Blake looked at his wife, who was rubbing her swollen stomach. It wouldn’t be too awful long now. Spring was a while off, but it was marching their way quickly. They had been discussing names off and on all fall and were still at an impasse.
“When is the president looking for me to do this?” Blake asked the governor.
“Soon. He needs help in some Western states. He specifically mentioned California and Washington. Some parts of Washington still have a functioning grid, as does Canada. If the components can be built up and the Hoover Dam is repaired, we could really get a kick start on Silicon Valley and speed our recovery.”
Blake was torn. With Sandra being such a petite woman, Martha and the National Guard’s medical team had warned that there could be complications with the birth. The baby was growing fast, and if he/she stayed on course, it would be well over nine pounds or ten by their best guess, something that the elfin Sandra may have a hard time with. All the stress she was already under, not to mention the potential damage that happened when she’d been tranquilized by the special ops team that had attempted to kidnap her months ago… She was scared. Really and truly scared. Not for herself, but for her baby and the quiet man who she worried would have to take on raising Chris and the baby without her if the worst should happen.
“My wife’s pregnant, Franklin,” Blake said, wrapping his wife in a one-armed hug and pulling her close, “and I promised her I would be here when the baby is born. We’re hoping for a hassle-free delivery, but the way the baby is growing, it may have to be born by C-section early. I just don’t want to risk it.”
“I’m just the messenger, Blake,” Hines said. “I just wanted to tell you that I wouldn’t be having any part of whatever happens if you refuse. I’m sure the chief of staff or one of the president’s men will get in touch with you for the specifics. I wouldn’t uh… recommend shelling them like you jokingly told him the first time I talked to you.”
“Franklin. Governor,” Blake said taking a deep cleansing breath and then letting it out before hitting the PTT, “I like you. I think you’re a genuinely good man. You were handed a turd sandwich when they gave you the FEMA job, with little to no room to innovate. Despite that, you did the best you could, and you never abused your rank or privilege like so many others did in the vacuum of authority. Still, I think you were missing out on something important.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Hines asked.
“I wasn’t joking,” Blake said in a serious tone.
There was a long pause, nearly as pregnant as Sandra, who motioned for the handset.
“My wife wants a quick word,” Blake said and handed it over to her.
She pulled away and walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, one hand rubbing at her stomach again, either from the kicks, hunger, or aches. Blake didn’t know, but he watched her fondly, enjoying his wife’s glow.
“Do you know who’s been supplying us, Governor Hines?” Sandra asked, her voice and tone at odds with the deadly warrior that resided in her.
“Colonel Grady reinstated Joint Chief of Staff,” Hines said in a near whisper, his voice almost lost over the static of the transmission.
“Good, I wasn’t sure if that was known to you or not. Do you know why he was able to get us resupplied when the president was against doing so? You know how and why he changed the president’s mind?”
“No, ma’am,” Hines said, “but I’d surely like to know. All I’ve heard is rumors.”
“You do realize,” Sandra said sweetly, “that our organized militia and volunteer army has as many boots on the ground and nearly as much hardware as the federal government?”
“Sandra, that’s… please don’t tell them that,” Hines begged.
“Babe, don’t,” Blake said, pleading.
She turned to her husband, “You took the blame for the resistance of Davis and the shelling when it plainly wasn’t your fault. You reacted to a bad situation and, in most cases, it was me literally and figuratively who pulled the trigger. That was survival. So is this. I need you. The baby and Chris need you.”
“I need you too,” Blake said, getting choked up. “But we know the ego of this president. He might see this as an act of war. Civil war. Treason.”
“Do you know much about the Revolutionary War?” Sandra asked.
“Just what we were taught in school. Paul Revere, the Boston Tea Party, all kinds of things. Why?”
“It took three percent of the initial population of the New World to overthrow the reign of the Monarchy and its hold on America. Is this our three percent moment? Am I being selfish?”
“No, I don’t think you are,” Blake said, “but maybe I can resolve this another way and still be here.”
“Blake? Sandra?” Hines' voice came out of the bulky handset.
“Sandra here, discussing it with my husband.”
“What, civil war? That’s what you were inferring, wasn’t it?” Governor Hines asked.
“If needed,” she said. “You should suggest they read up on some Jefferson quotes. I know we’re under Martial Law, but there’s also God’s law. Blake wants to help, but he has a different idea that may work for all of you.”
“I told them he had offered to talk to the other governors and FEMA directors by radio. I don’t know why they don’t think he can’t be as persuasive over the radio as he is in real life.”
“It’s about control,” Blake told his wife, who hadn’t responded yet. “If they turn this down, then we know. It’s about control and who’s running the show up top.”
“If you want to pass along to Patrick or whoever,” Sandra said, “Blake said he’ll work with them over the radio, but we need him here at the Homestead, and he’s had all his kidneys can take of helicopter rides from here on out. Plus, it is not safe to travel with the New Caliphate bisecting the country and taking over air force bases.”
“It may not even be safe to travel that way anymore,” Hines said, telling Sandra what she already knew, “and you know what’s going on with the DHS, I assume?”
