Surviving Rage | Book 5

by Arellano, J. D.

GHI

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  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Oklahoma City Protective Zone, Oklahoma

  Day 4

  Sitting at his desk, Colonel Walters stared at the papers in front of him without reading them. His mind was elsewhere, namely, the impact of the lost food stores from the fire at another food distribution center the night before. The news had put him in a foul mood, and after he’d nearly ripped Captain McCarthy’s head off (though he recognized the man was simply the messenger), he’d ordered Sergeant Ferrell to cancel all of the appointments on his calendar until after lunch.

  A single occurrence could be written off as a terrible accident.

  Two?

  No way.

  It had been intentional. He didn’t need an ‘official’ cause of the fire. It had been arson. Of that, he was sure.

  The papers in front of him outlined what was lost, and it wouldn’t be easy to recover from. Food supplies were down forty percent now, and it was clear they’d have to reduce daily rations by nearly a third just to keep from running out before the next delivery of supplies arrived.

  Damn it.

  Without sufficient food, people would begin to wonder if being there was the right idea. They’d wonder if the government was able to take care of them. In time, they’d grow restless, and when they did, things could get ugly. When basic needs weren’t met, people resorted to drastic measures.

  He’d have to count on Jeremiah to help keep people patient, to get them to understand that things like this happened sometimes. There were bad people out there, and though the Protective Zone’s residents were safe from the infected, they weren’t immune to the impacts of those who sought to destroy the few good things they had.

  He’d have to make an announcement, one that informed people of his intent to find and prosecute those responsible for this callous act. There had to be law and order, and make sure they saw him as the one who not only believed in it, but who wasn’t afraid to bring the hammer down to maintain it.

  ‘Yes, law and order,’ he thought, nodding to himself. ‘That will be my message.’

  Feeling better about the situation, he smiled broadly, his face showing more emotion than he’d ever shared with others. Satisfied, he rose from his chair and walked over to the window.

  Where was Jeremiah, anyway? After promising that he’d provide daily reports, the man hadn’t come to check in for the last two days, leaving him in the dark. Aside from the fires, which he had received information about from Captain McCarthy, was there anything else he needed to know about? Things seemed almost too quiet. The Protective Zone’s population was continuing to grow, and as it did, he expected there to be issues.

  Either Jeremiah’s influence was keeping people in check, or things were being hidden from him.

  Shaking his head, he reminded himself he had more important things to focus on. Surely if there was something pressing, he’d be notified.

  Reaching into his breast pocket, he extracted the printout of the encrypted email he’d received from his man in San Francisco.

  Group with the girl are well armed and highly skilled. Sommer has identified the location for the assault and developed a plan. Needs the following to neutralize her guards:

  AH-64 Apache, fully armed (with pilot/copilot)

  2 Humvees

  Eight men with combat experience and weapons

  The list also outlined specific weapons required, but those items were the least of his worries. As the Commanding Officer of the Protective Zone, he had access to all the equipment and weapons he needed.

  The challenges would be (a) the pilot and copilot, and (b) finding a way to explain a fully armed Apache helicopter heading out on a mission.

  The Humvees and the men were no problem. He already had a group of men he’d briefed on his overall plan, and there were plenty of Humvees in the motor pool.

  But the damn helicopter....

  ‘Alright, think,’ he said to himself, ‘how will you find a pilot willing to take part in the mission?’ There were a handful of helicopter pilots in the P.Z., but he hadn’t thought of recruiting any of them prior to this moment. Could any of them be convinced to join his cause in short order?

  ‘With the right motivation, they could,’ he said to himself, smiling. He walked over to the bookshelf behind his desk and grabbed the binder that contained the list of all the military personnel on the base.

  He ran his finger down the list as he scanned the first page, but didn’t see what he was looking for. On the second page, he did.

  Captain Sean Fitzgerald, Wife Kathy, Son Michael (11), Daughter Christina (9)

  Walters smiled. Sometimes motivation needed to be created.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Near Conway, Arkansas

  Day 4

  A thick mist of fog still hung in the air as the small military convoy moved off the highway and onto the thick, overgrown grass. Turning on the wipers to move the moisture aside from the windshield, Staff Sergeant Anfernie Jeffries guided the Humvee across the grass, mindful of the manner in which the heavy vehicle sank slightly into the soft earth beneath them. Though he knew he’d made the shift, he looked down at the indicator on the dash to ensure the Humvee was in four-wheel drive. It was, and as he felt the reassuring manner in which each tire chewed up the turf, he decided that the feeling was more indicative of the vehicle’s drive mode than any light on the dash.

  Turning the steering wheel smoothly, he led the way around the wreckage that completely blocked the highway, taking a wide arc to keep sufficient distance between the Humvees and the wreckage. Seeing a thick branch on the ground in front of them, he avoided it, aware of the fact that although the Humvee wouldn’t be even slightly impacted by the obstacle, the lurch it would cause would cause Corporal White, who was in the second Humvee, unnecessary pain.

  The young Marine had responded well to the care he’d been receiving from Doctor Chang and Doctor Bowman, and he’d actually been able to both sit up and feed himself at dinner the night before, but as indicated by the near-constant grimace that the man wore on his face, he was still dealing with a greatl deal of discomfort.

