by Bobby Akart
Chapter 26
January 3
Wink, Texas
Holloway led the way in the newly acquired forty-year-old Chevy Suburbans, which had thus far served them well. He was constantly on the lookout for additional, more suitable vehicles. A Cadillac Escalade was high on his wish list. But this part of West Texas was so deserted even the prairie dogs died of boredom, so he doubted many Escalades were around.
Without the aid of a map, he continued to follow the rising sun and headed east until a major road became available. The fuel gauges on both trucks were heading toward empty, and his men, who were packed in like the proverbial sardines, were growing restless.
The Chevy trucks were equipped with two bench seats that allowed for three passengers in the front and backseat. In the rear, four men were sitting with their knees crammed against their chests, unable to move. The old trucks’ suspensions had seen better days too. With every pothole came a groan. Every swerve to avoid an obstacle in the road threw bodies against one another.
Holloway needed a small town to refuel and possibly add vehicles to his fleet, and he needed it quick before his Lightning Death Squad mutinied.
After traveling several more miles along the deserted farm-to-market road, a designation that puzzled him to no end but kept his mind occupied as his search for fuel continued, a roadside billboard welcomed them to Wink, Texas, population nine hundred forty.
Below the word Welcome was the smiling face of singer Roy Orbison. Known for his odd singing style and famous hits like Only the Lonely, Orbison must have written a song about the fair hamlet of Wink, Holloway surmised. In quotation marks beneath his black-haired image and dark glasses were the words—football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand.
Holloway laughed to himself as he slowed his approach into the town. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Just give me some gas, a new car or two, and maybe a piece of tail, and I’ll be on my way.
He pulled to a stop next to the first sandlot-style football field of Wink’s residential neighborhoods. Despite being midmorning, there were no signs of life. He spoke to his lieutenants, who rode in the front seat with him.
“I can’t go rollin’ up in here with two truckloads of Koreans. That might raise eyebrows, don’t you think?”
They didn’t answer, not that he expected them to. He’d taught them long ago that when the team was on a mission, he was the only one that could be funny, and everyone else was expected to follow orders.
“All right, listen up,” he began. He pointed to one man in the backseat and touched the man next to him on the shoulder. “You two, stay with me but hide down in your seats so nobody can see you. The rest of you, join the other group. Keep your ears open. I don’t expect any trouble, but if you hear gunfire, send the cavalry and, boys, shoot everything that moves. Got it?”
After receiving everyone’s acknowledgments of his orders, Holloway moved closer to the center of town. More people came into view, but they didn’t give his vehicle a second glance. The experience was far different from his travels eastward after the EMP. Going through the major metropolitan areas of LA and later Arizona, moving vehicles were rare. He felt like a fox in the henhouse, dressed up like a rooster.
“This is gonna be too easy,” he thought out loud.
He was driving closer to the center of town when a blue road sign caught his eye. It read ERCOT-Wink Switching Station and was accompanied by an arrow pointing to the right. He slowed and then made the turn. He remembered a news story from years ago following a hurricane, which had devastated the Texas Gulf Coast, that ERCOT crews were standing by to restore power. He made the logical connection. He didn’t know what a switching station was, but if there were workers there, Holloway was sure they’d volunteer the information to him.
He drove another mile to the outskirts of the city until he came to a large chain-link-protected area with an open gate. Just inside the entrance was a small brick building with two cars and a pickup in front. Before entering, he stopped and surveyed the grounds. The cold wind prevented anyone from taking a stroll along the transformers and power lines that culminated at the facility.
The tall towers erected to carry the high-voltage power lines that traversed Texas could be seen to his south, east, and west. He was briefly fascinated by the structure and wondered if taking out this substation would have a crippling effect on the power grid of Texas. He suspected the ERCOT employees inside would have answers for him.
“It’s showtime, gentlemen. We’re gonna pull up to the front door, storm in like we own the place, and scare the hell out of whoever is inside. Do not shoot anybody unless they raise a weapon. We need some information from these people and their vehicles.”
Holloway pulled the car up to the front door, grabbed his rifle and exited in a hurry. His two men followed suit, and without delay, they ran to the front door and grabbed the handle to pull it open.
It was locked.
He looked to both sides of the building, wondering if he’d missed the workers milling about.
Nothing.
Holloway couldn’t waste any more time, as those inside might have seen him and could be calling for help. He drew his Beretta out of his leg holster and, using the silenced weapon, fired two bullets into the top and bottom of the plate-glass door. Shards of glass exploded inward.
“Go!” he shouted to his men, who crouched beneath the door handle and walked across the broken glass.
The main office area, which consisted of metal desks, chairs and maps covering every wall, was empty otherwise. Holloway quickly moved toward two office spaces on the right, forcefully pushing open a partially closed door until it slammed against the wall. A young woman was cowering in the corner next to a file cabinet, crying and gasping for air.
“Claimed!” shouted Holloway as he chuckled to himself. He’d always wanted to say that since he’d seen that season of The Walking Dead.
