Sanctuary (Nomad Book 2)

by Mather, Matthew

  “Not metal.” Giovanni clued in to what she was thinking. “Too sticky on snow. But we could use the sleds.”

  “They’re tough enough?” She knew he meant the arctic expedition sleds strapped to the roof of the Range Rover.

  “Half-inch polycarbonate. Very slippery on snow and ice, and we could reinforce them with metal plates, maybe weld on the tractor rims onto the outside of the Humvee’s rims, then fit treads onto that.”

  They could transform the Humvee into their own snowmobile. Their own snow tank.

  Halfway back up the icy embankment to the truck, in the middle of discussing how to cut away the Humvee’s wheel wells to accommodate the tractor rims, Jess noticed Roger standing on top of the Range Rover, waving his arms.

  “Jess!” he yelled.

  Giovanni scanned the road, looking for signs of danger.

  Jess dropped the sack she had on her shoulder and took off at a run. Had the scavengers returned? Only three hundred yards, but the wind picked up and drowned out Roger’s cries. What was it? Something about Hector? She scrambled up the embankment, adrenaline spiking into her bloodstream.

  “What happened?” she screamed over the wind, digging her crampons into the ice to pull herself up on a tree next to the road. She unslung her assault rifle.

  Roger held out his hands. “Everything is fine.”

  She hauled herself over the icy guardrail and grabbed onto the metal cable thrown around it to the Humvee’s winch.

  Raffa and Lucca waved. They’d already pulled the truck out of the ice, and were busy digging around the Range Rover.

  “I made contact with a new survivor camp in Civitavecchia,” Roger said, his hands still out.

  “You yelled at us for that?” Jess doubled over, her breath coming in labored gasps. Civitavecchia. She’d heard of it. Rome’s main port, where cruise ships came in. They hadn’t contacted there before, but still… “Jesus, Roger, you scared the cr—”

  “They’re evacuating people.”

  She straightened. “What?”

  Snow had begun to fall again, at first tiny crystals from the charcoal sky, but now thick flakes fell soundlessly around them.

  “In boats. To Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli across the Mediterranean. They’re evacuating people south.” He held up the shortwave radio mike. “You can talk to them yourself.”

  Giovanni swung one leg over the guardrail behind Jess. “Sixty miles from here. We can go that way.” He pointed down the road leading away from the highway, to the west. He smiled. “See? One thing at a time.”

  5

  “ARE YOU CRAZY?” Roger jerked his hands up so hard he threw half his cup of chickpea soup over the interior of the Humvee.

  “We stick to the plan.” Jess calmly spooned some of her own soup into her mouth. She looked at Roger. His face was slick with sweat, his eyes glassy. “And clean that up.”

  Roger grimaced, holding his ration pack in the air as if he couldn’t figure out what do to with it. “We can hitch a ride on a ship fifty miles from here, but you want to drag our asses down five hundred miles of wrecked highway, then walk over ice that hasn’t even formed yet?”

  “That’s right.”

  Jess took her meal towel and wiped away some of Roger’s mess from the Humvee’s scratched metal console. The interior was stripped down, khaki-green, Italian-army issue, complete with a thick, square windshield and scratched riveted metal, the steering wheel a donut of hard black plastic that hovered over glass-faced analog dials and over-sized switches. The least comfortable seating of any vehicle in their convoy trio, and it retained the same musty, gunmetal-oil smell Jess remembered from her tour. She found her hand drifting to her leg, resting it just above where it joined the prosthetic. Not even a Humvee provided much protection against an improvised roadside explosive.

  “Andiamo in barca,” Leone said from the back seat behind Jess. He had Hector on his lap and gripped him in his big arms. “È più sicuro.”

  “That’s not true, we don’t know if the boats will be safer,” Jess said, her voice rising.

  Leone didn’t say anything in a way that let Jess know he didn’t agree.

  “We stay away from populated areas, we move south as quick as we can, wasn’t that the plan?”

