by Mark Goodwin
“You can fill it out, have the commandant or his secretary sign it, then bring it back to me. If I had the authority to just give you fuel, I’d do it. But this ain’t the worst gig on the base and I don’t want to lose it.”
“I can understand that. I appreciate your help.” Everett took the form and drove away.
“Now what?” Sarah asked.
Everett passed her the form. “Start filling it out. I’ll look for the next available fuel truck.” He raced down the airstrip and around the terminal. At the far end of the next terminal, he saw another refueling truck.
Everett pulled up to the truck. “I don’t see anyone around.”
“Then let’s just help ourselves,” Courtney suggested.
Everett pushed his door open. “Good plan. Let’s strike while the iron is hot. I’ll get the oil bucket. Sarah, you pull the fuel hose to the truck. Courtney, you remove the fuel cap.”
Each of them scurried to perform their individual tasks. Sarah opened the valve releasing the fuel into the bucket while Everett poured the jet fuel into the funnel, which Courtney steadied over the tank opening of the Typhoon.
After the fourth bucket of fuel had been transferred a man yelled, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
Everett spoke softly to the girls. “Keep going, I’ll handle him.”
“What’s the problem?” Everett snarled.
“You can’t just take fuel! You need a requisition form.” The man stepped close to Everett’s face. “Tell them to stop, or I’ll call security.”
Everett reached into the cab of the MRAP and pulled out the form. He shoved the paper into the man’s chest. “Yeah, you do that. Call security and tell them you abandoned your post and that a team on special orders from Commandant Miller had to pump their own fuel.”
He stepped back from Everett and glanced over the piece of paper. “I had to go to the bathroom. The porta potty is on the other side of the airport, and they don’t want us driving over there. We gotta conserve fuel. What was I supposed to do?”
Everett turned his back on the man. “I’d recommend keeping a bottle in your cab during working hours.”
The man followed Everett, still trying to explain himself. “It wasn’t nothing I could do in a bottle, if you know what I mean, Lieutenant.”
Everett turned on his heel and glared at the man. With his teeth showing he said, “Then get a bucket!”
Obviously familiar with this degree of inhumanity from his superiors, the man walked over to Courtney and Sarah. “You can get back in your vehicle. I’ll finish up for you.”
To maintain the ruse, neither of the girls thanked the man or even acknowledged his existence. They simply walked away.
Everett stepped up to get back in the driver’s seat. “And make sure you wipe out my oil bucket before you put it back in my vehicle. I don’t want jet fuel fumes filling up the cab.”
The man said nothing but complied with Everett’s demands.
Minutes later, they were back on the road. Everett was careful to exit via the same gate he’d entered through so not to encounter more peacekeepers than necessary.
Sarah squatted in the aisle between the driver and the passenger’s seat. “We’ve already burned half the day. It’ll be evening by the time we get inside the port.”
Courtney asked, “What if we don’t find anything in Norfolk? Shouldn’t we have a backup plan?”
Everett kept his eyes on the road. “If it’s God’s will for us to go, something will open up. From what Elijah said, and from the feeling I got back at Dulles, it sounds like most all key personnel have been evacuated out of North America. Our best bet is to try hitching a ride on a military vessel.”
Sarah added, “Still, we might want to keep the tank as full as possible so we have options.”
“Yeah, we’ll stop as we have opportunities.” Judging from the amount of fuel they’d used so far, Everett felt confident that ten gallons of motor oil would be enough to get them home if the plan to catch a ship from Norfolk fell through.
They drained a Civic near Woodbridge, then found a Volkswagen Bug and a Kia less than one hundred feet from each other, past Fredericksburg.
After draining four more vehicles along the way, Courtney leaned over to look at the fuel gauge. “What do you think?”
Everett glanced down, then back up at the highway before him. “That should do it.”
“Five thirty.” Courtney looked at her watch as the Typhoon drove up to the guard gate outside of the Global Republic Naval Station Norfolk.
Everett rolled down his window and handed his passbook to the guard.
The man kept his hand out until he’d collected the passbooks from all three people in the vehicle. “Where are you headed?”
“Jerusalem.”
“Do you have assignment papers?”
“No. We were assigned there before the system went down. All of our orders are locked up.”
The man waved for the other guards to open the gate. “You’ll need to go straight to the personnel department to register. They’ll have to write up temporary assignment papers.”
The man turned to point down the road. “It’s the last building on your right before you reach the piers.”
Everett took the passbooks back from the man. “Who should I ask for?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Pender.”
Everett waved and pulled through the gate.
Once at the building, the team exited the vehicle. Everett led the way into the characterless, concrete, two-story government building.
A receptionist who looked bored out of her mind greeted them. “Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Pender, please,” Everett said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. We’ve just arrived on base.”
She picked up a radio. “Colonel, three peacekeepers are here to see you.”
“It’s after five. What’s it about?” The radio chirped.
She held the radio out toward Everett and lifted her brows as if that should suffice for relaying the inquiry.
“We need passage to Jerusalem.”
She released the talk key and Pender’s voice came back. “Send them in.”
“Second door on your right.” She looked back down at her doodling.
