Trackers (Book 1)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  A jolt shook his right arm. That was normal, too, but each of these involuntary movements gave Sandra hope.

  Sandra continued pumping air into the little boy’s lungs and watched his chest rise up and down.

  “Your mom and dad said you’re already reading and that you like the Harry Potter books. I’ve been trying to get my Allie to read, but she would rather play on her tablet.” Sandra laughed ruefully. “I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore, huh? I bet books will be making a big comeback. When you wake up, maybe you can talk to her…”

  Teddy let out a low groan, and his chest convulsed.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Sandra said. She tried to think of something else to say, eager to keep up the steady, soothing flow of words in case it helped Teddy. “My brother has an Akita named Creek. Maybe Baylor and Creek will become friends.”

  Sandra pumped another breath into Teddy’s lungs as Doctor Duffy and Jen pushed a gurney out of the room, a white blanket draped over the form of another patient lost. This time it was Jack Parker, a WWII veteran. He had been as tough as nails, but in the end, pneumonia had killed him. He had turned down the medicine that would have saved his life so patients like Teddy could live.

  Sighing, Sandra turned back to the boy.

  “I think you would really like Creek. He’s a good dog. Very smart, too. What kind of dog is Baylor?”

  Teddy began to cough, struggling to breathe around the tube, and his eyes were now wide-open and filled with panic.

  “Doctor Newton!” she shouted. “Doctor Duffy! Somebody come over here!”

  Newton rushed over and assessed the situation. He checked Teddy’s breathing, listened to his lungs with a stethoscope, and then removed the endotracheal tube.

  Teddy coughed and sputtered. His dry lips pursed as he took his first voluntary breath of air in over two weeks.

  He whispered something, and Sandra had to lean down to hear him. “What was that, sweetheart?”

  Teddy tried again. “Momma.”

  “Your mom is just outside,” Sandra said.

  Teddy tried to use his right hand to reach out for her. The realization set in on the boy’s face. His eyes widened with shock.

  “You were sick, Teddy. Very sick,” Newton explained. “Jen, please go notify his parents that Teddy is awake.”

  The nurse scurried away, and a moment later the doors to the ER swung open and ecstatic voices filled the room. Marie and Michael ran across the space to their son’s bedside.

  Sandra left to give the family some space. She realized that if the Browns were in here, then Allie was alone in the lobby.

  She pulled off her gloves, tossed them in the trash, and looked at Jen.

  “Where’s Allie?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t see her.”

  Sandra’s heart froze into an icy lump.

  “Your brother came to pick her up,” Marie said without taking her eyes off Teddy. “He said they were going for a walk.”

  “My brother?”

  Michael chimed in. “Yeah, a Native American guy, right?”

  Sandra turned and ran toward the lobby, her frozen heart shattering.

  “Where are you going?” Newton shouted after her.

  She burst through the ER doors into the lobby. “Allie! Allie, where are you?” she shouted. “Has anyone seen my daughter?”

  The duty officer was Tom Matthew today, and she grabbed the front of his uniform, holding on as if she might start shaking him. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Tom pulled himself free. “Calm down,” he said, straightening his shirt. “She went for a walk with her uncle.”

  “Her uncle is on Prospect Mountain, you idiot! You let her wander off with a stranger.”

  Sandra ran into the street, yelling her daughter’s name over and over again. Kayla jogged out to meet her a few minutes later, something brown and fuzzy in her hands. It was Allie’s stuffed pony, the toy she had refused to go anywhere without ever since Raven had given it to her.

  “This was in the lobby,” Kayla said, handing it over. “Sandra, there’s a note attached to it.”

  A piece of paper was pinned to the plush fur. Sandra’s hands were shaking so badly that she nearly crumpled it into a ball before she could read it. In blocky, horribly familiar handwriting, were words that chilled her to the marrow.

