Linda noticed the two soldiers first, and touched Rachel on the arm to get her attention. Mike looked at the children, thirty-two, by a quick count. Nine of them were his; it should have been eleven. He stiffened, pushing that thought firmly back into its steel box and shoving it into the darkest corner of his mind. He found Jennifer’s face among the kids and smiled at her. She smiled back, her attention immediately returning to Sasha and the Barbie dolls they were dressing.
Mike cleared his throat and moved forward into the room, close to his circle of nine but including the other children as well. He adjusted his gun belt, making certain the holster was snapped shut, and got down on one knee to be at their level. The NFK school didn’t have the luxury of child-sized tables or desks until their new facility was finished, so they worked on the floor. It was a laminate floor, though, not plain dirt like so many of the tents. Mike realized he was stalling again.
“So, um … I just need to let you guys know that you probably won’t be seeing me around the compound for a week or so,” he said softly. “And I just wanted to say goodbye for a while, and to … um, to answer any questions you might have.” Mike glanced up at Kari, relieved to see her pleased nod. She had ripped him on that point pretty hard the last time he’d gone on a mission, so he was pleased with himself for remembering the detail. He started to stand, figuring he had gotten off easy, and then he saw a small brown hand raise. Mike winced. The boy was seven or eight – one of the newer kids in camp, and Mike didn’t know his name.
“You have a question, umm …” Mike looked helplessly to the teachers and Linda quickly supplied the boy’s name.
“That’s Matthew, Mike. He came in with a group from Fort Campbell last week.”
Mike smiled. “Sure, Matthew. Glad you’re here with us now. Do you have a question?”
“Are you going to fight the Razers?” the little boy asked bluntly.
“Well …” Mike rubbed his face and the top of his head, still strangely short and fuzzy since his most recent buzz. He suddenly understood Kari’s vehemence that she not be left with this task and was sincerely wishing he’d left an hour ago. “Not really, no, Matthew. If I have to fight the Razers, then that means I’m doing it wrong. I need to get in someplace really sneaky, and then get back out again.”
“Are you going to bring more children, Iron Mike?” This question came from Sasha, the shy little girl with solemn dark eyes and neat pigtails who was one of the children Mike and Kari had brought to the base in January.
“I don’t know, Sasha,” Mike said gently. “I’m going to be riding a motorcycle, but if there are children out there, you know I won’t leave them.”
Sasha nodded, content with the answer.
“Any other questions?” Mike asked, keeping his voice calm and light.
“Will you bring us presents?”
Mike blinked.
“Whenever my daddy left on trips, he always brought home presents,” the little girl explained, as if Mike hadn’t understood the question. Several heads nodded in agreement.
“Um. Yes.” Mike said, having no idea how he would keep that promise. Every Wal-Mart had long since been looted and god only knew where a Toys R Us would be. “Yes, definitely. I can’t tell you what they are because … well, because I don’t know myself, yet, but yes, definitely, I will bring back presents.”
The children cheered, and all of them crowded in for hugs, which Mike handed out generously. Jennifer still sat with her Barbie doll, but when Mike looked for her, she met his eyes and smiled.
Ten minutes later, he and Kari were walking quickly toward Regina’s tent. “Oh, my god, that was brutal!” Mike exclaimed to Kari. “Some of those kids who were crying don’t even know me!”
“Most of them have lost their parents, Mike – they see you as another adult going off to war, and they know you might not come back.”
Mike stopped in his tracks, looking at Kari strangely. He didn’t know how to respond to that, how to tell her that neither “parent” nor “soldier” were ever roles he’d envisioned for himself. “I’m coming back,” he said quietly, his voice strong with conviction. “I am coming back, Kari.”
Kari grinned at him. “I know you are. You’re Iron Mike – you can do anything!”
Mike laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “That’s never gonna die, is it?”
Kari shook her head. “Not for years and years and years.”
