CyberWar: World War C Trilogy Book 3

by Matthew Mather

  Fifty feet ahead of me, Chuck struggled up the aluminum ladder.

  A blond rag doll in one arm.

  Not a doll. That was Ellarose. Her head seemingly unconnected to her body. Cheeks spattered in mud. Not mud, I realized. Blood covered her face.

  “Help me!” Chuck screamed.

  I stumbled forward and broke into a run. Slung the gun strap over my shoulder and head and jumped onto the lowest rung of the ladder. The buzzing in my ears subsided enough that I could hear Susie’s sobbing wails just above us as she squatted in the manure with her arm around Bonham. She did her best to reach down to grab Ellarose’s flopping arms, but she was obviously badly hurt herself. Susie’s blond hair matted to her face. A dark smudge around her midsection.

  “I got her, I got her,” I whispered to Chuck.

  I was up beside him on the ladder, and took Ellarose’s body from him. She was always tiny, but now she felt like she was made of glass and twigs, the angles of her arms and head not making sense. Moaning, Chuck let her slip into my arms and used his good hand to pull himself up the ladder. I held Ellarose and climbed up behind him.

  The door to the tunnel, fifty feet down, thudded as someone crashed into the other side of it.

  “Hurry,” I didn’t have to say but did.

  Slipping on the manure, I got to my feet at the top of the ladder and ran as gently as I could while cradling Ellarose. Chuck had his weapon out and scanned the edges of the back door of the workshop. Stuttering gunfire and crunching explosions resounded inside the cavernous barn structure and echoed off the rock walls outside.

  We ran out into the rain. I slipped and slid in the mud.

  “Over here,” Lauren yelled.

  The truck was a hundred feet up the drive, the back-left gull-wing door fully open. Lauren on one knee, her weapon up and scanning back and forth around us. She raised her weapon and fired, then fired again.

  I turned.

  Angry scarlet pinpoints raced down through the drizzle.

  I picked up my pace.

  The muzzle of Lauren’s weapon flamed as she swept it back and forth, firing constantly. I didn’t look behind me, but I felt the heat of the little red dots homing in. Heard their terrible high-pitched whine growing over the fading buzz in my ears.

  “Dad!” a small voice screamed.

  Luke jumped from the back seat of the truck and ran past Lauren. She tried to grab him, but she was busy aiming upward. Luke slithered past her and ran out into the open.

  The front door of the truck swung open.

  “Dad! Get down!” Luke screamed again. He had the gray box outstretched in his hands.

  I knew they were coming. I could feel them. I threw myself face-first into the muddy gravel slurry, curled my body around Ellarose, inert in my arms, and landed half on my back. As I spun in the air, a bright red dot appeared just inches from me. The fans of its blades blowing cool night air into my face.

  It hovered but didn’t move.

  A dozen red dots now motionless in space around us. Using my feet, I scrambled back far enough that I could get up to my knees.

  Twenty feet closer to the truck, Luke held up the gray box. He had pushed the button. Delivered an EMP pulse around us, but more red dots raced in the distance. Someone was behind Luke and wrapped their arms around him. Tyrell picked Luke up, shielded my son with his body, and began turning to get back to the truck.

  “Watch out!” Lauren screamed.

  Two shots rang out.

  Spray shot sideways from Tyrell’s head and he slumped into the dirt.

  Right behind him in the truck, the senator had a Glock up. He’d just shot Tyrell. In the head. Lauren raised her weapon and pointed it at me. I cringed. She fired, but the shot skimmed past me. I turned. A man in a black ballistic vest crumpled to the ground.

  Stumbling, I closed the last twenty feet.

  Luke had extricated himself from Tyrell’s body.

  I paused the briefest of instants and considered trying to grab and drag Tyrell, but blood poured from his head into the leaves and grass. It was either try and save him, someone looked already dead, or make sure my son got to safety. With my left foot I kicked Tyrell, but he didn’t flinch or budge. I felt more than saw the buzzing machines in my peripheral vision. Keep moving, said a voice in my head.

