Butler gulped again, and his mouth settled into a pencil-like line. “They’ll slow us down.”
“I don’t care. Make it happen. That’s an order.”
Butler dipped his head in respect. “Yes, ma’am.”
“This can work.”
Butler straightened his spine. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It’s a long shot, but we don’t get beat, especially on our home turf.”
JOSEPH
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, CO
They found Dr. Hollis in the small cafeteria for their lab section of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex that held only eight circular tables. Joseph reprimanded himself for not starting his search at the nearest food distribution center earlier.
The senior member of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority on their Mountain Integrated Medical team took a chubby finger and used it to shove the rest of a soft shell taco in his mouth.
Orange ground beef taco grease ran down the palm of his hand. He licked his fingers, savoring the grease from each one. He chewed on the double as if he were afraid someone was going to snatch it from him.
“So they came right in and took him?” he asked between chews.
“Yes, didn’t say why or anything,” Joseph said.
Hollis’s jaw worked as he forced more food in it. His eyes darted around the room. Only a few other civilians sat at a table nearby talking quietly to one another. Loose flesh jiggled as he shook his head. “Could be anything.” He inhaled between bites, sucking in air through his nose as if undecided between eating or breathing. He leaned over the table, collecting himself before he spoke in a hushed voice. “He wasn’t the first to be taken.”
Joseph shared a glance with Desai. “What do you mean?”
Hollis set down his taco he’d been thumbing, studying the room a minute before he spoke. “I’ve heard of a few people who were ‘walked out’, and not seen again. We just figured they were transferred. I bet that’s what happened. He was transferred.”
“Transferred where? With no goodbyes? At gunpoint for Chrissake,” Joseph said.
Hollis glanced over his shoulder. “We shouldn’t be talking about this. He was transferred.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. What if we’re next?”
Desai’s eyebrows elevated. “We didn’t do anything. We created a vaccine that works.”
“Now that we’ve done it, maybe it’s time to tie up the loose ends,” Joseph said.
Hollis continued to anxiously eat. He leaned forward on the table, swallowing his food. “I heard from one of the warehouse clerks that there’s been some dissension in the military.”
Joseph’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean like a coup?”
Hollis nodded his head affirmative. “I didn’t think anything of it when he first said it. You know rumors. There’s always lots of rumors. Especially when there are no good news sources.”
“So you think that Colonel Byrnes was involved in a military conspiracy to overthrow the government. Treason?”
Desai frowned. “Treason? You know the colonel. Straightlaced and motivated to find a solution to this mess. Why would he commit treason?”
Hollis’s eyes narrowed on his pudgy face. “I didn’t say that. I. Did. Not. Say. That.”
Joseph frowned. “But I thought you just said a coup?”
“A rumor.” Hollis shook his head no, and used his thumb to fill his fork with more black beans and rice. “Conspiracy theories. I’m sure he’ll be back by tonight.”
“It looked like he was under arrest,” said Desai.
“It doesn’t involve us. Keep your nose clean and steer clear of whatever mess the good colonel’s gotten himself into, and we’ll be fine.”
Joseph exchanged looks with Desai. “You want us to ignore the fact they just arrested him and took him away with no cause?”
“Listen. They don’t just do that. They had to have a cause. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding, and he’ll be back by tomorrow.”
“Let’s go find Dr. Nguyen,” Joseph said, getting to his feet with Desai joining him.
Hollis shook his head. “I’m telling you, don’t dig too deep on this one.”
“Our friend and colleague has been taken. I’m going to find out what happened.”
“You don’t want to look too involved.”
“Dr. Hollis, we’re all involved. We’re on his team. All of us.”
Joseph and Desai walked out of the cafeteria. The white corridor walls were plain and generic as if a hospital and a government building had procreated the boring corridors. If Joseph hadn’t lived inside them for as long as he had already, it would have been easy to get lost.