Thanks to Regina, Mike’s ordnance was packed up and tightly sealed in waterproof, Army-ugly backpacks. He thanked the older woman, grabbing up four of the bags while Kari grabbed the other two, and they walked together to the vehicle depot. It was about half a mile from the living quarters, near the edge of the compound. Close to the first set of razor-wired fencing that surrounded the Mint, it was securely monitored by guards in two watchtowers. Mike nodded at the men and began packing the Harley’s saddlebags. He wasn’t thrilled about the sidecar, but it was that or a jeep. Kasoniak insisted he take both extra fuel and water with him. If nothing else, both served as currency, legal tender, anywhere in North America.
Mike looked surprised when Kari stuffed her personal knapsack into a saddlebag and put on a helmet, straddling a second motorcycle. “What’s up?” he asked curiously. She was wearing jeans, heavy boots, and a leather jacket, but that was Kari-wear on any off-duty day.
“I’m riding with you into Louisville,” she said, pulling her long brown hair back into a ponytail and securing her helmet carefully.
Mike hesitated. “You think that’s smart?” he asked cautiously.
“Louisville’s been dead since the first wave, Mike. The only Razer in that city’s liable to be a Gillette – which, by the way, is what I’m going for. I’m hoping one of the drug stores on the Outer Loop hasn’t been completely trashed.”
Mike studied his helmet for a long moment, and then put it on, buckling the strap. “Your father knows you’re going?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.
Kari grinned. “Who do you think I’m getting the razor for? The old fart hates the grizzled look, and his last refill should have been replaced a month ago.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Mike said, starting the Harley. The machine was well-tended by the NFK mechanics, and it purred beneath him.
“No, I sure didn’t, did I?” Kari smiled, starting her own machine.
Mike shook his head as he pulled out. “Your funeral,” he muttered, hoping he’d be halfway to Virginia before that explosion went off.
Mike
The ride out of New Fort Knox was, comparatively speaking, uneventful. It was early spring in Kentucky, a bit cool with the wind, but with the sun shining brightly enough to make the ride pleasant. If it weren’t for a few niggling little details, Mike could have convinced himself he and Kari were just two normal, everyday Americans, out joyriding on their Harleys like Sons of Anarchy wannabes. But it was clearly an illusion, and he couldn't lie to himself that well. The smoke and mirrors were too obvious: potholes in the highway, the lack of other traffic, the snarls of wrecked vehicles they picked carefully around, the skeletal remains seen too often in the vehicles or on the sides of the road. It was one thing in the bright sunshine. Come nightfall, though, he would be alone and riding at a painfully slow crawl. Then, it would be macabre.
They hit their first major issue trying to access the on-ramp to the Gene Snyder Freeway. Apparently, it had been heavily congested the afternoon of January 2nd, and the first wave of Razers left a molten pileup of vehicles worthy of a demolition derby. Mike looked up the grass hillside, wondering if he could negotiate the steep bank with the sidecar. The ground was soft from last night’s rain, so he decided it would be too much of a risk. He swore viciously, staring at the carnage, and automatically turned the bike off to save fuel. Kari did the same, pulling her helmet off to get some air. Mike set his own helmet on top of the backpacks in the sidecar and pulled his gun belt off, draping it over the handlebar. He approached the wreckage cautiously, dropping to
the ground and belly-crawling between two vehicles to see how bad it was. If he could move even one of the vehicles out of their way, the on-ramp would be passable. Mike frowned. It was a no-go … the vehicles weren’t going anywhere without a tow truck.
“Mike,” Kari called from the motorcycle. Her voice sounded strange and very un-Kari – kind of like Martha Stewart in a happy-place. Mike glared once more at the tangled mess, and then scooted back underneath a twisted pickup and started toward Kari.
He stopped dead.
Kari was surrounded. A pack of dogs formed a circle around Kari and his unmanned motorcycle. For a moment, Mike wanted to laugh at the absurdity; there was a poodle – a goddamned poodle! – among the pack, its tiny lips curled back over its teeth. But the laugh died in his throat. There was also a Doberman, a Shepherd, and several large hounds. The dogs were thin, but they were obviously surviving. And they were dangerous.
