by A. R. Shaw
Her smiling eyes disappeared. She was serious now. “Bishop, you could have died trying.”
Lifting his arm with effort, he caressed her cheek. “We would have died without the spoils. We had to win the Osprey. I had no choice.”
She didn’t like the answer but kissed his hand anyway. “I’ve missed you.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Overnight. Jax put you to sleep.”
He sighed. “I’m not surprised. I think he’d knock us all out if he could, just for his own comfort.”
She laughed a little. “Yeah, well, he’s been working on Louna.”
“What happen to Louna?” His voice sounded wary.
She didn’t answer right away. Her words seemed caught in her throat. “Cora…is dead, Bishop. She took a shot as we ran to the shelter. It happened as she carried Louna.”
He was struck with horror, realizing that Maeve and Ben were in danger as they fled. He started to rise from the table. “Shi…is Louna okay?”
Pressing him back down with her hand on his bare shoulder, Maeve replied, “She’s in shock. Jax says she’ll be fine. He still doesn’t like the sound of her lungs. He seems oddly attached to her—though I don’t think he’d admit it. Oh, and he has a new enemy in Cook. Though I think he might actually have a thing for her, too.”
“I’m really sorry about Cora. That should not have happened.”
“We’ll keep Louna. She has a home with us.”
Bishop agreed. The poor child was, in fact, an orphan now. How lucky she was to find her mother alive only to be ripped away again a few short weeks later. It wasn’t fair…was a sentiment often lacking in a world like this. Too often it was uttered and carried no weight.
“Where’s the pilot?”
“The pilot? I have no idea. I just got back. You mean you captured the pilot alive?”
“Well, how do you think we’re going to fly the damn thing?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I dunno. I’m glad you spared him, though.”
He began to sit up again.
“Don’t you think you should wait?”
“No. Can you find my clothes? I’ve got to speak to that pilot.” When he sat up all the way, his head spun. And again, his nose wrinkled a little at the smell of some plaster that Jax had applied to his leg wound. Bishop should be used to this by now, but whatever Jax used always assaulted his nose.
While Maeve located his clothing, Bishop looked around the room and found Ben sitting in a nearby chair, holding a black cat. “Hey, buddy! Where’d you find him?”
The boy glanced up at him, his rifle across his lap. He barely made eye contact with Bishop. He knew what this was instantly. Ben was afraid—afraid he’d die just like his father had died.
Maeve said, “Jax brought the cat. He was ours. His name is Jet.” Then turning to her son, she said, “Isn’t that right, honey?”
Ben didn’t answer.
“Come here, Ben,” Bishop said in a soft tone.
The boy hesitated, and then as if making a deal with himself, he got up and leaned the rifle against the wall and came to Bishop’s side, while Jet, dejected, scampered off.
Running a bandaged hand through the boy’s hair, he said, “I’m okay, Ben. I’m not leaving you and your mom.” The boy swallowed hard. His eyes flooded. “Come here,” Bishop said, his own voice turned to gravel.
Ben buried his head into Bishop’s side. There was nothing to say. They both knew the problem. Rubbing his back as Ben sobbed, the shudders passed in time. Maeve stood on his other side, bearing his clothing in her arms as her own eyes flooding. She gave him a small smile. After a few moments, Ben turned away, wiped his eyes, and took a deep breath while looking for his cat again.
“I’m starving,” Bishop said, and that seemed enough to lighten the mood. Though no one spoke of it, death hung all around them, and life had to be won now at all costs. It had come too close this time. He could see that in Ben and in Maeve, but it was a risk he had to take again and again.
He carefully pulled his shirt over his head and then slid his legs into his canvas pants. Once dressed, Ben handed him his rifle and each of his EDC items, knowing each one now and why he carried them; Bishop did not explain them to him any longer. The boy picked things up quickly and even carried a version of his own.
Bearing his full weight, his right thigh throbbed. He took a step and limped a little. It would take some getting used to. There was no way he would go for a hunt today.
