“I’ll have a meeting with my top NCOs and let them in on everything.”
“I look forward to moving forward with you, Charles. I just hope it’s in a westward direction.”
Both men smiled and shared a short chuckle before John said one more thing.
“We better head back, I almost forgot the admiral.”
“The admiral?”
“Yes, I brought a squid along. He’s an alright guy. I’ve known him for years. The two of us saw this coming for years and had developed a contingency plan just in case. It all worked out. His name is Belt McKanty.”
“Belt?”
“I don’t know,” John said confusingly. “That’s what his mammy and pappy called him at birth.”
“Popeye! Good one!”
General John James and Colonel Charles Buchanan made their way back to the pavilion and spent the rest of the day getting to know each other.
CHAPTER VII
Just outside the residential area of Benton, Illinois
Nathan had selected Jess and a few others to sneak into Benton city limits, along with them was a small group of reconnaissance Marines that they had met months earlier at their old homestead in Gorham.
As they approached the outskirts of the residential areas, Nathan was taking in any type of movement or sounds he could pick up. Jess was doing the same, but facing in a separate direction. Nathan maintained a low profile as he moved from point to point, walked up to one of the Marines and said, “Can you take your team northeast into town and head toward the square?”
“Yeah, not a problem,” Sergeant Banks replied.
“Great, you’ll be looking for a federal building in the center. I suspect there’ll be some activity of sorts.”
The Marines checked their equipment again, for operational readiness, and stepped off.
“Jess, it’s great having my Marine Corps brothers along, but it’s more like home when it’s just us.”
“Are you suffering from low blood sugar, too?”
“No, why do you ask?”
“Because you’re getting mushy on me. Stay on target, Marine.”
“That’s too funny. I’m glad you find humor in despair.”
“Just making the best of things. So, what’s the plan?”
“Plan? No plan. We just head northwest and towards the square. See what we can see and head back. Simple.”
Nathan looked back at the group. He had about ten with him, including Morgan and Blake, two members of the original Posse, and others he didn’t know real well, but knew how to handle their firearms. From that he had gathered they were experienced to some degree.
“I’m not sure what we’ll run into, but if we find a SNAFU, everybody is to meet back here! Copy?”
“Forgive my ignorance,” Jess said, “but what is a SNAFU?”
“Situation Normal: All Fouled Up,” Morgan answered before Nathan could open his mouth.
“He’s right. If things get foul, or go south, meet back here. Then we’ll head back and rejoin the rest as a group.”
Nathan led them into a house with an open back door. The smells were horrendous. Nathan was hit first by the pungent odors of old human waste. He looked back at Jess and saw that she was tying a handkerchief around her face, the way the old American West bandits used to do. Her eyes were visible, and he couldn’t help but wonder why she would think the handkerchief would filter the smell. He just smiled at her as they made their way through the house. In doing so, they walked by the bathroom and saw that the toilet and sink were full of human excrement.
“There’s the source for the perfumes of tomorrow,” Nathan joked as he whispered with a smile.
“You’re disgusting!” Jess said, striking Nathan in the shoulder. Her shoulder had healed up nicely since she was shot, but every once in a while, she would feel a tight pinching sensation when she exerted a little force on it. This was one of those moments. She struck Nathan and that made her wince.
Seeing her wince caught Nathan’s attention. “Is your shoulder still bothering you?”
“Yeah. It only happens once in a while.”
As the group made their way to the front door, Nathan stopped them and peeked out of the curtains.
“We’re going to have to travel from house to house like this until we reach the square.”
“That’s going to take us hours,” Morgan said.
“Do you have a better plan?”
Blake interrupted and said, “Why don’t we send one guy a block ahead and he signals us to move forward?”
“Okay,” Nathan said. “Who’s going to volunteer for that detail?”
Morgan looked back to Blake and saw that Blake was looking at him.
“Don’t look at me; it was your idea.”
“Rock, paper, scissors?”
“No way!”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Blake said. “Me and my big mouth.”
Nathan stopped him at the door. “You don’t have to do this. We can continue on as we started and use the houses as cover and concealment.”
“If I can get us there quicker, I’ll gladly donate myself for the detail.”
“Okay, then. Be careful, check yourself for danglies, and make sure you’re as silent as a ninja.”
“Danglies?”
“Things that hang from your gear and cause sounds.”
Nathan helped him search for any noise makers and secured a couple straps with electrical tape.
“Good luck,” Nathan said, patting Blake on the back.
Blake stuck his head out the door and looked both ways. When he felt it was safe to move, he inhaled deeply and stepped out. Nathan caught the screen door and watched closely from the window.
As soon as Blake reached the next street, he looked back at the group and motioned them to proceed forward. This tactic lasted several blocks before they saw their first sign of life.
The group was now entering what used to be the business district. Blake saw a child run from the outside of one of the buildings into the back door, where he vanished from sight.
Nathan was waiting a block back and saw Blake enter the building.
