The man stood up ramrod straight. “Sir, I have an idle two-man team in Venezuela. I can insert them into Montana airspace and have them deal with our unsolvable problem good and hard. The man on the team is ruthless. His female partner is even worse. They’ve never failed to deliver for me.”
He wagged a finger at the old soldier. “You know, I should have you replaced, too. You were supposed to take care of all this. Misha is your screw-up.”
Howard remained fixed at attention. Petteri wondered if the man would kill himself if he ordered it. That was the level of devotion he wished his men to display. Yet, as he’d thought many times, Howard was much too valuable to throw away.
“Bring Asher’s sister to Denver. We might need her.” He stood in front of his assistant, sloshing his golden drink inside the tumbler, letting the man sweat about what he was going to do next.
No more being Mr. Nice.
Chapter 24
Cheyenne, WY
The Army men in the Humvees kept the machine gun trained on her beloved Chevy Suburban. Unlike the other environmental hazards, she knew it wouldn’t survive whatever huge bullets came out of the giant barrel. The truck was stopped, so she held up her hands. “We surrender!”
In the mirror, she watched the thieves to see what they were up to. One of the chase cars had turned around, but at least two were stopped about five car-lengths behind her. Thinking fast, she didn’t want them to get the jump on talking to the soldiers, so she slowly opened her door.
“What are you doing?” Asher asked from the seat next to her.
“Surrendering. Come on, everyone. Get out. I’d rather take my chances with the US military than those guys back there, wouldn’t you?” She cast her eyes toward the cars behind, reached over and grabbed her hat, then hopped out of the front seat.
Once her hat was firmly on her head, she raised her hands again. “I’m with the National Park Service. I’m here on official business.” A white lie, of a sort. She was officially traveling with Shawn Runs Hard, but not necessarily with the park service. She didn’t even know if her immediate supervisor was still alive, and she hadn’t seen another official employee since…Chester and Tessa.
Metal cracked on the door frame next to her. Someone in the chase car must have fired a gun. She figured that out as she dropped to the ground and looked back. Grace only had enough time to confirm the bearded man existed, since he disappeared in a red mist almost immediately. The roar of the Army machine gun seemed a lot louder from outside her truck. Bullets pounded into the windshield, hood, and body of the white sedan, creating fist-sized cavities.
“Holy crap!” she screamed.
The Army gunner held his fire, giving her a chance to look again. Nothing moved in the car, which served as a grim warning. The men in the second vehicle held their hands up, some out the windows, begging the soldiers not to target them next.
She waited for at least a minute while the soldiers yelled back and forth to each other, eventually saying the word “clear.”
“Miss, you can stand up! Move slow!”
Once she was certain it was all right, she waved for her friends to get out of the Chevy. Shawn and Logan fell in behind her, since the rear door on Asher’s side was welded shut. Asher came around the front of the truck to be closer to her.
“My God, are you all right?” Asher asked as soon as he got to her.
She gave him a thumbs-up sign. “Better than the men in that car.”
They chuckled quietly. Ahead, about fifty feet away, soldiers stood on top of the Army vehicles, but they wore odd coverings. “Those guys up there are wearing MOPP suits,” Asher remarked.
“What did we walk into?” Logan asked with a sense of adventure in his voice.
Shawn had his hands up, but he stepped in front of everyone else. “I’m chairman of the Crow Nation. These park service employees were taking me to the Cheyenne airport, but there weren’t any planes there. These other cars were chasing us because we caught them robbing a jewelry store.”
The soldiers looked like they’d been wrapped with camouflage space suits, with coverings over their entire body except for a giant plastic window in front of their faces. She’d seen the environmental suits mentioned once in one of her training videos, but it was in the context of an industrial spill. She didn’t think a spill would explain the men at the roadblock. Did the asteroid bring in an exotic disease from the stars?
One of the soldiers waved her forward.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Stay ahead of the thieves.”
