The last of the gasoline drained into the tank. They had started the trip with a full tank, topped off from the house’s supply of gasoline. Averaging roughly eighteen miles per gallon, according to the trip computer, Alex calculated they used slightly more than the two and a half gallons to drive fifty-two miles. The rest of their journey would drain an additional ten gallons, leaving them with less than half of a tank. He could justify using thirteen gallons of gasoline, especially in light of the circumstances. They had fourteen gallons split between several containers back at the house, in addition to the three-quarters full tank in the BMW SUV, and they’d need most of it to pull off an evacuation.
With seventeen people, four of whom were injured, they’d have to make at least two runs between locations, burning up most of the gas just to transport personnel and a limited amount of gear. Ideally, they would return a third time to pack the cars with as much food and supplies as feasible. A third trip would require them to start siphoning gas from disabled cars—a dangerous proposition depending on the location of the car. Since the EMP hit at five in the morning, most vehicles were parked on private property or streets within sight of the owners. Few people would react well to the prospect of having their cars drained in front of them. He could always take several empty cans to the airport to fill and make something up about the farm’s tractor, hoping nobody knew offhand that his John Deere used diesel.
Alex tipped the container as high as possible, trying to drain the last drops out of the can. His father caught the motion in his peripheral vision.
“Ready?” asked Tim.
“Yeah.” He nodded, pulling the clear plastic nozzle out of the gas tank.
His father took a few steps away from the driver’s side door and scanned the quiet neighborhood of shingle-style Cape Cod homes. He wasn’t visibly armed, but his M-14 rifle lay across the front seat of the Jeep, where he could easily grab it through the open window. Aside from the pistol strapped to Alex’s thigh, they had kept their weapons out of sight, finding the journey uneventful. The prevalence of roadblocks seemed confined to southern Maine, which made sense given that most of the mayhem during the Jakarta Pandemic had taken place near the border or along the Maine Turnpike.
They encountered two police checkpoints, one on the outskirts of Gorham and another in South Portland. Alex’s provisional security identification and Maine driver’s license got them through both with little scrutiny. It helped that Alex had chosen to wear his issued MARPAT uniform, especially at the Coast Guard station, where sentries had barred the gates to keep hundreds of gathering civilians off the base. Upon sighting the mob of people outside of the front gate, they parked the Jeep at a safe distance. Alex had approached a less crowded point along the fence, attracting the attention of a guard. Within thirty minutes he had negotiated the necessary help required to secure another option in the event that the border situation proved untenable.
He screwed the gas cap back onto the tank and looked at the deserted street with his father. The neighborhood looked mostly unchanged, with the exception of missing windows and a few downed tree branches. Yarmouth had been spared the brunt of the tsunami’s landfall. Most of the wave’s energy had been sapped by the shelter islands of inner Casco Bay. The Royal River had experienced a significant tidal surge, as evidenced by debris and high watermarks far into one of the parking lots, but the docks didn’t suffer any direct damage. Physically, the sheltered marina and anchorage remained intact, like he’d hoped.
“Ever get the feeling you have a hundred sets of eyes peeking at you?” his dad asked.
“Not until you just said that,” said Alex, throwing the gas can into the back of the Jeep.
“I’m worried she won’t be there if we need her,” said Tim, nodding down Route 88 in the direction they had just come.
“We can always find another. Plenty to choose from, here or along the coast,” said Alex. “It’s not like there’s anyone around to haul them out.”
Alex opened the passenger-side door and waited for his father to move the M-14 to the back before dropping his exhausted body into the seat. He was still running on empty, having slept less than four hours a night since returning from Boston. Even with the Marines on the perimeter, he found it nearly impossible to sink into a restful sleep. He shuddered to think what might have happened if they had arrived in Limerick twelve hours later. Ironically, the Boston-based militia had forced Alex north with Grady’s Marines—just in time to save his family from another militia group. It was insanity.
Tim pulled the Jeep off the gravel shoulder. “I like the idea of a land-based escape better. Especially with the weather changing.”
“Wait until you see Charlie’s place. The term ‘cottage’ is generous.”
“Can’t be worse than eight people crammed into a thirty-eight-foot sailboat.”
“I’ll let you be the judge of that,” said Alex, digging through a small rucksack at his feet for a green thermos. “Coffee?”
Alex’s dad started to speak, but stopped. He shook his head. “I almost said we should stop at Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“I catch myself doing that all day. It’s a hard habit to break,” Alex lamented. “Same thing happened during the pandemic. Getting whatever we want, whenever we want is a deeply ingrained behavior.”
Tim stared at the road unfolding in front of them, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. “I wonder if we’ll ever see those days again…”
“It depends on how long the government takes to get the electricity flowing. From what I can tell, they planned for an EMP. Let’s hope that preparations included stockpiling the big-ticket items like transformers and substation parts. Without those, we’ll be watering down the instant stuff within a month or two.”
“I don’t mind the instant stuff. They use those flavor crystals.”
“It’s just coffee-flavored water at that point. Not really coffee,” Alex said, opening the top of the thermos and wafting steam into the Jeep.
His dad started laughing. “That’s all coffee is! Coffee-flavored water!”