The next corridor held the doctors’ offices and small dorm-like rooms. Soldiers in black stood like chess pieces near the far end of the hallway. He could sense Desai tensing next to him.
“Come on. If they wanted us, they would have grabbed us already.”
Joseph bravely squared his shoulders toward the men and puffed out his thin chest. They walked forward, closing the distance on the soldiers. The one facing their direction scrutinized them with dark eyes behind his ski mask.
“That’s Byrnes’s office,” Desai said under her breath.
“They must be searching it,” Joseph said from the side of his mouth.
Walking past the soldier, Joseph deliberately slowed down when they were abreast with the open door. Papers were strewn all over the floor. Books were tossed into haphazard piles. The office was ransacked.
“Nothing to see. Move along,” the soldier said, watching them.
Joseph and Desai continued down the corridor and rounded on Dr. Nguyen’s office. He nervously rapped on the door. It echoed hollow like a synthetic wood.
“Who is it?” came a voice from inside.
“Dr. Jackowski and Dr. Desai.”
The door opened a crack. An eye peeked through the sliver of an opening encased in round glasses. The door opened farther, and a small Asian man motioned them inside with a hasty hand. “Hurry.”
Dr. Nguyen shut the door and fled to the other side of his desk. His eyes were magnified behind his thick lens. “Are they here?” He held himself with anxious hands.
“There were soldiers down in Byrnes’s office. What’s going on?”
Nguyen’s eyes blinked beneath his glasses as if realization slapped him in the face. “I don’t have time to explain.” He opened his top drawer and felt around inside. He struggled with something and felt the underside of his desk.
“They took Byrnes away.”
“I thought we’d have more time.”
“More time for what?” Desai asked. She eyed the two men back and forth.
“To plan. I suppose this means we’ve failed.” He tugged something from the top of his drawer and held it out like it was a rare diamond. “Take this and protect it.” A plain gray flash drive rested in the center of his hand.
“What’s that?” Joseph asked. He eyed it like a poison apple.
“Just take it. We don’t have time.”
Joseph snatched the tiny flash drive in his hand and shoved it into the bottom of his pocket, the temptation to know what it held picking at him.
A fist reverberated off the door making all three doctors jump. Desai put a hand to her chest catching her breath. A voice came from the outside cold and mean. “Dr. Nguyen. Open up.”
Dr. Nguyen collected himself for a moment, his face flat and showing no emotion. He stared at the other doctors. “I tried. We tried. Trust no one.”
“Open this door! Now!”
Nguyen gave himself a short nod. He fumbled around in his top drawer, removing a silver small caliber revolver.
“Dr. Nguyen, what are you doing?” Desai shrieked.
Nguyen gripped the gun, raising it in front of him.
“They’re going to shoot us,” Joseph said. He took a step away from the door covering Desai with a protective arm.
The tread of a boot crushed
into the door. The whole door shook under the added weight. Once, it boomed then twice. The door weakened with each kick, ready to give way at any moment.
“Keep it safe,” Nguyen said. “They’ll kill you for it.”
“What is it?” Joseph asked. The flash drive still burned inside his pocket.
Nguyen nodded, turning the revolver on himself, an inch from his temple. The leading CDC doctor, one of the best minds still alive on the planet, pulled the trigger.
An explosion bounced, rippling from wall to wall of the tiny office, and Joseph and Desai ducked. Red sprayed the walls like paint flung from a brush. Nguyen fell back into his chair, his eyes looking upward in their final death pose. The exit wound on the side of his head leaked brain tissue and dark red blood that streamed off his desk and into a pool on the floor.
“Oh my God,” Desai cried. Her hands shot to her mouth hiding her fear. The door vibrated under the violent assault of the men outside. Joseph stared at the dead doctor in disbelief, the weight of the flash drive even heavier.
The door splintered. The top hinge busted off the wall and the doorframe itself burst into pieces. Black-masked soldiers forced their way inside.
