“Come on, E-Z, we’re not done yet. We’ve got the high ground.” Butch jumped over the edge again, once more slipping on the muddy metal surface. The ammo backpack was in his hand. “Let’s fill our mags for round two.”
He smiled, glad to have a professional guiding him. Ezra fancied himself a master behind the wheel of the boat, but he’d never raised his gun at other human beings. It left him unsettled and confused about whether he should be happy or sad he’d shot the men.
Butch seemed to suffer no such doubt. “We’re going to make them pay for trying to steal your sweet ride.”
Chapter 12
Billings, MT
“If you aren’t from Billings, then where are you from?” Grace asked, trying to stay calm.
Logan spoke like he knew he’d caused a problem. “Well, when you found me at the mall, I’d been there for a couple of days. Me and Noah came in on a rez bus, but after the power went off the bus never came back. We waited at the mall as long as we could, but stores kept closing and people kept coming in. Soon it was all yelling and chaos. That’s when stuff started flying…”
Asher replied. “So you decided to steal video games?”
Logan shrugged. “I didn’t really think it through.”
Grace struggled to wrap her mind around the irresponsible actions of the kid. “Wait a second. If you aren’t from here, where were you taking those games? Why did you leave the mall?”
Logan somehow shrugged more emphatically than before. “I told you, we didn’t think it through. The stupid part is neither of us have game consoles.”
“You couldn’t even play them?” Asher sounded like he wanted to strangle someone.
She was on the verge of panic. The departure of the planes created a sense of urgency, and the distant rattle and popping wasn’t Fourth of July fireworks—it was gunfire. She made a huge effort to steady her breathing before asking her next question. “What’s a rez bus? Where the heck did you come from?”
He thumbed behind him, to the outside. “I’m from the Crow reservation. They give us bus rides to the local cities and towns so we can work and shop. My mom sent me to the city to pick up some stuff for her at the mall.” He stomped his foot. “Oh, man! I forgot I was going to get some supplies for her.”
Grace chuckled at how scatterbrained Logan had become. It wasn’t that long ago she herself was all over the place like him, though she never would have picked up random stuff in a shopping center. “We’re not going back to the mall, so don’t even think about it. Okay, so if you took a bus into town, we’ll drive you back out to the reservation. Is it close by? Can you get us there?”
“The bus ride took about an hour. We drove on the interstate almost the whole time. But…”
“What?” she pressed.
“I don’t know the way.”
She shook her head in disappointment. “How can you not know where you live?”
“The bus driver knew.” Logan ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “Why did I have to know?”
Grace controlled her emotions to hide the exasperation welling inside. “If we got you to the highway, do you think you would recognize anything?” They’d gone over the interstate twice since Logan was in the truck. Logically, he might only need to point out which direction to go, and they could get on the correct path.
Logan switched back to being serious. “Yeah, probably. Do you think we could find Noah? Maybe he wasn’t hurt too bad.”
It was one bridge too far for Grace; she let slip some of her frustration. “You said they hit him with a baseball bat. Was that a lie, too?”
“No, it’s true! I don’t know if he was dead, though. I thought he was.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “We can’t go back to the mall only to see if your friend is dead. It would put us all in danger. My priority right now is getting you home.” She turned to Asher and conveyed her inner feelings with her eyes: “And out of our hair!”
Logan turned reflective. “Yeah, I guess it makes sense. If Noah is still alive, he’ll make his way home, too. We talked about hitchhiking back. Since I already have a ride, I guess I should return home, to be there when he arrives.”
Grace wondered if he knew his friend was dead but couldn’t face up to that horrible truth. If he went home, he’d be forced to explain all his bad decisions to his parents, and the parents of his buddy. However, even if she wanted to risk driving through the city again, it made no sense to do it based on the confused memory of a frightened teen.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here,” she insisted.
They all piled back into the Suburban. She ignored the new dent put in it by the airplane pilot, as well as the additional holes in the windshield. An irrational comparison popped in her head. Much like Logan would have to explain himself to his parents, she would eventually have to explain herself to some superior at the National Park Service. She’d need to start a list to describe where every blemish came from, though who would believe she got struck by an airplane?
Grace drove them out of hangar row and back toward the cliff along the edge of Billings. Instead of going down the hill to the police roadblock, she continued east. From their elevated position, it was easy to see an alternate road angling down into a different part of town, crossing a river, and linking up with the interstate.
Along the way, many cars sped by in the other direction, perhaps to catch those last few planes out of the city. She didn’t go any faster than the speed limit, though she desperately wanted to get away from all the crazy people. Asher spent his time working on his watch, but after several minutes of silence, she had to speak.
“There’s that burning,” she remarked in a casual fashion, pointing to get Asher’s attention. It was an oil refinery, or a facility built like one. Giant fuel tanks were spread over the massive complex. A few of them toward the back were ablaze, belching up roiling clouds of black smoke. The rising plumes melted into the already-hazy skies, making it seem like eight at night, rather than noon.