  I grabbed my son with my left hand as I kept a grip on Ellarose’s body with my right.

  Chuck was already in the driver’s seat of the truck.

  Damon was in the passenger seat, his face pale, staring at Tyrell’s body. He jumped forward as if he was going to try and get out, but then stayed still. Gunshots cracked from all directions around us. Another thumping detonation lit up the trees to our right. I collapsed into the truck’s third row, doing my best to protect Ellarose’s body.

  The tires spun against the gravel, the truck accelerating as the two gull-wing doors began to close. Bullets ricocheted and thudded into the windows and walls of the vehicle. Ahead of us, on the dark road, three men ran toward the house. Chuck skidded toward the center of the road and straight into two of them, who flew into the air. The truck thudded up and down as we drove over one.

  We sped past the driveway to the Baylor house.

  Chuck jammed the brakes on.

  “What are you doing?” Damon said.

  Chuck didn’t reply, but didn’t move either.

  “Chuck!” Lauren screamed.

  In the dark, they might not be able to see the truck, but with the rain still hammering down, they saw something. Bullets impacted into the glass at the rear.

  “There,” Chuck said and pointed.

  A light flicked in the bushes. He stepped on the accelerator and pushed a button on the driver’s side. Damon’s door began to swing open.

  “What are you doing?” Damon yelled.

  For an instant I thought Chuck was going to shove Damon into the trees.

  But Chuck said, “Grab him. Get Archer into the truck.”

  The flickering light gained some intensity.

  Archer’s face appeared through the bushes. “Help me,” he grunted.

  “You have got to be kidding,” Damon said to Chuck. “Leave him here.”

  “It’s either you or him.” Chuck grimaced and took out his Glock. Pointed it at Damon. “Now help him in.”

  Gunshots cracked and echoed.

  Swearing, Damon tossed down his laptop and jumped out of his side to help Archer, except the man didn’t exactly need help. At least, not for himself.

  Archer smiled grimly and pulled a body by the scruff of its neck, like he was dragging a sack of turnips, from the bushes. A man in black ballistic vest. One of the terrorists.

  “I got one of them,” Archer said. “Now make some room in the back.”

  Chapter 25

  “SHE’S ALIVE!” SUSIE squealed from the middle seats.

  Chuck smacked the steering wheel in joy and glanced behind him.

  “Keep your eyes forward,” I said. “I’ll check her.”

  The nose of the truck almost swerved past the faint lines of the road’s edge painted on the windscreen’s heads-up display. Keeping his eyes on the road didn’t mean actually seeing it. It was black as soot beyond the windows. We had the headlights off, interior lights dimmed. Chuck knew every logging road and ATV trail around his cabin. We pulled onto the main road a mile down his driveway, but then turned off almost as quick.

  Slowed to a quiet crawl.

  We had a head start, and our attackers chased, but the truck was still a difficult mark to track. Even the drones overhead lost the target after a mile of us weaving in the dark. The metamaterial covering bent even the heat signature, Tyrell had said. The truck had taken a lot of rounds, the windows dotted and crazed and cracked, but it held. Damon said the tires were self-healing.

  Tyrell.

  The image of the man’s skull bleeding over the leaves still fresh in my mind.

  I was wedged between Chuck in the driver’s seat and Damon in the passen
ger one. I turned my body and got up onto my knees to get a look in the middle seat behind me.

  “Don’t let him get your carbine,” Chuck said.

  I still had the submachine gun in my right hand.

  “I already have a gun, asshole,” Damon replied, not looking up, his eyes focused back on his laptop screen, his face illuminated by its glow.

  “Where was she hit?” I asked Susie as I leaned over into the middle row.

  “I don’t think she was,” Lauren said.

