you tell me about our prisoner?” Lunde said.

“He’s like me, I guess. He can block my abilities somehow.”

“Well, he won’t be interfering anymore. He’ll be sedated and kept under heavy guard.”

The daylight vanished as they passed beneath the entrance portal’s archway toward the mountain’s inner complex. Alex often mused that if the 22-foot high and 30-foot wide portal sat anywhere else in Colorado Springs, it would appear gigantic – large enough to accommodate one of the colossal main battle tanks down the road at Fort Carson. But against the sheer granite massif rising nearly ten thousand feet above, everything looked small by comparison.

The mile-long tunnel through the heart of the mountain served as a channel to funnel off the shockwave of a nuclear explosion. A complex maze of pipes and cables clung to the walls. The dull fluorescent bulbs plugged into ancient and rusting fixtures cast long shadows across the concrete. Although the facility was less than glamorous, it was the most heavily defended stronghold in the country, and she had long since come to accept it as her home.

After several hundred meters, the driver parked short of an immense, 25-ton blast door on the right side of the tunnel. A pair of guards watched as they got out of the Humvee. Lunde flashed his ID before gesturing Alex to follow. A breeze caught Alex’s hair in the next space, an imposing rock-walled antechamber leading to a second blast door identical to the first. First-time visitors to the facility often looked confused upon feeling the cool draft. The facility’s builders had intended the overpressure system to protect against fallout as well as chemical or biological attacks. Some credited that very system for everyone’s survival during the outbreaks.

Beyond that second blast door, the granite tunnel branched into three passageways leading to different sections of the complex. Dozens of bolted compression plates along the rock walls and ceiling held up a stainless steel mesh to prevent boulders and pebbles from tumbling down during an earthquake or explosion. Pallets of supplies including canned food, water bottles, and even pre-outbreak toilet paper rolls sat against the walls.

Alex followed Lunde down the main passageway toward the first of the operations center’s eleven buildings. At the end of the passage, the three-story reinforced steel wall of Building One rose toward the ceiling where the dark netting transitioned to dusty tarps. Bold text over the wall’s chipping white paint read: WELCOME TO CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN COMPLEX.

Home sweet home, Alex thought although part of her envied the rest of her team and their quarters outside the mountain beneath the blue skies.

During the outbreaks, the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center had sheltered over a thousand people. Alex recalled little of that first year save for chaotic impressions of a helicopter flight and men and women running down the tunnel and everyone living side-by-side on bunk beds. These days, while numerous personnel still worked inside the facility, only a few dozen actually lived inside the mountain. The Directorate’s stronghold had taken on mythological status over the past decade with few people, military or civilian, allowed inside.

“You actually live in Mole City?” Hensley had said during Alex’s first meeting with the team on Fort Carson.

She nodded, sheepishly, still shy with the men and self-conscious in her new fatigues.

“What’s it like in there?” Williams said.

“Heard it’s just a big cave,” Paul said.

“Well, it is…” Alex said. “But it’s more like tunnels than a cave.”

“Sure, the portal goes into the blast tunnel,” Park said.

Hensley elbowed him. “Candy ass here brags about how he’s been inside because of his dad, but when you press him on it, he barely remembers anything.”

Alex had studied Park in that moment. Had they grown up together in the mountain? Perhaps only the first year. She would have remembered him if he had lived there much longer. And as she regarded the nametape on his uniform, she wondered, Is he related to that Park?

“So, what can you tell us?” Williams said.

“Stop badging her for classified information,” Murray growled. “You want to get your clearance revoked before we even start training?”

“I don’t think it’s classified, exactly,” Alex said.

“Need-to-know,” Shepherd said.

“Well, you guys might need to know since we’re on a team now, right? Like in case we have briefings or something inside the mountain?”

“Right!” Williams said. “Exactly.”

Murray rolled his eyes but kept quiet. The other men including Shepherd gathered closer.

“Like I was saying, it’s not exactly a big cavern but a bunch of crisscrossing tunnels they dug out. The buildings are all inside those tunnels in a grid. They’re really close together but not touching. They have little walkways that connect them on every floor. And they’re all standing on these huge springs, too. That was in case a nuclear missile ever went off nearby. It would help them survive the shock.”

