“You don’t say.”
“I do say. Ain’t none of ’em ever had no good ole-fashioned cleanin’ neither, not until me and Kenny brought ’em into our fold. Now, all of ’em are cozy and content, and up here with folks who care about ’em; and they even reek like TUF-Glide. Warms my heart.” Walter sighed and took a few breaths.
Butch smirked and shook his head apathetically. “Not like you’re leaving anytime soon, but if it generates an upsurge in your shrinking serotonin levels, borrow it for as long as you like, jarnuts. Just…spare me another one of those…whatever the fuck that was.”
Alan emerged from the hall, and the sight of the pile of guns caught his interest. He wandered over to study the assortment and bid his friends a good morning.
“We already know what you’re going to ask,” Ken said, “and the answer is, we’re both feeling fine. Same as we were yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. Both our asses are still leaking a foul-smelling blood and pus combo and still hurt like hell, just like yesterday and the day previous. And yes, I’m still ready to go. In fact, I’ve been cleared. Got my clean bill of health. So I’m not the one holding you up anymore.”
Alan was stunned. “Ken…have I been repeating myself? Or asking the same questions every day?”
“You have, only it’s been somewhere around five to ten times a day.” Ken set down the rifle he was cleaning. “Look, man, I get it. We all get it. You’re stir-crazy. Hell, we’re all stir-crazy. Do you think any of us likes being stuck in this pit? My skin has lost every bit of tan I worked so hard to get at Camp Hill. It’s like I’m back in the cavern, stuck in another underground hellhole all over again.”
“Easy,” Butch moaned from his spot at the bench.
“Sorry, Butch. I was going for emphasis, not description.”
“As far as holdin’ you up is concerned,” Walter began, “’fraid there ain’t much I can do ’bout it.” He tapped on the frame of the wheelchair in which he was seated. “For the foreseeable future, I’ve switched my stems up for wheels. Sorry, pard. When y’all leave, I don’t expect I’ll be goin’ with.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Walter,” said Alan. “There’s a chance moving about could paralyze you, and we can’t risk it. I don’t need that weighing on my conscience any more than you.”
“Hey,” Butch’s voice bellowed.
Alan didn’t hear his name, so he dismissed it. Then, a moment after, Butch repeated himself.
“I think you’re being summoned,” said Ken, a brow raised.
“Careful,” Walter said. “Ole boy’s in one of ’em moods today.”
Ken arched a brow. “Only because you set him off.”
“Shut yer face, Kenny.”
Alan could see the man in camo eyeballing him. Brows raised, he pointed at himself inquiringly.
“Yeah, you. Who’d you think I was talking to? Get over here. I got a bone to pick with you.”
Alan strolled to where Butch was sitting on a stool behind a workbench, where before him lay Alan’s pack and emptied out contents. “That’s my backpack.”
“Very astute.”
“Why do you have it? And why is everything dumped out of it?”
“Can it. You’re in my house. And my questions come first.” Butch held aloft a walkie-talkie in each hand. “Now, where exactly did you acquire these?”
Alan looked strangely at him. “They were in the armored truck.”
“What armored truck?”
“Yours. The one I took down the mountain,” Alan said.
“Took?”
“Well, borrowed.”
“Borrowed?”
“Butch, are you going to repeat every word I say back to me?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Butch griped. “You stole them, didn’t you?”
“The radios? No, I didn’t steal them. I removed them from the truck after I…wrecked it.”
Butch pursed his chapped lips. “The APC, you mean.”
“Right.”
“My APC.”
Alan nodded once. “That’s the one.”
“The one you managed to somehow miraculously overturn.”
“Yes.”
Butch set both radios down. “What were you going to do with them?”
Alan’s face contorted. “Um, use them, I guess?”
“For what?”
“Communication,” Alan stated, now himself sounding perturbed. “Since that’s what radios do.”
“Communication with who?”