“Let’s find that pilot. I’ve got a few questions to ask him. Where’s Austin?”
“He’s probably trying to deal with Jax. Late last night, Jax wanted Louna in a smaller room with a humidifier. We don’t have anything like that, so they set her up off the kitchen where Cook could boil water nearby.”
“Let’s start there first, then.”
Distant shouts emitted from the kitchen area as they crossed the lobby, and at first Bishop was alarmed, but Maeve chuckled. “They’ve been at it all morning. Listen…”
“Does this look like a grocery store to you?” Cook shouted.
“Don’t get your panties all ruffled up, lady,” Jax retorted.
“My panties ruffled?” Cook shouted, and then they heard something break and clang against the tiled wall.
“We’d better get in there,” Maeve said.
Bishop chuckled. “Seems he’s met his match.”
When Bishop stood in the doorway, the arguing ceased, and both Jax and Cook turned to him.
The angered face of Cook suddenly turned into a smile. “You’re better, thank God.”
“God had nothing to do with that, lady,” Jax shot out.
“You know what you can do…” Cook began with her finger pointed at Jax and her eyebrows clenched together.
“Hey…where’s the pilot?” Bishop asked, clearing his throat.
“Oh, Austin has him tied up in the bar.”
“The bar?”
“Well, yeah,” Jax said with some conviction.
Wondering what he’d missed, he still didn’t see the logic of Austin tying up the pilot in the bar. They had a small lockup and other rooms for that purpose.
“Okay, is Louna all right?”
Jax spoke first. “She’ll be all right. She just needs to wake slowly. Maeve, can you sit with her? Her pulse is still weak and rapid, and she’s still a little clammy, but she’s much better than she was.”
“Thank God!”
Bishop walked into the little room where Louna was sleeping off the kitchen. Her blond hair was damp and plastered against her ivory skin. He knelt down and brushed her hair away from her forehead. Without a word between them, he looked to Maeve as she sat down beside the girl. A kind of resolve hung between them both.
As he walked away, he cleared his throat and left Maeve and Ben there standing vigil over the girl. She was so helpless.
“How’s that leg?” Jax asked, noticing Bishop’s limp.
“It’s been better. Have you talked to the pilot?”
“Talk to him? I can’t shut him up. I finally left him with that kid. Who’s running things here anyway? Everyone’s running around…no order.”
Bishop took a breath. “It works. Everyone pitches in. There’s no real boss or leader here.”
A short chuckle came from Jax. “I think you’re mistaken there, man. You should have seen the look on their faces when I brought you in last night after you fainted. Scared the wits out of them.”
With a sidelong look, Bishop said, “I passed out. I didn’t faint.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jax said and opened the bar’s swinging doorway.
There they found Austin sitting in a round, cushioned chair. One hand was on a revolver resting on his thigh and the other was propped up on a table holding a short glass with amber liquor inside. He never took his eyes off from the pilot sitting in front of him.
“Nice to see you up, Bishop.”
Glancing at the back of the pilot’s head, he wasn’t even sure if t
he guy was awake. “How you doing, Austin? Wanna take a break? Looks like you could use some sleep.”
Jax gave a concerned glance at Bishop—a how-do-you-want-to-handle-this look.
He wasn’t sure. He’d never seen Austin like this before. Then he remembered…Mr. Geller, his father, was dead. “Austin, buddy, why don’t you take a break. Sleep it off. We’ll take over here.”
“He told me what was in the cases. But you’ll never guess why they wanted them so badly. Well, maybe you will. You’ve been right all along, Bishop.”
The light in the bar was dimmer than the rest of the building. The windows only let in a little of the gray light from the outside. A light burned in a candle on the table beside Austin’s hand holding the amber liquid.
Walking around the pilot, Bishop made eye contact with the guy. He tipped his head at the man. “What’s your name?”
He cleared his throat. “Walt,” he said and then laid his weary eyes back on Austin.