  My wife had Ellarose’s shirt up and was inspecting her pallid skin. Susie had her daughter pulled into her arms toward the left side of the middle row of seats. Luke looked up at me from the foot well, seated on the floor with his arms around Bonham. The EMP device on the floor beside them. Smart kid. Tough. Olivia was on the seat between Lauren and Susie. We kept the kids in the middle of the truck, protected by the adult bodies around them, as much security as that was.

  “Momma?” Ellarose’s eyes fluttered.

  “Baby, just stay still.” Susie smiled hopefully and looked at me. “She tried to protect Bonham. When Chuck came up the stairs, I attacked one of the men with a nail file. The other one tried to take Bonham, but Ellarose wrapped her body around her brother. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “We got out,” I said. “That’s what happened.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere?” Lauren whispered to Ellarose.

  “I feel dizzy,” the little girl replied.

  “But no sharp pains?”

  She shook her head.

  Archer had his face pressed against the glass in the back seat, the senator looking out the window from his side. They had manhandled the terrorist Archer had captured over into the trunk area and pinned his unconscious body between the crates back there. Archer used straps to wrap his hands and feet. The man hadn’t made a sound since we dragged him in.

  “I think we lost them,” Archer grunted.

  He winced.

  The man was hurt. Badly, I suspected, but he didn’t give up much.

  “I don’t see anything either,” the senator said.

  By now, just about everyone in the truck was hurt. Half of us were bleeding.

  And one of us was dead.

  Damon slapped his laptop closed. He turned to the senator. “Why did you shoot Tyrell?”

  “I didn’t shoot him,” Leo replied.

  I didn’t say anything. The senator did shoot Tyrell, as far as I could tell, and I had been looking almost directly at Leo when he’d pulled the trigger and Tyrell’s head had spattered open. Not more than twenty feet away from me, but it had been dark. And confusing. And I had no idea if the senator knew how to shoot. He might be about as good as I was, which was terrible.

  “Maybe it was a mistake,” Chuck said.

  “I was aiming at the guy behind Mike,” the senator said. “You saw him. There was one coming right behind—”

  “I saw the guy,” I said. “Susie, how badly are you hurt?”

  “She’s not good,” Lauren replied. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “I’m okay,” Susie said.

  “No, you’re not,” my wife said. She leaned closer to Ellarose and began whispering with her, asking how she was doing.

  Archer said from the back, “Where are we going?”

  “Right now, I’m just putting as much distance between us and those assholes as possible,” Chuck replied.

  “Which way, though?”

  “West, as best as I can manage through these trails. I’m trying to weave and keep from a straight line, but mostly west and over the top of the ridge. I figure they’ll be expecting us to head back into Washington. I’m not going that way.”

  “If they have scouts, they’ll be at the ridgeline.”

  “But we’ve already seen those flame-throwing drones to the east. They have to have support personnel, right?”

  “There’s nothing to the west,” Archer said. “Just forests and small towns.”

  “The heartland of America is not nothing. And open space is kinda what I’m going for. Hey, hey, what the hell is going on?”

  The truck slowed.

  “Don’t stop,” Archer growled from the back.

  “I’m not the one stopping.”

  “Tactical defense systems detect no external threat,” said a sing-songy female voice. It was Selena. “Emergency manual override now deactivated. Please use authorization Tyrell Jakob to reactivate.”

  “Great.”

  Chuck flipped the manual override switch once, then twice again. Then cursed.

  The truck had stopped. Black outside the windows. No idea where we were, except somewhere farther up the mountain.

  “You know where we are?” I asked Chuck hopefully.

  “Sort of.”

  “We need to get to a hospital,” Lauren said.

  “Out here? We’re fifty miles from the nearest vet,” Chuck said, now pounding the main display with one finger. The entertainment system came on and asked if we wanted to play songs about animals or soldiers. He swore and told it where to put a song.

  “Charles Mumford,” Susie said from the middle seats. “We will have none of that language in front of the children.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Damon, can you figure this out?”

  “Now you want my help? Maybe point a gun at me, that might get me motivated.”

  “Did someone maybe cut one of Tyrell’s fingers off?” Chuck turned in the seat. “Maybe grab an eyeball? We need t—”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Susie said.