  “Hector, do you like boats, barche?” Giovanni smiled and leaned from the driver seat to ruffle Hector’s hair. The boy smiled weakly in return. They spoke mostly in English, so he didn’t understand much, but his face reflected the rising tension.

  “Don’t do that.” Jess jabbed her spoon at Giovanni.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “You know what. Don’t be an asshole.”

  “I think I might not be the one being an asshole, as you say.”

  “Meaning?”

  He put his ration tin down carefully. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Say what’s on your mind, Giovanni.”

  “All our lives are at risk. We had a plan. We can have a new plan.”

  “We need to protect this.” Jess patted the backpack, now resting in her lap. “Right now, we have a plan that doesn’t depend on anyone else. We have vehicles, we have supplies.”

  “I’m getting sick of that goddamn backpack.” Roger wound down his window and threw out the remainder of his dinner. “Your father almost killed me over—”

  “My father died for this,” Jess interrupted.

  Roger paused to take a deep breath. “That box of electronics you found, was it in a metal crate?”

  “Metal shelves. Why?”

  “Must have acted as a Galvanic box, took away the brunt of EM radiation. There’s a modem in there; I think it works.”

  “We can read the disks?” Jess shifted in her seat toward him, her voice losing its edge. “Does the CD player work?”

  “If the modem works, I can transmit data over the shortwave.”

  “But it’s not digital.”

  “We go old school. Audio frequency modulation. Slow, but it works.”

  “And how does this change anything?” Giovanni leaned forward to insert himself between Roger and Jess.

  “Because I might be able to transmit the data to your engineer friends in Al-Jawf. Down in the Sahara where we’re heading.”

  Jess pressed her lips together.

  “If we’re not the only ones hanging onto this data”—Roger pointed at the backpack—“then we’re no longer humanity’s custodians. So we head for the boats.”

  “First, show me that it works,” Jess conceded, but she was a long way from sending her heritage off into someone else’s hands. “And that you can read the data.”

  “If the data’s even still there.”

  Jess gripped the backpack tight.

  “I need time,” Roger added when she didn’t respond.

  “You’ve got time. All the time we have on the road.”

  “I mean time not spent bouncing off the inside of this truck. We need to sit still for a few days.”

  “That we can’t do.” Jess shook her head. “South. We keep to the plan.”

  “I agree.” Massarra leaned in through the Humvee’s window. “Anyone want more?” She held up the steaming pot of chickpea soup.

  Roger spat out the remains of a chickpea husk, the edges of his mouth working into a sour frown. “Who invited you to this talk?”

  “You know”—Giovanni jabbed a finger at Roger—“I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  The astrophysicist’s face turned beet red. “This is my life we’re talking about. We should head for the boats. It’s only fifty miles. We could almost walk.”

  “So then walk.” A smile edged across Giovanni’s face. He turned his finger from pointing at Roger to pointing out the window. “Get out. And take some chickpea stew with you.”

  “Hey.” Jess held her hands up, palms out to the two men.

  The color drained from Roger’s cheeks. “I’ve had enough of chickpeas. I’m going hunting.” He opened his door.

  “Take so
meone with you,” Jess said, her hands still up.

  “I hunt better alone.” He stepped out.

  Jess watched Massarra give Roger a long, hard look as he pushed his way past her. He picked up a rifle from next to the cooking stove. The blade of a knife glinted in Massarra’s hand.

  “If you don’t come back, we’re not looking for you,” Giovanni offered as Roger stalked away.

  Jess jabbed his shoulder. “Stop that.”

  The Italian shrugged and settled back into his seat to resume eating.

  Roger made his way along the tracks leading down to the buildings. Reaching the edge of the structure, he glanced over his shoulder and stepped from the broken ice of the trail onto the slick yellow crust. Each step broke through the inch-thick layer above into the knee-deep slurry below, earning a multitude of curses as snow wedged into his low leather boots. He tightened the strap of the rifle over his shoulder and squinted into the gray-orange sky. A flattened yellow sun-blob hovered near the horizon. He still had an hour or more of murky light.

