“Then what’s the solution?”
He frowned. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
Craig explained the options, and when he finished, Elliot’s dejected expression mirrored his.
“You were right. I don’t like it. But you think it’s possible?”
“It’s our best shot.”
Elliot nodded and waved to Arnold, who was walking with Duke and Aaron toward one of the nearby lodges. Arnold returned the gesture and the trio trudged to the community center, their breath steaming in the chill.
“Lost power, I see,” Arnold said when he arrived.
“Yes,” Elliot said. “Craig here says the only way we can get the juice flowing again is to go on a little expedition. I thought I’d enlist your help.”
“How little?” Arnold asked.
“There’s another geothermal plant about a hundred miles north of us,” Craig said. “It’s mothballed, but we should be able to cannibalize it for parts.”
Arnold’s eyes widened. “A hundred miles? That could be a week each direction, depending on the terrain.”
“It won’t be easy,” Craig agreed. “But it’s the only way. Either that, or plan on spending a long winter without power.”
Elliot eyed his security chief and then shifted to the trader and his assistant. “So what do you say, gentlemen?”
Duke blinked, reminding Elliot of a startled cave dweller exposed to a bright light. “What do you mean, what do we say?”
“Are you up for an adventure?”
Duke frowned. “You mean us?”
Elliot nodded. “Arnold and Craig need backup. A hundred miles is a long way, and they can’t keep reasonable watches with less than four people, as we all know.”
“Why us?” Aaron asked.
“You’re both trail savvy and have been through your share of firefights,” Elliot said. “I don’t have a lot of people anymore I can say that about.”
Duke eyed Elliot skeptically. The physician had approached him the prior week about setting up a trading post as a recruiting station for the new Shangri-La. Duke had punted, saying he needed to think about what he wanted to do now that he was a wealthy man. Elliot had agreed to wait as long as it took for his answer, the truth being that there was nobody else with Duke’s trading expertise who could do it, so he had no choice other than to be patient. “What do you think, Aaron? You in the mood for a ride?”
Aaron met his gaze. “Hell, it was getting pretty boring around here with nobody shooting at us. Why not?”
“When do you want to leave?” Arnold asked Craig.
“Sooner we take off, sooner we’ll be back.”
“I need half an hour to pack my kit,” Aaron said.
“So meet back here in thirty minutes?” Craig asked.
Arnold looked at the sky. “We probably have another four hours of light. Better use all of it we can.”
The men departed and Elliot watched them go, the sanctuary’s future in their hands. Without power, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to continue his work on survival projections, which was his latest project now that the vaccine was in the field.
The only troubling issue was that St. Louis hadn’t responded to any transmissions for well over a week. That was extremely unlike Darby, who was meticulous and prompt in all matters. Elliot had to assume the worst, which was why he was devoting his time to the scenarios where the virus couldn’t be stopped in the Midwest for another six months.
With Darby off the playing field and his contacts exhausted, Elliot had no plan B to fall back on. That was a huge problem for a large chunk of the country if the virus flared up and began moving – a likelihood that was always at the front of his thoughts.
Michael came jogging up, his expression annoyed. “Lost the power again, I see.”
Elliot explained the situation, as well as the solution. Michael pursed his lips in displeasure. “No power, no radio. So if disaster strikes, we’ll have no forewarning.”
“We can rig a few of the solar panels we scrounged. That should give us enough to operate the radio, at least during the day.”
“Agreed. But it’s a bad situation if they don’t get the parts they need. Half the town will freeze to death with no power.”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but we can always hole up in the lodges with the hot springs. They emit more than adequate heat, and we should be able to run PVC pipes to the rooms and create some sort of passive radiation system.”
“A hundred people all crammed into those lodges for four months?”
“It’s not an elegant solution. But if freezing is the only other option, you’ll grow to love thy neighbor, I’m sure.”
Michael studied the houses in the near distance, his face dark. “What do you think the odds are they can fix the plant?”
Elliot frowned. “Right now I’d say you better start working on your social skills, because barring a miracle, we’re dead in the water without a paddle.”
“But Craig was optimistic?”
Elliot looked away. “He said that was the only option other than freezing. If you want to view that as optimism, you’re a better man than I.”
Chapter 37
The trip to Alexandria took the full four days Lucas had feared it would, though fortunately had been uneventful other than dodging a Crew patrol as they neared the city late in the morning. The contingent of riders had been large compared to what they’d seen at the Mississippi River: ten men armed to the teeth, with prison ink visible on their faces and shaved heads. Lucas had heard their horses before they appeared around a bend and taken evasive action, hiding behind a grove of trees, his and Sierra’s rifles at the ready as the riders flew past in a blur.
Now they were on the outskirts of Alexandria, headed toward the rum factory grounds. They’d met an old woman selling fruit by a hovel on one of the secondary roads, who’d directed them to the sugar cane fields adjacent to the plant. She’d pointed to a plume of smoke corkscrewing into the sky and said it was from the factory’s smokestack, and then cautioned them to stay clear of the place unless they wanted an express ticket to the promised land. Lucas had nodded solemnly at the warning and rewarded her with a round of 9mm, and she’d seemed delighted with the exchange.
