Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Butch laughed. “It wasn’t half as bad as Iraq. At least last night I was fairly certain we wouldn’t get shot at. There was still a slight chance, mind you, but that’s the cost of doing business with E-Z.”

  Ezra realized he was the only one who’d been miserable. The two kids could probably sleep on concrete and be happy. They were young.

  Last night, they’d sped upriver to escape the TKM search parties around St. Charles. They found fuel near Herman, Missouri, and traveled another forty miles before calling a halt. They’d agreed to hide the boat in a side channel and skip posting a guard, so everyone was able to sleep. Ezra was awake most of the night anyway, which was why he was the one to greet the others as they woke up.

  “I’m going to let Liam do his business. I’ll take Victoria with me, too.” Haley slid the cat carrier to the front edge of the boat where it was easy to hop down onto the riverbank. She also pulled out a travel litter box and other gear, though Ezra had no idea what she planned to do with it.

  Butch watched her debark as if she were the star of a popular TV program.

  As soon as the young woman was out of earshot, he scooted closer to Butch. “Hey, I’m glad we picked up the extra passenger, plus her two friends, but I’m worried this is going to be too dangerous for her. We know there’s been a disaster in Kansas City. All the trash we saw floating by last night was enough of a clue. Once we get past it, we still have another six hundred miles before we reach Denver.” He scratched his chin. “I don’t know if a cat in a box can make it.”

  Part of why he’d agreed to allow Haley on board was how obvious it was Butch had been smitten. He judged it likely the youngster would have stayed in St. Charles to be with her, rather than stick it out with him on the boat. To avoid forcing the issue, he’d accepted Haley’s offer to join them. At the time, they were all being pursued by TKM, so it was safer to stick together. However, with each town they’d passed along the river, he wondered if she’d be safer on shore. It was his first chance to speak in private with Butch about his concerns.

  “Don’t worry about her. I’ll keep an eye on her pets. I love that little dog, don’t you?” He laughed, checking the shore as if expecting the dog to run out of the woods to him.

  “Well, it’s just—” Ezra started to say, before Butch stopped him.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Is JJ Butcher going to blow the mission because he’s got other things on his mind?” He took a deep breath. “I can’t deny she’s a ten on this Kentucky boy’s country music volume meter, but I made a promise to you, E-Z. We’re going to find your daughter. From what I’ve seen, she’s as tough as either of us. I think she’ll help us more than slow us down.”

  Ezra had expected such an answer. It would have shocked him if the kid had suggested dropping her off. However, he’d made his position known, as did Butch. By the time Haley and her pals were back on the pontoon boat, he knew he could rely on his friend.

  “What were you two boys talking about while we were gone?” Haley passed a glance between him and Butch, but she spent more time on his buddy.

  “My daughter,” he said dryly. “I told her we’d meet in Denver, but we’ve been dragging butt the last few days. I’d like to find a phone so I can call and see if she’s waiting for us.”

  “You can use mine!” Haley said, pulling a slim black smartphone from a pocket in her Yoga pants.

  “Oh, thanks.” Ezra dialed Grace’s number, but it didn’t ring. It instantly went to voicemail. Her voice message had been changed.

  “Dad, if you get this message, I’m heading east on a train. Please don’t go to Denver. TKM is trying to hurt us. They’ll try to hurt you if you show up.” She hesitated before continuing. “If you hear this, please tell me you’re all right. And tell me where you are. We need a new place to meet. For now, I love you.” It ended with a smacking sound, which was obviously her clapping into the microphone.

  He thought about what to say. He glanced at Butch. “Things have changed. I have to leave a message.”

  After the beep, he spoke. “Hi Grace. Me and Butch are on the river, moving closer to you. I think we’re close to Columbia, Missouri. That puts us…about a week out of Denver, though we won’t go there now.” He laughed. “But seriously, we’re making our way slowly out west where we can meet up. Wherever you end up, I’ll get there. Please call me back at this number. It belongs to a young woman traveling with us. I love you, kiddo. Talk soon.” He clapped once, laughing as he did it, then hung up.