He looked up. “I’ve been texting my sister like crazy, but she isn’t responding. I’m worried she’s in trouble.”
She appreciated having something to talk about besides dodging bullets or escaping looters, but hated the thought of anyone being as bad off as they were. “I’m sure she’s fine. No one on the planet had more early warning about this disaster than she did, right? You said she worked in the space center?”
“In Texas,” he said in agreement.
“There, see? I bet she’s in a shelter somewhere and they don’t have a signal for communication. Lord knows we haven’t had much luck with our phones even when the network is online. The whole system is jacked.”
He seemed to think on it. “I hope so. No, I’m sure you’re right. She’ll text me when the network gets a little more back to normal.”
Grace looked back at Logan. “Do you have a phone? Have you talked to your mother?”
He laughed. “We can’t afford a phone. No. We’re not big city slickers like you two.”
She chuckled in response. “This is the first time in my life someone has called me that. I grew up in the country. Can’t you tell by my accent, y’all?” She didn’t go around trying to drawl like a Southerner, but experience had taught her residents in her part of Kentucky did talk a bit different than the shows she watched on television.
They talked about phones, or lack thereof, while she drove them through the wafting smoke over that part of Billings. The interstate cut through the whole town, making it impossible to miss. Five or ten minutes later, cruising along at seventy-five and happily chatting with her new friends, she realized they were well outside the city.
“Wow, we made good time. I expected more of a problem getting out.” She looked in the rearview. Black smoke rose from more places than the one refinery. Billings was in total meltdown, for certain.
Logan sat forward in his seat. “I know this highway! We’re going the right way.”
She let out
a breath she’d unknowingly held in her chest. It never occurred to her the boy’s reservation could have been an hour to the west. That would put her as far back as Red Lodge, where they’d come from yesterday. If he’d said they had to backtrack, she might have changed her mind about the whole thing.
As it was, they’d caught a break.
Near Grand Tower, IL
Ezra scrambled to reload his thirty-round magazine, drawing cartridges from the carton inside the kids’ backpack. As he stood there panting and nearly peeing himself out of fright, he noticed the orientation of the barge had shifted. The incline toward the other side wasn’t as pronounced, and water inched up from the bottom, as if the weight of the pontoon boat had caused the other ship to dip down.
“Hey, we’ve moved,” he said excitedly.
Butch didn’t look up from his reload. “We did?” A few seconds later, he looked to his right, down the hull of the container barge. The wreckage once lodged in between the overturned hulk and the far shore shifted, too. A silver storage tank had slid off the hull and floated free, though most of the blockage remained. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He tapped Butch on the shoulder. “You think we can slide our boat down into the water at the bottom?” The twin pontoons sat like a pair of sausages underneath the flat deck of the boat, but they were rounded, which meant they had narrow points of contact with the hull. If they could leverage the slippery mud and the bit of downhill incline, he figured they might get into the water on the other side of the blockage.
Butch was a big man who hated the water. The look on his face at the prospect of both using his physical strength and going back toward water almost made Ezra crack up laughing. However, the sound of bullets kept him on point.
“Well, do you?” he asked again.
Butch set the rifle on the edge of the deck and squared his shoulder with the side of the boat. It shifted an inch or two, moving down the incline. “Yeah, we can move it…but…”
“But what?” he asked in a hurry.
“If we slide it down in a straight line, we’re going to hit the crap blocking the river.” He pointed to the silver storage tank and other debris. “One of us needs to get on the other side of the boat and also push it that way, toward the main channel. Then our boat will dump out on the clear side.”
His voice caught in his throat. Someone would have to expose themselves to the dangerous side. The side with incoming bullets.
“I’ll do it,” Ezra said, after a moment of hesitation. He chucked his rifle up on the deck.
“Nope. I’m sorry, E-Z. I should have been clearer. The strongest dude has to get on that side and push. The other one can shove the pontoon from the rear, on the safe side. But I’m not greedy. I’ll let you take the risk if you think you can bench more than me.” Butch smiled knowingly.
“Damn. You’re right.” He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with physics.
“It’s okay, though. Your job will be to cover me with the rifle if you see those guys stick their heads up. I’ll be pushing the whole time. You can shoot and shove.”
Ezra had a sneaking suspicion Butch could slide the entire two-thousand-pound boat without his help, but let him participate since he knew there was no way Ezra was going to sit it out. However, it made a lot of sense to have someone covering the main pusher, so he didn’t dispute the plan.
“Got everything loaded?” Butch asked.
“Yes. I’ll take your mag, if you don’t mind. In case I need more than thirty rounds.” He honestly hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Butch detached his mag, handed it to Ezra, then repositioned himself toward the back. “All right. Let off a few rounds to get us started. It works best if you can put one in a bad guy’s gut. It will put the fear of God in the others.”
Ezra peeked over the top of Susan’s Grace to find his first target. It terrified him how glib Butch was about maiming someone intentionally, but was also glad to have the guy on his team. “I’ll do my best.”
