“What am I supposed to do when you don’t come back?”
“If you don’t have faith, you’ve got my money and gun. I’ll be back.”
“I don’t mean you won’t try. What if they hold you for some reason, send you to a camp.”
Ray didn’t have an answer that would satisfy her. “I don’t see the need to risk both of us getting caught.”
“If we’re going to end up in a camp, I’d rather not be there alone. There’s safety in numbers, someone said.”
“Two’s not much of a number.”
“It trumps one,” Cheryl said.
They donned the wet suits and headed for Charleston.
* * *
The checkpoint was still there, where US 60 intersected the Turnpike south of Charleston. Ray took his place in line, held ten miles an hour for half a mile. The divide appeared and the men in hazard suits. They rode past a set of green lights and a man waved them left, through a series of turns where exits had been blocked and traffic funneled onto 60. Men with binoculars and rifles stood on the overpass and watched.
The road opened and they were through—Ray relieved at the easy passage. Cheryl hugged him as he got the bike to speed, followed the river downtown, then joined I-64 west. Their rain suits grew thick and brown with splattered salt and grit. Ray wiped at his face shield with a gloved hand. By Huntington, the road was only wet. Ray stopped at a convenience store where they drank coffee and paper-toweled their suits.
Ray studied the map. It was after eleven, and they were only sixty miles west of where they’d woken that morning. The rest would be quicker. Interstate all the way to Knoxville, and hopefully, they were through with the snow.
“We should be in Tennessee by dark,” he said.
“Another night camping?”
“’Fraid so. Not good to arrive at night, unannounced, not anymore.”
“I hope that’s just your paranoia.”
“For the time being, we should operate as though everyone’s a bit on edge.”
They gassed up and headed west. Ten miles on, they crossed the Big Sandy into Kentucky, and saw the sign: Checkpoint ahead. Use single line. Maintain 50 Foot intervals between vehicles. Cheryl yelled in his ear and pointed. It was too late to turn. He saw the spotters on the hill beside the road.
There were three more signs before the Jersey barriers forced a single lane. Ray held his position. The right lane zigged into the left and zagged back, forcing speeds to a crawl. Ahead, several sets of green, pole lights stood on both sides of the barriers. He did the zigzag again. A pair of lights swirled red as the vehicle ahead passed between them. A portable traffic light turned red and Ray stopped. The lights reset to green. Flashing amber signs repeated the instructions to maintain separation. He coasted between the green lights, holding his breath.
The hatchback ahead reached the diversion and was directed right, off the road, by a man in protective gear. Six soldiers, M16s at the ready, stood twenty feet either side of him. Far to the right, Ray spotted more soldiers around the edge of a huge dug hole—several vehicles sitting on the bottom. The hatchback seemed destined to join them.
Ray glanced in the mirror. The lights stayed green. At the chute, the man pointed a single finger to the left. Ray held a steady fifteen for three quarters of a mile. The concrete barriers ended and he opened the throttle.
* * *
Ray and Cheryl rolled through Kentucky. The sun was high and the temperature climbed to the fifties. Balmy compared to New York, but still cool at seventy on the bike. Traffic on the interstate seemed light, though Ray had no idea of normal. He had never been to the state.
In Lexington, they bought gas and encountered the first store with substantial food on the shelves—not full, but not ravaged, either. Ray suspected few eastern travelers had gotten that far. He thought initially, that was a good thing.
They crossed into Tennessee with the sun dipping to touch the western hills. Enough daylight to reach Knoxville but not Townsend. Ray liked the idea of entering the smoky mountains, but not selecting and setting up camp in the dark. Too easy to get it wrong. He left I-75 south of Caryville and worked his way into the hills on fire roads. He pulled off into a heavy forest and surveyed the setting on foot. Cheryl had the tent up under a protective evergreen when he returned from the walk.
Chapter 21
Karla checked her e-mail from the computer at work. Brad Tillson had actually sent the name of the event Roger had attended in Boulder: The Rocky Mountain Commercial Real Estate Conference. That was all he sent. No address or phone number or contact information.
No matter. She typed the name into Google and quickly found what she needed. She looked around for Michael and opened her phone. She pressed two numbers and closed it again. There were only two people in the office. Her voice would carry through the empty space. She needed to wait for Michael to leave for lunch.
She toured the production area, dealt with a couple small problems and returned to her desk. She had little to do and went to the internet news. The governor of Texas had ordered the National Guard to detach from the US Army. There was talk of secession in the Texas legislature.
Dolores Hart announced the US Treasury had reached an agreement with Bank of America, acting as lead for an international syndicate, to extend the government a fifty billion dollar line of credit and act as a depository for incoming receipts. The US government would meet its payroll, she said, but both federal pension and social security checks would be reduced temporarily. The deadline for tax filing was delayed until June. No refunds would be issued, only credits on next year’s taxes.
Karla didn’t think fifty billion would last the government long. She Googled US government employment: two million before the attacks, not counting the military. Payroll alone had to be twenty billion a month. Dolores was in real trouble whether she knew it or not.
