Chapter Thirty-four
“In the tunnel. Now!” Candy hollered. The first lady was already moving in the direction of the mysterious tunnel under the White House and the president had enough smarts not to argue. Candy brought up the rear, her flashlight illuminating the way so the first lady could crawl faster without using the one she held. She heard Josh’s voice echoing. She answered, “We’re behind you. Keep going.”
They hadn’t left the second floor that long ago, but long enough for the bomb dog and the explosives crew to get there. Hopefully, that wasn’t the team’s attempt to disarm a device. Tears came to her eyes, which surprised her. She’d been a hard-as-nails, don’t-give-an-inch-on-anything, badass leader. Never once, even as a child, had emotions overwhelmed her. She always found a way to hide from them.
Then she met Josh and twelve hours later, she was a mush. But a happy mush. These feelings Josh created in her were new and exhilarating. She saw the world in a different light. Everything wasn’t bad, not everybody would hurt you, and some things weren’t worth getting mad about.
Was she okay with this change in herself? Yes. Yes, she was. Sheldon was right. Women were not on the same level as men. Women were continuously evolving creatures, growing and broadening with every new experience. Women see the world and internalize it, taking the good in it and throwing away the rest. That was how she’d coped all these years in hell’s home with her father and then on the battlefield.
When her face was suddenly close to the president’s proportionally large backside, she pushed herself backward. Oh, god, how horrible would it have been if her head plowed into the ass of the man she was sworn to protect? At least then no one could accuse her of having her head up her own ass. A giggle forced itself from her throat. God! Now she was really losing it. Sergeants in the United States Army didn’t giggle.
Then she heard Monica’s voice up front. “You’re not passing laughing gas back there, are you, dear?”
The president grumbled, “Teachers and their kiddie jokes.”
That was too much for her. She covered her mouth with her hand and laughed out loud. She’d get in trouble, but it was worth it.
A gruff “Sergeant” echoed back to her and she took a deep breath.
“Here, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The man grumbled more and she had to bite her lip. This couple was amazing. She needed to learn all she could from Monica. Maybe then she would be good enough for Josh. His voice was just ahead of her. He was helping the first lady from the tunnel. The president crawled out next and Josh was there for her.
She emerged in a small round room lined with more cement bricks identical to those under the house. Steel and wood beams supported a flat roof with a machine of some kind in the center with a pipe sticking up from it, through the ceiling. The others were looking around, gaping as well.
This was not what she was expecting. “Is this really the fountain in the north lawn?” she asked.
“Huh,” the president said, “this must be what the POEC meant when they said the door led to a passage.”
His statement made her feel better at least. Her crazy idea about the fountain being a way out wasn’t so crazy. Now they just needed to find the “out” part of it.
“Everybody watch your eyes,” Josh said. A red light in a green mesh cage filled the room. If that didn’t scream military design, she didn’t know what did.
“What’s that?” Candy asked, pointing to the boxed machine sitting on a platform in the center of the space.
“I’m guessing that’s the water pump for the spray heads in the fountain,” the president said. With all the pipes snaking everywhere, that made sense.
Candy set her backpack on the ground and pulled out two bottles of water, giving one to the president and first lady. Monica passed hers to Josh and took her husband’s when he finished. Josh smiled and came to her side, handing her his bottle.
“Amazing couple, aren’t they?” he whispered, leaning against her. She made sure she didn’t move while he leaned, unlike him. “They remind me a lot of my parents.” A little sadness crossed her heart at the memory of her parents and how fucked-up her family was. Josh kissed her head and snuggled a little closer. “You’re with me now, sweetheart. We’ll make a future that will erase the pain of the past. Okay?” He took a step back and smiled.
Once again, he left her speechless. There was little doubt in her mind that he would make an incredible husband. He was perfect. And she was far, too far, from perfect. She was damaged goods in just about every sense. Josh deserved someone better than her. She couldn’t make him happy; she’d never made anyone happy. She slipped the half-full water bottle into an empty side pants pocket.