“With that attitude, I can’t justify sharing any of this with you.”
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” said Tim.
“Dark roast,” said Alex, inhaling the lightly toasted scent.
His dad kept grinning.
“This isn’t instant coffee. Kate wouldn’t do that to me.”
“She didn’t want to waste the good stuff on me,” said Tim. “Made me promise not to tell…until you couldn’t turn back.”
“She knows me all too well.”
Alex poured a small amount into the thermos cup and tested it. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’ll work in a pinch,” he said, downing the rest.
“Maybe we should save it for the drive home,” Tim said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Let’s hope not.”
Chapter 17
EVENT +10 Days
Limerick, Maine
Brown’s earpiece crackled and went silent. That was the second possible transmission attempt in the past few minutes.
“Liberty Extract, this is Overwatch. Your transmission was garbled. Say again. Over,” he stated quietly.
Another burst of static filled his left ear, followed by nothing. It had to be his pickup. The chance of another radio user selecting the same subchannel was extremely low, reduced even further by the late hour. 2:20 AM. He had been told late in the afternoon, via radio relay, that a vehicle would retrieve him a few hours after midnight. He permanently disassembled his hide site a few hours after sunset, stowing the climbing harness in his backpack and descending the tree to wait in the thick bushes near the side of the road. As midnight approached, he started to get worried about the proposed timing of his pickup.
The black Jeep Wrangler had left Gelder Pond Lane in the early afternoon and hadn’t returned, creating the possibility of an unplanned meeting between the two vehicles in the vicinity of Limerick. Not a big chance, but even the smallest window of
opportunity seized by the enemy represented a possible disaster. He’d learned this lesson the hard way in Afghanistan during 2015 when the Taliban came out of hiding, untouched and unfazed by the pandemic.
Kidnappings had replaced IEDs as the most feared insurgent tactic. With the help of sympathetic or threatened locals, Taliban “skassas,” or specters, coordinated the sudden and often inexplicable disappearances of coalition personnel from patrols. The abductions defied explanation, but all had the same thing in common—a short, often unexpected window of vulnerability, like tonight.
Brown tried to contact “Relay One” to delay his pickup until tomorrow evening, but Eli had withdrawn the radio relay vehicle a few days ago, switching to a seemingly random pattern of radio communication to collect Brown’s situation reports. He suspected the times coincided with whenever Eli could spare a vehicle to drive close enough to make radio contact. He couldn’t blame Eli for making the change. Traffic patterns in and out of the compound yielded little in the way of an exploitable pattern.
One of the tactical vehicles left in the morning, typically before eight, and returned by noon the same day, rarely later. Another vehicle remained permanently absent, presumably based at another government-sponsored compound. This left two heavily armored vehicles and an undetermined number of soldiers at the compound for most of the day.
The situation had grown slightly more interesting today; marking the first time any of the compound personnel had departed in a civilian vehicle, without an escort. Due to Brown’s lack of real-time communications with Eli, they had missed an easy chance to eliminate a key player in the government conspiracy without confronting heavily armed ground forces. They couldn’t afford to miss future opportunities like this, especially this early in the game. Eli had said it himself. They needed to strike as many critical blows to the regime’s fledgling structure as possible to collapse it, but it had to be done right.
At this point, he sincerely hoped Eli wasn’t planning to attack the compound. Even trying to drive an explosives-laden vehicle onto the grounds would certainly meet with failure given the amount of firepower provided by the tactical vehicles. Six days after the first attack, he couldn’t imagine any scenario in which the government agents hadn’t prepared for the possibility of a car bomb, especially after McCulver tipped their hand by harmlessly detonating a firecracker next to a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) classified vehicle.
When he returned to the farm, he hoped to hear that Eli had moved on from this dangerous obsession. If not, he’d consider slipping away and heading north, away from whatever was about to explode in York County. The Maine Liberty Militia had been a good place to land, but he still wasn’t one hundred percent sure about Eli.
“Overwatch, this is Liberty One-Zero,” he heard over faint static.
“This is Overwatch. What is your ETA for pickup?” Brown requested.
“We just turned onto 160. ETA four minutes.”
“Copy, four minutes. I’m headed east on Old Middle Road. Pickup approximately fifty yards past the entrance to Gelder Pond Lane. Right side of the road.”
“Roger. We’ll be running without lights on the stretch in front of the entrance.”
“Copy. Out,” he said and lifted himself off the ground.
He walked briskly through the underbrush, keeping parallel with Old Middle Road. A minute later, he turned left and fought his way through to the edge of the road for a quick look toward Gelder Pond Lane. The sheer darkness yielded little beyond a thick, monochromatic curtain. He dug a handheld night-vision spotting scope from one of his cargo pockets and scanned the entrance to Gelder Pond, checking for movement. Satisfied that it was safe to step out of the bushes, he took a few steps onto the dirt road and aimed the unmagnified scope down Old Middle Road. It was empty.
