He listened to three voices say “Aye” almost immediately.
“Opposed?” Silence. “Then it’s unanimous. We go downhill. Let’s go toward those fields.”
Daniel squinted in the same direction. “That’s a golf course.”
Jensen looked again. “Are you sure?”
By his side, Daniel nodded. He pointed toward the green area far below. “See those pale spots? Those are sand traps. That’s some sort of golf resort.”
To rectify his comment, Jensen said, “Then it’s unanimous. We go downhill toward the golf course.”
The mountain was much steeper on this side. Jensen was glad they’d climbed up from the southeast face, which was far more gradual. In places, he slid more than he walked. The sound of him sliding through the leaves was loud, but the wind had started to pick up, which added another layer of sound as the trees swayed back and forth. The creaking sound from some of them was unnerving, as if they could fall over at any moment.
The small group angled to the north as they descended to avoid a smaller knob. The rain came just as they reached a less steep slope. Even under the trees, the rain was intense. The leaves caught the drops and deflected them, or they held them for a moment before another landed and the weight caused the leaf to tip and dump the accumulated water onto their heads.
They were pelted by drops, but also by those small outpourings of water, which was somehow worse. Added to that, it was cold. The temperature had dropped as the front moved in, and the water made them feel the chill. Luckily, they were sheltered from the worst of the wind. In the distance, Jensen heard a sharp crack. The weather had taken a limb from one of the trees.
This was fucking fabulous. The rain couldn’t have come in the heat of the day, when the sun was baking his already burned skin through his thin shirt. No, it had to wait until the sun was going down anyway, and then come roaring through like a pissed off gorilla.
He was lost in his thoughts when Jessica screamed out, “Jensen! Stop!”
Jensen stopped. He looked back at Jessica, who was a few steps behind him to his right. She pointed a few feet in front of him and said, “Step back.”
As he moved back toward her, he scanned the ground for the danger, but saw nothing. He meant to stand beside her, but she was backing up as well, so it took him a few extra steps.
“What is it?”
She pointed again. “Big ass snake.”
Jensen looked around his feet first, just to make sure there weren’t any more next to him before he looked at where she was pointing. In the dimming light, he couldn’t see anything out of place. “Where?”
She jabbed her finger in the direction she was pointing. “Right there!”
Behind him, he heard Marcy ask, “What do you think it is, a copperhead?”
Surprised, he looked at her. “You see it, too?”
With a quizzical expression, she asked “You can’t see it? You almost stepped on the bastard.” She pointed in the same direction as Jessica, “Right there, to the left of the pine tree.”
Then he saw it. He HAD almost stepped on it. It wasn’t coiled up as he’d been expecting. It was long and low, stretching almost five feet from head to tail. The snake was moving slowly, as though it were looking for a place to get out of the rain.
Jensen jumped when Daniel spoke, as though another snake had been behind him and bitten him.
“That’s not a copperhead, it’s a rattlesnake. Look at the tail.” Then he looked at Jensen, “A bit jumpy are we?”
The smaller man nodded. “I don’t like snakes, and now I want to get the fuck out of the woods before it gets dark. I don’t want to be walking around here with rattlesnakes slithering around.” He sighed. “I didn’t even see the damned thing.”
Jensen looked back toward where he’d seen the snake. It was gone. He couldn’t see it anymore. He checked the ground between his feet and the last place he’d seen it, half expecting it to be coming after him. “Where did it go?”
Jessica, Daniel, and Marcy all pointed to the same place. “There. About four feet from where it was last time you asked.”
“Okay, let’s go around it and get the fuck out of here. Someone else, who can actually see snakes, go first. I’ll go last.” Jensen took one last look at the snake. It blended in so well with the ground cover, especially now that the leaves were wet.
“Just follow me.” Daniel set off at the front of the column. As Jensen came up behind, he was very careful to step where Jessica, who was in front of him, stepped. If she didn’t step on a snake, then he was pretty confident he wouldn’t either.
With the low clouds, rain, and nearing sunset, it was getting pretty dim under the forest canopy. Marcy was the first to ask, “Does anyone have a flashlight?”
Jensen reached into the front thigh pocket of his 5.11 pants and retrieved a small LED light. “I’ve got one.”
He passed it forward to Daniel, who clicked it on to light their path. Almost immediately, he stopped. “I’ve got a trail here.” He swept the light to his left and his right, “Want to follow it?”
“Which way?” Marcy asked.
Daniel pointed to his right. “I think that way takes us downhill. What do you think?”
Her immediate response was, “Let’s go. I’m ready to get out of this stupid rain.” Travel was much faster on the trail. It was only a few minutes before they descended to an old road with a house on their right.
Daniel shone the light on the small sign next to the trail. “Rabun Bald. What kind of a name is that?” He looked back the way they’d come, “It’s not even bald. There are trees all over the damned thing. I don’t know what these folks were smoking, but it’s a stupid name.”
While he was talking to himself, the other three had moved on to investigate the nearby house. At first glance, it appeared deserted. Then Jensen saw a light move through one of the windows. He checked quickly to see if the light was from his flashlight, still held by Daniel, but he was still shining it on the sign and muttering to himself.