Karla moved on. In US news: Sporadic instances of violence were reported in the east. No casualty figures were offered. Authorities now estimated six million people living in government camps. No information was available on how many of those were sick.
Overseas: Bloggers reported mass destruction in major cities throughout south and east Asia. British experts predicted the death toll in all Asia would surpass two hundred fifty million. In separate stories, a nuclear device detonated in Ankara, Turkey and unnamed biological agents had been detected in Israel and Chechnya.
Karla stopped reading. It was too much. And it didn’t help her find Jessie.
She walked to her truck at lunch and called the contact number she had gotten for the real estate conference. The woman who answered would not give out a list of attendees to previous conferences, though she would sell one to a bona fide sponsor.
Karla called the Linn County Sheriff’s Department and the Marion police. Still nothing new. She didn’t believe either was really looking.
Chapter 22
Ray and Cheryl stopped at thrift stores in Knoxville. They bought jeans and leather jackets, his with a flap side pocket large enough to hold the Beretta. They bundled away their winter gear and rode south. Downtown, Cheryl tapped Ray, pointed excitedly at a building and yelled for him to stop.
He did and she jumped off the bike. “That’s my bank!” She hopped onto the sidewalk, staring at the Bank of America branch. “They’re open. I can get money.”
“Careful. We’re not supposed to be here,” Ray said.
“It’s my bank and my money. They have to give it to me.”
“If you show them your New York ID, they may turn you in.”
“How else do I prove who I am?”
“You’ve got a point. I think I should go with you, just in case.”
“You can’t bring a gun into a bank. Do you want to leave it on the bike?”
He didn’t. “I’ll swing around in front. If there’s trouble, run.”
“You worry too much.”
Cheryl crossed to the bank an
d went inside. Ray waited at the bottom of the steps with the engine idling. Cheryl walked out fifteen minutes later with a smile. “I can only get two hundred a day, but they were very nice about it.”
Ray didn’t ask how much was in the account, but even two hundred would buy food for a couple weeks.
* * *
Ray stopped in front of the address he had for his friend outside Townsend, Tennessee. The dwelling was a custom built ranch style log home, set back from the road. It was a quarter mile from its nearest neighbor and situated at the edge of the Smoky Mountain National Park.
Three vehicles sat in the graveled driveway, and a big man lounged on the porch with a rifle in his lap. Ray idled up the drive and shut off the engine. The man on the porch came to his feet. He leaned against a rough cut column and casually rested the rifle on the porch railing—up and ready but not aimed at them.
Cheryl climbed off the bike, removed her helmet, and shook out her hair. Ray took off his helmet before slowly swinging his leg over to stand beside her.
“Whatcha want?” the man on the porch called down.
“I’m looking for Jason Moore. Is he home?”
“C’mon up the walk, side by side.”
They did as he requested, stopping where he said.
“You got a gun?”
Ray smiled. “Hell yes. Do I look like an idiot?”
“Have the little lady put it careful like on the step.”
Ray shrugged and Cheryl picked the Beretta from his jacket pocket. She held it by the barrel and placed it on the step.
The rifle man backed toward the front door. “Jason. Fella out here says he’s wants to see you.”
A tall lean man in jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt stepped through the door. He had close cropped hair and carried a large handgun by his side. He glanced at Ray, then Cheryl, broke into a smile and tucked the gun in his belt.
“Hey buddy. Wondered if you’d made it out.”
“Kinda close,” Ray said.
“The man laughed. “I’ll bet.” He glanced at the Honda. “Long ride on a small bike.”
“Turned out to be pretty nimble.”
The man turned to Cheryl. “Stylish accessories, too. You gonna introduce me, or are you plannin’ to keep her all to yourself?”
“Cheryl Benedict. Meet our host, Jason Moore.”
“Let’s go on in. Still a little cool out.”
Ray pointed to the gun on the step. Jason smiled agreeably and nodded toward the door. Ray returned the pistol to his pocket and they followed Jason inside.
Chapter 23
“We’re shutting down for a month,” Michael Krager said. “Your check includes any unused vacation.”
Karla had been expecting the layoff. There were no orders. The backlog had drastically shrunk. The government was handing out IOUs.
“Any chance we’ll start back this year?”
Michael shook his head. “Europe’s still flying, Africa, and South America. Won’t sell ten planes in the US this year. Airlines have enough grounded to last a decade.”
They shook hands and wished each other luck. Karla cleaned out her desk. Boeing’s plant in Everett, Washington had been destroyed. The Renton plant and the South Carolina facility were closed. Just like that, the US commercial plane business was gone. Some segments of Karla’s company might limp along, but she saw little chance she’d ever return. Not since the second round of attacks.
She drove home past an expanding base of shuttered businesses. She could still buy limited quantities of gas and food, but few people were on the road. She passed Lindale Mall—the parking lot nearly empty; more than half the stores closed. People who had money bought basics and little else. She felt lucky. She had money in the bank and had been steadily withdrawing cash to the available limits.
Past the mall, Karla turned onto 7th. A group of twenty mostly young men milled at the edge of the road near the Kirkwood Community College building. She swung wide around them. Several followed her progress. Even if it was a place kids belonged, it was no longer safe to assume anything. She carried a gun in her purse and kept two more in the truck. She avoided going into the city at night.