They walked together toward the roadblock, then they were guided between two of the trucks. A man led them into a canvas tent with all four walls rolled up. The soldiers waved scanners and computer tablets in front of them, took their vital signs, and checked in their eyes and ears. Once each person was cleared, they were taken out of the tent and over to a second one.
“We should go inside?” she asked the guide, getting concerned no one had talked to them. The soldier waved her along. He didn’t hold a gun in their faces, but he did have a black rifle tethered to his back. Not that she was thinking of making a break for it…
“Come on in,” a man advised from inside. “All of you.”
The olive-drab tent was about twenty feet square, with a bright LED bulb hanging from the highest point in the middle. A clean-cut officer sat at a folding table toward the back. A laptop and papers sprawled on the workspace in front of him. As she neared, he waved her into a cheap folding chair by his side.
“We’re not—” she started to say.
“We know you aren’t with those others. We have drones in the air. We saw the chase in real time.”
She was glad to hear the news, but some of her anger still lingered under the surface. “You mean you let them shoot and chase us, but did nothing?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Based on your driving, I don’t think they were ever going to catch you.” The man was Dad’s age. About forty-five. Dark hair. Recently shaved. Unlike the others, he didn’t wear a MOPP suit, but instead wore the same camo pattern on a regular uniform.
Her anger ebbed. They could have shot her dead. “Yeah, I guess. Thank you, by the way, for letting us in, but you can’t let those other people in here. They’re dangerous.”
The officer didn’t seem concerned. “I’m Captain LeMond of the Wyoming National Guard. First, let me assure you we didn’t detect any radiation on your clothes or bodies. That’s the good news.”
“Whoa!” Logan said with awe. “We were in a radiation zone?”
Captain LeMond laughed. “Yes, you were, but you aren’t asking the right question.”
Shawn stepped forward. “What’s the bad news, sir?”
The officer pointed to him. “Bingo. The bad news is I have to figure out how you and those others got through our cordon. If you willfully breached the perimeter…well, let’s just say I’ve got a lot of authority when it comes to security.”
Grace knew what it meant. “We came from the north, down Interstate 25. When we got to Cheyenne we went straight for the airport, like we said, and we did see a roadblock. However, there was no one there. No soldiers or anything. No Keep Out signs or radiation warnings of any sort. I made the decision to drive around it, since Mr. Runs Hard said the airport was close.”
“There’s a spaceship on the airport runway,” Logan added.
The captain nodded. “It’s one piece of the ship, yeah. Parts of it came down all over southeastern Wyoming. My men have been trying to get a handle on them for the past few days. We found the biggest pieces in Cheyenne, unfortunately. The governor ordered the city evacuated since the engines were powered by nukes and at least some of the pieces have registered as radioactive. Since we couldn’t test each one, we assumed all of them were.”
She shook her arms as if to chase away the jitters. “We came through fine. I don’t think there’s any radiation in there, at least not where we were. Those jewel thieves didn’t seem to be concerned about i
t, either.”
Captain LeMond studied her, then seemed to make a decision. “We’ll check out your truck, ma’am, but if it clears, I’d say you’re free to go. I’ve got to get eyes on the northern roadblock where you came in to figure out where those men went.”
“And the thieves?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Looters are dealt with harshly. You should know the Feds have put out a blanket statement about crimes of that nature, plus they’ve also restricted the use of firearms. All weapons are to be confiscated if carried outside the home. Lucky for you, it doesn’t apply to other federal officials, so you two,” he pointed to her and Asher, “can keep carrying those sidearms.”
Shawn Runs Hard stood nearby. “And what about me? Are you going to take my rifle?”
The captain acknowledged him. “We saw you protecting these people, including this boy. If you’re really with the Crow Nation, I’d just as soon let you tend to your own affairs.”
Shawn bowed.
“But be careful. Lots of bigwigs up in the political chain of command are hot to take away people’s firearms. They think it will prevent Armageddon, or whatever, while states and cities clean up the mess caused by the asteroid chunks. There will be soldiers and police with a lot more willingness to poke the bear. They won’t care who you are. You get me?”
