Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2)

by R. E. McDermott

  They found one several houses down the street, a ten- or twelve-year-old Honda SUV sitting in a driveway. The hood was down, but not latched, and Wiggins opened it to find the battery gone.

  “It figures,” he said, “but I can just swap the battery out of our car. I’m sure the gas has been siphoned as well. I guess we need to see if we can find the keys.”

  Tex pointed to where the front door of the house stood open, and they started in that direction. A now familiar smell washed over them as soon as they stepped inside, and Tex’s face turned white.

  Wiggins gently led her outside. “Stay here.”

  He ignored the smell and moved through the house, hoping to find the keys before he found the source of the smell. He found a high-end kitchen, all natural wood and granite and stainless steel. A door led to a spacious mudroom and what he presumed was the garage beyond. On the wall by the garage door was a keyboard with multiple hooks, but only one set of keys. He confirmed they were Honda keys and then grabbed them and fled the house. Tex was still where he left her, staring at the open door.

  He held up the keys. “Got ’em.”

  Tex nodded and turned, almost running in her haste to get away from the open door.

  They moved their car over, and Tex transferred gear while Wiggins swapped the battery. He sloshed a little gas into the Honda to confirm it started and ran, then grinned at Tex and dumped the rest of their newly discovered fuel into the tank.

  Wiggins drove the Honda back to Tex’s house and parked it in the garage; then they grabbed the empty gas can and siphon hose and went scavenging. They pilfered garden sheds and garages and found enough gasoline in dribs and drabs to almost fill the tank of the Honda. Toward sundown they celebrated their good fortune by sharing the last of their MREs and leaned the front seats of the Honda back to settle in for the night. But sleep wouldn’t come, and they talked until well after sundown.

  “How far back to the AT?” Tex asked.

  “About twenty-five miles if we head due west,” Wiggins said. “But I still think heading north and angling back toward it is a better idea. We’ll pick up a full day at least, and this whole side of New Jersey seems pretty rural.”

  Tex put her hand on Wiggin’s forearm. “And it will also put us a hard day’s walk from the trail and exposed, with no exit strategy for a full three days if we have to abandon the car and run for it. I know you want to get home, Bill, but there are still plenty of bad guys around. Levi was right; we need to stick close to the trail, even if it is longer.”

  Wiggins sighed and nodded in the growing gloom. Nine hundred more friggin’ miles at fifty miles a day. He did the mental calculation and stifled a curse.

  Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant

  Cape Fear River

  Near Wilmington, North Carolina

  Two Days Earlier

  Day 28, 10:00 a.m.

  Rorke sat behind the plant manager’s desk and looked around the spacious office. It was a far cry from his luxurious new office at Mount Weather, but it would do for those occasions when he had to be ‘in the field.’ The uniformed man across the desk from him shifted nervously in his chair, focusing Rorke once again on the task at hand.

  “We need to get this plant up and running as soon as possible, Saunders. Give me a SITREP, just the high spots,” Rorke said.

  The man nodded. “Everything is going according to plan, sir. We’ve got the area fenced off for the family residence camp, and the communal tents are going up today. The barracks tents for the workers are already finished. We should have everyone at work in two days, four at the outside.”

  “How did they take the separation?”

  The man shook his head. “About like you’d expect, sir. But a few beat downs and a little armed intimidation took care of it.”

  “They’ll fall in line,” Rorke said. “Allow them all daily family visits at first until they get used to it. Then we’ll make the standard weekly visits as long as they’re on good behavior. Daily visits will be conditioned upon how much progress we make getting the lights back on. Make it quite clear to them those visits must be earned, and their families’ well-being depends upon their full and enthusiastic cooperation.”

  “Yes, sir …” The man looked hesitant. “But about the single guys—”

  “What about them?”

  “A few of them are getting mouthy. You know, making noises about this ‘not being what they signed up for.’ That kind of stuff. And they have no families we can use as leverage. Should I pick one or two and make examples of them?” the man asked.