  THERE IS A MOUNTAIN ABOVE THE ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERWORLD. FOLLOW THE WINGS TO THE NEST AT THE TOP. COME ALONE, OR YOUR DAUGHTER BURNS.

  Colton dipped down to look out the windshield at the bulging clouds creeping across the sky.

  “Looks like another storm,” he said.

  “Then I guess we’re going to get wet,” Jake replied.

  With a jerk of his chin toward the rearview mirror, Colton said, “Not as wet as those poor bastards.”

  Nathan, Raven, and Creek were in the bed of the pickup, heads bobbing up and down as the truck jolted over the highway.

  Colton unclipped his walkie-talkie. “Margaret, this is Colton. Do you copy?”

  “Loud and clear,” the administrative assistant replied.

  “We’re headed to the first road block on Highway 7 by the Scott Avenue turnoff. Then we’re checking out Prospect Mountain.”

  “Roger that, sir,” Margaret said. “I’ll keep you updated if anything happens in town.”

  “There it is,” Jake said. He pointed to a fort of cars positioned strategically on the highway. To the left was a red minivan, the windows smashed out on all sides. A volunteer marksman sat in the back seat, face pressed to the scope of a rifle aimed up the road. To the right was a panel truck from an appliance store. Two wood barriers blocked off the small passage between the vehicles. Officer Sam Hines waved when he saw Jake’s truck. Three other men carrying high-powered rifles and shotguns fell in to watch.

  John Palmer had followed through on his promise to help keep order in Estes Park; he was standing in the bed of a pickup with a shotgun trained on the road. It felt good to have men like John watching over the town. Colton was going to need a lot more like him in the days to come.

  The men stationed here were under orders to stop and search any vehicle attempting to enter Estes Park, as well as people on foot, and turn away anyone who didn’t have a legitimate reason to be there. Although he didn’t feel good about the decision, Colton had also ordered his men to turn away refugees unless they possessed a skill that would benefit the town in the coming months. Those people would be welcomed, but he had to be realistic about how far the town’s limited resources would stretch.

  Sam Hines strolled up to the pickup and ducked down to look in the driver’s window. “Morning.”

  “How are things?” Colton asked. “Any problems?”

  “Pretty quiet night. We had a few refugees this morning. We turned a family away, but let a man through who said he was a mechanic.”

  “Good, we need more of them,” Colton said.

  “Heard about Mollie Harms,” Sam said. “You really think it’s the same person that killed Melissa Stone and Bill Catcher?”

  “We know it is,” Jake said.

  “Focus on holding this road, Sam. I’ll focus on finding the person responsible for these murders.”

  “You got it, sir,” Sam said. He signaled to his men, and two of them jogged over to the barriers and moved them out of the way.

  Colton watched the roadblock recede in the passenger side mirror. In some ways it wasn’t much different than those he had guarded in Afghanistan, but he’d never expected to see something like that in America.

  They drove in silence for several minutes until they reached their turn off. Colton rolled the window down manually to let in the cool breeze. Brown grass and ponderosas framed the road on both sides. Jake put the truck into third gear and climbed toward Prospect Mountain Drive. Detective Lindsey Plymouth had found the camp up there, about a half mile to the west of Bill Catcher’s place.

  The walkie-talkie on his hip crackled. “Chief, do you copy?”

>   Colton pulled the radio and brought it to his lips. “Roger that, Margaret, go ahead.”

  The white noise from the radio made it hard to hear what came next. They were already too far out of range for a clear transmission.

  “Chief, Sandra Spears is here.” Static. “She says someone—”

  Colton tapped the side of the radio.

  “Come again,” he said. “I didn’t catch your last.”

  Another squawk of static and then the signal cleared. “Chief, Sandra Spears claims someone kidnapped her daughter.”

  Colton swallowed, his gaze instantly flitting to the rearview mirror. Raven was smiling and bantering with Nathan in the back.

  “Pull off,” Colton ordered.

  “Where?” Jake asked. “Not really a great place—”

  “Pull off now!”