“Let’s leave this one. We’ll find a place without any residents.”
They had already gone several feet down the road before Daniel realized nobody was listening. “Hey! Wait up!” He hurried toward them as they started walking down the road.
Curiously, these homes all showed signs of occupancy. When they reached the end of the short drive, which was pretty steep, they turned left to continue down the mountain.
Jensen wanted to stay off the main road to reduce the chance of running into people, so they took the first left they found, which was called Spring Lake Drive. He took his flashlight back from Daniel and shut it off. Without the tub, he wanted to conserve batteries. He also wanted to watch for lights in the houses, which was made more difficult by the bright LED bulb.
A few hundred yards down a narrow, windy road, they found a bunch of unoccupied houses near a pond. They seemed pretty old, maybe 1960s or 1970s construction. Maybe that’s why the other homes were occupied; people had moved into something a little newer. No bother. They just needed a roof over their heads.
After seeing an open carport with no vehicles, Jensen motioned toward a house on the side of the street opposite the pond. That was probably the ‘lake’ mentioned on the street sign. It only took a few moments to verify the building was empty. Daniel took the Pulaski, which he’d been carrying all day long, and used the adze head to pry the back door open.
It was noisy, much noisier than Jensen would have liked. It was sure to draw attention from anybody nearby. They hurried inside and checked the rooms, weapons drawn, for occupants. Nobody. Jensen returned to the back door and found a wooden chair to wedge under the knob. It wasn’t perfect, but it would be marginally tougher to get in there than to break a window. If someone came to investigate, they’d have to deal with them.
“I’ll take the first watch. Why don’t you guys go get some sleep? It’s been a long day.”
Jessica looked concerned. “What about you? Yo
u have to be exhausted.”
“I am, but with this sunburn, I think I’m going to need to be even more exhausted to get any sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”
Jensen pulled an armchair toward the front windows and placed the Accuracy International in the corner. It was a long-range rifle, not much good for anyone who came to the front porch. Jessica found a room for them, while Daniel and Marcy appeared to have the master bedroom to themselves.
As they closed the door, Jensen had to chuckle. He heard Daniel saying, “Is later now?”
Chapter 27
“Jim, Jim, Jim, what to do with you?” Senator Snead leaned back in his chair. “Vampirgruppe doesn’t exist anymore. So you either work for Sentry, or you can join Doug.” Jim shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d seen what happened to Doug on his monitor as he’d been flying the small surveillance drone back to their home base near Macon.
“What is it you need me to do?” he asked. “I’ve mostly been flying drones for the past few years, but I know electrical pretty well.”
Snead dismissed his claim. “I’ve got people working on that. We have a lot of electricians, not so many drone pilots. I’d like to have one who isn’t part of the military, for occasions when the military doesn’t need to be involved.” Snead leaned forward, “I have a sudden vacancy for a Peregrine pilot. Are you familiar with the platform?”
Jim, feeling older than his forty-five years at that moment, suspected exactly why the vacancy had sprung up. That pilot was likely the one who had dropped the nukes. “I know a little bit about it, but I’ve never flown one.” This explained why he’d been transported south to Andersonville. Snead was making him an offer. One he couldn’t refuse if he wanted to live. “If I can get the documentation, I know I can figure it out pretty quickly.”
Bobby waved his hand again. “That won’t be necessary. The Air Force will train you on it. They’re expecting you back at Robins. Darlene will have new uniforms for you outside. You won’t be needing that one anymore.” Snead leaned back with a curious expression. “Can you tell me what Doug was doing up in the mountains? What was that mission about?”
Jim tried not to appear as if he knew too much. He was well aware Snead had ordered nukes dropped on a small college and a mountaintop near the North Carolina border, but Snead might not know he knew, or he’d probably be dead already.
“Doug said two of our teams were caught in explosions. He went up to search for survivors.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow. “And did he find any?”
Jim hesitated, “Yes. Nate and Rob survived the attack on the mountain. Then Rob killed Nate before Doug got up there.”
Bobby leaned forward with his hands clasped together tightly. “Two of his men survived the explosion? Did any others?”
Jim nodded. “We found Rob with five other people hiding in the mountains. They shot Rob when they got there, but he let the rest of them leave.”
“Tell me about those five. Were they from the mountain, too? Did he find them when he escaped? What do you know about them?”
Jim shrugged, “Nothing, really. Doug was looking for survivors from the teams. When he found out Rob had killed his son-in-law, he went out and found Rob.” After a moment he added, “I think they were from the mountain though; they had an armored vehicle and a Humvee. Doug seemed to think they came from there for some reason.”
Bobby consciously unclasped his hands and stretched out his fingers. He stood abruptly, “Follow me.” He keyed a button on his desk, “Darlene, I’m unavailable for the next thirty minutes.” He walked away without waiting for a response and went to a second door in his office. It opened into a hallway. Jim followed as they walked away from the reception area and passed several more doors before Bobby stopped and scanned his palm on a screen. Then he punched in a series of numbers and opened the door.