Austin lifted the pistol with a nonchalant flip of his wrist and waved the gun around. Slurring his words he said, “He won’t give his last name. Why the hell not? We’re all friends here.”
The pilot looked like he’d been putting up with Austin’s drunken antics for a while now.
“Well, we pretty much go on a one-name basis around here anyway. Doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the last, as long as you have one,” Bishop reasoned.
“He doesn’t trust us,” Austin said, pointing the barrel end at the pilot as if pointing him out.
Bishop kept a good eye on his trigger finger, and so far it hadn’t entered the guard. That was a lesson Bishop was constantly reminding him about, and in his drunken state, he was somewhat impressed Austin remembered.
In any case, Bishop reached around his back and said, “How about we get you to rest, Austin. I’ll take over here,” as he clamped his hand around the revolver and pulled it away from Austin.
Austin sighed. “Okaaay!” He got up and staggered around the pilot’s chair.
Bishop met Jax’s glance and tipped his chin. In other words, help him out of here.
“Hey!” Austin said as Jax steadied him. “I can do it myself!”
“Like hell” was all Bishop heard from Jax as they left the bar.
He eased down into the chair opposite the pilot, his thigh throbbing badly now. He regarded the pilot before him. Slumped down in the chair with his hands and ankles bound, he looked exhausted. “Start over. What’s your name?”
“Name’s Walt. I flew the Osprey for Mr. Geller.”
“From where?”
His eyelids threatened to close. Half open, he said, “Look, I’ve been sitting here all night, keeping an eye on your drunk boy with his revolver pointed in my direction. That kid, is he all right in the head?”
“Austin? Yeah, he’ll be fine. Back to you. So, Walt, where did you fly in from? Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make sure you can sleep in peace.”
“Ha-ha,” Walt said.
“Seriously, I’ll find you a bed and let you sleep.”
Walt didn’t so much as nod but let his chin drop down a few times with a half grin on his face. “Look, I’ll tell you what you want to know, but I need some assurances that if I cooperate, my family will survive. That was the same deal Geller gave me. I expect the same from you.”
“Where’s your family?”
“They’re held in the underground compound where we flew in from. Look, I was the only pilot who could fly that thing on my own up here. Two pilots are typical. Four is even better. And…I don’t know what the orders were if they didn’t return. So if we’re going to fly back, we have to do it soon. They’re going to wonder what’s going on when they don’t hear from anyone.”
“Again, from where, and I won’t keep asking, Walt.”
“A little town in the middle of nowhere, Deer Trail, Colorado. You’ve never heard of it, trust me and if you walked the length of it, you’d never know what was underground.”
“A bunker then? Geller had an underground bunker? How far is it from here?”
His chuckle—this time the sound came out nearly hysterical—told Bishop that the pilot was a bit punch drunk himself. “A little under a thousand miles. It’s more like an underground empire. Was an old government missile silo back in the Cold War days. That guy…he thought of everything. It’s like a town down there. Several floors, damn thing even has an underground swimming pool. No expense spared, and enough food and supplies stored for an entire city.”
“How many live there now?”
“Just a few families and personnel. They barely take up one floor, and there are twenty floors in these things. Fully equipped, bed linens and everything.”
“Wait. How many of these underground bunkers are there?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even know, man. There’s several, and a few of them are joined together. It’s the old Trident missile silo.” Walt raised his hands as if to demonstrate the enormity of it all, and when he couldn’t spread his hands far enough because of the restraints binding his wrists, he looked down and remembered they were bound together. Giving up on the hand gestures, he said, “See, before the war with China and the restart of the nuclear-arms race with Russia, the United States dismantled and tore apart all their old Cold War missile silos. They were all over the place in these secret remote locations and then there was this guy who began buying them all up. He redesigned the spaces into the underground prepper-apartment-type things. He sold them as apartments or whole units to the super rich and wealthy.”
“Hmmm, I see. So Geller was the proud owner of one of these silo bunkers?”
“Apparently, he was the proud owner of many of them.”