Kari’s face was turned oddly to the side, staring down at the asphalt to the left of her front tire. Mike tried to see what she was looking at. When she spoke again, it was in that strange, too-sweet voice, with the affected calm and slightly lilting cadence.
“The Dobie is the pack leader,” Kari told him. “He’s the one who will attack or back off, and the others will do what he does. Right now, he’s hesitating. I’m not sure if it’s because he still remembers humans as friends, or if it’s because I’m exhibiting submissive behavior by showing him my neck.”
Comprehension flared with “Oh, shit!” clarity. Mike didn’t move, but his eyes searched for a weapon. He had an entire arsenal – on the bike. He fucking knew better. He was trained better. Mike filed the self-recrimination away for later and assessed the situation now. Kari, clearly, couldn’t arm herself – the moment she moved, the pack would be on her. Mike had nothing – not even the crowbar from the sidecar.
Mike knew the pack leader was aware of his presence, although its eyes remained on Kari. If nothing else, the pack was downwind. The longer he stood doing nothing, the weaker he would appear.
Decision made, Mike put two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp, loud whistle. The dogs immediately turned to face him, hackles raised. One hound wagged its tail hesitantly, and Mike concentrated on that one, thinking warm, friendly, completely un-terrified thoughts. “Good boy!” he praised, as though the hound had just shattered the world speed record for championship housebreaking. “What a good boy you are!”
Not even looking at the pack leader, Mike started confidently toward his motorcycle. A low, menacing growl met him. Mike ignored the sound as though he hadn’t heard it, the confidence in his walk almost a swagger. He breached the circle of dogs unchallenged and straddled his bike. “Start ‘em up, turn back down the ramp, and fucking floor it the way we came,” he said calmly. Kari moved slowly to comply, her hand reaching for the starter. The Doberman’s growl intensified, and it stood up threateningly.
“NO!” Mike snapped, his voice so harsh it made Kari jump. “BAD DOG! SIT!”
To Mike’s everlasting amazement, the Doberman sat. Kari tore out of there, leaving a long streak of rubber on the pavement, and Mike followed close behind. They were three miles north when Kari finally raised her hand in a fist and eased to a stop, right in the middle of the interstate. It was no more peculiar than driving north on the southbound lane, but her body was wracked with spasms. Mike fought down a surge of panic, unsure if Kari was having a seizure or a sobbing fit, and not certain which would be worse.
He waited awkwardly, the Harley idling beneath him. Waste of fuel or not, they were leaving the engines running until he knew they were safe. After a moment, Kari turned toward him. She did have tears streaming down her face, but they were tears of laughter. Hysterical laughter, perhaps, but that was better than the alternative. Mike smiled uncertainly.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” she cried, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “BAD DOG! SIT!” She giggled for several more moments, and Mike finally chuckled with her, knowing she was letting off steam, venting the adrenaline. “Iron Mike, the dobinator!” she cried gleefully.
Mike shook his head vehemently, and put his helmet back on, nodding for her to don hers. “No more nicknames!” he chided with mock ferocity. “Bad girl – no cookie!”
They rode a few miles north on the southbound until Mike found the landmark he was seeking: a horrible, distinctively pink liquor store on the corner of Dixie Highway and S.R. 44. They paused at the intersection, surveying the terrain, the liquor store, the abandoned trailer park behind it and the heavily grown fields.
“Really?” Kari asked skeptically, raising her visor. “Pink?”
Mike grinned, revving his engine a bit. “Yep. One of the most popular places to be on a Sunday, if you know the right people. County’s dry on Sundays.”
Kari shook her head in disbelief. “Wait a minute. I’m not even understanding what you’re saying here. You’re saying this gigantic … flamingo … is a speakeasy?”
Mike nodded and affected a heavy Kentucky drawl. “We are in the Bible belt, little lady, and all them good Christian church ladies like to see one day a week when no one indulges. ‘Course, a lotta them men married to them good Christian church ladies … well, they feel a might differ’nt. It ain’t so much a speakeasy as a drive-thru, though. Times have changed, you know!” Mike finished his redneck imitation with a loud belch and scratched below where his big beer belly would be … if he had an ounce of fat to spare.
