chapter TWENTY-NINE: The Red Shirts
"The title 'Red Shirt' was one limited to dark alleyways and isolated rooms. Generally spoken by those of the White House administration and political and government analysts, even by some more-informed conspiracy theorists, around the time of the incident at Hell's Outpost and afterwards, it was a term used to highlight someone as a target of the Patriot and his supporters. With the connections between the Vice President and the Patriot growing stronger, enemies of the Vice were quickly added to the list and the Red Shirts were forced into hiding."
~*~
Brant and Fox stood before the door of the rotting two-story. Fox raised his hand to the door, ready to knock, when a voice slithered through the keyhole: "Come around the back. The cellar. 2657." Fox lowered his hand slowly and started, with Brant at his side, around the corner of the house. The side and back yards were small, caged in by a tall white fence. Vines were growing up the fence to their right, as well as the wall of the house to their left, and when they turned around the back of the house they found the same vines climbing the back wall, two old, yet shriveled, trees leaning against the house, leaves all dead and withered on the grassy floor below, among which Fox caught a glimpse of rusted metal.
The two of them went forward, kneeling beside the heaps of leaves and brushing them aside to reveal a large red cellar door, its handle twisted out of place and rust etching intricate designs along its surface. Beside the twisted handle was a break in the door, its faint crack shaping into a small square piece. Fox picked at its edges and lifted the square sheet, beneath which there was a tiny keypad. "2657," he said aloud, reciting the number he heard spoken at the front door. He punched the digits into the keypad and replaced the small square piece of metal. There was a blip and a release of pressure as the cellar door lifted itself just an inch. Fox grabbed it from there and pulled it wide open.
The sun, its heat blistering and uncommon for the time of year, hardly helped in illuminating the cellar, but Fox, after gesturing to Brant to have his gun at the ready, stepped briskly inside. Brant followed, shutting the door behind and hearing it blip once more. Locked. And then, in the darkness, there came a voice – the same they had heard at the front door.
"Reach forward and you'll feel a ladder." At that very moment, a panel in the ceiling of the cellar slid open and a long stream of light fell over the ladder. Caught in the light were dust clouds so thick Brant was not sure how he was still breathing. The rungs of the ladder were rusting and old, left over, surely, from ages gone by. "Come on up," the voice said again. "We're waiting."
~*~
Snake was still huddled over Raiden, his tears dry but his whole body aching with a terrible sadness. Raiden's sweat and tears had also dried, the blood had stopped flowing from his wounds, and his eyes had not opened. He was not returning. For a fleeting moment he thought he saw life in his lips, believed he saw them quiver, but he had not. There was nothing but a peaceful repose, a silent shell. Raiden was gone. All that was left was this imposter, this mask. But it was something. Something Snake could hold onto.
There was a swift movement over his shoulder, a grunt and a gasp, and then two loud thuds. Snake shot a quick look over his shoulder and started when he saw May standing solitary in the hall behind him, the two Spetsnaz lying in heaps on the floor. There was an odd stillness to the man's stature. As Snake eyed him, though only briefly, he thought it possible that the man wasn't even breathing as he stood there, feet stable upon an invisible platform of air that rested just inches above the floor itself.
"What's that about?" Snake growled, sorrow laid thick on his voice. He turned back to Raiden, whose head still lay on his knee, as if unconcerned with the answer.
"He is in good hands," May said softly. "I suggest you keep a sharp eye out for the demon…you know, I saw him. I caught a quick glance. A whisper…a shadow of his face." Snake was tired. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't even want to move. "He fights like a legend, but he is new to the battlefield. His skin does not show the age…" Snake made no response, just looked down on Raiden's pale face and shut his eyes. May spun around, his back now toward Snake.
"I will be slow to inform the rest of your escape," he said, his voice delicate as always. "If you are wise you will leave immediately. Where you go to, I have no hints. But, with your friend dead you have nothing here. I will take care of the rest."
'Take care of the rest?' Snake thought, and as he whipped his head around he saw nothing but the two Spetsnaz lying on the floor of the hall, necks twisted and snapped. "Go, Solid Snake," May's voice repeated in his mind. "Go quickly." A cold wind shot down the hall and then there was plain silence. Snake looked down upon Raiden again before speaking lightly under his breath and easing his head off his knee. He rested it on the floor and slid back before standing and examining the halls. He could go one of two directions.