  Rorke fell silent, considering the problem. He shook his head. “Only as a last resort. There aren’t that many of them, so let’s try a more positive approach. Let them know in no uncertain terms their behavior won’t be tolerated, but couple that with inducements. Better food perhaps, and set up a few small ‘recreation tents’ and round up some local women to staff them.” Rorke smiled. “Food and sex are the best inducements we have in our brave new world.”

  The underling nodded, and Rorke changed the subject. “What about the terminal, is everything in hand?”

  “Yes, sir. I sent a ten-man force in by chopper yesterday, carrying a copy of secretary Crawford’s order. There were only three guys there, a major and two sergeants. The major gave our boys some lip, so I had them arrest him and one of the sergeants. We’re holding them here, but we had to leave one of them back at the terminal to show us around.”

  “How about security? Can we spare ten men?” Rorke asked.

  “Possibly, sir, but we can always use them elsewhere, and truthfully, it’s a waste of manpower. The place is huge, and we couldn’t guard the perimeter adequately with a hundred men. They relied heavily on electronic surveillance, which obviously isn’t working now. Realistically, I think we should leave a small force in radio contact, just to establish our control and begin an inventory. That’s all we really need at present. The terminal’s only a couple of miles away, and we can have additional boots on the ground there in less than five minutes by chopper. I took the liberty of establishing a four-man force there and pulling everyone else back here. Subject to your approval, of course.”

  Rorke nodded, satisfied. He sensed an unasked question. “Something else, Saunders?”

  “What about those people upriver, sir?”

  The general smiled. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them much longer. Our friends at Fort Box will soon have their hands full.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cape Fear River

  Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point

  Near Wilmington, North Carolina

  Day 29, 1:35 p.m.

  Mike Butler stood at the wheel and idled the Coast Guard patrol boat in the current, just north of the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, the world’s largest military terminal. Luke Kinsey stood beside him in the cabin, and Washington, Long, and Abrams from Luke’s old unit stood on the small deck outside. With possible hostile contact in the offing, Butler and Luke agreed the mission should be long on combat experience. Like Butler, they all wore Coast Guard overalls. If they encountered Special Reaction Force troops, there was no point advertising they were SRF deserters.

  Butler studied the empty wharf through the windshield. “About what I figured,” he said. “Deserted. Most of the workforce is civilian. I figured if anyone came to work to start with, they would have stopped coming by now. There may be a few Army types around, but even that’s doubtful.”

  Luke looked skeptical. “So we just tie up and look around?”

  Butler shrugged. “What the hell else are we gonna do? The place is huge. I guess we could come up an inlet and approach from the far side, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have a clue where we were. We’d just end up tramping around in the woods.”

  Luke sighed. “I guess you’re right, but it still feels hinky.”

  Butler chuckled and eased the throttle forward, moving their boat down the length of the northernmost of three long concrete whar
ves. At the downstream end of the high wharf, a ramp led down to a floating dock that accommodated a number of service boats. Butler eased up to an unoccupied stretch of dock, and Long and Abrams jumped out to tie up. Butler studied the little marina, eyes resting on a pair of small patrol boats.

  “Hmmm. A lot of good stealin’ material here,” he said. “We might go home with more than we figured.”

  Luke nodded absently, eyes on the wharf looming above them. “Tell me again how this is gonna work?”

  “We’re just the US Coast Guard come to visit to see if there’s any interest in mutual assistance. If we run into the Army, we won’t have a problem. And if we run into those SRF assholes, I don’t think they’ll shoot on sight and we can play it by ear.”

  “I wish I was as sure about that ‘won’t be a problem’ part as you seem to be,” Luke said as they climbed out of the boat onto the floating dock.

  “I’m not sure about it.” Butler grunted. “I just think it’s our only real option.”