When they were near the edge of the first cane field, they dismounted in the brush and tied the horses to a low-hanging branch before making their way toward its edge. The sugar cane stood tall in the sun, planted in long rows that seemed to go on forever. In the distance was the factory, a dull gray sheet metal structure with only a few broken windows at the second-story level and a ground floor consisting of loading docks and pedestrian entries that were bleeding rust.
“The fields are huge,” Sierra whispered as they crept to a promising tree to climb and use as a vantage point.
“It’s a big area. Rum must use up a lot of sugar cane.”
“How many acres would you guess it is?”
“Maybe…a hundred, at least? Could be more.”
They scaled the tree, and through his binoculars Lucas surveyed the field, where he could see gunmen on horseback with wide straw hats along the edge of the cane, watching the workers in the rows, some of whom were chopping with machetes while others were tilling at the roots. He counted six guards in all, and when he was satisfied there were none on foot, handed the glasses to Sierra so she could look for her son.
It was a humid day, and the sky was a gray sheet, the heat cloying with no breeze. Sierra gazed intently through the binoculars in silence as Lucas contented himself with keeping watch with his M4 in hand. Now that they had arrived, the magnitude of the challenge was obvious, and Lucas had not the faintest inkling as to how they would free her son in the unlikely event they actually found him.
The morning dragged on with no progress, and Lucas proposed that they skirt the field and find another location from which to observe the workers.
“It’s a big area, Sierra. If he’s not
in these nearer groups, he might be at the other end. See the riders over there?”
She nodded silently and Lucas felt his heart lurch at the expression on her face. While not defeated, the odds of finding her boy were hitting home, and her eyes told the story of the stark realization.
They edged two hundred yards further along the perimeter and climbed another tree, this one lower, and Sierra went to work with the spyglasses again. After a tedious hour, Lucas was going to suggest a different vantage point when Sierra gasped and nearly lost her balance. She grabbed his arm with her free hand to steady herself and whispered, her voice tight, “I think I see him!”
Lucas didn’t say anything. She continued peering at the field and then nodded slowly.
“It’s him. He’s bigger now, and his face has changed some, but I’d recognize him anywhere. He’s alive, Lucas. Tim’s alive, and he’s down there.”
Lucas’s face was impassive. “Where, exactly, and what’s he wearing? Describe him.”
“He’s got brown hair, like mine, cut short, and he’s wearing a brown long-sleeve man’s shirt with the sleeves half rolled up, and canvas pants, both hanging off him. He’s working a hoe, it looks like. About a hundred yards down that second row – the guard’s three rows away from him.”
“Give me the glasses,” Lucas said.
She took another long look through the binoculars and then did as he requested, pointing at the spot she’d called out. “See? There are about twenty kids there.”
“I see them. But most of them are dressed the same, Sierra. It’s kind of hard to tell them apart.”
“Brown hair, brown shirt. Dark brown. Button up, open most of the way. You can see his chest. He’s rail thin.”
Lucas scanned the boys, all of them emaciated. “How far down the line?”
“Maybe…three quarters.”
He adjusted his focus and saw the boy who sort of fit the description. “Dirt on his left cheek?”
“That’s him, Lucas! That’s Tim.”
Lucas swept the area with the glasses, marking the guards’ positions relative to the boys. The good news was that the horsemen didn’t seem to have much inclination to move in the muggy swelter, preferring to sit on their horses and watch over the laborers, only occasionally goading their steeds to bark orders at the slaves before ambling back to what Lucas presumed were their assigned stations.
“You have to get him,” Sierra whispered, her voice almost frantic.
“Also got to get away without us getting killed,” Lucas answered reasonably, continuing to watch the nearest guard.
“Can’t you sneak near him and tell him to follow you out?”
“That would work until one of the others sounded the alarm.”
“Why would they? They’re all in the same boat.”
He didn’t want to have to explain his reasoning to Sierra – that the other boys would be punished if Tim disappeared, possibly executed for not alerting the guards. Instead, he offered a terse response. “Don’t want to risk it.”
Sierra’s voice hardened. “Lucas, we came all this way and found him. You have to do something.”
He slowly lowered the glasses. “Sierra, we’ll get him out of there. But we’re not going to rush in and get caught. That won’t accomplish anything, so cool your jets and let me think this through.”
The resolve in his tone seemed to calm her, and she nodded mutely. He raised the binoculars again and scanned the rows, calculating how he could get to the boy without being seen by the guards or any of the other crews. After twenty minutes of patiently watching the boys’ progress along the row, he handed Sierra the glasses and lowered himself down the tree trunk.
“You figure out how to do it?” she asked.
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Wait here. If they start shooting, make for the horses and get out of here.”
“I’m not going to leave you and Tim.”
