Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5)

by Arthur Bradley

  “I’m still working on that. For now, we’re on our own.”

  “How many people are here in the bunker?” asked Bill.

  “My understanding is that it’s just Dr. Tran, a few engineers, and the five of us. Is that right, General?”

  He nodded. “That’s correct.”

  Pinker sat forward. “Do we have a plan forward, Madam President?”

  President Glass offered an understanding smile.

  “To be honest, we’re at a bit of a disagreement. General Carr is convinced that if I make my presence known publically, Pike will try to have me killed.”

  “Given the recent attempt on his life,” said Pinker, “the general’s concerns seem well founded.”

  “True,” she said, “but we can’t just sit by and let Pike destroy what remains of our country.”

  “We could at least wait until you’ve had time to get your strength back,” suggested Carr.

  She waved her hand dismissively.

  “I’m fine. A little tired perhaps, but Dr. Tran has performed a miracle by putting me back together. It’s time for me to get out in front of this.”

  General Carr pressed his lips together and said nothing more.

  President Glass suddenly reached over and held his hand. Everyone in the room, including the general, seemed surprised.

  “I know you’re just trying to keep me safe, and I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, General. You saved my life, and I won’t ever forget that.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I would do anything for you, Madam President.”

  She smiled. “I know that too, and right now, I need you to trust me. This is not a fight we can win alone. Since we don’t yet have the support of the military, we must take our case to the people.”

  “Okay, but how?”

  “Tomorrow, I will use the communications system here in Greenbrier to broadcast a message. I will announce that I’m alive and that I intend to resume my post as president. I will also publically denounce Lincoln Pike and General Hood for their criminal acts.”

  He started to object, but she held up a hand to please let her finish.

  “Once the message is out on the airwaves, it will be relayed all over the country—all over the world. Not even Pike can prevent that.”

  “No disrespect, ma’am,” said Pinker, “but what will that really accomplish?”

  “It will bring everything out into the open. No matter what Pike does, the truth will be out there for others to follow.”

  “It would bring everything to a head,” he said. “You’d be forcing Pike to either run or fight.”

  She nodded. “Exactly. One way or the other, this will come to an end.”

  General Carr shook his head.

  “I know you don’t agree, General, but there’s really no other way.”

  “There is another way, Madam President. We can build an army. Military force would give us leverage, not to mention a fighting chance if it comes to that.”

  President Glass closed her eyes. “I’m not going to divide this country and pit brother against brother. We’ve been through enough already.” When she reopened her eyes, they were set with decision. “This is the right way to announce my return to office. If Pike chooses to resist, people will see him for the criminal that he is.”

  “That may be true,” said Carr, “but it won’t make us any less dead.”

  Chapter 16

  The motorcycle rattled and shook, like everything needed another good turn of the wrench. For the first hour, Samantha clung to Tanner’s seat for dear life, but as the miles slowly ticked by, she settled back, finally accepting that the small metal sidecar wasn’t going to fall off and send her tumbling down the highway.

  She pulled the scarf up over her nose and mouth in an attempt to keep from eating butterflies and bumblebees for breakfast. When Tanner looked over at her, she gave him the thumbs up. He smiled, thinking that with the right pair of goggles, she might pass for a World War II message dispatcher for the British Royal Navy.

  A small green sign indicated that Culpeper, Virginia, was four miles dead ahead. Sprawling fields of corn spread out on both sides of the road. The crop hadn’t been properly maintained or harvested, and weeds poked up between the long rows of deep green stalks.

  They had traveled all morning without a single hiccup and were now confident that they would make it to the cabin before dark. Even so, the occasional pit stop could not be denied.

  Tanner eased the bike onto the dirt shoulder.

  “Pee break,” he said, climbing off.

  Samantha stood up and stepped out of the sidecar. Her toes tingled as the blood slowly returned to them. She slung the rifle across her back and looked over at him, yawning.

  “Think we can eat too?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, wandering off into the cornfield on the far side of the road. “Meet you back here in five.”

  While she didn’t really have to pee that bad, Samantha figured it was best to go at every opportunity. She turned right and pushed her way through the first row of corn. She had never been in a cornfield, and it seemed a lot like a maze. The corn was planted in long rows, roughly three feet apart, with each plant set about a foot from those next to it.

  She reached up and pulled an ear of corn off the closest plant. The corn was wrapped tight in a thick husk, and fuzzy strands of silk poked out the top. She remembered peeling corn with her mother a few times. It was hard on the hands but kind of fun too. She snapped a few more ears off nearby plants and carried them back to the motorcycle, figuring that Tanner could help her peel them for lunch. After she dumped them onto the hood of the sidecar, she turned and pushed her way deeper into the cornfield.

  When she was about fifty yards into the field, she came to a small clearing. It looked like a spot where tractors turned around when changing rows. She went to the far side and relieved herself. When she turned back around, a man was standing about ten feet away, staring at her.

  Samantha’s heart nearly jumped into her throat, and she fought the urge to go for her rifle. The man was too close for her to get it over her head in time.

