Cut Off (Book 2): Cut Throat

by Dalton, Charlie

  “Dad stored plenty of it at the lodge,” Katie said.

  “A long way to go for salty bacon.”

  “There’s a lot more than bacon up there. That’s where we’re planning on heading once we’re fully rested. The lodge.”

  Bill pursed his lips and turned back to the frying pan. “Your father’s lodge is up near Nottingham. How do you plan on getting up there in this day and age?”

  “We’ve got a working car parked outside,” Katie said. “We can be home within a few hours, assuming we don’t run into any problems.”

  “And you will run into problems,” Aaron said. “This is you we’re talking about.”

  His smile was kind, and Katie reflected her own back at him.

  Bill turned a pair of eggs over. “I’m not sure you should head up there.”

  “We have to. It’s where Mum will go. She’d expect us to go there.”

  “She’d expect you to go to the nearest safest place. And that’s right here.”

  The others moved their eyes, watching the argument volley from one participant to the other like a tennis match.

  “She wouldn’t expect us to stay here,” Katie said. “She’ll go to the lodge first, and when she finds we’re not there, she’ll wait for us.”

  “And what happens when you don’t turn up?”

  The sausages spat.

  “Then she’ll come here,” Katie said.

  “So, you’ll be heading up there, and she’ll be coming down here at the same time. You’ll end up crossing paths. You might as well wave goodbye as you pass.”

  Katie gritted her teeth. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

  “We’ll send her a message. Your father installed a radio there. While she’s waiting, you can guarantee she’ll be listening out for any news about you. Then she’ll send a message back and we can decide what to do from there. Either she’ll come down here to be with you or you’ll go up there to meet her. I know what I’d put my money on.”

  So would Katie. There was no way their mother was going to take a risk with their lives, not when she could put her own at risk instead.

  “You installed a ham radio?” Katie said.

  “I don’t need to. I have a friend just down the road who happens to be one of the most well-connected ham operators in the country. We’ll get him to pass along a message to your mother letting her know you’re all right and you’re here with me.”

  Katie snorted. “I thought you wanted her to know we’re all right?”

  Bill chuckled. “We might have our differences, but we’re still family. That has to mean something. Otherwise, I’d have kicked you out of here when you first arrived.”

  He turned the gas off.

  “Sausage?”

  6

  Laurie packed his things and headed to transport. The majority of their vehicles weren’t working but someone had found a stockpile of parts and were busy fixing them to the broken machines. As he approached the depo, he overheard a conversation.

  “You can get these hunks of junk to work?” an American soldier said, kicking the tyre of a nearby truck.

  “Should do,” the British mechanic said. “Only trouble is, you’re not going to get to listen to your forgettable country twang music. We don’t have any backup replacement parts for it.”

  “I’ll have you know, country and western music is the greatest gift God’s ever given us.”

  “I weep for the species.”

  “You’ll be weeping around my fist if you carry on messing with my favourite artists.”

  The mechanic reached into his pocket. “Do you have any spare change on you?”

  The American soldier sniffed. “I wouldn’t give it to you even if I did.”

  “That’s a shame. I was looking for a little johnny cash for when I see the girlfriend later.”

  The American soldier pressed his lips together to keep from laughing out loud. The mechanic grinned at him.

  “Put your crooked teeth away,” the American said. “No one wants to see those. Hundreds of years of dentistry and you still can’t get straight teeth in this country.”

  “It’s not what it looks like, buddy. It’s how you use it that counts. That’s what your sister told me.”

  Laurie shook his head at the friendly banter. As long as he’d been in the military, there was always a friendly boisterousness between the world’s two greatest allies. The Brits loved needling the Americans as much as the Americans loved insulting the Brits. In the field of war, it made no difference. One would gladly lay down their life to protect the other.

  God knew they needed to work together with the power cut. Old allegiances would be tested to breaking point before long.

  “Lieutenant Mansfield,” Laurie said to a man armed with a clipboard and earmuffs.

  “Say what?” Earmuffs said, not even considering removing his protective earwear.

  “Lieutenant Mansfield,” he repeated. “I’m supposed to join Captain Burgess’s team today.”

  “Bay three.”

  Earmuffs waved at a Utility Terrain Vehicle, or UTV, apparently parked in the wrong bay and berated the driver to move on.

  Charming fellow.

  Laurie approached bay three and found a similar small truck with tracks instead of wheels. With all the other vehicles failing to start, the military had to piece together an armada of vehicles from all over the shop.

  Laurie approached the driver’s side door and leaned in. “Are you heading to Burgess’s team?”

  “We are. Hop in.”

  Laurie tossed his bag on the back of the truck. Before he could get a grip on the poles meant to keep the riders in, a man extended a hand to help him on board. Laurie took it and sat on the wooden bench.

  The man who helped him up wore a trimmed goatee beard so black it must have been dyed regularly. The man slapped the top of the cab and bellowed: “All aboard!”