  They climbed the ramp to the towering wharf then spread out as they walked toward shore on the concrete pathway. The wharf accommodated a two-lane road, and train tracks ran down the left side for the length of the structure. Luke turned and looked back down the wharf. Any structure built to bear the weight of a fully loaded freight train was one stout piece of work. There were three of them spread down the riverbank at regular intervals.

  Butler took point, with Luke on his right some distance back, and the others spread out behind at intervals. They reached shore, and a paved road ran right and left through a thick stand of trees, paralleling the riverbank. The railroad tracks continued straight ahead, down one of the many rail sidings spread throughout the terminal.

  “The road to the left will take us to the terminal offices,” Butler said over his shoulder, turning in that direction through the trees.

  They were a quarter mile down the road when it happened.

  “HALT!” barked a voice from the trees. “GROUND YOUR WEAPONS, AND PLACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS! COMPLY IMMEDIATELY, OR WE WILL FIRE.”

  Butler looked at Luke and shrugged before following the order. Luke turned to his men and nodded before following suit. When all their weapons were on the pavement, the voice rang out again.

  “YOU MEN IN THE REAR, CLOSE RANKS. I WANT YOU ALL TOGETHER. THEN I WANT YOU ALL TO FACE THE RIVER AND DROP TO YOUR KNEES. KEEP YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS.”

  They did as ordered, and soon heard movement behind them. A black-clad figure came into view, his M4 trained on the group. He wore a black uniform and was trailed by another man, an Army sergeant, who appeared to be unarmed. The frigging SRF.

  “Don’t even think about moving, or my friend behind you will light you up in a heartbeat,” the SRF thug said.

  “Hello, Hill,” Butler said.

  “Hi, Butler. It’s been a while,” the Army sergeant replied.

  The SRF thug looked back and forth between Butler and the sergeant. “You girls know each other?”

  “It’s like I told you before,” the sergeant said, “they’re just Coast Guard. They come here all the time to help us with riverside security. It’s just routine.”

  The black-clad SRF man seemed to relax slightly. “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. We’ll take them back to the terminal building and call it in.”

  Sergeant Hill shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  The man was about to respond when Hill looked down the road away from the terminal. “What the hell is that?”

  The man turned, obviously puzzled, and Hill stepped close and smashed the man’s face with a left elbow strike, pulling the man’s sidearm from its holster with his right hand as he stepped back. He brought the gun around in one fluid sweep, transitioning into a two-handed grip and firing over the heads of the kneeling men. Luke heard a gasp behind them, and the clatter of a weapon on the pavement, but kept his eyes on the scene before him. Hill already had the first SRF man on his knees, his own gun pressed to the man’s temple as blood gushed out his nose.

  “Y’all can get up now, Butler,” the sergeant called. “And I hope like hell there are more of you wherever you came from.”

  ***

  Two minutes later they had the SRF men hidden in the woods; the live one zip-tied hand and foot, and mouth duct-taped. Hill motioned them away so they could speak in private.

  “How many more?” Butler asked.

  “Only two here,” Hill said. “They’re over in the main terminal complex. But there seem to be a bunch of the bastards over at the nuke plant. I’ve been seeing chopper traffic in and out of there all day.”

  “The two in the terminal building will have heard your shot,” Luke said. “They’ll call in backup for sure.”

  Hill was shaking his head. “I doubt it. It’s almost a mile, with thick trees all the way. That’s a long way to hear a pistol shot. There’s also a generator running, powering a window AC unit. A very noisy window unit. And these boys ain’t what I’d call the most situationally aware troops, if you get my drift.”

  “What’s going on, Hill? How long have these goons been here, and where is everyone else?” Butler asked.

  “Everybody else in this case was me, the major, and Sergeant Brothers. The others either took off or never showed up in the first place. As far as these assholes,” Hill said, “two chopper loads of them hit us day before yesterday. They showed up with some sort of bogus order we were to turn the terminal over to them. The major refused until he could clear it with our chain of command. That basically meant never, because we haven’t had comms since the power went down. Anyway, they beat the major down, and when Brothers tried to intervene, he got a beat down for his trouble too. By that time they had a nine millimeter to my forehead, and I had no doubt whatsoever they’d use it.”