“I’ve got a guy in here, too,” shouted one of his men.
“The rest is clear, sir,” stated the other.
Holloway slowly backed out of the woman’s office but kept his gun pointed in her general direction.
“Bring him out!” he ordered.
His men shouldered their rifles and pulled the man out from under his desk. He was trying to cover his head, a natural human reaction when one feared physical harm. Unfortunately for the victim, a forearm over a forehead wouldn’t make a hill of beans’ difference when a beat-down was administered.
They stood the man up and forced him into the outer office.
“Stand here,” said one of Holloway’s men as he gave the ERCOT employee a good shaking to drive the point home.
“Watch this one, but don’t touch,” instructed Holloway calmly as he pointed to the girl, who was sobbing uncontrollably. “Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Holloway walked toward the man and leaned down until their faces almost touched. He wanted the frightened employee to get a good look at his eye, as well as the hole where the other one used to be.
“What’s your name?” Holloway growled.
“Edwards,” replied the man, who began to breathe rapidly as if he was going to hyperventilate.
“You’re weak, aren’t you, Edwards?”
The man nodded his head up and down rapidly.
“Good, glad we don’t have to argue about that,” Holloway continued. “Tough guys have to be treated differently than guys like you. Kudos for honesty, pal.”
The man continued to tremble as he tried to turn his head from Holloway’s gaze. Holloway holstered his weapon and grabbed the man’s chin, straightening his face forward.
“You, pal, are gonna answer some questions, okay?”
“Uh, uh, yes, sir.”
“Very good. Now, I want you to tell me about all of these maps, and you’d better tell the truth. My eye knows when you’re lying. Are we straight?”
Once again, the bobble-head ERCOT employee nervousl
y nodded his understanding.
The woman in the office began to plead for mercy. “Please, mister. Let us go. You can have our money and cars. Take it all. Please don’t hurt us.”
Holloway’s face became enraged. He grabbed Edwards by the few hairs he had left on his mostly bald head and pulled his Beretta, forcing the barrel into the side of the man’s temple. He dragged the man into the open doorway so the woman could see the gun at his head.
“Edwards, are you her boss?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name and position with the company?”
“Her name is Naomi, and she’s my assistant.”
Holloway turned his attention to Naomi, whose eyes were wide with fear. “Naomi, would you like a promotion? Do you want his job? If so, say one more word and we’ll terminate this pussy!”
She shook her head violently from side to side, causing tears and mucus to spray against the wall.
“Good, seems like we have an understanding. Now, pal, explain how this whole ERCOT thing works. Here’s what I want to know, hypothetically speaking, of course, because I want you to know I am not a terrorist or anything like that. I consider myself to be an opportunist, and in a place as large as Texas, opportunity abounds, wouldn’t you agree?”
The man did everything in his power to avoid eye contact, but managed a response. “Okay.”
“Edwards, in my hypothetical,” began Holloway as he let go of his hostage and began to walk around the room, dragging his silencer along the map-covered walls as he walked, “which of these substations would I have to destroy to bring down the entire power grid?”
He took a seat on a desk in the corner and dangled his legs off the side. He’d expected a quick, concise list of places to go and substations to destroy. What he got was a lesson on how complex and protected the ERCOT power system was. Bringing down the entire Texas grid through attacks on a handful of substations was a pipe dream. Nonetheless, he made the man write down a list of those locations that would do the most damage to the largest population centers.
Then he pressed the man on the grid for Lubbock. Lubbock Power & Light was independent from ERCOT prior to the collapse, but they had cooperative agreements in the event of outages. The man explained the grids had been tied together following the nationwide grid failure, but Lubbock still relied on a series of switching stations like the one in Wink to act as a conduit from ERCOT.
“Bottom line it for me, pal,” began Holloway. “Can the Northwest Texas grid be taken down by itself?”
“Yes,” replied the cowardly Edwards. In an effort to save his life, he pulled the map for the region and circled the exact locations to be attacked with a black Sharpie.
Satisfied that he had the information he needed and noticing the shadows on the power towers were growing longer, Holloway knew it was time to move on.
But first, it was time to eliminate witnesses. He took the maps from Edwards with one hand and shot him in the head with the other, allowing the man’s body to slump inside the doorway to his assistant’s office, causing her to shriek.
After shooting Edwards in the head, Holloway gave instructions to his men. “Okay, gentlemen. Check out their vehicles and pick the three with the most fuel. Those are the three we will leave with.”
“Yes, sir,” they replied.
“Give me a little time in here with Naomi, and I’ll be along soon. And, boys, don’t interrupt me unless it’s the friggin’ Lone Ranger and Tonto himself coming up the road. Clear?”
The men nodded and exited the building. Holloway walked into the young woman’s office to mark off the third thing on his wish list and studied her trembling body.
She was pregnant. Holloway closed his eyes and ran his left hand down his face from his forehead to his neck. He exhaled.
“Naomi, this is your lucky day,” he whispered as he turned around and walked out.