  “Hi there,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  He nodded. The stranger was a giant of a man, his shoulders sloping forward as if the bones beneath were simply too small to support the thick slabs of muscle. His face was covered in stubble, and his eyes were narrow and dark. He wore a black cotton tank top and camouflage pants. A semi-automatic pistol hung in an old-fashioned flap holster at his side. Samantha thought he looked a lot like Bane, the supervillain who had been credited with snapping Batman in half. While she wasn’t a huge fan of comic books, she knew a supervillain when she saw one.

  “You live around here?” she asked, eyeing the clearing for the best direction in which to run. He stood directly in her path back to the motorcycle. To have any chance of getting by him would require going deeper into the field and then doubling back.

  “A better question is what are you doing out here, little lady?” Despite the man’s enormous size, his voice was strangely feminine.

  She blushed a little. “I was just going to the bathroom. My dad’s over there. He’s probably on his way right now. Hey Tanner, over—”

  “Hush!” he snarled, lunging toward her. Before she knew it, he had one hand around her throat and the other cocked back in an enormous fist. “Do I have to hurt you to make you do what I say?”

  She swallowed and shook her head.

  His mouth rose in a sly grin.

  “Good girl.”

  As soon as she felt his grip loosen, Samantha punched at his throat. She put everything she had into the blow, and it hit solidly enough. Tiny knuckles drove deep into his meaty neck, compressing his larynx but causing no lasting damage. He blinked and took a step back, coughing. Not waiting to see if he would fall, Samantha wheeled around and raced into the cornfield.

  As she darted through the maze of corn, she could hear him
plowing down stalks behind her as efficiently as any combine. She struggled to pull the rifle over her head without slowing her breakneck pace, but the barrel snagged on a stalk of corn, ripping the gun from her hands. As she reached for it, her foot caught on a bramble, and she fell with a loud umph.

  Before she could get back to her feet, Bane was on her.

  Tanner looked down at the ears of corn sitting on the sidecar. He turned and studied the field. Where was she? He had taken his sweet time hitting the head and fully expected to find her leaning against the motorcycle with her arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently. Instead, he found a pile of corn and a trail that even a blind man could follow.

  A little irritated at her tardiness, he stomped his way into the cornfield, calling for her as he went. After a short hike, he came to a small clearing. A wide swath of broken stalks led out the opposite side. Something was wrong.

  He charged ahead, knocking aside anything in his way. When he finally found her, he let his legs continue propelling him forward as his mind sorted out what he was seeing. A beefy man straddled Samantha with one hand pressing against her throat and the other tugging at the buttons on her pants. Her rifle lay tangled in a corn plant a few feet away. Tanner felt blood rushing to his face as emotion overwhelmed him: anger… fury… rage.

  He dropped his shotgun and barreled into Bane, lifting him off the ground and driving him into the soft dirt.

  “Go, Sam!” he yelled.

  Samantha scrambled to her feet and ran in the direction of the motorcycle.

  Bane rolled onto his back and fumbled to get his pistol out of the flap holster. As he started to bring it up, Tanner knocked it from his hand.

  “If I’d wanted this to be a gunfight,” he growled, “I’d have shot you in the back.” Tanner grabbed the man’s thick neck and drove his thumbs deep into his throat. “My hands are all I’m gonna need for this.”

  Bane bucked upward, flipping him to one side and putting just enough distance between them for both men to scramble to their feet. The big man started to say something, but Tanner immediately charged him. Nothing Bane could say was going to change what was coming. Might as well get on with it.

  Bane swung a powerful haymaker, but Tanner ducked underneath and fired an elbow strike to the man’s floating ribs. Both bones broke free, stabbing into Bane’s gut. The big man screamed and wheeled back with a short downward hook. The blow caught Tanner on the ear, and he staggered sideways. Unwilling to retreat, he reached out, catching Bane’s shirt and jerking him forward. Bane stepped around to maintain his balance, and when he did, Tanner stomped along the inside of his shin. The heel of his boot scraped away flesh, and blood seeped through the man’s camouflage trousers.

  Rather than retreat from the burning pain, Bane pressed closer, reaching around and pulling Tanner into a deep headlock. He shot a quick fist toward his face, but Tanner tipped his head forward at the last second, and the blow slammed against the top of his skull. Bane groaned as the bones of his fingers jammed together. Before he could punch again, Tanner dropped to one knee and swung a series of vicious ridge hand strikes up into his groin.

  Bane cried out and shoved him away.

  Tanner immediately lunged back toward him, flicking a quick open-hand strike to his face. The tips of his fingers stabbed into Bane’s right eye, causing a subconjunctival hemorrhage that leaked bright red blood across the white of his eyeball.

  “You motherf—”

  Tanner reached up and grabbed his hair, jerking Bane’s face down into a knee strike. The blow caught him in the mouth, folding back his two front teeth. Staggered by the tremendous blow, Bane fell backward, landing solidly on his butt.

  Tanner fired a low roundhouse kick, hoping to catch him in the temple. Before the kick could land, Bane rolled sideways and buckled Tanner’s supporting leg. As he fell, Bane scrambled on top of him, long strands of bloody mucus dripping from his mouth. Tanner swung a leg up and hooked it around Bane’s head, pulling him backward. Then he rolled forward, and they ended up lying chest to chest.