  “Mostly.” Chuck leaned back and sighed. “Damon, I apologize about the gun. You looked like you needed extra motivation.”

  “Remind me not to hire you as a coach.” Damon plugged his laptop into one of the USB slots of the truck. “Maybe I can get into Selena’s systems.”

  “I’ll get out and look around,” Chuck said.

  “Do not exit the vehicle,” Archer said from the back. “The truck is providing infrared shielding. Someone is watching from up top. We get out, we are done.”

  “Great,” Chuck grumbled. He turned in his seat and lowered his voice, “Susie, baby, can I do anything? How bad are you hurt?”

  “Not bad.”

  Even I could see she was lying. We needed to move. We were trapped.

  “I can’t believe he shot Tyrell Jakob,” Damon muttered. “It’s like you just assassinated Michelangelo. Do you know that? Do you know what that g—”

  “I didn’t shoot him,” the senator said again.

  Archer said, “Did anyone check to see if he was dead?”

  “He looked dead,” I said.

  “How many dead people have you seen?” Archer asked.

  “Lately? More than I’ve wanted. He wasn’t responsive. I didn’t have much time.”

  “Did anyone else get a look?”

  The others mumbled they were too busy trying to stay alive or something to that effect.

  “So, we don’t really know,” Archer said. “I think he was trying to get us to go to that cabin. I think he and Damon were dragging us to that place.”

  “Screw you,” Damon muttered.

  “Mike, you’re sure he went out to protect your son?”

  “It seemed that way.”

  “Didn’t you say Luke was about to press that EMP button?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe Tyrell was trying to stop him.”

  “Are you being serious?” Damon said quietly. “Tyrell and I accessed their network; we were busting our asses to try and divert those drones.”

  “You did a great job,” Lauren whispered.

  Archer said, “Tell me again how you and Tyrell magically access the terrorist network?”

  “I’m back in,” Damon said quietly. “Please reactivate.”

  “Back in what?”

  “Selena.”

  “Authorization Damon Indigo confirmed,” came a sing-songy voice over the speakers.

 
; The steering wheel and cockpit display in front of the driver’s seat lit back up.

  “Nice work, buddy,” Chuck said.

  “You can stick that where the sun doesn’t shine. Anyway, I didn’t do anything.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “I just logged in and found that Tyrell had given me access to all his systems. I didn’t even need a password. Didn’t need to hack it. Just biometrics to my voice.”

  “He just gave you access, then ran away?”

  “He didn’t run away. He was shot.”

  “I need to pee,” Luke said.

  “You’re going to have to wait,” I whispered to him.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know.” I had to pee as well. We couldn’t even get out of the truck. Maybe we could open the door a few inches.

  “I need to pee too,” Olivia said.

  “We need to wait.”

  “Can I play some Fortnite?”

  “I’m scared,” Bonham said. He had his arms around Luke, and my son had his arms around him as well.

  “I’m scared too,” I whispered back. I nodded to indicate to Olivia she could use the entertainment system, whatever she wanted.

  “Again, we don’t even really know if he’s dead,” Archer said from the back. “We might have just delivered Tyrell to his friends. Another part of his plan.”

  “We got away,” I said. “Pretty sure that was not in anyone’s plan.”

  “It was in mine,” my wife said.

  Damon said, “Speaking of not knowing, did anyone check that buddy’s new friend is really tied up?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Archer growled.

  “I mean, what if that terrorist guy back there is just playing dead? Maybe you’re the rat here. Maybe you just brought one of your friends into the truck.”

  “For what exactly?”

  “That’s my question.”

  “Can we start heading to a hospital?” Lauren interjected. “Or at least find a doctor? Susie is really h—”

  Another voice interrupted her.

  “Fires have swept across the Shenandoah Valley this evening,” said a deep voice. A very familiar voice with a faintly southern accent.

  Chuck sat upright. “Hey, isn’t that Fox News?”