Alan sent his arms outward at his sides. “I don’t know, Butch. With people. Maybe Jade or Walter or Ken. Or you or someone else. They were there, so I took them. I thought they might prove useful to us.”
“Have you used them yet?”
“No…”
“That’s what you get for thinking,” Butch grunted. “Do you even know how to use them?”
Alan sighed. “No, but I haven’t had time to play with them or learn what makes them tick. I just assumed I would. I was an amateur radio operator in my previous life, so I—”
“In your previous life?” Butch butted in. “Exactly how many lives have you had?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Butch.”
The warhorse smirked. “Likewise, I’m sure. You can…stand at ease, there. I’m not really that miffed. It’s just that when I decide to go through your provisions, like a friend would, to see what could be done to supplement them, I wind up coming across some items that don’t quite belong. Raises a few question marks.” Butch pointed to one of the handhelds. “They aren’t the best rigs in the world, but they’re weatherproof and use regular batteries, something I have quite a stockpile of. That’s why I keep them around. They’re also something I like to call ‘frequency agile’.
“They receive and transmit on multiple bands, but as far as range goes, they’re not exactly the best performers, especially with these goofy rubber duck antennas. You’re welcome to hang on to them if you like, but before you leave, I’ll be installing a mobile transceiver in the Marauder Jade’s keeping warm over there. Something with a little more oomph coupled with a decent antenna. It’ll have preset memories in it, and we’ll decide which ones to use ahead of your departure, so we can communicate if the need arises.”
Alan folded his arms and sent along a gracious expression. “I appreciate that. I guess this means you won’t be going with us.”
Butch narrowed his eyes and sighed. “As much as I would love to join your crusade, I can’t. Too many loose ends around here in which to tie granny knots and scorch the ends, and one ho bitch in dire need of a final snuffing out. But at some point down the road, I’ll be looking you up to retrieve all which I have so cordially imparted unto you.”
“Butch,” Jade called from the Marauder’s driver’s seat, “stop bullying Alan before you get hurt. I need you front and center. I have some questions for you.”
“Must be your turn now; imagine that. What sort of questions?”
“The kind only a gentleman of class like yourself, bearing your considerable knowledge, can answer.”
Butch directed a suspicious look Alan’s way. “Is she trying to butter me up? Because it’s working.”
Alan shrugged. “You heard the lady.”
“’Deed I did.” Butch rose and led the way over the bay’s unadorned concrete floor with Alan following in tow.
Jade leaned out from her driver’s side perch as they approached, gesturing to the Katlanit’s interface and fire control. “What precisely is death blossom?”
Butch ascended the ladder and observed the screen with a cautious eye, dubiously noting how deep she’d been able to delve into the system on her own. “Now, I put a considerable amount of effort into making that software the absolute inverse of intuitive, as in beyond the deciphering capacity of most random persons.”
“I’m not most random persons, Butch,” Jade said.
“So I’m gathering. How did you manage
to gain access to the admin menu? Hack the passphrase? Locate a backdoor? Create your own?”
“Hardly.”
“Okay. How, then?”
Jade went expressionless. “Persistence.”
Butch smirked at her. “Persistence? Really. Well, aren’t you something else? You can’t fool me, megababe. I know weapons-grade aptitude when I see it. Exactly what was your MOS? Crypto? Electronic warfare? Psyops?”
Jade responded shyly, “I never had an MOS.”
“You never had one? Well, well, no shit.” Butch backed away and stood at attention. “Should I be tendering a salute to you, ma’am?”
“Butch, quit,” Jade said. “And read me in on death blossom before I knock you off that ladder.”
“My apologies, ma’am.” The veteran tilted his head to the side. “I take it you’ve never seen The Last Starfighter?”
“What?”
“The flick about that boy who got sucked into an arcade game and ends up a couple of hundred years in the future. They hustle him into fighting a bunch of nasty alien types in a badass spaceship.”
“What year did it release?”
“Uh…nineteen eighty-four or thereabouts, if I recall.”
