Jake and Gerald regarded them with cool eyes. Steele gestured with his chin. Hank stared at Steele, rubbing his hands together. Gregor’s hair floated in the wind even with his knit wool hat on. The men from Farmington all appeared nervous, like a skittish herd aside from the state trooper whose demeanor was as frosty as the winter air.
“Trooper Linden,” the dour-looking state trooper said.
“Captain Steele, former counterterrorism agent.”
“I’ve seen plenty of men with that look on your face, Captain.” His eyes regarded him with a certain wariness.
Steele glanced over to the Sable Pointers by the barn. The group started to walk for the cabins at an almost casual pace but with more urgency than normal. Walking slowly, he eyed the Red Stripes cabins. Just out for my daily stroll. The men followed him.
“That look means violence, Agent Steele,” Linden said, striding next to him.
“I don’t have time to tell you everything, but those men have betrayed us. Are you with us?”
Linden’s cold brown eyes scrutinized the cabins. “I trust your wife, and by proxy, I trust you.”
Steele nodded to him. “And I you.” He turned his back on Linden and started his walk. His boots cracked through the hard layer of snow.
“Who are the traitors?” Linden said behind him.
“Red Stripes motorcycle gang.” He could practically hear Linden stiffening behind him, tension building, ice speeding up in his veins.
“Perhaps we need more men.”
“I always need more men. I’m hoping that this is a big mistake.”
“I’m hoping no mistakes are made.”
The walk was short to the large cabin. Smoke churned out the chimney into the frosty air. The snow was packed down and dirty near the entrance. The door was simple wood both clean and tan. Sturdy Amish work.
He collected himself before giving the people behind him a glance over his shoulder. At least fifty people watched in the cold. Others from Major Ludlow’s barns and the Chosen cabins stood outside. Always get more with honey. Placing himself slightly off center from the doorway, he made sure Gwen was far to the side of any immediate gunfire.
Steadily he exhaled and rapped his knuckles hard on the door with the force of authority. After a moment, the door opened, and a tall broad man filled the doorframe with two pistols shoved in his belt. His smile faded.
“What’s wrong? We under attack?” He ducked, his eyes searching the walls.
Steele peered up at the man. “We need to talk to Thunder.”
Garrett turned his head, scanning the mass of armed people. The rumble of an engine perforated the air along with the crunch of a Humvee rolling to a halt.
“I’ll get him,” Garrett said, turning to close the door.
With a firm hand, Steele stopped the door. “Let’s leave it open.”
Garrett eyed him with misunderstood concern and turned inside.
A few moments later, Thunder appeared. His jovial manner disappeared upon seeing the armed people gathered outside his door.
“What the hell is going on?”
“We have word that you’ve been hoarding medicine. Medicine we need and I’m here to get answers.”
“Who the fuck said that?” His brow creased with contention. “We don’t have shit.”
“It doesn’t matter who. I don’t want this to be a bigger issue than it is.” He dropped his voice. “This is serious.”
Tess shouted from behind Steele. “I fucking found it, you no-good two-faced son of a bitch.”
Thunder’s bushy eyebrows coalesced in hurt, and his voice rose in anger. “What the hell are you talking about?” He faced Steele. “Now I know this must be a joke.” He snorted a laugh until saw the Humvee with the M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun aimed in his direction. The clamoring of Red Stripes grew louder in the cabin. Steele was sure they were arming themselves for a fight.
“Thunder.”
The grizzled biker looked like the angriest Santa of all time. Angry enough to sentence them all to an eternity on the naughty list.
“Let me look around, and we can put this behind us.”
Thunder’s wide eyes turned into malice. “Do you realize what you are doing? Accusing us of betrayal is against everything we stand for. This is unforgivable, boy.”
Steele peered back at Tess. “Let’s put this to bed. Can I come in without a problem?”
Sidestepping in the doorway, Thunder waved him in. “Why of course.”
“I’m not stupid. Let’s get your club out here, and we can do this a lot easier. No weapons.”
Thunder studied the floor and cocked his head to the side in disgust. “You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit.” He gestured at his men. “Garrett, get the boys outside.”
Red Stripes filed through the door. The men were angry and resilient. They lined up against the cabin wall like they were going to be booked and sent to jail.
“Follow me,” Tess said, leading the way brazenly inside.
The place was a disorganized disaster of sleeping bags and trash. Guns lay strewn about. Gwen and her followers filed in behind them.
“You ain’t gonna find nothing,” Thunder said, folding his arms over his meaty chest. “What’s wrong with you girl? You mad cause I didn’t help you kill the pastor?”
Tess stepped intently on the floor, letting her heel roll over each floorboard. She moved to another board and repeated the process. “No, I’m mad because you fucking betrayed us. People died because of you.”
Thunder’s lip curled. “I didn’t betray nobody. I swear it on my club’s colors.”
Tess stalked over the floor listening until she stopped near the fireplace. She rolled her heel over a floorboard. She sidestepped to another then rolled it on the suspect board again. “This is it.”
“What’s it?” Thunder bellowed.