  Glancing over his shoulder again, he found the trucks now barely visible. Massarra was keeping Elsa busy with the cooking and cleaning, and Rita had her head in the Humvee, talking with Raffa. Satisfied, he entered the edge of the forest and made his way around the back of the building, and then, slipping over the ice, he double-backed across the road into the forest on the other side.

  Roger had seen the flashes on the road during the day, back the way they’d already traveled.

  Sweat poured from his brow, soaking his woolen cap. He’d hunted as a kid, in Pennsylvania backcountry with his father. He learned from him and was good with a rifle. He figured it was one of the reasons the Organization had been interested in him. That and his astrophysics degree. Today, though, he wasn’t hunting. At least not for anything he could eat.

  “Abbastanza lontano.” A man appeared from the trees behind him, holding a rifle up.

  Roger didn’t raise his arms. “Make this quick.”

  The man motioned with his gun. At the edge of the trees was a well-worn path leading along the edge of the highway. They quick-marched along it a half-mile back. A car came into view, though not exactly a car anymore. The Volkswagen Beetle had large circular rollers, with jagged spikes, welded onto the back axle. Behind it was a gray Mercedes SUV with snow chains over the wheels. The doors to the Mercedes opened, and two men stepped out.

  “So, Mr. Roger, where’s my bag?” said one of the men, stepping forward.

  Strands of white hair clung to his liver-spotted scalp, jowls of loose skin hung from his angular face dominated by the angry red slash of a cleft lip. His eyes, beady and black, penetrated from below bushy gray eyebrows.

  “I’m slowing them down as much as I can.”

  “You can do better than that.”

  “She doesn’t let go of it. Sleeps with it tied to her.”

  The old man stepped in close to Roger. “Maybe I’ll have my girl cut their throats?” He leaned forward, his nose just inches from Roger’s. “And maybe cut your throat, too.”

  “Salman, I want that bag as much as you do.” Roger didn’t flinch or retreat. The old man’s breath stank of garlic. “If you want it undamaged, we do it my way. I can’t just cut the straps off the bag and run with it. We need to do this right.”

  “Maybe I just kill all of you and call your friends myself.” Salman produced a slab of black plastic from his pocket. It had a white yin-yang symbol emblazoned on it.

  “Activate that without me, and nobody’s coming.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  The two men with Salman stepped behind him. One of them wasn’t a man, though, more of a boy, a teenager, his ruddy cheeks flushed with the cold. He limped, his right leg bandaged where he’d been shot.

  “Maybe it’s more of your lies,” Salman added.

  “You need me.”

  “For now.” He put the black emergency beacon back in his pocket. “But I am not a violent man. When my nephew called me, with wild stories, I came to find out for myself. But I only want what you want.”

  Roger doubted that was true. He wanted Salman dead.

  “Somewhere safe, somewhere we might survive,” continued Salman. “That’s all I want. But any funny business, as you Americanos say, and I cut you up into tomorrow’s dinner. Capire? You understand? And I kill your girlfriend Jessica first, so you can watch.”

  “Don’t touch her.”

  Salman smiled an oily grin.

  “We need her,” Roger added. “You want my friends to come get us, we need her, and we need that bag.”

  “I think you need her.” Salman’s smile widened. “I wonder what Miss Jessica would think if we told her you were spying on her father, for your…how do you call it?”

  “The Organization.”

  “Mysterious, yes?” The smile slid from Salman’s face. “I grow tired of this, Roger. Maybe I should have just let you die on that mountain. My nephew Nico was foolish.”

  “I’ll get the bag. And they won’t get far south. I’ve sabotaged the trucks.”

  “So you’re not heading to the coast?”

  “She’s stubborn.”

  “Two days. You have two days.” Salman turned to the boy, raising one hand. The boy pulled his rucksack off and produced a buckshot-riddled rabbit. Salman took it and tossed it at Roger.