  Bane started to say something again, but it turned into a shriek when Tanner leaned down and bit off his nose. Blood sprayed everywhere, across Tanner’s shirt, down Bane’s chest, and even onto nearby stalks of corn. Bane screamed and brought his hands to the hole in his face as Tanner mounted him and spit the nose away.

  “Please,” he pleaded, “I didn’t do anything!”

  Straddling him, much like the big man had been straddling Samantha, Tanner began to beat him, alternating between one fist and then the other. With every blow, his fists sank deeper and deeper into the mash that had once been Bane’s face. Sometime during the onslaught, the man stopped screaming, and sometime after that, he stopped breathing. Tanner noticed neither.

  When his arms became too heavy to lift, he stopped and stared down at the bloody mass beneath him. The man’s face looked like it had been eaten by a wild animal, the white bone of his skull peeking out between bloody flaps of flesh.

  Tanner closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he reopened them, he saw Samantha standing across the clearing, staring at him with eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She had retrieved her rifle, but it dangled limply in front of her. He swallowed hard. The kind of brutality he had inflicted on Bane was not something a child should witness.

  He pushed off the big man’s chest and struggled to his feet. Tanner towered over him for a moment, letting Bane’s blood drip from the tips of his fingers. He felt utterly exhausted, defeated even. His arms ached, and his fists stung from a dozen cuts.

  He turned to Samantha and spoke in a quiet resigned voice.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that, Sam. Sometimes a monster comes out in me.” He looked down at the ground, certain that she would turn and run, perhaps from fear, perhaps just to get away from the beast he had shown himself to be.

  Instead, Samantha did something completely unexpected. She walked over and took his hand in hers. He stared down at her tiny fingers, now smeared with blood, and tears welled up in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, gently squeezing his hand. “Sometimes we need a monster.”

  They stumbled back to the motorcycle, Samantha never once letting go of Tanner’s hand. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired after a fight, and he attributed the exhaustion as much to the emotional release as it was to the physical exertion. The image of the man preparing to violate young Samantha was as revolting as any he could conjure up. Death was too good for that son-of-a-bitch.

  Tanner secured his shotgun to the handlebars and swung a leg over the bike.

  “Are you okay to drive?” she asked.

  He held his hands up. They had stopped shaking.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  As she set her rifle onto the floor of the sidecar, two men dressed in camouflage clothing suddenly rushed from the cornfield. Their timing suggested that they had been waiting for the most opportune moment. They held AR15 rifles pressed tightly against their shoulders.

  “Let me see your hands!” shouted the lead man.

  Tanner glanced at the shotgun. Grabbing for it would all but guarantee a bullet to the chest. He brought his hands up. Samantha slipped her small backpack over one shoulder and then raised her hands into the air.

  The two men approached carefully, one going right, the other left. They stopped when they were about fifteen feet away—too far for Tanner to try to turn the tables. Embroidered nametags on their uniforms identified them as Clancy and Peterson. Neither man wore any kind of rank or unit insignia.

  “What were you doing in the field?” demanded Clancy.

  “Taking a leak,” said Tanner. “Is that a crime nowadays?”

  Clancy studied him. “What happened to your hands?”

  Tanner studied his hands. Both were stained red, like he had been mixing up a batch of blood sausage. He struggled to come up with an answer. It seemed like a good bet that the two men were somehow connected to
the dead guy in the field. Not wanting to give them a reason to shoot him, he said nothing. When in doubt, keep your mouth shut. It was the best advice any man could ever receive.

  Seeing that Tanner had decided to clam up, Clancy turned to Samantha.

  “Is he your father?”

  She looked over at Tanner.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. So, I’ll ask you then. What were you doing in the cornfield?”

  “It’s like he said. We were using the bathroom. I can show you where—” She stopped herself, realizing that if she took them into the field, they might discover something much more disturbing than a puddle of urine.

  Clancy turned to Peterson. “Do you believe them?”

  He shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Me neither.” He turned back to Tanner. “We’re taking you two in. Duke will know what to do with you.” He used the muzzle of the rifle to motion for them to step away from the motorcycle.

  They did as he instructed.

  Clancy nodded toward a small dirt trail paralleling the first row of corn.

  “That way.”

  Tanner and Samantha started down the narrow trail. Like it or not, they had just been taken prisoner.

  Chapter 17

  As Mason, Leila, and Bowie continued past the sprawling peanut butter plant, the devastation became more complete. Everywhere they looked, buildings were either destroyed or teetering like cardboard cutouts. An interior design center that had once been a beautiful architectural showcase was now a pile of brick, splintered boards, and flaps of shingles, towering twenty feet into the air. Across from the rubble, lamp poles leaned over the road, their electrical wires dangling like untied shoelaces.

  A man’s legs stuck out from beneath the wreckage, and Bowie stopped to inspect them.

  Mason shook his head. “Keep going. We can’t help him.”

  The dog took one final sniff and then continued ahead, weaving his way under electrical poles and around overturned cars.