  “I hope you win your game, E-Z,” Butch said with sarcasm.

  “Oh, I’m just happy to have some fun with her. Winning isn’t part of it.”

  Butch laughed. “Whatever you say.” He then clapped while wearing an expectant expression.

  Ezra shook his head. “Don’t get me started. One game is plenty for me.”

  “Party pooper,” Butch said, pretending to be hurt.

  After handing the phone back, and securing all the loose gear on the floor, it was time to start the boat.

  Ezra got in his captain’s chair, followed a second later by Liam. The little brown puggle hopped on his lap and braced his front paws on the steering wheel, as if ready to pilot the boat himself.

  “Oh, sorry,” Haley said, trying to grab the pup.

  “It’s fine,” Ezra replied. “I’m currently winning my clapping competition and I feel like this little guy is going to bring us more good luck today.”

  Chapter 2

  Sidney, NE

  Grace and Asher trotted inside the entrance of the railway repair shed, which reminded her of an oversized barn made of metal. The inside was spacious, about a hundred yards long on each side, with enough room for all six tracks to go in through the front doors. Like the repair yard in Denver, the place had several hoists and cranes, some holding pieces of the numerous coal cars in for repair.

  Asher stood closest to the exit. “If TKM has an attack helicopter, we’re screwed.”

  Many of the men stayed outside the building, as if they didn’t share the urgency of she and Asher felt. Robert came in, however. “I don’t think there’s a military base within hundreds of miles of here. I’ve never seen a helicopter at this shop, if it comforts you at all.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said dryly.

  Robert gestured to Asher’s rifle. “At least you have one of those.”

  She was glad to have it, for sure, but it wasn’t exactly comforting. “If we have to go against a helicopter, I don’t think any weapon in our arsenal would make a difference. Plus, who knows how many men they have on board?”

  The helicopter was almost there. She had enough time to look at her ruined Chevy park service vehicle, aware her friends needed to stay hidden inside. Two injured people and one teenager were no threat to anyone. She prayed they didn’t try to get out.

  The rotor noise echoed off the metal frame of the building and reverberated inside the spacious interior as it neared. The dull gray helicopter came in about fifty feet above the ground, passing over the middle of the train yard at a high rate of speed.

  It passed in seconds, going over the fields to the south.

  “Well, I guess it was nothing—” she started to say.

  The helicopter banked to the left.

  “Or, maybe it was…” she finished.

  “It’s definitely coming back,” Asher said, sounding worried.

  More of the workers came inside the building, obviously concerned about the aircraft making unusual maneuvers over their heads. Most stood by the entrance, as she and Asher were doing.

  “Ash,” she whispered, “we have to warn the others. I’m sure they’re here for us.”

  He glanced between her and the truck. “You want to run out there?” He sounded uncertain.

  She shrugged, feeling her stomach clench up. “What else can we do?”

  The helicopter flew in a wide banking arc, now lining up with the tracks coming in from the east. She pointed back to the flatcar with her truck. �
�If we keep close to the coal cars, it should shield us from the air.”

  There was no time to debate the finer points of the plan. She shot a glance to Robert. “We’ll be right back.”

  She and Asher sprinted across a short patch of open ground, then ran next to the blackened coal hoppers. The helicopter had come around a bit wide, which put it on the opposite side of the rolling stock.

  “They’re getting out of the truck!” she yelled to Ash, who was a handful of steps behind her.

  Ahead, the three passengers were out of the Suburban. They’d exited on the driver’s side of the truck, which was on the opposite side of the flatcar relative to her and Asher, but hadn’t gotten down.

  “Guys!” she called out.

  The helicopter glided in a hundred yards behind their tiny train. The rear cargo door had been opened; a woman sat back there, dressed entirely in dark clothing. Her long black hair blew wildly in the rotor wash, though it didn’t seem to bother her. She held a long rifle in her hands. Grace got a look at the huge scope when the woman dipped her eye to it.

  “Get down!”