“Okay, folks,” Josh said on the other side of the room, looking at a panel on the wall. “We’ve got the choices of off, on, and drain. Unless someone sees another way of getting out of here?” Candy pressed on the cement blocks to see if a hidden wall opened. The ground was dirt, so it didn’t look conducive to a door for secret stairs going down. Seemed Josh was right. The way out was through the fountain.
“If up is the only option,” the president said, “we’ll have to drain the pool or get flooded in here.”
“Drain, it is,” Josh commented. He pushed a button, and the motor in the pump changed its sound, and they heard water rushing down one of the pipes.
“Should you have turned it off before draining?” Candy asked.
Her mate looked at her. “I don’t know. Is the pump sucking the water out?”
“I’m thinking it’s gravity fed, so the pump is still trying to push water out when there’s no water coming in,” Candy thought.
“Turn it off, Director,” the president said, “just to be sure. We can always turn it back on. Last thing we need is a motor blowing up in this small space.”
The first lady laughed. “You would know,” she said, poking her husband’s arm. “You and Dad are lucky the barn didn’t fall on both of you.”
He wiped a hand down his face. “Monica, you know that was an accident.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I still love to tell it to everyone.” She looked to Candy. “When we were dating, your president and my dad were elbows deep in grease in some old truck engine.”
“It wasn’t a truck.” He said it like he couldn’t believe she’d said “truck.” “We were fixing up a Willys CJ-2A, sixty horsepower, 134-cid, with ‘Go Devil’ engine.”
Josh looked up from the drain pipe. “No way. Where’d you find one of those?”
Monica dismissed the guys and turned back to Candy. “Anyway, the two men managed to blow it up and take down half the barn with it.”
Normal. They had the normal kind of life Candy had always dreamed of. She looked at Josh standing next to the president, figuring out what to do next. Could she make a normal life with him? Would she give up everything she knew, including the military, to be with him?
Josh placed a hand on each side of the pump box and the president put his on the other two sides. Together they lifted it, shoving the pipe going through the ceiling even farther up. A spine-tingling metal-on-metal grinding tore around the room as the center of the ceiling raised as the pipe wrenched through. The farther the men pushed the pipe up, the farther the ceiling went.
Candy covered her ears and clenched her teeth. “Stop! What are you doing?” she yelled. It took the men a few more stubborn seconds to quit. She stared up at the now vaulted roof of their room.
“Hmm,” the president mumbled to his partner in crime, “don’t think that worked like we thought.”
Monica lowered her hands from her ears. “What did you think would happen?” she asked. As the men discussed the miscalculation of whatever the hell went through their brains, Candy shined her light along the newly arched ceiling, examining the damage.
Supposing the roof was the base of the fountain, the water feature probably looked more like a mini volcano with a pipe sticking out the middle. Closer to the outer rim, four black lines in the form of a square caught her eye. No other place on the ceiling had that. She scooted around the guys to examine her discovery.
Upon closer inspection, the lines resembled strips of rubber used to help stop leaks. Why would that be on the underside of a fountain? An old ladder made of metal piping leaned against the wall close by. She dragged it over, drawing the attention of her mate, always protecting her.
“Whatcha doing, babe?”
“Looking for sensible alternatives,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked. “A hole in the ceiling?”
Climbing the ladder and pushing up the center of the square, she was startled when it easily rose. Then stopped after a few inches. “It’s stuck,” she grunted. “Probably an obstruction from the newly sloping bottom.”
“Let me,” Josh said and lifted her around the waist and set her on the ground like she was nothing. She was not used to being picked up and thought she was falling when he moved her. The man was lucky she didn’t pee her pants when he yanked her down.
Josh climbed the stairs as she stood at the base and looked up. With strength and effort, he was able to bend the metal piece back enough to squeeze through. Then suddenly, his body flew up and out of sight.