As they walked in, the lights clicked on and lit up the room. Jim recognized it as an operations center. There was a raised area in the middle near the back where the battle manager would sit, and screens along the walls. Multi-monitor computers were spread throughout the floor. To the far left, he could see several set up with joysticks for flying drones. This was a serious war room.
Snead walked to the raised area and clicked on the monitors. He zoomed in on a map, which showed a physical relief of the border areas of Georgia and South Carolina. Bobby indicated the chair. “Take a seat. Now show me where you intercepted those people.”
It took a moment for Jim to figure out how to zoom in on the map, but he found the large curve on Warwoman Road and indicated the eastern side of it. “We found the armored vehicle here, and the Humvee up here, about a mile away.” On the map, he could see the words ‘Goble Gap’ just behind where they had found the tub.
With his finger, he traced north until he got to the forest service road at a place called Duck’s Nest Gap. “We located them here. They walked down the road and went north into the campground. Doug did a flyover, but they hid in a small building on the east side of this stream. After that, they hiked north along the stream.”
He pointed at a place called Big Ridge. “He put the helicopter down in a clearing up here and intercepted them along the stream right about here. After he killed Rob, Doug let them go. I don’t know where they went after that. We shut the cameras off and headed back toward base. Doug’s helo crashed somewhere along the way.”
The senator looked at the map for a long while, trying to figure out where they might have gone. He wanted to know how the hell they’d managed to escape. He also wanted to know why two members of the group had been along with the other five. It didn’t make any sense. The real key now was to find and silence them before they could talk.
“I want you to get your bird up in the air again and try to find them. If there are five people out in the woods, they should be easy enough to spot.”
Jim did his best to sound respectful. “Yes, sir. Can I fly it out of here or am I going back to the plantation?”
He waited as the Senator considered for a moment. “It will take longer to get us patched in to your signals than it will to just bring you back. You’ll fly it out of the plantation instead.” Snead turned toward the door with a sense of urgency. “I’ll get a driver for you. I need you to leave right now. While you’re on the way, make sure your men have the plane fueled up and ready to fly.”
They walked to the end of the hallway to the reception area. Bobby looked at his assistant. “Darlene, I need a driver to get Jim back. Immediately.”
Bobby picked some gray uniforms from the desk. “These are for you.” He turned back to Darlene, “Send them with an escort. As fast as they can get there.” Then he walked back to his office and shut the door.
Once inside, he leaned back against the door and let his nerves take over. He was almost in a panic. There were five people out there somewhere who had stolen computers from this virus test run at the college. If they had escaped with two men from the assault unit, they could know he was behind the attack and the nuclear blasts. He needed them dead, and quickly.
The only good news was they were on foot, but it had been at almost thirty-six hours since he’d had Doug’s helicopter shot down. How far could they have traveled in that amount of time? Had they managed to find a car? What direction would they go?
He hurried back to the ops center to look at the map and strategize. It was only when he sat down at his desk that he realized he needed to get teams moving to the north, and quickly. He had several more Canids, but he wanted something a little more maneuverable up there as well. He clicked a button on his computer and brought up a messaging service.
Once connected, he turned on the camera and forced a call through to Trevor, his head of security.
“Trevor, the targets from two days ago were not neutralized. I need two teams in Clayton ASAP. Each one in a Canid. They should establish a security zone there and be ready to move when the targets are reacquired.” He waited while Trevor wrote the informatio
n down quickly.
“Got it boss, two teams up to Clayton. Anything else?”
Bobby looked into the camera and told him, “Yes, I want you to load up both of the AWESOMEs and send them as well. Those two armored vehicles from Fort Benning. Get them all rolling as quickly as possible and find me some ways to get other teams up there by air if needed.”
Trevor nodded, knowing the Senator could see him. “It’s already happening boss. They’ll be moving in no time.”
Bobby knew they would. His chief of security was beyond competent. He simply responded, “Good,” and closed the link.
His eyes turned back to the map. Where would they have gone? He wasn’t completely familiar with the area to the east. When he was in northern Georgia, he usually spent all of his time at his house on Lake Burton, not off in the mountains getting ticks.
Chapter 28
Lake Burton was beautiful, even in the rain, Brent thought to himself as he squished along the road on the eastern side of the lake. Every once in a while, he would catch a view of the lake through the trees, with mountains rising behind it. The homes tucked into the mountain slopes along the lake were worth millions of dollars. Each one seemed to have a boathouse which matched the house it belonged two.
It seemed like every one of them was larger than a normal house and was made for two boats. He remembered seeing names like Nick Saban and Alan Jackson in the Dahlonega newspaper when those homes were sold for more money than most people made in an entire lifetime. Brent smiled a little bit; money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a lakeside mansion and gaudy boathouse with a deck.
He had left the church just as the sun came up. At least he thought it was then. It was still raining, so it was difficult to know if it was later in the morning than he’d thought. It didn’t really matter; he had all the time in the world. His back ached from sleeping on the hard pew and he thought about stopping to rest for a while he tried to work the kinks out of his muscles.
Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 3): Escape and Evade Page 11