“What’s he doing?”
“What do you see?” Jess asked.
“Blake just ran into the back door of an old two-story storefront.”
“Wonderful,” Jess said sarcastically.
“That’s something Ash would have done,” Nathan blurted out. The comment made him remember their mission. “Has anybody seen any sugar products that they can take back to Ash?”
“We’re out of the residential living area now, Nathan,” one of the guys said. “If we’re going to find anything, it would be from some of the homes we passed, instead of going through.”
Nathan looked back at Morgan and said, “Would you mind heading back the way we came, checking the cabinets of the homes for any sugar products you can salvage?”
“Sure, can I have a couple guys?”
“Of course. Anybody want to head back with Morg?”
Two men raised their hands and the three of them headed back.
Nathan was down to six members. He looked at each of them and said, “You guys okay with going into that building?”
They all looked at each other and everyone volunteered to tag along. They stepped off and traveled a block ahead. When they reached the back of the building, Nathan quietly opened the back door and peeked in. Inside the door, he saw a blackened-out staircase that went upwards at a steep pitch. Stepping in, he pointed his rifle straight upwards towards the overlook that he could barely see from his position. He whispered to Jess, who was right behind him, “Prop the storm door open so we can see the stairwell.”
Jess passed the word down to the sixth person in line and he locked it open with the locking mechanism on the storm door closer.
Nathan was now in a position where he had to awkwardly step up the stairs in a side-strafing pattern so that he could keep an eye on the stairwell overlook. When the group reached the
top, there was another door that was slightly cracked open. Nathan signaled for Jess to walk up next to him for a possible breach entry. He could hear voices coming from the room but had no idea how many people were there, only that the voices weren’t Blake’s. Nathan stepped to the left side of the door to make room for Jess to take the right side. The others staggered behind Jess and waited for the word.
North Marion, Illinois
Tori was now entering the northernmost parts of Marion. She hadn’t taken this exact route earlier, so the location was all new to her. She had stopped along the way and rummaged through an abandoned house; finding a pair of tennis shoes, she latched them onto the ends of the gurney to prevent them from grinding away against the surface of the road.
She had finally reached the destination as it was explained to her by Mike. Her motorcycle came to a slow and steady stop. Her legs now firmly planted on the earth, she turned the bike off to listen for sounds of life. She could clearly see the signs of a battle on the sides of the train. They told a story as she read the clues. According to Mike, a group of military men and a ragtag group of civilians came through here. She could clearly see that bullets had left their sting as the Marines were missed and returned fire back towards the homes, where a trail of machine-gun fire was visible across the siding.
When she had completed her initial examination of the evidence, she removed her rifle from the latch on the saddlebags. She put her kickstand down and leaned the bike against it. Maintaining a constant eye on her environment, she became concerned that perhaps she was being watched, and that feeling irritated her and made her feel vulnerable; a feeling she had promised herself that she would never succumb to again.
“Hello?” she called, in an attempt to discover the men. “Mike sent me. I have a man that was wounded here. Mike asked me to bring him back.”
She stopped talking for a moment to wait on a reply. As she waited, she looked back at the wounded stranger and saw that his bandages were in need of replacing.
“This man is wounded. He has a fever and needs new bandages,” she called.
Inside the shacks were several men taking cover in the shadows. The day had been long, and the evening sun was casting a long shadow to Tori’s benefit. The men were not moving because they had the sun in their eyes, but soon it would be below the train. Tori knew that soon she would be caught in the dark, so she had to make a rash decision.
“Sorry, dude,” she said to the wounded stranger, “but this is where we part ways.”
She walked to the back of the bike, and keeping her rifle pointed towards the shacks, she unfastened the gurney from her bike and left Cade near the ditch.
When the lady on the bike was gone, the men came from the shacks and had several rifles pointed in all directions.
“Be careful, boys,” one of the men said. “I smell a trap.”
When they had walked up to the man on the gurney, they could see it was Cade.
“It’s Cade, Tom’s boy,” another man said.
“Let’s get him inside. It’s freezing out here,” he said as he knelt down to touch his forehead. “He’s on fire.”
“Is he going to make it?”
“How would I know? I’m not a doctor.”
“Well, if he’s half the man his father was, he’ll pull through.”
Another man stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute, guys. Let’s not forget that Cade came up missing the night Tom, Ralph, Ted, and Steve were killed in their sleep.”
“You don’t think Cade killed his own father, do you?”
“I would certainly hope not, but I feel more comfortable keeping him secure until we get answers.”
“Then move him inside. Be quick about it. If he’s caught the fever, he’ll be dead in this weather.”
The men moved Cade inside one of the shacks where they had a wood-burning stove. Several logs were already in the fire. They moved Cade close to the fire, but had taken off a couple layers of his clothing to help break the fever. Clean bandages were long gone, so one of the men used a sheet to cut strips for wrapping his head.
“That’s about all we can do for him right now.”
“Hey, Donnie,” one of the men said to another.