She cruised through Marion, went north on 10th to Central. It was not the fastest way home. She drove different routes to keep an eye out for changes. She lived in the county, nearer to Alburnett than Cedar Rapids. Trouble from the city would take longer to get to her. She pulled into her graveled driveway and stopped at the recently installed gate.
The gate was meant to keep out vehicles. It could be easily climbed, as could the ancient four foot wire and post fence around her sixty acres. Still, she felt better for them. She thought the gate sent a message of someone prepared to defend their property. It at least put a small barrier between her and the outside world, as she slept alone at night on her farm.
She locked the gate after she’d driven through and parked the truck in the garage. She undid the double dead bolts and entered the kitchen. She dropped her purse on the table, but held on to a pistol as she walked the house. The downstairs windows were protected now by triple steel bars. She hadn’t yet completed the upstairs. The front and back doors were also barred. Only the door from the garage would actually open with the bars in place, and it was protected by a high security outer door.
Karla didn’t think she needed this level of protection, yet. She prided herself on staying ahead of the curve. But if she waited too long, she wouldn’t be able to get the work done or she’d come home to find the house trashed. She thought the bars looked silly in the farmhouse, still, better safe than sorry.
She changed from her work clothes and returned to the kitchen. From a gun safe in a locked closet, she withdrew an AR-15 rifle. She leaned it in the doorway, picked up the phone, and called the police and the sheriff’s office—always the same story.
She poured a bowl of cold cereal and turned on the news. Since the second attack, two weeks ago, she checked the internet every hour and watched the news every night—local and national. She figured the country wouldn’t survive another attack and she wanted to prepare.
From the local news:
Six killings in Cedar Rapids, one in Marion, a dozen more across the viewing area. The Highway Patrol and National Guard were supplementing police in Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and the Iowa portion of the quad cities.
The University of Iowa had closed for the semester. The school was providing assistance for out of state and foreign students.
Estimates by the state put unemployment in Iowa at thirty six percent. And climbing from what Karla saw. Cars weren’t selling nor real estate. Aerospace was dead, the airport closed, hotels mostly empty. Farmers were okay. Medical still functioned. And local and state government. But they all complained of sharply falling revenues.
Finally, Iowa food cards would be distributed starting Monday. They would be necessary to make purchases at grocery or convenience stores. Sit down restaurants were exempted from the provisions. Take out was limited to servings for six, or the number present.
The national news showed similar situations throughout the country, except of course, in the expanded quarantine areas, where, in most ways it was much worse.
Chapter 24
Ray pulled to the curb in front of the Bank of America and Cheryl hopped off. He engaged the kickstand then rested his feet on the pegs. He watched Cheryl climb the stairs and enter the bank. It was a familiar sight—twice a week since they’d been in Tennessee.
Traffic in downtown Knoxville had become progressively lighter during that time and parking correspondingly easier. Now, only three cars sat on the street and few passed him. The only pedestrians were two teenage boys on Main Street heading his way from the east. A couple sat on a bench across the street. In the mirror, the streets were empty. Ray swung his legs over the bike and leaned against it, pocketing the key.
The boys stopped just short of the bank stairs. One boy gave a two hand
ed shove to the other and sent him into the brick wall. He bounced off and shoved the other boy. They tussled, then both of them moved slowly back the way they had come.
Cheryl stepped out, crossed to the stairs, and descended. Ray mounted the bike and moved to start it. The taller of the two boys took a few running steps, bumped Cheryl, and grabbed at her purse. She held on tight and kicked him in the shin. Ray charged the struggling pair, punched the boy once, and tossed him into the wall.
Ray spun at Cheryl’s scream and the second boy caught only a piece of Ray’s head with a homemade blackjack. Ray hit the wall and blocked the second blow with his forearm. Before the boy could get off another, Ray caught him square in the nose with his fist. Cartilage snapped and blood sprayed. Cheryl launched a roundhouse and caught the boy’s cheek.
The taller boy returned to the fight, landing from behind a solid fist to Ray’s ear. Ray swung an elbow to the boy’s head, then spun, and kicked his stomach. The boy bent over and vomited. Ray turned to the other boy, backing away, holding his bloody nose. Ray nailed him with a hard right and the boy went down.
“Let’s go.” Ray took Cheryl’s hand and started for the Honda, except it was gone.
“There!” Cheryl pointed at the cross street where the motorcycle, pushed by two running boys, disappeared behind the Regions Bank building.
Ray took off after it, dragging Cheryl behind him. They reached the intersection a block behind the boys. Ray let go of her hand. “Follow me.”
He sprinted the next block and closed the gap to a hundred feet. He turned back to Cheryl and saw the taller boy he had thought out for the count coming up behind her. Ray waved Cheryl to the side and drew his gun. The boy ducked into a doorway. Cheryl kept on.
Ray continued after the Honda. One more block. He came up from the right side, swung the butt of the gun into one boy’s head. He let go of the bike and fell to the pavement. The bike leaned left. The other boy let it go over and ran.
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