  The driver waved a hand out of his window and started up the engine. It felt good to have something modern rumbling underneath him. It reminded Laurie that not all was lost. There was still a future out there if they worked hard for it. But it wasn’t going to last if they didn’t stop these terrorists from taking the supplies they needed to build that future.

  The man with the black goatee extended a hand to Laurie. “Second Lieutenant Finnegan, sir. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Lieutenant Laurie Mansfield.”

  “I’ve heard a great deal about you, sir.”

  “Don’t worry, it can’t all be true.”

  Finnegan frowned. “What can’t be?”

  Oh great. Now I have to explain a joke. “The things you heard about me. They’re not all true.”

  Finnegan glanced at the other two men, a questioning look on his face as if to say, “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  The men smirked and looked away.

  “What I mean to say is, I assume the rumours you heard were all negative–” Laurie looked from the kind smile on Finnegan’s face to the eye rolls of the other two men. He put two and two together. “You already knew what I meant.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” Finnegan said. “It’s a trick I play on all recruits.”

  “I’m not a recruit.”

  “You are to our company. I can’t think the last time we had a recruit join us.”

  “Do you know what we’re up against?”

  “Locating and taking down terrorists. Who’d have thought we’d be spending our time defending ourselves against homegrown terrorists? It defies all expectation.”

  Laurie was beginning to get a handle on Finnegan’s sense of humour. Dry, cutting, and sarcastic to the extreme. The truth was, they’d been dealing with domestic terrorists since forever. Even with the power out, they were dealing with the same type of people they’d been dealing with their entire history.

  “At least these guys don’t wear suicide vests,” Laurie said.

  “After the shit they pulled, taking
down a couple of supply depots, I’m not sure they aren’t.”

  Laurie nodded. He wasn’t wrong. Stealing the people’s food supply was just about the most cowardly thing he could think of.

  At first, Laurie couldn’t identify where the supplies were being stored. He expected a large warehouse, like something from the final scene of the first Indiana Jones film. The biggest room in the world housing the nation’s most important treasures. Enough food, water, and medicine to keep a nation on life support.

  But where was it?

  It was only when a truck shifted to one side that he spotted it.

  A single metal doorway plugged directly into a large hill. He had no idea how big the room was, whether it came first or the hill did, but he was impressed by how clever the government had been in squirrelling the supplies away to ensure no one ever found it.

  But they had.

  How on Earth did the terrorists manage to get inside?

  The first solution flashed in front of his mind instantly. He dismissed it immediately and shook his head.

  There can’t be an insider working for them.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t think there could be one. It was that he, like the rest of his brothers and sisters in arms, disliked thinking that way about any of their personnel.

  But they couldn’t afford to be that naïve. He’d have to investigate every potential avenue, no matter where it led.

  He hopped off the truck and approached the doorway carved into the hillside. Finnegan trotted after him.

  “I’m supposed to take you to the captain,” he said, carrying both their bags.

  “I need to check on something first.”

  Laurie felt drawn to the site. That was how his instincts worked. He listened to what his senses told him and he responded. He wandered around, not knowing where he was going until he came to a stop and discovered the reason for his seemingly mindless wandering.

  At his feet, multiple sets of tyre tracks woven together like an intricate braid. The UTVs they used in the military formed tracks completely different from the ones he was looking at now. The UTVs had wide metal tracks like a tank. These had tread, like regular cars, but were thick and close together. They were deep and carved into the damp ground with ease.

  “They were fully loaded,” Laurie said.

  “What were?” Finnegan said.

  “The vehicles they used to carry the supplies away. What kind of tracks do these look like to you?”

  Finnegan considered them for a moment. “I don’t know. Quad bikes, maybe?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  The tracks wound off toward the horizon.

  “Do we have any quad bikes in the area?” Laurie said.

  “We?”

  “The military.”

  “I don’t think so. I can check.”

  Laurie stood up and approached the doorway, now shut tight.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you in,” the soldier on duty said.

  “This is Captain Burgess’s lieutenant,” Finnegan said. “If he wants to go inside–”

  “I have instructions not to let anyone in, sir.”

  “That’s all right,” Laurie said. “That’s not what I came to look at anyway.”

  He approached the door and ran his hands over the metal. It was cold to the touch. But there, on the side, black scorch marks.

  “From explosions?” Finnegan said.

  “Yes. These guys, whoever they were, knew what they were doing. They knew exactly where and how to hit us.”

  “You think they’ve done this kind of thing before?”

  “I’d put money on it.”

  But the military was onto them now. No more easy rides, fellas.

  7

  Katie suggested they take the Aston Martin they lifted from the slave labour camp to the ham operator but Bill pointed out the ham operator lived in a house just ten minutes away by foot. It was just as well. Katie didn’t want to take the risk of losing the car. She still had half a mind to sneak out one night and make a try for their lodge.

