ALICE

Chapter 52: TUNNEL

As Taco drove, Alice scanned the horizon for anything that had their heart set on murdering them, but she could see nothing. It was not long before they reached the main road out of the valley and towards the LSF family residence area, where the spy’s girlfriend was reported to be.

 "We need to be sure the LSF don't get to her first. Undoubtedly she would be shipped off to Threader." Taco said not taking his eyes off the road.

 "Threader?" Alice said, recognizing the name but not sure of what it meant.

 "Need-to-know, General." He said, grinning.

 "You seem to forget what that rank means."

 "It's a lot of things, one of which it's a prison."

 "In the file, it said there was a prison at this base."

 "There is. Smaller though."

 As Angel sat in the back, a small submachine gun lying on his lap, he thought of what he needed, his personal reasons for doing this mission. Lauren was in this base. He needed to find her.

 (Break)

 "Tunnel. There. Yes." Taco said, laughing.

 It was a dark hole in the side of a snow cliff. It was perfect if it was taking them to the house. Almost twenty feet of snow was packed overtop of the tunnel, looking as though it was there all year around, ready to collapse at any moment. But the LSF were nothing if not careful. The front of the cave was guarded by LSF in border uniform; a tinted full-face visor gas-mask, a white jacket, and of all things, despite the freezing weather, light cargo pants and running boots.

 The truck was third in a line of similar trucks, though none as distinct as the captain's squad jeep with the two people in the cab who were most the certainly not the captain. Taco grabbed the gun on the dashboard and slid into a place just as accesible but more hidden from someone peering through the windshield.

 Alice began to break a cold sweat that was like ice down her back as she saw the heavily armed guards, the watchful sniper on top of the tunnel, the inevitable handgun or rifle at the side of every man. She watched as the lead man, gas-mask hiding his presumably hard features, peered into the cabin, with people checking under the car, in the back, sweeping it with metal detectors and generally doing everything Alice did not want them to do. But of course these men had nothing to hide.

 It was different with the next car.

 The guards slid their rifles on the belts around so they were in front of them, ready to fire or threaten. The sniper took a look at the shaggy haired man and the obviously female one in the balaclava. The main guard seargent placed his hand on the gun on his side as he paced over to the car that was just pulling up.

 "ID."

 Taco took the lead here. "We're new around here, Eff-Oh-Bees, you know? Captain said we could take his car over to the residences, know a girl, Jenna Hopkins, who does photography for ID's and such."

 "Would you know where the captain is so I can call for confirmation?"

 "In his tent, but we only have this car for an hour until he starts making heads roll. Call for confirmation now, but let us go, because you're the one he's gonna gut first."

 "Jenna’s a photographer now eh?” He said, remembering the cute, perky little girl who he had met a couple times. “She have like, a ‘portfolio’ or something?" The guard said with a sly grin.

 "Oh like that. Yeah she does, here's her number." Taco said, smiling devilishly back. He wrote a phone number down on the most conveniently placed paper shred and handed it to him.

 "Alright. Drive in. See ya later." Said the man, still grinning.

 When the car was gone and the guard went to sit back down to his novel and coffee in his heated lounge, one of the search team members came up to him with a worried look. "Why didn't you search it?"

 "Captain's orders."

 "And if that's not right?"

 "I recall what they look like, I have what you might call a photographic memory."