“Won’t do anyone much good dead. Better to live to fight another day, Sierra. If you’ve learned anything from me, that should be it.”
“I hate it when you lecture me, Lucas.”
Lucas didn’t respond, already focused on the task at hand. He edged away, crouching in the brush as he made his way toward the field, wondering to himself what the hell he thought he was doing, trying to penetrate a guarded field in broad daylight.
It took him five minutes to creep to where he’d spotted a promising area of the fence that ringed the property, and he eyed the sagging barbed wire, a shred of fabric stuck to it where some unfortunate had presumably made a run for freedom – no doubt with disastrous results. That gave him further pause. If anything tipped off the guards, he and the boy would be dead meat. There was no way they’d be able to escape on foot with six mounted gunmen giving chase, especially while it was light out.
He debated returning to Sierra and explaining the harsh reality of their situation, but thought better of it. He’d at least give it a shot and see how close he could get. The guards weren’t watching to ensure nobody tried to sneak into the slave camp, which was his only edge – though a slim one at that.
Lucas spread the wire until he could comfortably make it through the opening and dog-crawled to the first thick row of cane. Once up close, he saw that the row was impossibly dense, and realized that his idea of finding a gap in the cane was misguided. That left him with crawling in full view of any interested guards to one of the openings through which crews could traverse the rows, which would be suicide.
His thoughts were cut short by the sound of hooves from his left, one row over. A guard was making his way along the row – whether routine or not, Lucas didn’t know, but if it wasn’t, he had only seconds to take action.
Lucas scurried back to the gap in the fence. His boots were disappearing through the hole when the sound of the horse turning into the row vindicated his decision. He freed his M4 and lay still, holding his breath, a trickle of sweat working its way down his face as he prepared to engage.
The hooves neared the breach in the fence and stopped a few yards away from where Lucas was hiding. His finger moved to the trigger, his pulse thudding in his ears. The horse snorted irritably, and then boots hit the ground and walked to the gap.
A radio crackled and Lucas heard a raspy voice from nearby.
“I thought they fixed the fence over by L section. Over.”
“They said they did. Over.”
“Did a piss-poor job. Get someone out here and do it right. They didn’t string new wire. Over.”
“I’ll add it to the list. You must be bored today. Over.”
“Not too bored to whup your ass. Just do it. Over and out.”
A pair of boots stood facing the gap. Lucas lay on his back only a few yards away with his rifle pointed at the guard’s shins and his legs spread so his feet were concealed by the brush. He waited for what seemed like a small eternity, and then a stream of fluid splashed onto the fence wire.
The guard finished relieving himself with a sigh and trod back to his horse, and Lucas resumed breathing. He waited for the hooves to recede before pulling himself slowly further into the brush, the miss too near for his liking.
When he returned to Sierra, she was frowning, her worry clear. Lucas told her what had happened, and her expression changed from concerned to shocked.
“Oh, my God, Lucas…”
“Yeah. Don’t want to do that again.”
“Then how…”
“We’re going to watch and wait. Once we know when the shift ends, what the guards do, and where they take the kids, we can see if there’s a better way of approaching this. But right now I’d say there’s zero chance of making it out alive trying something during the day.”
“So we’re just going to watch?”
Lucas nodded. “It’s called planning, Sierra. You want your son back alive, we have to do this right. Otherwise he and I will die because we didn’t do our homewor
k.”
Sierra’s brow creased and she resumed staring through the glasses at her little boy laboring in the relentless heat, close enough to reach out and touch, and yet as inaccessible as if he’d been on another continent.
Chapter 38
It was dark when Lucas and Sierra descended from their perch and returned to the horses. The slaves had been herded toward a low building connected to the main plant, their tools confiscated before they entered, Lucas had seen through his glasses. Sierra’s impatience was palpable, but he was still on edge from the close encounter with the guard, so he ignored it, determined to be systematic in his casing of the factory.
They moved closer to the buildings and settled in for the night where they could watch the guard shifts. Sierra eventually drifted off, leaving Lucas to his vigil, and he passed a sleepless night.
An hour after dawn the laborers, children and adults alike, filed from the building, and bowls of gruel were distributed to them. After ten minutes to eat, the guards passed out the tools and directed them to the fields for a repeat of the prior day.
Lucas watched the boys go to work, and when Sierra awoke, he whispered to her, “No point in spending all day monitoring this again. We have to move at night. Let’s find someplace secure, and I’ll try to get some sleep.”
“I want to watch Tim.”
“Sierra, the tiniest slip of any kind and they’ll come for you. Then we’re screwed. We can’t afford that. I’ll make my move tonight, but I need sleep, and I can’t do so if I have to worry about you getting an idea and acting on it while I’m out.”
He’d read her intentions accurately based on the dark look she gave him. He was too tired to engage further and walked to where Tango waited. Sierra reluctantly followed him and climbed onto Nugget, and they rode for a half hour until they found a secluded spot near a stream where the horses could drink and graze and Lucas could rest.
The Day After Never Bundle (First 4 novels) Page 91