“Yeah?”
“That girl on the bike, was that the same chick that tried to blow his head off?”
“I don’t think so. The girl that shot Cade had long brown hair. This girl had short black hair.”
“I don’t think so,” another man said. “That was the girl. That’s the only reason I didn’t take her out. I figured they had come back to finish us off.”
There was a great disagreement in the room about the appearance of the girl that shot Cade. While they were arguing, Cade had awakened from his sleep and was eavesdropping on their conversation. At first, he was unaware of his whereabouts, but soon recognized some of the faces and realized that he had been compromised by being brought back to Marion. He could tell by their discussion that they didn’t know he was responsible for killing their friends.
In a low mumbled voice, Cade picked up the conversation. “It was her.”
The men heard Cade speak and moved to his side.
“Take it easy, brother. You’re in bad shape and need more rest.”
“The girl,” Cade continued. “She’s the one that shot me in the head. She came back for me while we slept. She took me at gunpoint and threatened to finish me off if I didn’t cooperate. I think she hurt my dad.”
The men looked at each other and were saddened to have to be the bearers of bad news.
“Cade, she killed your father,” Donnie said.
“No! I don’t believe you,” he cried out. His act of anguish fooled all of them. “Take me to him.”
“We buried him out back, Cade. We had a really nice memorial for him.”
Cade closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
“The poor guy has been through so much,” one of the men said.
“We’ve got to come up with a plan to stop them. This can’t continue. They’re just toying with us.”
“We need some wheels if we are to have any hope of catching up to them.”
“Stop and think about what you guys are saying! This is a suicide mission!” Donnie barked.
“It’s one girl!”
“She’s just the decoy. It was just her before and then the storm came.”
“Old man Sutton still has a running car,” yet another man blurted out.
“If you guys go after them, I’m out. It’s a sure death,” Donnie said.
“Go ask Sutton if he’ll trade the car for a hunting rifle with ammunition.”
It was as if the other men weren’t listening to the words that Donnie was saying. He was sure that this was a different girl than the one that shot Cade, but the others weren’t hearing it. They had made up their minds that she was the guilty one and they were going to catch her and stop her murderous rampage. Cade heard everything and was keeping mental notes. He lay there quietly, biding his time, as the sun was coming down on Marion.
Benton, Illinois
Jess watched Nathan carefully for the signal to breach the door to the apartment. The faint muffled sounds of human voices were in the air as Nathan held out his fingers and counted down from three. When he reached zero, he kicked the door the rest of the way open and the group filed into the apartment room with guns aiming center mass on several dozen men, women, and children, both standing and lying on the floor, and furniture. They were coughing into the air as they were both startled and scared at the strangers’ unwelcomed entrance.
Nathan saw Blake helping a man lying in the corner.
“He’s dead,” Blake said.
“What have you done?” Nathan said.
“I’m helping these people. They’re sick.”
“You’ve put us all in danger. Outside, now!” Nathan commanded.
“These people aren’t violent. Look at them!”
“Yeah, look at ’em! They’re sick and now you’
ve exposed not only yourself but us to an unknown sickness.”
“Blake,” Jess said, “he’s right. We don’t have hospitals or vaccines or pharmacies. If we get sick, that’s it.”
Blake stood up and walked over to the doorway. Nathan provided cover to the rear of the room and looked upon the sick people. He knew their fate was sealed, but was more scared that the group might now be exposed to the same sickness. Blake had been touching them and there was no running water or soap to wash his hands. It was a truly frightening scenario for Nathan, who had tried so hard to protect the Posse.
Blake was now leading the way down the stairs and out of the apartment. His rifle, which was slung over his shoulder when he was trying to help the sick people, was now at the ready as he prepared to exit the storm door. Jess was directly behind Blake, just two steps up, when he took his final step. A high-caliber shot was fired from outside the building, and the round penetrated Blake’s chest, exiting just inches away from Jess’s legs. Blake fell straight down, as if his legs had been taken from him. In a quick reaction, Jess lunged forward to catch Blake. That’s when she saw a squad of UN Biocontrol troops armed with AK-47s. They were garbed in white, head-to-toe hazmat suits and had breathing apparatuses on their faces and heads.
Realizing what had happened, she turned and shouted, “Back up the stairs, now.”
Everybody ran backwards up the stairs. Jess was the last one in the apartment. She kicked the door closed and was thoughtful enough to not touch anything with her hands.
“What happened, Jess?” Nathan shouted.
“UN troops, outside, in biogear.”
“Blake!” Nathan called out.
“He’s done, Nathan,” Jess said. “They hit his spine and dropped him. He’s dead weight now.”
Nathan’s mind was racing as he looked at the sick people and realized he was stuck in the worse possible scenario.
Nathan looked at Jess and saw that she still had a handkerchief over her face.
“Cover your faces,” he told the group.
Looking at the sickened people, Nathan found the boy that was walking around and appeared healthy.
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 43