  Jake slammed the brakes and twisted the wheel. Colton opened the door and jumped onto the dirt before the truck had come to a complete stop.

  Raven was standing in the bed of the truck, looking down at Colton.

  “What’s wrong? Why did we stop here?” Raven’s smile slowly faded away as he took in the expression on Colton’s face. “Chief, what’s wrong?”

  “Allie has been kidnapped,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “What?” Raven said quietly, like he couldn’t believe it.

  “Your niece has been taken,” Colton said. He pulled his radio off his belt and held it up. “Margaret called it in. Apparently, your sister showed up at the station and said someone took Allie from the hospital.”

  Raven gritted his teeth and kicked a rock over the side of the ledge. It tumbled down the bluff, dust swirling into the air. “I was supposed to protect them. I was supposed to keep them safe.”

  The crackle from Colton’s radio cut him off.

  “Go ahead,” Colton said, grateful for the interruption.

  “Sir, Ms. Spears said she found a note with Allie’s stuffed animal. She’s hysterical.”

  “Tell Sandra to hold on. We’re headed back to the station.”

  Raven reached for the radio, but stopped at the crackle of another transmission.

  “Sir, she ran out of here right after I called you,” Margaret said. “Sandra Spears is already gone.”

  Raven’s hand wobbled as he reached out for the radio. Colton handed it to him.

  “Margaret, this is Raven,” he said, his voice shaky. “What does the note say?”

  There was a hard pause of static followed by Margaret’s reply. “There’s a mountain above the entrance to the underworld. Follow the wings to the nest at the top. Come alone or your daughter burns.”

  Raven’s eyes widened and he lowered the radio as if he had just realized something awful.

  “You know what that means?” Colton asked.

  Raven didn’t reply, but he didn’t really need to. The truth of it was written all over his ashen face.

  -20-

  The flag bridge on the USS John C. Stennis felt like a freezer. Charlize fidgeted in her chair, goose flesh prickling across her burned skin. She and Captain Dietz, along with several other officers, had already been waiting nearly forty-five minutes by the time President Diego limped into the room. Rear Admiral Robert Luke followed him, holding a briefcase in one hand and a stack of folders under his other. Luke was the commanding officer of the strike group, and it appeared he was already trying to curry favor with the new president.

  “Sorry to keep you all waiting,” Diego said, not sounding sorry at all. “I was on the horn with the British Prime Minster.”

  “No problem, sir,” Dietz said. “Thank you for meeting with us.”

  Luke handed the folders to Dietz, who in turn passed them out to everyone in the room. Diego didn’t waste any time. He cracked the seal on his folder. Charlize followed suit, opening hers to find a dozen sheets of satellite imagery and several pages of documents inside. She rifled through them, wondering why she hadn’t already seen these reports.

  Luke said, “You will find the current international locations of all branches of the military, including troop counts, equipment, armaments, and so on, in your packets. There are also reports detailing the recovery efforts in the United States.”

  The admiral licked his index finger and thumbed through the documents until he found the one he was looking for. “Page twenty, everyone,” Luke said.

  Charlize flipped to the page to find a map of the United States with fallout predictions.

  “We figure over a quarter of the population will die in the next two weeks from the fallout. From our models, the safe areas appear to be as shown on this diagram,” Luke said.

  Charlize could hardly bring herself to look at the radiation predictions for Colorado. Empire was right in the middle of a red zone. She felt like crying and screaming and running for the hatch, but instead she swallowed her despair and listened to the briefing.

  Luke walked them through the report on the following page, which showed how much of the country had gone dark following the EMP. Almost the entire map was shaded gray.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Diego said, taking over the briefing. “Moving forward, there’s good news and bad news. I’ll start with the good.”

  He clasped his fingers and rested his elbows on the table. “As you can see from these documents, recovery efforts have begun. Working closely with the military and FEMA, we’re setting up SCs in all major cities.”

  “SCs?” Charlize asked.