“This is the hideaway.” Tess released a knife from her belt and squatted down on her haunches. She forced the knife into the cracks between the floorboards and dug into the wood using her fingers to pry the piece out. After the first one, the others flipped over on the floor revealing a hole. Her arm disappeared into the ground, and she pulled out a black duffel and tossed it at Steele.
He glanced at Gwen and then Thunder.
Tess lifted her chin. “Check it out.”
“I don’t know where that came from.”
Steele crouched low. Grabbing the zipper, he opened the bag. Bottles and pills rattled as he stuck his hand inside. He removed a bottle, eyeing the medicine.
“Pills. Antibiotics. Antivirals.” He shook his head at Thunder and stood. “I don’t understand why.”
“I told you,” Tess said.
“She must have planted it,” Thunder said.
Gwen jabbed a finger at Thunder. “You monster. Our kids were dying, and you held on to this? What’s wrong with you?”
Thunder threw a hand back at her. “How’d she know where to look? It’s a plant. We’re being set up.”
“I could tell your Red Stripes were up to no good meeting with the pastor.”
“Meeting the pastor? Ha, I hate the bastards.”
“How do you explain this?” Steele said.
His bushy eyebrows pinched together. “Well, I can’t, but I didn’t do it and neither did my club.”
Steele could feel Gwen shaking with rage next to him. “Let’s take a walk outside.” He picked up the bag, holding it in his less than compliant right hand.
Thunder eyed him for a moment before nodding. They all walked outside. A crowd had formed, encircling the armed Sable Pointers and the Humvee with its turret gunner trained on the cabin. Frank elbowed his way through the crowd. “What the hell is going on?”
Thunder bellowed at him. “Trumped-up charges on medicine.”
Steele pushed his people into the open. The pastor stood with Peter and Luke, watching from the edge with interest. Major Ludlow and a contingent of soldiers were easily discernible with their camou
flaged ACUs.
Placing a hand in the air, Steele spoke. “I need everyone’s attention.” The crowd quieted to a stifled murmur. “It has been discovered that Thunder and the Red Stripes have been holding out on stores of medicine.”
All parties roared in anger.
“False!” Garrett yelled.
“Not true,” Thunder said.
Keeping his hand in the air, he waited for the anger to subside to a boil. “I didn’t believe it myself, but we found this bag hidden in their cabin.” He lifted the black duffel into the air for all to see. He then bent down and unzipped it, holding it open with both hands. Shaking the bag, they all could hear the guilty rattle of the pill bottles. Audible gasps could be heard.
Thunder growled at them. “It was a plant.”
The pastor worked his way through the people until he stood inside the circle. “Children have died.” He pointed a long finger at Thunder. “All of this suffering because of your greed.”
“And fuck you too, Pastor,” Thunder said.
The pastor turned his eyes to the sky. “God has given us reprieve from our torment. Praise be to God.” He turned his eyes back to Thunder. “May you suffer for this evil you’ve brought upon these God-fearing people. What say you, Steele? Will justice be served?” His voice held the religious fervor of the pulpit.
“We cannot stand for this injustice.” Steele handed the bag to the pastor. “Please put this to good use.”
The pastor lowered his head in deference. “I would be honored to give life where only death presided.”
Collecting himself for a moment, Steele took a step in front of Gwen before he spoke. “Thunder and the Red Stripes, I place you under arrest for conspiracy to commit harm to Camp Forge and the people within.” Quick on his handgun, he drew it, sighting it on Thunder’s forehead.
JOSEPH
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, CO
He clicked the lock on his door and turned around, facing his co-conspirators. “We have two days.”
“Two days?” Hollis exclaimed.
“Byrnes said they’re about as far into the earth as you can go without popping out in China.”
Hollis’s face reddened and the veins in his neck expanded, threatening to blow any second. “How the hell are we supposed to break them out so quick?”
Joseph sat on the edge of his bed. “I was hoping you would have an answer for that.”
Staring at Joseph, Hollis shook his head. “We shouldn’t have opened that dumb flash drive. I knew it. I told you not to!”
“They’re going to execute him for treason. We’re their only hope for survival.”
“We’re going to get killed in the process.” Hollis put his head down into his hands. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
“Think. We’re smart. We have to be able to come up with something.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Joseph went first. “I already planted the seed that the prisoner might be sick. What if we fake a life-threatening illness? Then we can cart out the person.”
“How many can we liberate before they catch on? Then where do we take them? That doesn’t free them from the mountain itself,” Dr. Desai said.
Pushing his glasses back to their rightful place on his nose, Joseph tried again. “We could drug the guards? There’s four of them. Two outside the door to the cell. Two inside the cell room entrance.”
Hollis humphed, sounding like an irritated cow. “What? Are you going to force them to take a pill and wait for them to fall asleep?”
Joseph raised his eyebrows. “We could inject them? Random vaccination.”
“Then what? We still don’t have a way out of this facility crawling with soldiers. Besides, are we going to vaccinate them at their post?”
“I’m trying to come up with something, and all you do is say no. We have to come up with something and fast.” Joseph studied the wall. Desai crossed her arms over her chest, and Hollis stared at the ground.