  “So they’re holding the others in the terminal building?” Butler asked.

  Hill shook his head. “They took ’em out by chopper. Maybe over to the nuke plant or maybe someplace else. I don’t really know. They kept me here because they needed someone who knew the layout. They been dragging me all over the place, making me show them what’s where. They’re up to no good, for sure, and I had no illusions when they knew what I knew, I was toast. When I saw y’all and recognized Butler, I figured my best bet was to throw in with you folks.”

  Hill looked back toward the terminal. “And right about now, I’d say, would be a good time to get out of here.”

  “Negative,” Luke said. “If the two left pick up on something wrong, a chopper could intercept us long before we got back upriver.”

  Butler nodded agreement. “We’d be sitting ducks on open water. What’s their routine?”

  Hill shrugged. “Well, they haven’t been here that long, but so far they seem to change shifts by chopper every twelve hours at noon and midnight. A couple of ’em scour the hard copy bills of lading, tryin’ to get a handle on how much there is here, while the other two drag me around to show them where things are. They swap off and argue about it a lot, since they all want the ‘let’s sit on our butts in the air-conditioning’ duty. We were goin’ down to check one of the rail sidings when we heard y’all’s boat. They just pulled the vehicle off the road into the woods and waited.”

  “So they didn’t come out specifically in response to our arrival or radio back to the others when they heard the boat?” Luke asked.

  Hill shook his head. “Nope. Like I said, not the sharpest tools in the shed.”

  Luke looked at his watch. “So if they follow routine, we’ve got ten hours, more or less, before the next shift change.”

  “About that,” Hill said, “presuming you think two days’ experience qualifies as routine.”

  “How about weapons?” Butler asked.

  “Just what you saw. M4s and sidearms,” Hill said.

  “No, I mean weapons here in the terminal? Is there anything easily accessible we can grab now?” Butler asked.

  “Well, we got, or had I should say, our own security f
orce, so there’s an armory in the terminal police station. That’s still under lock and key. And there are weapons in inventory, a lot of them, but they’re a bit harder to get to.”

  Luke nodded and looked at Butler. “Okay, at a minimum I say we take out the two in the terminal building, alive if possible, then load out all available weapons and ammo. We sure as hell can use the firepower, and prisoners will give us some much-needed intel.” They both looked at Hill.

  He shrugged. “I’m in as long as it buys me a boat ride out of here.”

  ***

  Hill wasn’t exaggerating the SRF men’s lack of situational awareness. Long and Abrams donned the black uniforms of the two neutralized thugs and followed Hill as he walked nonchalantly into the small air-conditioned office in the main terminal complex. The waiting men looked confused, but not unduly alarmed, no doubt assuming the pair were new faces from the larger SRF contingent at the nuke power plant. They both had guns to their foreheads before they discovered their mistake.

  With the new prisoners trussed up beside their first captive in the back of a commandeered terminal pickup, they walked across the parking lot to the terminal police station. Hill used a ring of keys retrieved from the pocket of one of the SRF men to unlock the police station and armory.

  Butler and Luke entered the armory behind Hill, their eyes as wide as kids in a candy store. There were multiple rows of M4s standing at vertical attention, with cartons of ammo stacked on shelves behind them. Butler pointed at several boxes labeled night-vision gear, and racks of tactical gear, including body armor. Another shelf held cases of flash bang grenades. Luke shook his head in disbelief.

  “Were you expecting a war?” he asked.

  Hill grunted. “Your tax dollars at work. I never thought they needed all this crap, but nobody asked me. That’s what happens in a government organization when you get a budget—spend it all or lose it next year.”

  Butler grinned. “Well, I can assure you, Sergeant Hill, that we’ll put this material to the very best of use.”