Jade snorted. “Yeah,” she said, drawing out the word. “Butch, I just turned thirty-five.”
“Right. Of course, you did. Sure they didn’t come out with some new-age, millennial-ized, CGI’d-to-death remake of it?”
Jade smirked and shook her head slowly in the negative.
Butch sighed. “Astonishing. They sure did with everything else.” He then went into a synoptically formatted explanation of the movie from memory.
Jade listened intently, somewhat enthralled with hearing the movie’s similarities with the remote weapon system’s capabilities.
“In the sandbox,” he continued, “we used to call hajjis firing weapons in the air at random with little hope and zero aim a death blossom. Mine is a highly improved rendering. It acquires hostile targets in any environment, day or night, and downright terminates the ever-loving shit out of them, with hate and purpose. Perfect if you’re up shit creek with no paddle or pinned down in some unwinnable SNAFU.”
Jade presented the nylon bag that Alan had discovered in the Marauder’s glove box. Butch took the bag and removed some small colorful round discs with holes in the centers.
“What are they?” Jade asked.
“Lifesavers.”
Jade squinted at him, chuckling. “Right. Because of their likeness to the candy?”
“No,” Butch corrected. “Because, used appropriately, they’ll save your goddamned life.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t let those cute, girly, Skittles colors fool you. Each of these bad boys is an encrypted transponder. If the Mini Samson picks up the signal, the software classifies a one-meter bubble around the bearer a nontarget. If you’re a hapless friendly downrange while DB is running, one of these in your hand, pocket, stomach, rectum, or any other orifice will safeguard you from a really shitty death.”
Jade sent a thin smile. “Got it. Good to know.”
“And all the same, very good not to forget,” Butch said. “So don’t. Keep one in your pocket, give Alan one, and coax your hellpooch into gulping one down with his next crayon meal.” A pause. “Similarly, it’s good not to overlook the system’s limitations. I’m sure you’re already privy to the M2’s particulars, so I won’t windbag you with them. The ammo box is oversized and holds two full links, both standard combat mixes of AP incendiaries and tracers, one hundred five rounds each. DB will blow through every damn one of them without stopping, but after, the barrel is wasted. Anything else leaving the muzzle will spray all over the place with zero accuracy, like the flight path of a bumblebee. The Ma Deuce is cooked.”
Chapter 11
Little Germany Farms
Riverton, West Virginia
Sunday, January 2nd. Present day
Having gone to bed early the evening previous, Lauren rose long before sunup and met with the home’s other infamous early riser. Bernie led her into the living room, a freshly poured cup of coffee in one hand and a Rand McNally street atlas in the other. He made his way around the coffee table and took a seat on the sofa.
Lauren chose a seat in the chair to Bernie’s left and scooted it closer to the table, watching Bernie unfold the atlas.
“Now, this old thing is about as decrepit as the fella holding it, but it’s all we got, so don’t poke fun at it,” Bernie joked, mashing the crease with his palm.
Lauren leaned in closer. “I’d recognize that inverted-pentagram street layout anywhere. That’s Washington, DC.”
“Indeed it is,” Bernie said, tracing his finger along the downtown area while squinting behind his bifocals. “Okay, let’s see here. Here’s the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the mall, and there’s where the White House is, or was, anyway. So about one or two blocks north of there…” He trailed off, tapping his finger on the map. “That’s where your dad was, or where he said he was going to be.”
Lauren slipped to the chair’s edge to get a better look. “Right there?” Her index finger joined the old man’s. “That’s where my dad was working?”
Bernie nodded. He took a sip of his coffee and leaned away. “Yes, ma’am, if memory serves. I’ve been there hundreds of times, though I don’t recall what the building looks like, or looked like.”
Lauren snickered. “And I guess Google Street View is out of the question.”
“I reckon so.”
“You said it was a federal building?”
“State Department, I believe,” replied Bernie. “What did your dad do for a living?”