  Internally, Jeffries blamed himself for the Marine’s injury. As Squad Leader, he was overall in charge of the mission, and if a Marine was hurt during mission execution, he was expected to answer for it. Though the group was encouraged by White’s progress on the road to recovery, no one would forget how the man got hurt, and neither would he.

  Though he was extremely thankful for Doctor Chang’s quick thinking and rapid response, which likely saved the young Marine’s life, he couldn’t openly compliment the man for his actions. The doctors were always supposed to wait for the Marines to ‘clear’ areas before they entered, and Andrew hadn’t followed that rule, even though he’d been made aware of the requirement on numerous occasions. His actions could have been disastrous. They could have jeopardized the mission right then and there.

  It’d been Andrew’s quick thinking and expertise that kept the man’s injury from becoming fatal, and Anfernie would be eternally grateful. Corporal White, like the rest of the squad, had been overseas, and had been in near-constant danger as his assigned platoon patrolled the mountainous areas of northern Afghanistan. How crazy was it that the man had nearly lost his life here, in the United States? At this point, all signs pointed towards a full recovery, but the man would have a permanent scar; a reminder that one of his fellow Americans had tried to kill him over misplaced fear.

  “People up there,” Corporal Milligan said from the seat next to him.

  “I see ‘em,” Jeffries said reflexively, though he hadn’t been paying attention to anything beyond ten feet as he’d let his field of vision shrink while his mind wandered. ‘Not good, Anfernie,’ he thought, before taking a deep br
eath and refocusing his attention on the road. Just over a mile ahead, a small cluster of people was walking on the highway, headed in their direction. “Check ‘em out,” he ordered.

  Bringing the binoculars up to his eyes, Milligan evaluated the group. “Looks like a family. Middle-aged man and woman, three kids, one of ‘em’s a teenager. Also an older man with them, then another middle-aged woman.”

  “Copy,” Jeffries replied. “We’ll close to within a quarter mile, then stop and check them out more thoroughly. Let Ozzie and the others know.”

  Milligan grabbed the radio and spoke into it as Corporal Healey leaned forward in the back seat. She and Doctor Bowman had moved into the lead vehicle in order to make room for Corporals White and Sanchez in the trailing vehicle, where Doctor Chang kept a close eye on the injured Marine.

  “What’s going on, Staff Sergeant?” she asked.

  “Company,” Jeffries answered, gesturing ahead with his chin. “Stay close to the doc,” he added.

  “Ooh rah, Staff Sergeant,” the young woman replied, sitting back. Looking over at Bowman, her eyes scanned the seat belt to make sure it was secure. It was. When she felt the doctor looking at her, she looked up and gave a slight smile.

  When they’d gotten as close as Jeffries felt comfortable with, he pulled the Humvee slightly to the left in order to make room for the other vehicle to pull alongside. Once the Sergeant Khan had parked the second Humvee next to his, Jeffries grabbed his rifle and got out of the armored vehicle.

  Moving over to the other vehicle, he looked up at Sergeant Khan through the open driver’s side window.

  “Gonna check things out. You hang back in case you need to take charge,” he ordered. Looking into the vehicle, his eyes settled on Snyder. “Let’s go.”

  “Ooh rah, Staff Sergeant,” Snyder replied eagerly, before grabbing his rifle and jumping out of the Humvee.

  As they turned to start walking towards the small group of people, they realized the group had stopped in the middle of the road and put their hands up. Jeffries and Snyder walked towards them, keeping their hands on their weapons without pointing the guns towards the group. When they were close enough to be heard, the middle-aged man previously identified by Milligan called out, “Hello! We’re unarmed!”

  Ten yards away from them, Jeffries and Snyder came to a stop, taking up position in front of them.

  “Where are you all headed?” Jeffries called out.

  “East,” the man replied, simply.

  Jeffries frowned. Pointing in the opposite direction, he asked, “Why aren’t you headed to the Protective Zone?”

  The man shook his head. “Not safe, heading that way.” Pointing at Jeffries and Snyder, he added, “I don’t think you want to go that way, either.”

  Jeffries shook his head, then looked at Snyder skeptically.

  Snyder scoffed in response. “This guy must not be familiar with Marines,” he said, chuckling softly.

  “I’m serious,” the man added, taking a few more steps forward slowly before stopping, his hands still elevated above his head. He was of medium height and relatively thin. From the way his dirty, tattered clothes hung off of him, it appeared that he’d lost a considerable amount of weight over the last few weeks, likely due to the effort required to keep himself (and his family) alive. “There’s trouble that way,” he said, pointing off in the direction he’d come from. “A group of men have set up a roadblock near the town of Webbers Falls. They’re stopping everyone going west and taking what they want from them, including women and children. They’re also stopping people from heading north on the three fifty-one, in case they’re trying to get around the roadblock.”

  Jeffries frowned. Depending on the size of the group that set up the roadblock, it could present an issue. He and his team had been through enough already, and they’d shed enough blood on American soil. Whatever this man - and the group with him - knew, it would be valuable information.