“Probably more so than you do, and remember… even though we’re on scramble, we’re not private. There might be ears out there, so best you don’t even breathe a word more of that.”
“I know, but how many of them are there, and how large are their forces? We’re already looking at war on two fronts; the invasion forces and the criminals and lawless. Throw in factions of the government and if your…” his words trailed off.
“Don’t say it,” Sandra warned. “Nothing good can come of that if you do,” she admonished.
Blake motioned for the handset, and she handed it back.
“Hines, it’s me again. Listen, if those are two states that they want me to work with, why don’t I get started behind the scenes on scramble. Give my radio people the frequencies and codes, and I’ll get in touch with them right away. Let’s get ahead of this thing, because the last thing we need is our country to fracture and break apart even more so than it already is.”
“I can do that,” he said after a pause.
“I’d appreciate it. And Governor Hines, how’s Miss Pamela doing?”
The change in subject was deliberate, but after the incidents in the DUMB where the former aid to Davis had been attacked, she’d become the governor’s go-to person, helping him ease into the transition. She had all but done Davis’s job, and hadn’t realized it until she had a new governor who didn’t have an idea how to govern… Blake thought Davis had daughters but wasn’t sure if there was still a wife or not. He’d seen the way Pamela and Hines had danced at the Homestead what felt like years ago.
“She’s doing well. I think she’s going to stab me in the spleen if I don’t get off here soon. She says you and I are only making things worse at this point. I think she might have a point here.”
“She’s probably right. You know what they say, though: Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes— Ouch!” Blake cut off, rubbing the back of his head and turning to see
a mischievous grin on Sandra’s face.
A chuckle came out of the radio, “You’re braver than I am. I’ve only heard of what your wife is capable of… Uhhh… yeah… sure, hun. Listen, I have to go. Boss says… Uh huh… Okay. Hines out.”
“Blake and Sandra out,” Blake said and tossed the handset onto the middle of his bed and flopped onto it crossways on his back.
Sandra was more delicate about it and laid down, her head resting on his shoulder, her body curling into her husband’s as much as the baby bump would let her.
“It won’t come to a civil war,” Sandra assured him.
Blake hoped she was right. The fighting hadn’t made it to them yet, but it was only a matter of time, and he didn’t want to worry about having the federal government and the Jihadis coming at him.
“What about the reported groups of cannibals?” Blake asked after a moment.
“One of them started off as a cult,” she said, one finger trailing his chest. “The others probably turned to it out of desperation. They force people to eat the dead. Sometimes they torture them into doing it. Deprive them of food and water. They usually break them. Once turned, they are part of the gang. If they don’t turn, well… they become dinner.”
“So it’s like the Caliphate’s mandate? Convert or die?”
“Yes,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
“Do we have a plan in place for these people? These cannibals?”
Blake shuddered, his mind going back in time when he and Weston had met Patty and Neil, and the circumstances of Neil and Weston’s death. That had been a crazed cannibal there. Whether insane by defect, mental illness, or some sort of prion disease that becomes common in cannibals, it was an evil so pure it made Blake hope they had a plan in place, or he might never sleep well at night.
“Good,” he said, his breath catching as the fingernail kept turning circles on his chest.
6
Sgt. Smith’s reinforced company and John’s group both made it to the rally point at the same time. They had the coordinates and had already exchanged radio greetings and were overlooking a soybean field where a giant of a man was muscling crates off of stacks of pallets. A Russian APC had dug deeply into the soil, churning up plants with the heavy tread of its tires to make it to where it was. The back hatch was open, and a young man was unloading what looked like shell canisters into the war machine.
“That’s him,” John said to Caitlin. “Let’s go.” He put down the binoculars.
“Want us to just drive up there?” Stu asked, driving Caitlin’s lead truck of her mortar teams.
“Let’s double up on the little trucks and get the big Deuce and a Half down there to get containers loaded,” John said, holding down the button on his radio so it was broadcast to their entire group.
“Same. Jennings, have the men set up a perimeter while we load up and get ready for a fast exfil,” Smith said over the radio.
“Get down here and help me load this stuff,” King complained, making his Alabama accent thicker than normal.
John hit Stuart’s shoulder and motioned, and the young soldier took off, almost tossing men and women out of the bed as he bounced through the ditch and onto the mostly flat field, full of soybeans. John hadn’t seen Michael in months and wanted to see with his own eyes how he was doing. His own son had finally made contact via radio and was fine. That had lessened the pain considerably, but he still felt like a second father to the neighbor kid who had befriended his son all those years ago.
King stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow. He’d already sorted what they were going to be taking in the APC, but he had been curious about the two pallets that Smith’s group were getting. In theory, there was enough ammunition, grenades, and M4s to arm a rather large force, but many of them already had weapons. Some of this was overkill, and then there were the pallets Smith had told him about.
A towable missile battery, ordinance, and some old Stingers. What would an artillery company need with those? Had the Jihadis somehow gotten an air force, or were they worried about the DHS? To King’s knowledge, they didn’t have aircraft of their own, except for some civilian grade Helos.
“Michael?” John asked, bouncing out of the back door of the crew cab Ford they’d been riding in.