Chapter 27
January 4
The Mansion
Austin, Texas
President Burnett faced a dilemma—feed her soon-to-be-starving citizenry or violate all of her core principles by confiscating the food supplies and storage facilities of private companies. She had just received the report created by her Secretaries of Agriculture and Treasury. Working around the clock and using the best information available to them, they’d created a proposal that reached a startling conclusion.
If they acquired all of the beef cattle in Texas, slaughtered them and distributed them to each household, they’d feed the population for five and a half days.
The conclusion, while not surprising to the president, reminded her of the constant debate in favor of taxing the rich to eliminate America’s debt and reduce her deficits. If you confiscated all of the wealth of those who paid half of the country’s taxes, you’d still have a deficit.
The same applied to the livestock acquisitions. There simply wasn’t enough to go around, so the president began to look for other solutions.
Restaurants around the country were closing their doors, mostly due to lack of customers. Nobody could afford to eat out, as the American currency was worthless and the Texas Treasury Department was still experiencing growing pains in establishing a replacement currency based upon the gold standard. In addition, restaurants couldn’t serve a full menu.
A typical meal consisted of food delivered from various sources. Fresh vegetables were obtained from a local produce supplier. Dairy products came from regional companies who distributed milk, eggs, cheese, and butter. The rest of the ingredients for their dishes, from canned goods to frozen meats and seafood, came via large institutional jobbers who had large regional warehouses. Those warehouses were stocked by truck deliveries originating all over the U.S., which had come to a screeching halt on Black Friday.
With the restaurants closed, the large warehouses sat dormant and partially filled with canned goods and frozen foods. The large corporations that owned the facilities were located outside Texas and couldn’t be reached. The local warehouse managers didn’t have the authority to negotiate a sale to the state.
Desperate to supplement the livestock purchase plan, if approved, the president met with her attorney general to amend the martial law declaration yet again. She was going to confiscate the contents of the warehouses and relocate the products to cities where they could help the largest number of hungry Texans.
In exchange, the treasury would issue notes to the corporations to pay them for the foodstuffs at pre-collapse market prices. She planned on paying the ranchers the same way. Texas needed to maintain its gold reserves to support its new gold-backed currency. Unfortunately, that meant the country would go into debt to finance the survival of its citizens.
She could supplement the livestock acquisitions with the excess food supplies to buy Texas another couple of weeks of dredging operations to open up Galveston Bay to shipping. The midstream off-loading plan was still a couple of weeks away, and the dredging would take another month, she’d been advised.
She stood up from behind her desk and walked into the hallway outside her office. It was oddly quiet, as she was unable to find her secretary. President Burnett wanted to speak with her adjutant general to advise him of her decision and to get an up-to-date assessment on their border intrusions, which were on the rise.
She found her way to his office and was surprised to find several members of her staff crowded around a television monitor that was receiving live satellite feeds from CNN in London. The group, including Deur, were so consumed with the report they didn’t notice her presence.
“Texas is bigger than life in many respects, John.” The female reporter, dressed in khaki pants and a black winter jacket, was standing about one hundred feet from the checkpoint located to the west of Lubbock. To her right stood another reporter with a microphone, respectfully listening to the CNN reporter.
She continued. “The enormity of its area can only be equated to something we know. For those of us in the UK, let me try to give you some perspec
tive. To travel from El Paso in the west to near Beaumont in the east is nearly nine hundred miles. That’s roughly the same distance as it is from London to Edinburgh in Scotland and then back again.”
“That is a big territory,” added the announcer in London.
“John, Texans have bought into this and have always embraced it with their braggadocio that everything is bigger in Texas.”
She turned around and allowed the camera to pan the masses of people pressed against the fences, which was causing the ten-foot-high structures to give slightly.
She continued her reporting. “As the crowds seeking refuge continue to build along their border, more former United States military forces are being brought in to prevent a repeat of the debacle at the border north of Wichita Falls recently. I’m told there have been numerous occasions in which the military has fired warning shots and even rubber bullets at the desperate families trying to find a better life in Texas. I believe we have some footage to show our viewers.”
The screen cut away to video of the fences bowing in and the soldiers manning the security checkpoint firing over the refugees’ heads. When they failed to back off the fence, they were fired upon with rubber bullets, causing some to lose an eye or the fleshy part of their cheeks.
Defiantly, the crowd didn’t give up as they shouted, “You can’t kill us all! You can’t kill us all!”
The screen returned to the reporter, who looked back at the camera lens. “As you can see, John, the Texas government in Austin has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Those who don’t die of starvation or dehydration succumb to the elements as a massive cold front has descended upon the region, bringing bone-chilling temperatures. Back to you.”
The studio host quipped, “Something has to give in Texas. They simply cannot allow this madness to continue. Where is their heart? Have they lost their moral compass?”
President Burnett had had enough. “Turn that dang thing off! You hear me? Off! Now!”
The power button on the monitor was turned off, and the Mansion staff scurried out of Deur’s office. The president was livid.