Brown cradled his rifle and shuffled west. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the Gelder Pond entrance as possible before the extraction vehicle arrived. More than fifty yards if possible—enough to determine if they had attracted any attention. Driving this close to the compound represented a moment of vulnerability, and he wasn’t taking any chances. He picked up the pace, jogging until he heard the faint hum of a car motor. Through his scope, a dark shape appeared in the middle of the road, well beyond the turnoff.
He watched Gelder Pond Lane carefully as the vehicle skidded to a stop in the middle of the road, directly in front of him. The SUV’s engine roared, advertising their presence on the hushed, country road. He watched the entrance to the pond for a few moments until he felt sure that nothing was in pursuit.
“What the fuck? Get in!” yelled the front seat passenger.
The acrid, metallic smell of fresh blood hit Brown’s nose when he yanked the door open.
Smells like a slaughterhouse.
He shoved his rucksack through the headrests, dropping it into the rear cargo compartment, barely squeezing into the crowded back seat before the SUV lurched forward at an unadvisable speed.
“You might want to slow down. There’s a sharp left turn coming up,” he said, pulling the door shut against his leg.
“We’ll slow down when we’re the fuck out of here,” uttered a gruff voice from the front passenger seat.
“At least hit the lights. Trust me.”
“Lights? Why don’t we honk the horn to scare away the deer? Ever hear of going tactical?”
With the door shut, the coppery stench intensified, forcing him to turn his head and fumble for the button to lower the window. Moments later, the SUV skidded to an abrupt halt, jamming Brown’s face into the headrest directly in front of him.
“Take it the fuck easy!” said the guy in the passenger seat.
“You got me driving around in the middle of nowhere with the lights out! What the fuck do you expect!” the driver snapped.
“I think it’s safe to use the lights at this point,” said Brown, reaching over his shoulder for the seatbelt.
“That’s not your decision to make, Ranger Rick. This is my mission,” said the man in front of him.
“Does getting back alive fit your mission parameters?”
“This is a courtesy pickup. You can walk back, for all I care.”
“I think Eli might feel differently,” he said as the car eased forward.
“I don’t really give a shit what Eli thinks.”
“All right. It’s your show,” said Brown.
“Hit the lights, slick. I’d like to get back alive to enjoy our new toys.”
The SUV’s interior brightened momentarily as light reflected off the bushes flanking the dangerously narrow road. Glancing to his left, Brown caught a glimpse of the man pressed against the far door. Half of his face was smeared scarlet red. The guy jammed between them had blood all over his neck.
Hunting?
That didn’t make any sense. They could hunt in the woods around Eli’s farm. Something didn’t add up here. He felt a hard thump against the back of his seat, causing him to sit up.
“Did you feel that?” he asked, eliciting no response from either man in the back seat.
The next hit jarred him forward. “What the fuck?”
“We might need to crack one of them over the head again,” grunted the man next to Brown.
“If we have to stop this car, I’ll do more than knock her over the head,” hissed the leader.
“I’ll make sure the little one chokes on my dick,” grumbled the other back seat passenger. “That should settle her down.”
The pounding against the back of the seat intensified.
“Who do you have back there?” asked Brown, quietly unsnapping the holster pressed against the door.
“Some new toys.”
“Part of the mission?”
“Eli told us to string up everyone we find at the house, but it seemed like a waste of good pussy. Not like he’s gonna complain. We did a real number on the mayor.”
“The mayor?” Brown echoed, slipping the Beretta 92FS out of the nylon hol
ster.
“The mayor of Sanford.”
Brown paused for a moment, considering his options. It didn’t take long for him to reach a decision.
“There’s another sharp turn coming up on your right,” he blurted, easing the Beretta across his chest as the car rapidly decelerated.
He jabbed the barrel into the middle guy’s neck as the SUV’s high beams exposed a long, tree-covered stretch of road.
“Looks straight to—”
The pistol’s sharp report cut off the driver’s protest, catapulting the tight space into pandemonium. He shifted the pistol an inch to the right and fired two 9mm bullets into the next man’s face, spider-webbing the blood-splattered window just behind his head.
“Son of a mother—”
The leader turned his body, struggling to push his compact rifle between the front seats. Brown jammed the rifle’s hand guard against the roof and aimed the pistol into the back of the man’s seat, rapidly pressing the trigger until the man stopped thrashing.
Given an extra fraction of a second to analyze the situation, the driver smartly abandoned the SUV. Brown lurched between the front seats and steadied himself on his side, emptying the rest of his magazine at the fleeing figure. The vehicle started to roll forward, and he let the SUV drift several feet before sliding the transmission into neutral and slipping out of the rear passenger door with his rifle. Brown walked behind the vehicle until it drifted to a stop in the middle of the road.
Bullets peppered the SUV, shattering two of the cargo compartment windows. Pistol caliber, he guessed, judging by the sound of the gunfire and the fact that nothing had passed through the thin metal sides. Brown opened the front passenger door and pulled the leader’s limp body onto the dirt road. He reached across the seats and fumbled for the headlight controls. A bullet struck the dashboard above the steering wheel, missing his arm by inches and cracking the LED speedometer display. A second bullet hit the rearview mirror above his head. He caught movement beyond the driver’s side door and pulled back into the passenger side.
THE ALEX FLETCHER BOXSET: Books 1-5 Page 112