“I do,” Shawn replied.
Grace wanted to change the subject. “Do you know if the airport in Denver is open? I need to find a plane so my partner and his son can go to Washington.”
LeMond shrugged. “Sorry, I only know what’s happening here. I’d guess it is, though. It’s a pretty large airport.”
Shawn groaned while patting Logan’s shoulder. “I guess I can’t take you back to the rez, son. The city and highways are shut down in that direction. We’ll try for the airport in Denver.”
Logan didn’t sound disappointed. “It’s fine. We’ll keep each other safe out here. I’ve always wanted to go on a plane, anyway.”
After some final words, the four of them were escorted back to the roadblock. The soldiers had driven the Chevy through the blockade and left it running. While Shawn and his son climbed into the back, she caught the tail of Asher’s shirt and kept him from walking away.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
“Not at all.” She wrapped him tight in an embrace. “Thanks for stopping me from acting stupid when we approached the roadblock. And thanks for being supportive after what I saw in that fast-food place. I’m sure you guessed; the men and women inside had been murdered. At the time, I was afraid to tell you I saw results of such horrible violence. Now, dead people hardly seem exceptional after the rest of the day we’ve had. I don’t know how I would still be alive if I hadn’t run into you, but promise me you’ll stick around no matter what we see together.”
He pulled back to look her in the eyes. “I’m not heading anywhere. In fact, when we meet up with your dad, I’m going to have a talk with him. If he approves, I’m taking you on a date. I have a hike planned to the top of the Hogback there in Denver. If you’re interested.”
Surrounded by thieves, Army men dressed like aliens, and two Crow friends she barely knew, it wasn’t the time for romance. Instead of kissing him, she gave him a friendly slap on the cheek. “There you go again, thinking you’re going to get lucky.”
She spun around and walked toward the open driver’s door, smiling from ear to ear.
St. Louis, MO
When he finally caught up to Darius, they explained everything he’d missed due to his loud music. They walked him over to the dead officers and the liquidated pirates. A small crowd had gathered, and several citizens slapped Butch on the shoulder in celebration for his taking out the men who killed the police officers.
“He’s a local hero,” Ezra said to Darius.
“For real. Man, you two are legit. I can’t believe I missed it all.”
He laughed. “If you turned down your music a little, you might hear the gunshots next time.” After the close brush with death, he carried his rifle with him, rather than hiding it. However, true to his word, he offered it to the man who’d pulled his boat up the shoreline. Ezra unslung it from his shoulder and held it out.
Darius’s eyes grew large for a second, but he held up his hands to stop Ezra from giving it to him. “After seeing these brains on the ground, I don’t think I could handle one of those. I couldn’t hit a dude from across the street to save my pal, like this guy. I think it’s safer for me to stay in my truck.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I could drive you guys wherever you want to go. You don’t need no boat.”
“We’re going to Denver, Colorado,” he deadpanned.
Darius cringed. “Damn! Well, I can’t afford gas to get you there. Can you?”
“I think we’ll stick to the water. It isn’t safe, but there are fewer people.” He began walking back to the boat. “You wouldn’t have duct tape in your truck, would you?”
“Sure do. I keep a toolbox in the cargo bed. Never know when a truck this large is going to drop a bolt. Always have to be ready.”
It was the missing piece he needed to get the boat seaworthy again. Most of the water had drained out of the bullet holes, so he patched them up with long strips of the thick silver tape. Eventually, they would soak through and fall off, but it was better than nothing.
He and Butch easily pushed it the short distance back into the water, a process which was much easier when pirates weren’t shooting at them. He hopped onto Susan’s Grace as it shifted away from the bank.
“Don’t leave without me,” Butch pleaded.