No gratitude seemed to be expected, so Everett didn’t show any as he led the way down the hall.
He opened the door and held it for Sarah and Courtney, then walked in after them. Despite the concrete block walls with no drywall and the one-foot-by-one-foot, white-with-black-specs linoleum tile floors, Pender had managed to furnish the large room quite nicely. The office seemed to have been intended as a larger meeting room rather than one man’s personal workspace, but Pender was obviously accustomed to taking certain liberties.
Everett saluted the lieutenant colonel as did Courtney and Sarah.
“At ease, please take a seat.” Pender waved his hand at two plush white couches.
Everett and the girls followed the directive.
“How may I assist you in fulfilling your duties this evening?” He held a glass in his hand, and a bottle of whiskey sat open on his desk.
“We’re seeking a transport to Jerusalem, Lieutenant Colonel.” Everett sat up straight, despite the comfy couch.
“I’m afraid you’ve caught me at the end of my work day.” He topped off his glass. “We don’t have any naval vessels leaving to Jerusalem or anywhere else anytime soon.”
He pushed some papers around on his desk. “But I can’t have you stay here. I’ve got my share of idleness on this base as it is. Filling that void with menial tasks for the disengaged peacekeepers around here has proven to be the bane of my existence since His Majesty began shifting operations to Israel.”
He held up what looked to be a ship’s manifest. “Ah, yes. Here we go. I’ve got a container ship scheduled to leave at dawn tomorrow morning, the Madison Maersk. I was supposed to have two squads to provide security for the vessel. Both we
re supposed to be here no later than end of business on Friday. So, they’re both late. One was out of Fayetteville, the other out of Roanoke. My guess is that the one out of Roanoke was killed by insurgents, and the ones coming from Fayetteville have deserted.”
He sipped his whiskey. “The rumor mill is that the GR is completely pulling out of the Americas. We’ve had bands of peacekeepers just deciding that they’ll stay behind and make their own government. I don’t know what they think they’ll govern.”
He laughed and took a long drink. “They’ll fight over scraps, kill for water, and wish for food. That’s what they’ll do.”
“And the Republic doesn’t go after the deserters?” Everett knew Tommy regularly dealt with disenfranchised peacekeepers; this was the first he’d heard of mass desertions.
“No,” Pender said. “They’re not worth the resources needed to hunt them down. And they know it. That’s why they desert.
“Anyway, let’s see your papers. Let’s get your orders written up while I’m still seeing only one of everything.”
Everett and the girls handed him their passbooks, and Pender pulled out a folder with some forms. He began filling them out.
“And this vessel, it’s going to Jerusalem?” Everett inquired.
“No, Mersin.”
“Turkey?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, that’s right. The ship is carrying Humvees, MRAP’s, bulldozers, Hesco barriers, radios; equipment that won’t be needed on this continent.”
Pender looked up. “How many are with you?”
“Just the three of us.” Everett wouldn’t give any additional information unless asked.
“Three?” Pender seemed torn between wanting more details and his desire to get back to drinking alone. He glanced over at his bottle, which seemed to have won out. Pender returned to writing. “I’ll have to find at least one other squad to accompany you. Mersin isn’t the best neighborhood these days.”
“Oh?” Everett wanted to keep the lieutenant colonel talking. The whiskey was obviously loosening Pender’s lips, and it seemed like a waste to not milk him for all the info he could.
“No. The Shia Muslims see His Majesty Angelo Luz as the returning of the Twelfth Imam who disappeared in the ninth century. Therefore, the Sunni categorically reject him. Even if the Sunni saw His Majesty as their legitimate Caliph, they’d never admit it as long as the Shia see him as the Twelfth Imam.
“It’s a crying shame that it wasn’t the other way around. Shia make up less than 20 percent of the Muslim population. The other one and a half billion are Sunni.”
Pender exchanged his pen for his whiskey glass. “Well, that number has been significantly culled by recent cataclysms. It’s probably closer to 700 million, but that’s enough to cause a stir. At any rate, the Global Republic is shifting all available assets to that region. And you’re lucky enough to get a front row seat to all the action.”
Pender gave a sinister grin as he handed the papers to Everett. “Your ship is the Madison Maersk, a huge container vessel docked at the last loading crane of the international terminals. You’ll actually leave the naval base, then enter through another guard gate for the international terminals. It’s the next row of piers to the south.”
“And it’s just us and one other squad to provide security at a potentially hostile port? No military escort vessel?” Courtney inquired.
“No. We don’t want to tip our hand that the ship is carrying military equipment. The radical Sunni would be sure to go after the cargo if they knew. Just make sure the captain doesn’t stop the vessel for any reason once he’s passed the Strait of Gibraltar. Good luck.”
Everett stood with his papers and a concerned look on his face. “Thanks.”
“You’re going to need it.” Pender raised his glass as Everett and the girls left the room.
The team returned to the vehicle and drove around to the docks. Everett had no trouble finding the ship as the giant container lifting systems towered into the sky. “The loading cranes look like snow walkers from Star Wars.”
“Such a nerd, Everett. No one would see that but you.” Courtney chuckled.
“No, I see it, too.” Sarah looked up at the huge apparatus hovering over their ship. “It looks like an AT-AT.”