The yellow motorboat had wedged itself into some tree stumps near shore, though its motor was still cranking. The engine would turn the propeller until the gas ran out. By contrast, the gold ski boat was out of commission on the mud flat. That left the red speedboat as the primary threat. It was now parked behind the two pontoon boats, like a general watching over his troops. He assumed men were still inside, but they weren’t exposed.
Finally, he saw movement. “I see you.”
It was a guy on one of the pontoons. The man crouched on the deck and peeked above one of the vinyl seats, much as Ezra was doing behind his own boat. However, the man obviously didn’t learn the critical difference between concealment and cover. The seat wasn’t bulletproof. He used the scope, estimating it was about a hundred yards through the crowded field of debris. Ezra aimed for the center of the chair and squeezed off a round. After firing, he steadied himself to look through the scope. The man was gone, though Ezra had no idea of his condition.
“Go,” he commanded.
Butch stepped around the motor and braced himself against the transom holding the outboard motor. It provided a little cover from the gunmen while also giving the guy a lot to push. The boat moved a few inches in response to his first effort.
Ezra leaned against his side of the transom, adding his strength to the push. Susan’s Grace slid a foot or two before he and Butch both lost their footing in the slippery mud.
“Dang, how can we keep our feet in this stuff?” he asked.
Butch kicked the mud away and slid it from side to side with his boots. It seemed to give him enough clear metal to get his footing, so he pushed again.
A series of gunshots echoed from nearby.
“They see what we’re doing!” he yelped.
“Just keep pushing,” Butch replied with steel in his voice. “Or we’re dead.”
A round snapped off the top of the motor, cracking the plastic housing. Butch didn’t even look up. “Cover me!”
Ezra grabbed his rifle, ready to oblige.
Denver, CO
Petteri and Howard regrouped inside a tent, which happened to be the one Dorothy was using for her research.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked when he came in.
He wished his team of Manhattan lawyers was in one of the tents, but he was working with a skeleton crew in a city far from the comforts of the East Coast. He had to hobble along with what was available. “Ah, yes, Dorothy. Put that on hold for now. We have a new problem.”
She looked over the top of her laptop, much as she did the other day when he first met her. “What’s your problem?”
“Someone is taking a bite out of your paycheck.” He pointed outside the tent. “Howard and I need to find a way to get rid of them.” Thinking of a way to soften his image in front of her, he added, “Without violence, ideally.”
She seemed distressed. “What? In Denver? Don’t they realize we were here first?”
Petteri laughed at her naïveté. “My dear, the world doesn’t work like that. The spoils go to whoever can sink their teeth into the meat.”
“But there’s billions of metric tons of material spread out across fifteen states. Why did they have to come to the one we were at?”
He wondered about that, taking a stab at what he would do if another company had gotten the drop on him. “I think they’re going to be at many of the crash sites.” Petteri turned to her with a sideways glance. “You didn’t tell anyone about the data you pulled for me, did you?”
“Hell no,” she snarked. “You don’t think I would betray you, do you? It’s my money, too.”
He harbored some concerns about her zest for money, but he’d promised her quite a bit to work for him. It was a bounty he was willing to pay, given her usefulness so far, but he had to maintain some skepticism her intentions were totally pure. He hadn’t become the world’s most successful businessman by trusting people for no reason.
“I had to ask,” he said smoothly. “I don’t expe
ct anyone to find all the pieces as fast as we did, but we have to assume our competition is trying. This might have been a lucky guess on the part of PWI to reach Denver not long after us, but we have to plan for them to be at other places, too.” He cleared his throat and got Dorothy’s attention. “I want you to get me a list of every piece of rock you can find. I want the nearest city over a thousand population. I want the nearest TKM location. And get me the closest Bureau of Land Management office to each one. We need some heavy-hitting backup if we want to enforce our claims.”
“I’m on it, sir.” Dorothy ducked down behind her screen.
It left him and Howard alone.
“Sir, what do you want me to do about the intruders out there? You didn’t really want to show them a strongly worded letter, did you?”
They both opened the flap a bit, revealing several more trucks from the other company as they pulled onto the street, opposite his tents. His men were wiring explosives to crack some more of the ore, which would then be loaded on dump trucks, but having those new arrivals presented unneeded complications for his team. What if the explosives alarm went off, but the other crew ignored it? Who would be responsible if those outsiders were injured?
Petteri let the flap close. “Howard, I do believe we’re past letters. It’s time we take care of ourselves and lock down our dig site. For the safety of the citizens around us, of course.”
Howard patted the gun on his hip, under his suit coat. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Dorothy was right. There were billions of tons of riches scattered all over the country. It was bound to devolve into a scavenger hunt multiplied by a cage match fistfight with his competitors. Not that different than any other kind of mining he was involved with. And, as he was fond of being told by his adoring press, nobody was better at mining than Petteri Tikkanen.
Chapter 13
Hardin, MT
“This is where I go to school,” Logan remarked as they passed a sign for Hardin, Montana.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 49