STEELE
Camp Forge, IA
The small group rode away farther and farther from the farmhouse porch. Gwen sat next to Kenny Hamlin on the hayrack pulled by two towering bay-colored draft horses. A floral scarf covering her head made her look like an old-world babushka.
The hayrack was flanked on either side by Hank and Gerald Newbold in the front and Gregor and Jake Bullis in the back. Jake had a shotgun strapped over the pommel of his saddle. All of them were armed. He’d seen that they carried enough ammunition to last through just about anything.
Gregor looked highly uncomfortable atop his horse, and Jake was trying to coach him on how to steer and control the animal. He reached for Gregor’s reins, trying to teach him how to hold them and the horn for an easier ride. The horse, however, had a mind of its own. Sensing the weakness of its rider, it did as it pleased, veering off to the side on the hunt for tall grass.
Jake laughed, giving his horse a bit of encouragement to get closer to Gregor. He led the unwieldy man back toward the center of the road. Gwen turned, saying something inaudible from beneath her scarf.
Steele caught glimpses of smiles among them. He had agreed without hesitation for Jake to accompany her on the journey. Who better to watch out for her than a man that still loved her? The man would die for her, and that was exactly why Steele hadn’t protested his attendance. He trusted her and that was all that mattered in a relationship. Trust.
The barn housing Jackson’s prisoners would take an even greater amount of trust. A trust that Steele didn’t know if he was ready to accept, but he didn’t have a choice.
He tucked his shemagh into his jacket. The versatile Arabic scarf provided ample protection from the chill of the day.
“Looks like this one is going to stick,” John said. He eyed the sky with the experience of a farmer who knew weather determined life or death.
Steele peered at the sky. “Just in time for Christmas.”
Crystalized flurries dotted the air in their earthen assault. Tiny white specks rained down with only the wind to guide them. The wind blew them any way it wanted, directing their speed and angle with careless dominance.
John wrinkled his nose. “I always liked snow for Christmas. After that, bah humbug. You can take it.”
“I’d prefer that everyone was warm and not worried about freezing to death. Some additional clothes would be a bonus.”
John nodded. “Aye. Gwen will find us more. Hacklebarney is stripped of almost everything, but the cabins are sturdy, fine Amish work. That will stave off most of it.”
Steele put a hand on John’s shoulder. “They’ve done a very kind thing and so have you.”
John nodded fiercely. “It was the right thing.”
“It’s not always easy to do the right thing.”
“No, it ain’t, but it’s easier to live with.”
Steele eyed the barn. War Machines were guarding the outside today. Grinding gears made up their club colors.
“One would hope that it’s easier to live with.”
A familiar female voice stretched around the porch. A black-haired woman about the size of a twig, her hair slicked back, walked along the railing.
“Well, look at what we got here. The handsomest man I’ve seen in a hot minute.”
Steele snorted a grin as Tess hopped up the porch steps.
“I meant, John.” She embraced the old man and he let out a high-pitched giggle.
“You can’t let Lydia hear you now. She won’t be too keen on a pretty fiddle like yourself swooning around her man.”
She flashed him a smile. “Runs in the family.” She gave Steele a wanton look. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”
John shook a finger at her. “You’re trouble, young lady.”
“How are those defenses coming?” Steele asked.
“As much as I like digging in the frozen ground, slow. I think we’d be better off with just the sandbags and logs.”
“I think you’re right. Tomorrow take a cart into town and gather as many sandbags as you can. We’ll get Trent’s team and some of the Red Stripes to cut some logs and get started on the machine gun nests.”
Steele wanted perimeter areas with a superior field of fire upgraded with machine gun nests. Their firepower had been greatly enhanced by several additions of M2 .50 caliber Browning machine guns repurposed from Jackson’s destroyed Humvees as well as ungodly amounts of ammunition. Steele wasn’t a fool though. He knew that at some point he would need it.