“A what?” Courtney quizzed.
“All Terrain Armored Transport. That’s the technical name of a Star Wars snow walker.” Sarah grabbed her rifle and her rucksack.
“You’re a bigger nerd than he is.” Courtney rolled her eyes as she exited the vehicle.
Everett parked the Typhoon out of the way at the far end of a row of shipping containers so its presence wouldn’t become an issue until after the ship had departed the next day. He wanted to keep it close enough in case they needed it for a hasty escape.
The team strolled casually down the corridor between the large metal boxes stacked three high. When they arrived at the gangway, Everett led the way up.
“Welcome aboard.” A young Asian man greeted the team as they entered the Madison Maersk. “I’m Chief Steward Lui.”
“Thank you.” Everett handed the stack of papers to Lui.
“Okay, I show you to your quarters. Follow me.” Lui led the team to the large tower in the center of the ship. “Your staterooms are on Deck D, which is same deck I live. Mess is on Deck F; fitness room and rec room is on Deck G.”
Everett looked at Courtney as they walked. Compared to the conditions they’d been living in, anything with windows was an upgrade, much less recreational facilities.
Lui directed Courtney and Sarah to a large cabin with two full beds. “Maybe you can have own room if we don’t get more passenger. But, you happy to share for now?”
Courtney paused before she responded. “Happy to share,” she finally answered with a nod.
Everett’s room was diagonally across the hall. The large cabin also had two full beds.
“Supper served at 6:30, so you don’t have much time if you want to eat. Breakfast at 5:00, lunch at noon. You don’t have much to do until we get close Morocco. After that, Captain Petrov expect two peacekeepers on bridge at all time. ‘Bout Saturday evening, you need work out security schedule.
“GR send more peacekeeper?” Lui looked concerned.
Everett lifted his shoulders. “Pender said he’d assign another squad, but they intentionally want to keep a low profile. I assume you have some idea what the cargo is.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Lui waved his hands as if he didn’t want to think about it. “But Alboran Sea not safe for travel, even if you have only empty ship. Everybody worried ‘bout go through there.”
“We’ll do what we can.” Everett attempted to sound confident.
Lui pressed his lips tightly together. “If we make it through Alboran Sea, then gotta make it past Tunisia. After that, smooth sailing in Mediterranean until get to Turkey. Once we there, probably wish we died at Gibraltar.” Lui dismissed himself and headed for the stairwell.
Everett stood in his doorway looking at Courtney and Sarah diagonally across the hall. “Sounds like we’re going to get more of an adventure than we bargained for.”
“At least we’ll get some R and R for the next six days.” Sarah turned to go in her room.
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” Everett knew better than to count those chickens before they’d hatched.
Courtney waved. “You going to dinner?”
“Yeah, as soon as I found out if this ship has hot water. I haven’t had a hot shower in years.”
“Don’t even get my hopes up. I couldn’t stand the disappointment.” Courtney turned to go in her cabin.
“See you in ten minutes.” Everett closed his door and looked for a place to stash his rifle. None of the cabinets in his room locked. Even if they did, he figured Lui and everyone else on the ship probably had a key. He fastened the door and quickly looked around. He found a shaving cream can in the bathroom. He wedged it between the deadbolt lock and the doorknob, preventing it from being unlo
cked from the outside. At least no one would be walking in on him while he took a shower.
The water ran hot almost immediately. Everett stepped into the shower and all his muscles relax. “Thank you, God! This feels absolutely amazing!” He didn’t want to get out, but neither did he want Courtney out of his sight any longer than necessary, and he certainly had no intentions of missing supper.
Minutes later, Everett was dressed. He placed his rucksack and rifle in the closet, locked his door, and crossed the hall. He gently knocked on Courtney’s door.
“Who is it?” Sarah’s voice came from the other side.
“Smith.”
“Why come right in, Lieutenant.” Sarah’s South African accent was improving. “Corporal Bekker is still in the shower.”
“She must hurry then.” Everett played along by staying in character. He wrapped on the bathroom door. “You can come back and sit in there all night after we eat, but we need to get to the galley.”
“I’m coming.” The water stopped running and Courtney emerged from the bathroom cloaked in a towel. “We should have stowed away on a ship a long time ago.”
Everett sat on the side of the bed. His forehead puckered. “The sea hasn’t been that inviting, with the tsunamis, meteors, earthquakes, and all. Which is pretty much why we took up cave dwelling in the first place.”
Courtney quickly finished dressing. “Right again, Lieutenant Smith.”
“Second Lieutenant.” He winked. “Leave your rifles here, wear your side arms and make sure your backup guns are easy to get to in case we get disarmed for any reason. Sarah, I know you’ve been wearing your backup on your ankle. I’d keep it in your waist if I were you.”
“Roger that.” Sarah dug through her pack and retrieved a very simple inside-the-waist holster.
Everett stood and opened the door. “Be courteous, but not too chatty. We’ll stay to ourselves as much as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Courtney faked a salute and marched out the door.
Everett also felt slightly more chipper after a hot shower and the promise of a meal at an actual table, but he wasn’t about to let his guard down.