“I heard there’s a swimming pool,” Paul said.

Alex laughed. “I wish. It’s a reservoir for drinking water. We can’t swim in it.”

“Do you like swimming?” Neill said.

“Whenever I can get to the pool on Peterson.”

“If you need a partner, let me know. I was on the winning team last—”

“All right,” Shepherd said with a hint of warning. “We’re here to start training, not spend all day with chit-chat. Pops, let’s load up and get to the range.”

Lunde climbed the stairs to Building One’s first-floor entrance. As Alex followed, she peered into the shadows beneath the structure at the rows of four-foot-tall, thousand-pound steel springs. Although waist-high fences surrounded the buildings to keep people out of the tunnel chambers, she had spent much of her childhood winding through those twisted, white-painted forests while spying on the comings and goings of the facility. The cats that lived inside the mountain to deal with vermin had come to appreciate her presence, often curling up in her lap as she sat envying those who could so easily depart the mountain’s confines for the openness of the Springs.

Inside, Alex followed Lunde through the dull white and narrow corridors. The color-coding of the trim helped orient people inside the operations facility – each building had its own color – but otherwise, it was easy to get lost within the labyrinth of hallways leading past office spaces and staff rooms and watch floors. When they finally arrived at Building Eight at the opposite corner of the complex, Lunde opened the door to her father’s office and gestured inside. “He’ll be here soon. I'll let him know that you're here. It’s good to have you back, Alexandra.”

“Thanks, Gene.”

Lunde left the office and shut the door. Alex went to the couch and sat down. Paintings and photographs of strategic bombers, fighter jets, and intercontinental ballistic missiles decorated her father’s office at Peterson. Here in the mountain, though, he kept things Spartan. Empty walls. Empty desk. Empty coffee table. Except…

A framed eight-by-ten photograph sat on the bookcase behind his desk. She and her father were standing in front of the facility’s entrance portal. Both looked serious and reserved. She had just joined Shepherd’s team and was trying very hard to look professional. Her father towered over her. He was so proud that day, she recalled, remembering that when he had said “Congratulations” at the ceremony, his voice had been thick with emotion.

Another photogram: she was sitting in her mother’s lap, looking grim and pouting, a spoiled four-year-old. Nevertheless, her parents were smiling. Her father looked almost young, and she had never seen him smile that way since. His right arm was around her mother, touching her lightly on the right shoulder. He looked proud and confident. Her mother was luminous with short brown hair that formed a corona around her face. Her eyes were steel blue and always kind, loving, and reassuring. Moreover, there was the beautiful smile. Alex hoped that when she smiled, she looked like her mother.

The office door opened.

Alex stood expecting to see her father. Instead, a gaunt, middle-aged man in black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt walked into the room. His striking green eyes found her and locked with her own. His belt supported a sturdy holster carrying a large polymer and steel handgun and two spare magazines.

She recognized the man as Jack Ellzey, an agent of the Directorate’s Executive Committee. He had overseen much of her training and participated in the team’s simulated missions. Even working together, the team had never beaten Ellzey. After one of the exercises, he had confronted them and sneered: “You babies really aren’t ready for the big time, are you?” That was the first moment she had seen anger on Shepherd’s face.

Ellzey held out his hand. “Ms. Bedford, welcome back.” His cheerful voice contradicted his lizard-like eyes.

She reluctantly held out her own hand and gave his firm grip a weak reply. She felt annoyed and confused, two emotions she always associated with Ellzey. The Directorate’s regulations forbade firearms inside the mountain except for the guards. Ellzey wore his handgun like a badge of honor as if boasting that he was above the Directorate’s rules.

Ellzey released her limp grip and grinned. “So, what were you going to tell Papa?”

She flushed. “That’s for him to know.”

Ellzey clucked his tongue, making a sound like a gecko. If only she could squash him like one. “So Daddy’s little girl isn’t going to tell Uncle Jack.”

She kept silent. He’s just a flunky. Don’t let him get to you.

The fake smile vanished as Ellzey’s voice took on a hard edge, “The Committee… and I… want to know what Colonel Martin said to you.”

“General Martin.”