Over twenty desert-tan functioning Humvees sat empty in a long line. Two or three had bullet holes in the doors, but for the most part, these had been taken without significant structural damage. With highly inefficient gas mileage of about ten to fourteen miles to the gallon and fuel in high demand, they had been deemed too fuel dependent to use unless they were in an emergency.
On the far end of the Humvees sat the McCone airport people mover affectionately nicknamed Lunchbox.
The hulking elevated vehicle had been riddled with bullets on more occasions than Steele could count, including the time he’d taken a round off the top of his skull. Jackson had the mover outfitted with steel flaps to protect his soldiers inside from gunfire.
“Roger that, Steele. Is today the day we talked about?”
Steele made a deep sigh. “Yes.” He turned and eyed the road in the direction Gwen had gone. Their forms were faint as if the snow were burying them and the woods absorbing them in a brittle embrace. He thought he saw one of them turn and wave. They disappeared into a gray-trunked forest of leafless trees, all long gone in the reckoning of winter.
“Gather the club presidents.”
***
It took thirty minutes to find and gather the club presidents. They stood in an uneasy line on the porch waiting for Steele. A cigarette burned in the corner of War Child’s lips, smoke wisps combining with his warm breath in the cool air. Thunder had on a red coat, making him look more like a biker Santa than ever before. The pastor hung away from them all, a slender man near the edge of the porch. Frank stood closest to Steele with an M4 carbine slung over his shoulder crossing over a silver-metal dragon, his club patch. The only president missing was Red Clare. Weeks ago, she’d been shifted with her club to Burlington to establish an outpost there.
“I don’t call this meeting lightly. I call this meeting because a decision has been made about the fate of Jackson’s Legion.”
Steele nodded to Margie waiting near the Humvees with her rifle in her hands. She hopped into a Humvee and Tony scrambled into another. The taillights of the two rear Humvees fired up, letting out a red glow. The Humvees flanked either side of the barn. The War Machine guards eyed them with caution, stepping away from the entrance. Sable Pointers appeared in the turrets. One racked the bolt back on his fifty. He stare
d at the porch, waiting on an order to fire.
“I didn’t think you had the balls to do it. Ha,” War Child said in his gravelly voice. He leaned on the railing, anticipating a good show.
A slow grin took hold of the pastor’s mouth. “Time to cull the Legion. Time to send them to hell.”
Steele considered the barn before he continued. “Not all these men were evil or bad or whatever you want to call them. Some were following orders. Others knew no better way to survive.”
“Steele, no,” Frank said.
“We need the men. They’ll have a choice.”
The pastor’s face darkened. War Child spit. Thunder’s was flat. He was one of the only men who knew this was coming.
Steele ignored them and walked down the steps, followed by the lighter steps of Tess behind. He waved them forward. “Follow me.”
He marched toward the new unpainted barn. The frozen snow crust crackled beneath his feet. He stopped outside the firing line of the Humvees. The biker club presidents and the pastor joined him. People emerged from their cabins and barns now.
Steele gestured at one of the War Machines. They hesitated for a moment, and he could feel War Child nodding. The two guards lifted the heavy beam off the metal hooks keeping it in place and tossed it to the side. They swung the doors outward and the barn opened up.
The soldiers inside had clustered near the entrance. They were only shadows to those on the outside. Fear and danger leaked from the barn, the men inside unknowing what fate held in store for them. The men shuffled their feet, nervous energy ebbing through their ranks. They saw their own Humvees and .50 caliber machine guns sighted in on them and knew full well what those could do to a man. Quiet murmurs rippled through them.
Steele let them embrace the thought of being gunned down in cold blood. Fear was a chilly vice-like embrace that froze their veins second after second with the realization that death loomed over them.
Tess leaned close to him whispering. “You’re not thinking about gunning them down, are you?”
A vision flashed in Steele’s mind of bullets cutting through the soldiers in an all-out massacre. Then they’d be off your hands for good. No questions of loyalty. No questions of conspiracy. Steele’s hand drifted upward, and he tugged his own beard to remove the wretched thought from his head.
The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Page 5