Michael paused in reloading the shelves that held the turrets’ ammunition and came out with a grin bright enough to light the sky. He strode forward, bare-chested with both handguns still worn low slung on his hips. They embraced hard, and Caitlin made a sound of appreciation. Tex stumbled out of the truck in John’s wake as Caitlin and Stu exited the front seats.
“Look at them man-boys,” Caitlin said with a sardonic grin.
“Look but no touchy,” Tex said with a slur.
“Don’t get jealous now,” King said. “If ya want, I’m sure somebody will be happy to grab your butt next.”
A look of horror crossed Tex’s face, and he started to back up until his feet tangled and he tripped over backward into the soybean on his tush. He let out a loud groan and then tried scrambling to his feet. He went up and down and finally grabbed the bed of the truck and made it to his feet.
“You okay, son?” King asked, confused.
“He caught shrapnel to his glutes,” Stu said, watching as John and Michael broke the fierce hug. “John shot him up full of morphine. Guess Tex thought it was worse than it was or John wanted him to quit crying about how bad his butt was bleeding.”
“Anybody else hurt?” King asked.
“Naw, sugar,” Caitlin said, “not like that. The rest was cuts ‘n’ bruises. Don’t tell Tex, but they pulled a shard out of him this big,” she said holding her fingers apart a few inches. “He’s been pretending to be the black knight all the way here since. It was cute the first hundred miles,” she said with a sniff.
“I’m okay,” Tex said with a grin and walked up to the big man. “Good to see you again, King. Sorry, I have no tolerance to morphine, so it makes me loopy.”
“Loopier than normal,” Stu said.
“Hey now, watch it. Y’all don’t want to get on his bad side,” he said, pointing to King.
“Loopy,” King agreed with a grin.
They exchanged handshakes and saw as Smith started organizing his men to start loading up the crates King had been inspecting. After a few moments of directing them, he walked over and introduced himself to the group.
“You’re what, company strength?” King asked.
“Just about. Most of us were National Guard, but we’ve been reinforced with Silverman’s group for this mission.”
“When you said you had some stuff earmarked for you, I was expecting artillery rounds. Something special. What’s up with the anti-aircraft ordinance?” King asked.
“I was wondering that myself,” Michael added.
John looked up sharply. “We weren’t told about any air capability,” he said, “has something changed?”
Smith shook his head and motioned for everyone to come in a little closer. “No, those two pallets are heading back to the Homestead. We’ve been waiting on a bigger resupply to get this equipment dropped to us.”
“You want anti-aircraft batteries and a radar installation at the Homestead?”
“Yes,” Smith said. “Ever since Boss Hogg sent the Apaches and caught us flat-footed. Also, that’s what the Stingers are for. Apaches can light up the radar from afar if we leave it on, but the Stinger is a fire and forget. A few pieces will be doled out as needed, but we’re hoping you folks have the goods on this DHS installation and we can get a massive resupply from there.”
“You mean Sandra’s man at the White House doesn’t know what’s inside there?” Michael asked.
“No, he doesn’t. For whatever reason, the DHS was running and operated like a separate branch of the military, one that existed on American soil. It had very little oversight and a blank checkbook for years after 9/11. We do, however, know about the facility they are in and have blueprints.”
Smith dro
pped the pack he had on and dug through for a minute then pulled out a set of prints that had been rolled and folded to fit. It consisted of dozens of pages and was quite thick. He handed it to King who unfolded it and rolled it out, looking at the top sheet thoughtfully.
“That door is just about nuke proof,” King said, “but we think we have ourselves a way in.”
“Oh yeah?” John asked, “How’s that?”
“With these,” Michael said opening the crate he’d left outside the APC and opening it.
Black DHS uniforms, full.
“Is there enough for a full squad?” Smith asked.
“Yeah, but do we have enough operators on the level to fill a whole squad for a mission like that?”
Smith looked around and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if my men are. Most of us are volunteers or were until the SHTF,” he said spelling out the letters, “besides, somebody’s gotta man the big guns.”
Michael looked pointedly at the line of trucks and towed artillery that had stopped half a mile back.
“I guess yours is bigger than mine,” he told him with a grin.
“Don’t you tell him that,” Caitlin piped up. “He’ll get a big ole head. Besides, I think we can handle the special ops stuff if Michael and King can fill us in on what they’ve been watching.”
“Nuh uh,” Michael said, “we’re going in too.”
John made a rude sound and looked away and then back at the kid. He now knew who King really was. When he’d been breaking him out of the FEMA/Jail camp, he’d had no idea that the giant of a man had been a special ops trainer, but Sandra had let him in on that fact and reminded him he’d probably run into him a time or four himself back in the day. Now, he’d been training Michael for months on end. The skinny kid who’d walked out of the Talladega National Forest with two little ones in tow was now a young man. Lines were carved into his face, hard lines from doing things no kid should have to do. Then again, he wasn’t a kid any more and had turned into a very capable operator, or at least that’s what John had heard.
The World Counters: A Post-Apocalyptic Story (The World Burns Book 10) Page 3