“Wait,” Desai said, leaning forward. “I did a study when I was in medical school on a potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin. Are you familiar?”
A small smile spread on Joseph’s lips. “Yes, go on.”
“Tetrodotoxin or TTX is named after the order of highly derived ray-finned fish that carry it. Oddly enough, it’s not a chemical created by the fish but a symbiotic bacteria. It’s a sodium channel blocker. If too much is ingested, you become paralyzed and die.”
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Hollis said. “Everyone knows this. It will kill you.”
Desai gave him a mean look. “We studied the effects of combining it with other drugs for alternative uses. In one limited test, we were able to modify the neurotoxin to ensure body could still function but outwardly seem dead.”
Joseph followed her train of thought. “And if they appear dead, we can remove them from the cell.”
“Exactly, given we were experimenting at the time,” Desai said. “If you give me a while, I think I can replicate the test. We should have plenty of the toxin in one of the labs.”
“But that only gets us out of the cell room.”
Joseph turned to Hollis. “Where are bodies taken after a person dies?”
“The body bags are shipped out to a general crematory outside the facility. The risk of fire is too great to have one inside the mountain. In the event that we are ‘buttoned-up,’ and the blast doors are closed, we place them in a temperature-controlled storeroom near the docks.”
“Do you have access to this storeroom?”
“It’s not my section, but it’s close to the storage facilities where we bring in and take out supplies or shipments.”
“So if we got a pile of not-dead, dead bodies into the holding area, you can make sure they get on the right shipment out of here?”
“I will see. There are trucks that come in and out from all over.”
“That’s it. That’s how we do it. They have to be dead.” Joseph shared a grin with Desai.
Hollis frowned. “If the dosing is wrong, we could kill them.”
“I will ensure the dosing is correct,” Desai said.
“What chance do they have? They’re already slated for execution,” Joseph said.
Hollis sighed. “This is very risky.”
“It must be done. Tomorrow, we inject them, fake their deaths, and ship them out. Easy.”
Hollis peered at Joseph’s desk drawer. “All this talk is making me hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”
Joseph pulled a mini bag of chips from his drawer and handed it to the perpetually starving man. “We need you to make sure a shipment of something is going out when Dr. Desai and I come up with the bodies.”
“Let’s see. There’s a body disposal truck that comes every Thursday. It’s supposed to come in the morning, but it’s always late. They’re incompetent at best.”
Joseph nodded. “Hopefully, we’ll get the B-squad of the security guards.”
“Hopefully,” Hollis said, between crunching bites.
STEELE
Camp Forge, IA
“Hi, Haley.”
The little girl gave him a faint smile. A small tinge of pink had returned to her pale cheeks.
“Hi, Uncle Mark.” She adjusted her head on her pillow so she could see him better. That forced a sad smile on his lips. Gwen had explained to the girl after they first arrived that he was an uncle. It helped explain in the child’s mind that Mark was important in Gwen’s life, therefore important in her life too, someone that could be trusted and depended upon.
“You feeling a bit better?”
She nodded her head but still gave him a pout indicating that she wasn’t fully healed yet.
His words came softly. “You’re doing all right, kiddo. Now get some rest. You want to know why?” He shared a knowing smile with Gwen.
“Because you know it’s getting close to Christmas time now, and you know he’s always watching.”
Haley’s eyes grew a fraction of a centimeter wider. “Santa?”
> “That’s right,” Gwen said. She bent down to stroke Haley’s cheek, her hand shifting to the young girl’s forehead for a moment. “She feels better.”
“And I heard he’s got some presents for you,” Mark added.
Haley’s voice came out like a tiny mouse. “I can’t wait.”
“So get some rest so you’re ready for Christmas.”
Haley nodded with a smile-pout.
Gwen and Mark walked from the room, closing the door gently behind them. They stood in the hallway sharing a moment. He felt like he was practicing being a father. His hand fell to her abdomen. She was showing plenty now, enough for people to want to ask her about it. Her eyes sparkled at him. The baby moved inside her, and her smile deepened to joy. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes.” He peered at her belly for a moment. “I can’t believe we created this.”
“I can,” she said softly.
He kissed her for a moment and leaned back. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For giving me hope that we can have life in all this darkness.”
She cupped his face through his beard and locked lips with him again. “No, thank you.”
They went down the stairs and into the parlor. Gwen snuggled on the couch near the fireplace with Becky and Lydia, and he took a seat behind his desk. He studied his map of southern Iowa. It was his only pastime. He was consumed by preparing their defense, and there was only one major factor keeping them alive: the Mississippi River. Even with an excellent physical barrier, there was so much ground to cover and so few people to do so.
The door opened and the chill of the outside came in. When the door didn’t close for a moment, Steele rose to his feet. Scratching came through the doorway, followed by a grunt. John emerged in the foyer with an evergreen tree halfway through the door. He flashed Steele a sheepish grin. “Can’t have Christmas without no tree.”
Steele smiled, grabbing the tree by the trunk. “Let me help.” Together they hefted the tree and carried it inside.
“Let’s put it over yonder by the fireplace, why don’t ya,” John said. They ambled it near the fireplace.
The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Page 25