  Not all of them were heading over to the ham operator. Camden helpfully volunteered to stay behind to keep an eye on the girls who remained in their room. And then Darryl suggested he would stay behind too – to keep his BFF company.

  Katie pointed out it would likely do them some good to go outside and get some fresh air. Her grandfather surprised her by saying in his usual gruff tone: “After what that girl has been through, she can take as much time as she needs to recover.”

  She was as surprised by what he said as how he chose to say it. Almost like a man who cared about what happened to Jodie.

  Katie couldn’t recall a time when he ever showed the same care and affection for his own son, never mind his grandchildren.

  He didn’t even go to his own son’s funeral. Katie looked for him at the graveside but found he wasn’t there. She gritted her teeth at the memory.

  Had something changed about the old man? Had the EMP frazzled his brains? She wasn’t sure she trusted this old man he’d become. Stick to what you know, her father always said. The surprises will come from the things new to you.

  Bill plucked a fat blade of grass from the side of the road and pressed it between his thumbs. He blew at the single blade of grass so it made a honking noise.

  Ella frowned and peered closely at Bill’s hands when he opened them for her to see it was only a piece of grass.

  “Get your own and I’ll show you how to do it,” Bill said.

  “You look distracted.”

  The voice in her ear took her by surprise.

  “Sorry,” Aaron said. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

  Katie picked up the pace. “Sure. Like you didn’t mean to sneak up on me this morning either.”

  “I didn’t sneak up on anyone. You came out with your underwear on and, well, a man doesn’t get to see many eighteen-year-old girls that way.”

  Katie sniffed. “Glad I could be of assistance.”

  “You look very different from the grumpy teenager focused on her smartphone game. You came to visit Old Bill, although why you bothered when you kept your nose in your phone the whole time, don’t ask me.”

  “I was talking with my friends.”

  “You were typing with your friends. There is a difference.”

  Why did he get under her skin so easily? Was it a special skill he practised?

  “I wasn’t grumpy, is what I’m trying to say.”

  Aaron smirked. “Right. I bet you never lose your temper.”

  Katie screwed up her face and pressed her lips together. If she wasn’t careful she was going to explode and prove his point, and that was the very last thing she wanted to do. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said calmly.

  “I look at you, and do you know what I see?”

  “I don’t pretend to know what goes through men’s minds when they look at me.”

  “I see Bill. And his temper. In a younger, more attractive female form.”

  Okay, now that really pissed her off. Saying she was grumpy all the time when she was young was one thing – which teenager isn’t grumpy all the time? – but saying she reminded him of her grandfather was swinging below the belt.

  Katie clenched her hands into fists at her side.

  Aaron eyed them with a smirk on his face. “What, are you going to sock me in the face now?”

  “If I feel like it. Yes.”

  “With those little fists? It’d feel like a gnat bite.”

  “I knocked a girl out in year nine. She was two years older than me.”

  Aaron counted on his fingers. “Girl. Year nine. That’s all I needed to know.”

  “Katie, Katie!” Ella came running over.

  “Catch you later.” Aaron turned on his heel and approached her grandfather.

  “Look what I can do!” Ella puffed between her fingers and largely failed at making the honking noise.

  Katie’s heart pounded in
her chest and she glared at Aaron, now sharing a joke with Bill.

  How on Earth did someone like him become friends with her grandfather? It defied all logic.

  And then she witnessed the most incredible thing she’d seen her entire life. Okay, so maybe it was only in regards to her grandfather, but considering what he was like, it was still a big deal.

  He actually smiled.

  Right there, on his browbeaten face. His lips curled up at the corners and his eyes twinkled – her grandfather!

  Eyes. Twinkling!

  It defied all logic.

  She’d never seen a smile on his face before, and judging by the general weakness of it, the smile wasn’t used to exposing itself in public view either.

  Katie shook her head. Would wonders never cease?

  She drew to a stop when she noticed the others had stopped at a tall hedge. What was going on now? Had they become devout horticulturalists?

  “Hey,” Katie said. “What’s the holdup?”

  Neither man responded. They remained focused on that tall, square block of a plant. As her grandfather walked up to it, she thought he was going to stop and take a leak. It wouldn’t have surprised her.

  But then, he did a very strange thing.

  “Open up,” he said. Bill rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Beatrix Potter. Who do you think?”

  Katie shared a look with Aaron. She exuded concern, he exuded calm.

  What in God’s name is going on here?

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Katie said. “My grandfather’s finally gone senile and lost his mind.”

  Aaron chuckled. “It does look that way, doesn’t it? He’s not senile. He just can’t remember the password.”

  “Password?”

  It was only then that she noticed the hedge was unnaturally angular for what she took for a wild bush.

  “The ham operator lives behind this thing?” Katie said.

  “He does.”

  “Grandfather’s the worst person to tell a password to. He forgets his own birthday most of the time.”

  “Tell me about it. But I know the password.”

  “Then why don’t you tell him?”