  The tear of metal close by was followed an instant later by a crack of thunder from the woman’s gun. The bullet had come down and struck the metal ladder at the back of the boxcar, not far from her friends.

  Logan and his dad tumbled off the flatcar. Shawn’s leg collapsed under him, though Logan quickly pulled him under the car itself. Diedre remained where she was. As a second and third shot rang out, she threw herself under the truck.

  Asher fumbled with his rifle, intent on returning fire, but Grace didn’t want him to tangle with a hovering shooter with a big gun. She grabbed his shirt and yanked him backward, and down. “Get behind a coal car! We need a plan.”

  Several more shots clapped out, some striking very close. Plinks of metal and the crunch of wood indicated the woman had aimed at her and Asher in addition to the three people huddled by the wooden freight car.

  The helicopter hovered sideways, then canted a bit forward, as it apparently searched for better shots on her and her friends. All at once, it leaned sideways and banked away from them.

  “What’s she doing?” Asher asked.

  The rotary aircraft made a wide loop out to the last of the coal cars, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. When it shifted position, lurking closer, Grace noticed a pickup truck parked in that direction, as if it were watching the attack take place.

  “Get out of there!” she shouted to the others. Logan and Shawn had been ready. They came out from under the flatcar. Shawn strained to take weight off his injured leg, but he waddled fast enough.

  Diedre was slower getting off the flatbed.

  Grace saw an opportunity. “We’ll get them over to this side. We’ll get lost in the rows of coal hoppers.”

  Asher frantically searched the skies for where the helicopter had gone. She checked it out, too, wondering if the pilot was sneaking up on them from another direction. It didn’t matter, however. The lines of steel hoppers would shield them from multiple directions.

  “Guys, run to the coal cars!” she yelled.

  Her three friends had left the safety found under the flatcar and were crawling under the joint between the flatcars and boxcars when the helicopter reappeared. It came in from the direction of the lines of coal cars, but it ended up roughly in the same place it had been before. The woman was still in the back, but she now sat in front of a huge machine gun positioned at the edge of the door.

  “Get down!” Grace screamed.

  Columbia, MO

  Once they were on the water, Ezra became fascinated by the lengths Haley went to get her cat out of its cage. She found a five-foot length of paracord, tied it onto her little collar, and let the kitty roam free. However, the cat didn’t seem to savor its freedom; it fell over and wouldn’t move. When she saw Ezra watching the proceedings, she spoke over the engine’s growl. “She’ll get used to it. I’m sure she won’t jump in the water willingly, but Butch mentioned we might hit something in the river that could stop us. I don’t want Victoria to lose her footing and fall in. That would be a bad day for all of us, I assure you.”

  He laughed, knowing cats weren’t fond of the water. “It’s all fine by me. It looks like you’ve figured out a nice system for her. But what about your other pal?” He glanced down at Liam, who remained on his lap. He’d expected the chubby little dog to get off right away, but he’d stayed put for the past hour, which suggested the loud motor scared him.

  “Good point,” she replied, pulling out his leash. Liam was accepting of being put on a rope. He licked her hands as she fidgeted with his collar but didn’t hop down or move a paw to surrender his spot at the steering wheel.

  Ezra was happy to have the company, so he made sure the pup was comfy.

  Soon after his chat with Haley, Butch pointed ahead. “Veer left!”

  “Whoa!” he said, making the turn.

  A giant white rectangle floated by. “It’s a fiberglass swimming pool.” Ezra was impressed watching it go by. Where had it come from?

  “Can we stop for a swim?” Butch joked. A little water sloshed inside, as if it had been filled with splashing overflow from the river. If there’d been time, he could have docked with the pool and taken a dip. As it was…

  “Crap,” he exclaimed. The pool was the leading piece of a flotilla of debris floating in the water. “We’ve got to pull over.”

  He regretted saying the puggle was going to bring them luck. Still, he rubbed the dog behind the ears as he avoided the oncoming mess.