  “You can lower your arms, Sir,” he said. Glancing back towards the Humvees, he motioned for the two vehicles to drive forward to where he and Snyder were standing. Turning back to the man, he noticed how dirty and tired the man looked, he asked, “Do we need to check you all for weapons?”

  The man stared back at Jeffries, his face filled with fear as he spoke. “Sir, I - I do have a gun. A pistol I found along the way. It’s the only weapon we have, and it’s in the back of my waistband.”

  Jeffries nodded. “I see. Can you be trusted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, good.” He looked pointedly at Tomlinson and Sanchez, who were each manning the heavy machine gun mounted atop their respective Humvees, then back at the man. “Be cool and we’ll be cool.”

  The man took a deep breath at the sight of the two men manning the powerful machine guns. He nodded, the exhaled. “Okay, sounds good.”

  “Alright,” Jeffries began. “How about we get you all some food and water and you tell everything you know about the men at the roadblock?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Near Santa Rosa, New Mexico

  Day 4

  ‘Damn, this place is dry,’ Serrano thought, as the trio of military vehicles continued to work their way across the state, heading east. The last 24 hours had been wonderfully mundane, and he’d enjoyed it thoroughly.

  When they’d passed the flattened remains of what looked like a small home near the town of Winslow, Arizona, the sight of it and the possibilities of what had caused it put him on edge. If it occurred as the result of a natural accident, which was highly likely, given the current, unmanaged state of public utilities, it was no big deal. If it’d been done intentionally, it could signal trouble, though, even so, it seemed unlikely. Who would blow up a house on purpose other than a thrill seeker? Nah, the naturally occurring failure of a pilot light (on a water heater or old stove), combined with unsteady electrical current caused by a failing power grid seemed the most likely cause.

  Nevertheless, it put him on alert for anything out of the ordinary, anything that could signal trouble.

  But there’d been nothing. Just more road, more time inside the uncomfortable confines of the Humvee, and more MREs. The only drama had been from the boy Long, who couldn’t seem to stop with the pathetic racist rhetoric. It had gotten to the point of being ridiculous, and finally Logan, who seemed to have been developing a familial relationship with Isabella, finally shut the kid up.

  “Look,” Logan began, leaning forward until his face was less than two feet from the boy’s, “I’m not asking you to change your views on other people of color. That’s not something you can be told. That’s something you need to learn. What I am asking you to do is to treat those in this group who are different from you with respect and decency.”

  The boy turned away, refusing to make eye contact.

  Irritated by the boy’s rudeness, Serrano had stepped forward, his hands flexing, ready to put the fear of God into him. Logan shook his head sharply, then signalled with his hand for Serrano to stand down.

  “It’s gonna take time,” he explained, when he’d spoken to Serrano later. “As I told the kid, we can’t tell him to change his views, he’s got to learn it on his own, and while the loss of his parents was a terrible thing in many respects, the absence of their toxic views could turn out to be better for the boy in the long run.” Looking over at the Vietnamese boy, sitting by himself and shoveling reconstituted eggs into his mouth, he added, “Hopefully, with time around this diverse group, and later, others, he’ll learn to accept people for who they are on the inside.”

  “Judge them not ‘by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,’ Serrano responded.

  “Exactly. But for some people, given their upbringing, that’s something that’s got to be learned.”

  That had been at the group’s breakfast, which they’d enjoyed in the parking lot of a small, single story motel in the town of Mesita, just west of Albuquerque. Clearing the small structure in order to provide
everyone a soft (okay, lumpy), actual bed to sleep on had been well worth the effort he and the Marines had put into it, and made him seriously consider doing the same when they began to look for somewhere to lay their heads for the night at the end of this day’s travels. Though the mattresses were well beyond their usable life, and though the rooms had a stale, musty smell that took hours of leaving windows and doors open to remove, the simple comfort of having one’s own, small, private space for the night was well-received by the team, so much so that no one complained about the additional watch requirements.

  “Watcha thinkin’ ‘bout, Chili?” Aaron asked, looking over at him from the passenger seat of the Humvee.

  Serrano shook his head. “Nothing much. Just kinda hoping today will be as uneventful as yesterday was. You?”

  Aaron chuckled. “I’m hoping I can make it to the next scheduled stop before those eggs we had for breakfast force their way out of me.”

  Serrano laughed. “They do take some getting used to, don’t they?”

  “Definitely. I wonder how Paul’s doing? Hey, Sticks,” he began, using the nickname they’d recently given the teenager based on his thin stature, “how’s your gut?”

  “It’s okay,” Paul replied, looking down towards his lap as he studied something he held there.

  “Whatcha got there?” Aaron asked, sneaking a glance towards Phillip. The Marine was fast asleep, with his head pressed up against a wadded up t-shirt that he’d put between it and the rear passenger side window. The man’s mouth hung open as he snored, making Aaron wish he had Skittles or M&Ms to throw into it.

  “A cell phone,” Paul replied, still focused on the device.

  Aaron scoffed. “A lot of good that’ll do you.”

  “I know, but the guy at gear issue said it might work in the big cities. Thought I might try to call Daniel and Serafina when we pass through Albuquerque.”