“Where do you fit in to all this? Why did he come here, and what is in those gray cases out in the Osprey?”
“Well, I don’t think Geller took surviving the end of the world super seriously at first. He hadn’t thought of a few minor details or maybe he had and just ran out of time to prepare. I don’t know. Those gray cases have seeds in them. He somehow had them shipped here from the Global Seed Bank in Svalbard. With the world frozen over, nothing will grow. The harvest season for the next few years is over. People will starve to death and no longer is the dollar what it used to be or ever will be again. No, seeds and food are a commodity now. He apparently kept the seeds here in his hotel inside a climate-controlled vault downstairs. Or so that’s what I was told. In exchange for my services, my family was to survive this.”
“Does he have some kind of hydroponic set up there in the bunkers? Because there’s no way to grow anything in these conditions for a very long time.”
“Funny you mention that. Yes. A complete setup. I think he planned to rule with food, if you know what I mean. Geller wanted to be a king, apparently.”
“Who was he working with? What kind of security is back there?”
Walt yawned his words, “I don’t know, man. I was only the pilot. I swear if you let me sleep, I’ll answer all the questions.”
Bishop rose from his chair and pulled out his knife. Walt’s eyes widened a bit until he slipped the knife under his bound hands and set him free. “Don’t go anywhere. The door will remain locked, but you’ll have a few hours in here undisturbed.”
“Great, you’re locking me in a bar? What happened to the promise of a bed?”
“Could be worse.”
“Certainly,” Walt mumbled and slumped down in his chair, crossed his arms, and rested his chin on his chest.
Bishop was sure he was asleep by the time he stepped back into the lobby and closed the door behind him, nodding to the guard on the way out. “No one in, no one out.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Colorado?” was all Bishop thought about on his way back to the kitchen. A thousand miles? How many trips would that take to get them all there? And where will we get more aviation fuel?
Only questions to answer along the way. For now, he needed to get people organized.
There was no way he would leave Maeve and Ben behind, but the rest of the space in the Osprey had to be taken by fighters—fighters dressed in the outfits the original private soldiers had arrived in, geared in black with the helmets and weapons they came with. That was the only way they might take over the silo—by deception or distraction—if they wanted to keep the silo for themselves. There was no better way to survive the coming cold hand of death.
In the kitchen, he found Maeve trying to call a truce between Cook and Jax again with her sternest mom voice. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, Jax.”
Bishop knew that look, and Jax was about to let loose, but he caught his eye in the doorway. “Hey,” he shouted, “let’s talk out here.”
“Is Louna all right for now with the ladies?”
Jax said, “Yes, as long as you let her breathe in the moist air, she’ll be fine for now.”
His eyes met Maeve’s, and they smiled. That was all that was needed for reassurance. They already communicated with mere looks.
Jax followed him out into the lobby. “We need to talk.”
“That kid looked pretty strung out.”
“I think it has something to do with the fact that you killed his father.”
Jax stopped in his tracks.
“That Geller guy was his father?”
“Yeah, probably for the best, though. They weren’t very close.”
Jax lowered his eyes to the ground as if he searched for something there and then said, “We can’t afford for the kid to lose his mind right now. Geller was going to attack you, Bishop. I had to. If he’s their leader and all, you need to step up.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, Bishop said, “I’m not concerned about Geller’s death. There was no way he was going to last long here, if I had anything to say about it. You just beat me to it.”
“Is the pilot capable of flying that thing?”
“Yeah, he’s just a bit tired right now. His allegiance will transfer to us, I think. Look, that Osprey is a CV-22B variant. It was designed for long distances for the air force. Has extra-fuel capabilities. I don’t know how they got their hands on it. I figure there’s enough avgas in that thing to make a return trip to where it came from, but that’s it. We don’t have access to a lot of aviation fuel here. The closest would be the Spokane Airport or the Pullman-Moscow Airport south. There’s a small strip north, but we’re going to need a lot of fuel to ferry people to and from here. That’s one of the unknowns.”