"If I'm going to kill him," he said, referring to the demon as if speaking directly to Raiden, "I'll need my gun." And with just one more look on Raiden, seeing his face relaxed and calm, he turned and followed the others.
~*~
When Brant emerged from the cellar, pulling himself out of the small trapdoor and making to stand in a brightly lit hallway, Fox was all ready standing, facing two men who both wore white button-ups with their collars unbuttoned and their sleeves rolled up to their elbows. One of them was a little fat, some thick-rimmed glasses resting on the tip of his pudgy nose, and the other was 'normal' with his hair cropped close to his head and his dress pants worn slightly baggier than the first. Both of them smiled lightly and nodded to Brant, almost as if considering their brief gesture to be some sort of salute.
"We were informed that you'd be coming to lend us a hand," the fatter man said. Brant looked questioningly at Fox who made no response. "Sorry if the cellar door was any sort of inconvenience – come this way – but the front door doesn't work." He'd begun to lead them into a room off to the left, in which there was a closet, guarded by a key code and three locks, which opened onto a stairway. "That's kind of the point of it, actually. I mean, it does open, but only from the inside and only after you enter about a thousand codes and key cards and – well, I figured the cellar door would be less of a hassle." They stopped at the base of the stairs, the walls on either side crumbling. The hallway had been bright and normal, but it seemed outward appearance didn't quite matter when they moved into the more secure areas of the building.
"Here we are," the fatter one continued, pulling a card key from his pants pocket and sliding it through a slot in the door frame. There was a beep, followed by three manual locks unlocking, before the door clicked and opened from the inside. The fat man held the door open for Fox and Brant who stepped inside the large basement area, walls the same as on either side of the stairs, but a long panel of computer terminals stretching from the left side of the room to the right, and small and large monitors covering the entire back wall. There were men, all wearing dress shirts or suits, reclining in chairs around the room or typing on the terminals or scribbling things on yellow legal pads. There was so much busyness in this cramped room, so much more than Fox or Brant had expected. The rest of the house, much as FOX-HOUND had done, was treated as a mask or a cover. But the equipment, the computers – all of it had been here for a while.
"An associate of yours by the name of Simon West said that you had information on the Vice President," the slimmer, more muscular man said. "We are, as you have probably all ready guessed, supporters of the President. Over the past few years we've found increasing amounts of information that have inclined us to believe the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Alex Moore, is plotting to remove his superior from office." As he spoke, he guided Fox and Brant through the small room, letting them catch glimpses from the monitors and computer terminals as they went by. "Our growing knowledge of the Vice President's more confidential doings has put our very lives in danger and so we were forced into hiding. This is our home as well as our office. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the term, but we're considered, by the current administration and others who are experienced with the dealings of the Patriot, Red Shirts – targets of the Patriot and now, since it seems they're in league with each other, the Vice President as well."
"If you don't mind my forwardness," the fatter man said, seeming to appear out of nowhere at Fox's side, "what is it, exactly, that you know about the Vice President? Mr. West told us you knew something that we might not."
A man broke into the room through the door Fox and Brant had come, someone having all ready unbolted it, with a worried look on his face. Picking up a remote from one of the computer desks at the back of the room, he stepped backward and aimed the device at the monitors on the wall. Fox and Brant, along with the fat and well-kempt men, watched as a television broadcaster appeared on three of the larger monitors, her voice exploding around the room. Everyone was still.
"Something big happened," the man who'd just come through the door announced, just before the picture of the broadcaster jumped to that of a leveled apartment building – among the rubble, the brass numbers once pinned to the door of Norman Keys' apartment most likely laying hidden. Fox and Brant both watched as every man or woman in the room – only two women standing in a corner and conversing quietly – stared, either angry or shocked, at the image.
"This is what remains of a many-storied apartment building on the east side of Charleston, apparently collapsed just moments ago. Witnesses of the event claim they saw explosions, beginning on the highest floor and moving down through the building. Police officials who've just arrived on the scene are giving much thought to the possibility of terrorist involvement, but they're not saying much more. They have, though, released a possible missing-persons count, based upon the number of residents signed in the building, and the number has reached near a hundred and seventy. Some witnesses are also claiming to have seen two people, assumed men, leaving the site just after the explosion."
The fat man and the other man looked at Fox and Brant, both of whom looked back, Brant hiding a strange smile. "You know who we are," the fat one said, the rest of the people in the room turning in their chairs to face Fox and Brant, "now who are you? And what do you know?"
Fox shrugged and jerked a thumb toward the monitors. "We know about that."