  “What about my other bag?”

  Salman rolled his eyes but nodded at the boy, who produced a small brown paper sack. “Your weaknesses will be your undoing. And that’s the last of it.”

  “We had a deal.”

  “Who’s the other woman?”

  “Massarra. Jessica seems to know her.”

  “How is that possible? She finds somebody she knows in this chaos? What is the relationship?”

  “I don’t know yet. When you left me—”

  “When my man, Adriano, was killed by your girlfriend.”

  “You knew the risks.” Roger took plastic bags from one pocket of his parka and wrapped the bloody rabbit. “Like I told you before, she claimed she was kidnapped by the bandits. That’s all I know. Massarra won’t talk to me.”

  “But we”—Salman held his arms wide—“were the bandits, and we didn’t kidnap her.”

  “I know.”

  “Then kill her. Kill this Massarra woman, I don’t care how. But before you do, find out who the hell she is.”

  6

  “SO, WHO ARE you?” Jess asked Massarra.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, inspecting the spur of fractured earth rising up in front of them, an almost vertical wall of rock and ice that cut right across the highway. Jess had asked Massarra to help her scout north, but there was no way around this. At least, not for the rest of them. Jess had to resist the urge to climb, to scramble up it and look on the other side—but this wasn’t a time to take chances.

  “You saved my life, back in Rome,” Jess added. “My mother’s too. I don’t even know your full name or where you’re from.”

  Massarra smiled to show she wasn’t offended. “Mizrahi is my family name.”

  “Middle Eastern…?” Jess said hesitantly. “Arab?”

  “Israeli, but my given name is Arabic.”

  “An Israeli Arab?”

  Massarra snorted and smiled. “Jews and Arabs have been brothers and sisters for a thousand years.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “But your family lived in Turkey.”

  “My uncles, yes. Too many troubles in Israel. Well, perhaps not anymore.” Her smile softened from one of amusement into one of sadness.

  “What happened to your uncle, the one that was in the car with us when you took us to Giovanni’s castle?”

  “He is with God now.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “He is in Allah’s hands. He lived a good life.”

  An unnatural silence descended. No wind. No hum of machines. No clatter of life.

  “So yo
u and Roger, you were…” Massarra searched for the words.

  “I don’t know what we were, to be honest,” Jess said for her. “We were together for a while, back in New York, before I came here.”

  “And you and Giovanni…”

  “Awkward would be the word.” Jess took one more look at the wall of rock. “Let’s head back.” She turned on her skis and tried to scramble up a short, icy incline they’d just slid down.

  “How did you survive?” Jess asked as she reached the top of the hill, huffing and puffing. Her stump throbbed. She had never been much of a cross-country skier, but she’d volunteered for this short reconnaissance. If she wanted to cross a hundred miles of sea ice, she better get some practice in. Massarra seemed very comfortable on skis. She seemed comfortable with almost everything they did.

  “When we were turned back at the border, I made it most of the way to Castello Ruspoli before Nomad, but I couldn’t save my uncle. He asked me to leave him.”

  Jess left a respectful silence.

  “I was in the Israeli army. We were taught ways to survive. I agreed to Special Forces training, but it was more for the hiking and outdoors than a love of weapons.”

  “I was in the Marine Corps.”

  “Your mother told me.”

  Jess shoved forward hard on her ski poles. One of them broke through the icy hard pack, almost pulling her off her feet.

  “She was a beautiful woman, your mother, very warm.”

  Jess pulled ahead again. She fought the tears, the wound still fresh.

  “They are with God now.”

  “That’s not what my Dad would have said.”

  “He was not a man of God?”

  Jess skidded to a halt and surveyed the flattened countryside around them. The trees were knocked flat as if by some giant’s hand, everything covered in a coating of frost. Nothing moved.

  “I fear that only the evil, stupid and cowardly remain in this world,” Massarra said. “The world is ruled by a million evil men, did you know?”