“I’m not.” He lowered the motor in the water, aware of how close he was to the tumultuous blockage wrapped around the bridge pylons. If he couldn’t start the motor, he’d drift downstream and run into the tipped-over barges. However, the boat was in good order. It started immediately, and he brought it back to the bank in front of Butch. He thanked God for good maintenance routines.
“You two be safe out there. I’ll keep an eye on things from up here.” Darius had scooted to the passenger side of his truck to yell down to them. He was forced to shout, since his music was playing again. “Maybe I’ll go out west someday. You know, to check out what you ballers are doing out there.”
The three of them shared a laugh, but the fun was interrupted by a helicopter rising from the park under the Arch. It was the pirates’ ride, suggesting they’d come with a third person.
“Stay down!” he yelled, not sure if the helicopter was going to spray them with gunfire or merely give them a menacing glare.
The black helicopter swooped low and went over the water behind his waiting spot. It turned north for a mile or two, then crossed the river back toward the west shoreline, and finally turned south. It remained about fifty feet off the ground as it soared over their heads, but it didn’t stop.
“It’ll report in. We best be moving.” Ezra kicked himself for forgetting to check on the helicopter to be certain there weren’t more bad guys, but he cut himself some slack after surviving a gunfight.
Butch pushed off and scrambled into the front of the pontoon boat as they moved backward. He rushed over to his seat and held its sides with both hands. “I’m ready!” he shouted.
“Got your seatbelt on?” Ezra asked with concern.
“This thing has seatbelts? Why didn’t you tell me?” Butch leaned over to look next to and under the seat, searching for them, though he’d never find any.
Ezra laughed in a good-natured way. It was one of the lame jokes he and Susan used to share as part of their boat-starting routine, which was probably why he thought of it at that moment. “No, boats don’t have seatbelts. If we flipped over, you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a belt, you know?” He chuckled to himself. “Hey, you said you could swim, right?”
“Hell no! I can’t swim. At all!” Butch ripped off his cowboy hat, perhaps thinking he was going into the water.
“All right, if you can’t swim, I won’t go v
ery fast, in case we flip.” He spoke sarcastically but thought Butch might have been taking him literally based on the death grip on his hat. Butch had mentioned not being able to swim about a hundred times over the course of the last two days; clearly the young man wasn’t thinking straight if he didn’t remember telling Ezra at least once.
He decided to end the playful joke. “I’m messing with you. Trying to get you to lighten up. I’ll go slow, but not because we’re going to flip. I want to increase our fuel economy.”
They’d given away their five gallons of reserve, and the gauge said they had less than a half tank. He’d be sure to get well away from the wall of water sloshing nearby, but then he’d go slow and stretch the gas as far as it could go. It was simply one more problem facing them on the way back to Grace.
Butch sat up, beaten. “E-Z, you’re one cool cucumber. You almost get shot and you still have a sense of humor to make jokes.”
“You should have heard me talking trash to those pirates!”
“I’d love to know what you said. Let’s go back and ask them,” he added, getting into the spirit.
“But seriously, nothing is going to faze me after losing my Susan. The only thing I care about, besides keeping you alive, buddy, is getting to my daughter. Here we are, one day closer to reaching her, and we’re still alive. That’s worth a joke or two, don’t you think?”
Butch tapped the brim of his black Stetson, which had somehow survived the day. “I do. I’ll let you know when I hear one, boss.”
Ezra laughed with his friend. He nudged the wheel until Susan’s Grace was aimed toward whatever adventures awaited them upriver, then he shoved the throttle for the overpowered Suzuki outboard. “Hang on, wise guy!”
Crush
The Impact Series Book 4
Chapter 1
Cheyenne, WY
“I never thought I’d say it, but waiting is somehow more exhausting than being on the road.” Grace and her friends had escaped through the roadblock out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, but it wasn’t the ending she’d hoped for. The military had other barricades in place, designed to keep people far away from the potentially radioactive pieces of the Petteri-2 spaceship. They were forced to spend the night in her truck, wait an entire day, then spend a second night in the Chevy.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 60