  From the safety of the riverbank, they watched as a thick patch of trash and household goods floated by. It was almost as bad as the mashup of junk that made them take shelter in St. Charles. For a long time, they watched with interest as numerous floating objects went by. The backs of tanker trucks. Flipped speed boats. Runaway cargo barges. A stray grain silo.

  “This must be from another town, farther up the river from Kansas City. It took longer to get here.” Ezra imagined he was watching the lifeblood of a city float by.

  “How long do you think this will take?” Haley asked, holding Victoria to her chest.

  “It could be hours. When we saw the remains of Kansas City float by, it took most of a day to clear out.”

  “It’s why we ran into you,” Butch said proudly.

  She smiled. “I can be patient.”

  It took until lunch time before the river cleared up enough he thought it was safe to drive into the muddy current again. He even waited another half hour to be absolutely sure. If they blew a propeller, there was nowhere close to get a replacement.

  “And away we go!” he said dramatically as he got the boat moving again.

  They’d cruised about five minutes before a bridge appeared ahead of them.

  “Let’s see where we are.” Ezra had borrowed a Missouri map during their visit to Bass Pro, which he’d studied many times since leaving St. Charles. He pointed to the upcoming bridge featuring gray metal trusswork above a small portion of the span closest to the eastern shore. “That’s the crossing for Interstate 70. We’re beyond Columbia, now. The next bridge is at Boonville, which isn’t far.”

  She looked over her shoulder to him. “You’re measuring our progress using bridges?”

  He smiled, face buffeted by the wind flow. “They’re the only markers I can make sense of. There are so many trees along the banks, sometimes I don’t even know when we pass these little towns. The bridges, we can’t miss. I know we have five of them before we get to the outskirts of Kansas City.”

  “Will we get there today?” she asked.

  “Yep. As long as we can get gas, it’s only about a hundred and fifty miles from this bridge coming up. We could knock it out in four or five hours, under ideal conditions.” The speedometer hovered around thirty miles an hour; it wasn’t as fast as the pontoon boat would go, but it was a safe cruising speed for fuel economy. He had his map, and knew there were towns ahead, but finding gas was never
a given. Better to temper the speed and keep extra in the tank.

  She patted Liam on the head and spoke in her silly doggy voice. “Who’s a happy puppy? Are you driving the ship, you little puffball?”

  Liam tried to lick her on the chin.

  “All right, let’s not interrupt the driver,” she laughed, going back to her seat.

  Cars and trucks zoomed across the span as they got closer, but he also took note of a few vehicles stopped almost above the middle of the river. There was a huge concrete pylon directly beneath them, so he needed to veer to the right to avoid the middle section.

  He watched Haley find a seat near Butch on his left. She barely noticed Victoria had stretched her cord and gone under his legs, tucking herself into the less windy nook created by the steering wheel and dashboard.

  I didn’t know I was going to be the one taking care of the pets.

  Ezra found it humorous. How many times had Grace come home with guinea pigs, hamsters, or other rodents, swearing this would be the time she finally learned to take care of them herself? And each time, it was dear old dad cleaning cages or filling food bowls. It was—

  Movement up on the bridge caught his eye. Men ran alongside the parked cars. Men who seemed interested in looking over the side. He held the throttle tight, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “Are those trucks up there? Blue trucks?” He’d spoken loud enough for Butch to hear him. The young man looked back to Ezra, then up to the bridge. They were approaching at an angle, and were only a couple hundred yards away, so it was getting difficult to see the trucks on the deck. However, the men scurrying at the edge were easier to identify.

  So were their rifles.

  He hit the throttle and banked to the right, shoving Liam between his legs.

  “We’re in trouble,” he confirmed.

  Denver, CO

  It was a new day in Denver, but Petteri’s grip on things was slipping. The rock was secure; his ragtag crew of security personnel had managed to push back the other miners and their own shooters. However, having control of the giant chunk of 586001 Tuonela didn’t mean much if his dump trucks couldn’t get the ore out of the city. They were surrounded by clogged streets and hostile locals. The situation was made worse by the big hole in his organization.