  “Survivor Centers outside the fallout zones,” Diego said. “Water, food, and medicine is being heavily guarded and distributed appropriately at these locations. The Army has also established FOBs to help combat the rioting and destruction in major population centers.”

  Diego paused to take a sip of water before continuing.

  “Now comes the hard part. Two of the most important assets we have are the FEMA generators located in Southern Florida and the fleet of semi-trailers that were not damaged by the EMP. Using military escorts, we will be shipping these generators to priority SCs in the coming days and weeks.”

  Charlize understood now. The good news was they had resources in Florida that had survived the attack, but the bad news was they would have to prioritize which SCs received those resources—in other words, who lived and who died.

  Diego continued the briefing. “England, France, Germany, and a dozen other allies have committed and or already deployed hundreds of ships with relief, from high protein food and medicine to more generators, but I’m afraid they won’t arrive in time for some of our people. Anyone living west of the Mississippi River who survives the fallout is going to suffer for several months before we can get to them. Highways are already impassible due to abandoned vehicles, and we simply don’t have the capability to ship supplies.”

  He looked up from his folder, eyes as cold as ice. After a short pause, he added, “We expect fifty million Americans will starve to death by winter. Another twenty-five million who are dependent on medicines will die, and an additional twenty-five million will be killed in the violence and disease that follows.”

  There was an uneasy silence as everyone in the room did the math. A hundred million dead in addition to those who had already perished or would perish from the radiation made Charlize sick to her stomach.

  “There’s more bad news,” Luke said. “Take a look at page thirty-three.”

  Charlize had to hold her folder to the light to see the image. Where there should have been the nuclear-powered super carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, and the rest of Carrier Strike Group Five, she only saw blackened sheets of metal floating in the teal water of Yokosuka Harbor.

  “The North Koreans hit Yokosuka Naval Base with intercontinental ballistic missiles shortly after the initial attack with their commercial airliners. We didn’t see it coming because they took out several of our satellites, leaving us in the dark across key areas. This is more evidence that the Supreme Leader believed he could destroy us before we could hit back. They actually thou
ght they could win this war.”

  “All due respect, Admiral, they have won this war,” Charlize interjected. “The war is over. They won it the moment they violated our airspace.”

  The hatch to the room opened before anyone could reply.

  Lieutenant Marco stepped inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem, sir.” Her gaze was directed at Rear Admiral Luke.

  “Speak freely,” he said after Marco paused.

  “Our anti-submarine warfare officers have caught some passive sonar hits that could be enemy subs.”

  Dietz stood. “Have we been able to track them?”

  “Negative, sir, the hits fade in and out too often to accurately track.”

  “Put the fleet on high alert, Lieutenant,” Luke said.

  Sandra wasn’t sure where she was going, but she was running there as fast as she could. Her mind was a complete mess. The note said to come alone, but she had hoped the police could help her. When had she started trusting them? Kids from the Rez knew better than to trust the cops. They wouldn’t save her daughter and Raven was too far away to help right now. She would have to do it herself.

  Looking up, she realized that she’d run all the way through the station and into the parking lot. Raven’s Jeep was still parked there. Detective Lindsey Plymouth was leaning against the passenger door, chewing bubble gum as if she didn’t have anything better to do.

  I have to find Allie. I have to find my baby. I should never have come here!

  Her vision clouded and her stomach rolled. She bolted for the green trashcan outside the building, doubled over, and puked in the grass.

  Lindsey rushed over. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not fine,” Sandra said. “I need the keys to my brother’s Jeep.”

  Lindsey shook her head. “I’m waiting for Detective Ryburn to go check out an incident at the YMCA camp.”

  Sandra brushed the curtain of hair from her face and wiped her mouth off with a sleeve. “My daughter was taken.” She was gasping for air now—hyperventilating, she realized.

  “Just calm down,” Lindsey said. She put a hand on Sandra’s shoulder, but Sandra backed away.