“That tin-horned imbecile can call himself whatever he wants. Archangel Martin for all I care.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

Ellzey’s eyes and voice turned hard as emeralds. “You may be afforded certain privileges, but you will not defy the Committee.”

Alex took an involuntary step back toward her father’s desk. “The Committee can hear what General Martin told me after I talk to my dad.”

Ellzey approached her. “The Committee wants to hear the full and first-hand account of your conversation with the general. We’re not interested in the sops your father is willing to throw us.”

“I don’t care what the Committee wants. I’m not talking to you until I see my dad.”

Ellzey smiled his serpentine grin. “Come now. We don’t have to be adversaries. As you know, the Committee runs the Directorate, not the military. We wouldn’t want… unpleasant confrontations.”

“Are you threatening me? Do you know what my father would do if I tell him you came in here and—”

“I can go where I choose. I take my orders from the Committee. We control the Directorate. My authority exceeds that of your father. You will tell the Committee what they want to know.”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

Ellzey glanced at his watch and then shook his head. For an instant, she caught worry in his eyes. “I’ll see you again.”

To her surprise, Ellzey retreated and opened the door. His breath caught in his throat as he jerked back and nearly fell over.

General Henry Bedford wore a blue uniform adorned with four polished silver stars on each shoulder and a myriad of service ribbons partially covered by his left lapel. He held open a ringed binder, which he closed and lowered as he removed his reading glasses. Ellzey seemed to shrivel under his cold stare, and he mutely stepped back as Bedford advanced into the office.

“Agent Ellzey, you left our meeting early,” Bedford said. “I didn’t know you were going to… welcome my daughter back.”

Ellzey cleared his throat. The cocky assurance in his voice had vanished, and Alex noted with approval that he seemed to physically deflate in her father’s presence. “I-I wanted to… the Committee instructed me to ask about Martin.”

Bedford ignored Ellzey. “Who gave you the authority to enter my office?”

“I don’t need your authorization. The Committee instructed—”

“Your position may allow you to enter this facility but if I find you trespassing in my office again, I’ll have you shot.”

“You don’t have the authority.”

“Regardless, my men will follow my orders.”

“This won’t be—”

“Go back to the Committee and tell them what you want. You will not speak to my daughter without my permission. Do you understand me, Agent Ellzey?”

Ellzey glared at Bedford for a long moment. “I understand.”

“Then leave.”

Ellzey’s cheeks reddened as he stepped around Bedford and left the room. Bedford shut the door and then walked to his desk and set down his binder. His eyes remained focused toward the desk, his fingertips resting against the wooden surface. He seemed less certain now and did not meet Alex’s gaze. What’s wrong? Is he having second thoughts about Ellzey?

Before Alex could react, he approached and then embraced her in a tight hug. He had so little time to spend with her these days, and it was even less commonplace for him to show such signs of affection. In the years since the outbreaks, he had become more authoritative, reserved, and distant.

After recovering from the shock of the embrace, she raised her arms and returned the hug.

“Welcome back, Alexandra.”

“I’m sorry the mission went so wrong.”

“No. There’s no need to apologize.” He stepped back but then paused before returning to his desk and shaking his head. “We didn’t think the NEA would attack us so blatantly. But that doesn’t matter now. They’ve made their intentions clear.”

He indicated a chair in front of the desk. She took her seat. He sat in his own high-backed chair, placing it sideways to the desk. He closed his eyes and brushed a hand over them as if trying to wipe away a bad memory.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “What did Agent Ellzey want?”

“He wanted to know what General Martin told me.”

“I see.” Bedford’s face took on a dark look. “Did you tell him anything?”

“I told him I wouldn’t say anything until I talked to you.”

“Good.” He crossed one of his legs over the other and leaned on the desk with his left elbow. Even in the dim lighting, she saw the familiar sags and jowls on his face. His hair, once dark brown, was now a shade of grey.

She looked at her lap. “Why… didn’t you ever tell me you knew General Martin?”

A long silence lingered in the wake of her question. She kept her eyes down, waiting. Finally, her father said quietly, “What did J— General Martin say?”

“He said you were friends once.”

“We were very close. In a way, I’m glad you saw him. How did he… look?”

“He was wearing a mask.”