“He wrote code, mostly,” Lauren said. “He was a logic programmer for a building management company, but I think there was a lot more to it than that. He used to say he wore lots of hats. He worked so much overtime, picked it up whenever he could. He never wanted to work only to pay bills, he wanted us to have more than what we needed.”
Bernie sipped his coffee again. “Well, don’t forget. A lot of that time away and money spent was for your future.”
Lauren smiled. “How could I? Especially now.” She rearranged the items she’d brought with her on the table, placing some photocopied maps alongside the atlas.
“I see what you’re doing,” Bernie chided. “You’re tryin’ to replace my old map.”
Lauren shook her head, grinning. “Quit. These maps show several views of routes out of the city. They’re copies and printed in grayscale, but if you look closer, each one has a route highlighted. Could be his exit strategy. Maybe even a plan A and B.”
“Exit strategy,” Bernie repeated with a nod. “I see. I do remember him talking about his plan a little. He mentioned something about staying off the highways and main roads, not leaving any tracks behind. Oh hell, he might’ve been talking about railroad tracks, for all I know.”
Lauren looked up at him while she concentrated on the topic. “Funny to hear you say that. One route looks like it follows the W&OD trail from Alexandria all the way to Purcellville. It used to be a railroad a long time ago and was paved over when it became a national park. Knowing him, this was probably plan B.”
Bernie looked at Lauren, intrigued. “What makes you say that?”
“Because my dad could smell danger a mile away,” Lauren remarked. “He hated being around crowds, even before the shit hit the fan. He used to preach about how dangerous populated areas were.” She placed her finger on the map and traced the W&OD from its eastern terminus to the edge of the page. “The trail takes you westward to rural areas but travels straight through Northern Virginia…some of the most populated areas in the country, at one time. This was an option for him, but only a slightly better one than hiking home as a pedestrian on the interstate.”
Bernie placed his coffee mug between his hands and leaned forward, rubbing the lip of the mug on his chin. “That sounds about right. Your dad did have quite the knack for this type of thi
ng—predicting human behavior, that is. Especially in bad situations.”
Lauren nodded slightly, flipping several pages of Bernie’s atlas to match her maps. “Which leads us to his preferred option.” She pointed to the Georgetown area of western DC at the eastern terminus of the C&O Canal.
Bernie raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re cooking with oil. Folks used to call that monstrosity the Grand Old Ditch, especially all through construction, for obvious reasons. I used to lead a scout troop back in the day, and we took a bike trip along the towpath every year.”
“So you’re familiar.”
“Indeed I am. Done the whole thing on a bicycle. For the most part, she’s nice and flat. Goes through a lot of farming areas, too. Runs alongside the Potomac River for the duration.” Bernie paused. “You think your old man might’ve gone that way?”
The two began perusing the assortment of maps, aiming to make some sense of it all. Lauren had known her father to be a problem solver and, as well, a complex individual. When he’d encounter a problem or a topic of interest, he’d dissect it, divide it into subtasks, and attack each one individually until a solution was found, instead of working the entire problem as a whole. Following this method was his nature and one of the features that intrigued her about him the most.
Looking away from the table a moment, Lauren sent a glance to the mantel on the opposite wall. She studied the mass of photo frames, soon finding a faded color likeness of a much younger Bernie and Ruth flanking a teenage girl with long dark brown hair. “Bernie, sorry to interrupt, but I have to ask. Is that your daughter?” She pointed to the frame.
Bernie’s gaze followed her finger. “Yes, indeed,” he said, nodding. “That’s her. That’s my Sasha.”
“She’s pretty.”
A strange smile crept across Bernie’s face. “Oh, she’s magnificent. One of those pure, rare, cornfed country girls. The kind you just can’t find growing native anymore.”
“I’ve been here for days and it’s the first time I’ve noticed her picture. I guess it never dawned on me until now who she was.” Lauren pressed her lips together. “Sorry, I know it’s a tough subject.”
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