Kari grinned at his silliness and shut the worry out of her eyes before he saw it; it would only start an argument. Still, she thought, he wasn’t a kid anymore, and he needed to start bulking up on the protein. His shoulders had widened considerably in the past several months, but his face had a lean, hard-angled look that wasn’t there when she’d first met him. Not a bit of baby fat left … Kari knew Mike’s mother would have grieved that, if she’d been alive.
“… and twists, so be careful,” Mike said.
“What?” Kari asked, a bit stupidly. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Mike bit down on the exasperation that wanted to flare. This mission was high priority – certainly not the Resistance’s top goal, but important enough that dozens, maybe even hundreds of people depended on its success. Daydreaming wasn’t an option these days. Not ever. He recognized the irony of his thoughts and smiled thinly. “I said,” he repeated, his voice calm and betraying nothing, “that I know this road really well. My buddies and I used to ride here for thrills. There are a lot of sharp curves, and about eight miles in, you’ll be going down a steep hill with some hairpin twists. We’ll want to keep our speed down in that area in case there’ve been any rockslides or tree falls. I’m sure no road repairs have been done since the invasion.”
Kari nodded, flicking her eyes quickly to Mike’s face in silent apology. He noticed the gesture and nodded back, the stiffness in his shoulders visibly eased. That’s another thing she loved about the boy, she thought, lowering her visor and giving a thumbs-up. He was slow to anger, quick to accept an apology, and never held a grudge.
They kept their pace down to about 40 miles per hour, even though the road conditions would have allowed more speed. Route 44 was a two lane black-top that had been well-travelled before the invasion but it was completely, eerily, empty now. Winter had taken its toll as well, and the road already showed signs of nature’s reclamation. Formerly well-tended crop fields hadn’t been plowed this season, and grass and weeds were already beginning to reclaim the land from the human kind that once held it.
Mike slowed around a turn and pointed, so Kari looked, her eyes welling with tears. A mare with a young colt, possibly only days old, fed contentedly in what was once a kitchen garden. She lifted her head briefly at the sound of the motorcycles and snorted, either in greeting or admonition for them to go away. Not even fifty feet away, a flock of Canadian geese pecked at the ground or swam in the stocked pond a farmer had once put in so he and his boy could go fishing together. Of cour
se, that was twenty years or more gone by. The farmer was dead now, and in all likelihood, the boy was, too. If not, he had bigger problems than tending to the old homestead. Still … it was beautiful. It was Kentucky beautiful, and something about that gave Kari a sense of hope. She smiled, even though Mike couldn’t see it behind her visor.
“We’ll have to send some people out this way when we get back!” Mike called over the Harley’s engine as he started forward again. “God knows, we need the horses, and geese make good eating.”
She nodded agreement. Several miles up, they encountered a tree that proved to be a bigger problem than Mike had patience for. It was at the top of a hill and crossed the road in a diagonal, the soil clinging to its roots long since dried to cement. Mike growled in frustration. What should have been a two-to-three hour drive to Louisville, accounting for post-Invasion road conditions, had already consumed half the day. How many other roadblocks would he encounter? Virginia was a twelve-hour drive before the invasion, so he quadrupled that, calculating four days travel each way. He allotted two more days to find the resistance unit, give the ranking officer the evac route and Eastern Shore contacts, blow the damn bridge, and get the hell out of Dodge. He was beginning to think he had seriously underestimated the travel time.
“All right, change of plan,” he said to Kari. “I’m going to need some heavier tools, or I’ll never make it to Lexington, much less Norfolk. We’ll head up this road about a mile, and then cross over to Hillview. My gran’s farm is there, and Poppa’s got a decent workshop, if it hasn’t been looted.” Mike moved over to the sidecar and tightened the already-tight packing of his supplies.
Iron Mike Page 14