“A mask?”

“He said something about a birthmark.”

A faint smile crossed Bedford’s face and then vanished. He pulled himself to the desk and braced his elbows on the edge, folding his hands in front of him. If she had tried, she could have reached out and touched him.

“It’s true. We were friends. He was there with me when you were born. He was there when you were baptized. We lived in Fairfax, Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington. He worked at a desk analyzing reports. I was being groomed for a higher calling.

“I had to spend a lot of long hours in the Pentagon. So did John, but he at least got out to see the sun. He even had an out-facing window. On weekends or holidays, when I was working, I asked John, as a favor, to see your mother. This was before you were born. They’d go up to the Adirondacks or go sailing off the Massachusetts coast. Kate… your mother and John both looked great after these jaunts. And it made me happy to see they enjoyed each other’s company.”

A cold feeling spread through her chest as she recalled what she had seen through the holes in Martin’s mask: the steel-blue eyes, the same color as her mother’s and the same color as her own. She wished she had not brought John Martin to her father’s attention.

“I’m not sure exactly what he told you. But…” Her father’s voice trailed off and he looked up and around the office, avoiding her eyes. She had never seen him at such a loss.

Bedford gazed down at his hands, folded on the desk, a touch away from hers. He cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had the low, throaty tone that often accompanied his words when he spoke of her mother. “I am your father. Your mother and I raised you.” He hesitated and again cleared his throat. “But… John Martin is your biological father.”

Her mind recoiled. No! She gripped the edge of the desk, feeling as though she might snap through the polished wooden surface.

Her father looked up with an apologetic expression. His lower eyelashes were wet with tears.

But couldn’t you guess? Didn’t you know when you heard his voice, saw his eyes behind that ridiculous mask? The way he said your name. Just like a father. Just like…

Bedford’s gaze returned to his folded hands. “I couldn’t have kids. I knew Kate wanted children, but the tests all came back that it was me.

“We had some discussions about it, John and I. Kate was dead-set against it. She was very religious. That’s why I knew nothing… physical happened between them. Your mother was very strict about such things.”

She noticed she had stopped breathing as she listened, and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths.

“On several of those occasions when all three of us were together, we hashed it out. It was logical, I thought. I couldn’t have kids. Kate wanted a child. I think John was embarrassed more than anything. We were talking about him as if he were a stud horse. I knew for Kate’s sake he did not want to do it. But at the time it seemed to be the only feasible way to go.

“So, finally, she agreed. It wasn’t done the… usual way, but through artificial insemination. You see, I researched John, his background, his entire family tree. It went all the way back to the Middle Ages. I found out one of his great-great-great ancestors had been a highway robber and was hanged at a crossroads in England. One of the women in his background had been a high-class prostitute and fathered a son to a duke. But there was no evidence of… genetic disorders. Hemophilia, diabetes, cancer. Nothing. Genetically he was pure.

“I won’t go into all the gory details, but it worked. Like a charm. Your mother was pregnant. You were born. We all lived… happily ever after.” The loneliness and sadness in those words covered them like a funeral shroud.

She felt paralyzed as she stared at her father. The Directorate’s propaganda machine had vilified Martin and the NEA for years. How could he be her biological father? Impossible. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. But…

Bedford reached his hand toward her. “Alexandra…” Without thinking, she recoiled and dropped her hands from the desk. The hurt in her father’s eyes immediately made her regret her action.

“I-I’m sorry.” Unable to look at him, she stood from the chair and turned away.

“Alexandra!” he said, but she ignored him as she fled out into the adjoining corridor.

By memory and instinct, she found her way to her room. She tapped her passcode into the keypad and then opened the door and slipped inside. After locking the door behind her, she went to her bed and turned on her dresser lamp. Her mattress felt warm and comfortable as she sat and then laid back and looked up at the ceiling. She half expected and half hoped to hear a knock on the door or her father asking her to let him in, but the only sounds were the whirr of the air conditioning and the occasional footsteps passing in the hall.

As she turned away from the light on her dresser, the painting on the wall drew her gaze. She stared at the work of art, taking in the whirlpool night sky and the brilliant stars. Less than a minute later after closing her eyes, she was asleep.