Steve rubbed his chin again.
“What?” Gus snapped. “What now?”
“Well, what if they have it? What if a large amount of these people have it.”
“Then they have it. We’ll treat it. It’s treatable,” Gus said. “After Phase two, camp liberation, then we send our men out to look for antivirals and antibiotics for the sores. Welch has been in touch with a team hunkered down in Fort Dietrich. They say it is treatable, they just don’t have the means to mass produce.”
“That’s where we come in,” Troy said. “After I liberate Caldwell and drop off the refugees, I am on a team headed to Dietrich. It’s a rescue operation for those scientists.”
“Speaking of Caldwell.” Steve lifted the different sheets of paper with images. “I am not seeing a satellite of Caldwell.”
“No, we don’t have one,” Gus said. “Our man inside stopped contacting when he turned over the phone to the Brit.”
“What has he said?” Steve asked.
Troy replied. “Not much. He’s not communicated much because he doesn’t know much.”
“From what he has sent us,” Gus said, “it’s the same as everywhere. They stupidly are routine. Same time slots every day they return all prisoners to the yard. Total of eight entrance guards at the camps. Sundays all prisoners are detained in camps.”
“And like everywhere else,” Troy added, “the camps are at least a thousand feet from the hub or main town where the personnel and soldiers are concentrated.”
“Small team,” Gus explained. “Each town. I don’t know what the others are using to disable but the plan is the same across the board. We’re using a nerve agent, heavily concentrated delivered in the town, at the same time we down the fences. Our troops then pick off the soldiers. Civilian casualties to the minimum.”
“We expect runners,” Troy said. “We’ll chase them down. The plan is to get them all as fast as we can, keep it silent so word doesn’t spread. Silence is crucial.”
“What about other camps and towns?” Steve asked. “I know there are more out there than the ones we’re hitting.”
“There are.” Gus nodded. “But if this phase goes well, then we will put a huge ass dent in their efforts. Game changing.”
“So, this camp liberation is phase two? What’s phase three?”
“Welch is working on it now,” Gus said. “It’s the biggie. If all goes well it will go down about the same time as these coordinated camp attacks or shortly thereafter. So much will be happening, they’ll be chasing their tales.”
Troy looked at Steve. “I know this has come together awfully fast and it seems rushed but is has to be. We have to do this before the second wave arrives or before they send them back. Right now, they’re so vulnerable they don’t even know it.”
“As long as everyone follows the plan,” Gus said.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“I mean unlike the previous phases which only had a time frame, everything in this phase is coordinated and is to take place at the exact same time. All it will take is for one team to jump the gun and it could backfire with a devastating ripple effect,” Gus said. “Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.”
Swall, CA – San Joaquin Valley
When Joe found out Saul was ill, he was concerned. His friend looked bad and even though he tried to portray otherwise, he was quite ill. He ran into town to get Saul something but there was absolutely no medicine on the shelves of the stores. In fact, he couldn’t buy anything in the store, everything was confiscated and taken to distribution.
He knew Mary Lou was close to a woman in town who worked with natural remedies, so he called her.
She was the one that told him about the new plague. Only it wasn’t a plague, more of a virus that had been hitting other areas pretty hard and had arrived with a vengeance in Swall.
“I heard outside of Los Angeles close to a million are sick,” Mary Lou said.
“That’s just rubbish, ain’t been nothing like that since the Spanish flu.”
“I’m telling you, Joe. It’s bad, even the State News network is reporting it. If they’re reporting it, you know it’s out of control.”
The State News Network showed a fifteen-minute news segment every hour. They were always bright and smiling, reporting things like citizens who are ‘helping the Cause.’
Mary Lou told him there was a hospital set up at the gymnasium at Farmersville High School. She had been placed on volunteer duty there on weekends.
Joe convince Saul to go. When he first took him, the ground of the school was clear. Only a few military vehicles were around, a few official tents and no more than a dozen soldiers. Inside he checked him in, then they found him a cot. There weren’t as many people as Joe imagined. He believed Mary Lou was exaggerating.
Until suddenly his workers dwindled down to twelve, then six. Joe had a great visual of the severity of it when he stopped to see his friend on the way to drop off his quota one day.
The wide green lawn was completely covered with tents and cots, and inside there was barely enough room between beds for healthcare workers to walk through. There weren’t that many of them.
They stopped Joe before he could go inside and told him it was far too dangerous.
“I’ll wear one of those masks,” Joe told them.
The refused. No one was to go in.
Joe peeked in the gym trying to see Saul, but he couldn’t. Saul wasn’t in the same spot as he had been the day before. The sounds of sickness were so loud, he had even heard it before walking into the building. Coughing, moaning, crying out. People moved a lot on their cots, probably trying to get comfortable.
“I’m just worried about my friend, is there any way to see how he’s doing?” Joe asked.
The reply he received was, “Same as everyone else.”
Joe left frustrated and angry.
He understood though and it was evident how bad Swall was hit when he went into the center of town.
Very few people walked around. There was no line at distribution and the drop off was empty as well.
For the first time, there were more soldiers on the street than Joaquin Valley Citizens.
“Joe,” Mary Lou called his name. “Hey.”
Joe paused in unloading his truck. “I didn’t see you at the table. I got worried for a second that you were sick.”
“No, not me.” Mary Lou said brightly. “I’ll keep on going, you know me. The pierogi club keeps me strong.”
Joe looked at her curiously. “Okay.”
Mary Lou looked over her shoulder and reached to the back of the truck for a crate. “I know that back of yours is bad, let me help.”
“What are you …?”
“No, Joe, I insist.”
Joe wasn’t quite sure how much Mary Lou thought she was helping to lift that crate, but it sure felt as if he were carrying the load and her hands were just placed there. He realized that was the case when he set the crate down and saw the blue card with his picture on it. He made eye contact with her.
“What’s a travel permit?” Mary Lou said slightly above normal level. “Oh, those are for people who have to make cross state deliveries. It allows them to get gas, you don’t need one of those.” She mouthed the words, “Take it.”
Joe looked down at the index size card. Slyly, he pulled it to him as he reached for the last crate.
“Put it in the glove compartment,” she whispered, then backed up. “There. Whew! Those are heavy. Come on I’ll check you in.”
She walked over to the table and Joe, as he normally did, brought the cases to the drop off door. With his dolly in tote, he walked over to Mary Lou.
She handed him the clipboard. “Sign, Joe. Give me the top and take the bottom for your records. You haven’t been doing that.”
“Must be something new,” Joe said. He signed for his drop off, lifted the sheet to grab the one on the bottom and paused.
“Take it. And don’t forget, Sund
ay is a day of rest. I don’t want to see you in town that day.”
“Yeah,” Joe muttered and looked at the sheet. It wasn’t a copy, it was a delivery order for Fat Joe tomatoes to be dropped off in Ohio. More than the order form, the Post-it Note on top nearly made Joe’s heart stop. The note read, “Toby’s alive. Prisoner. Caldwell, Ohio.”
“Have a great day.”
Joe handed her the sheet, then folded the order, closing his eyes for a moment. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Mary Lou stood, leaned across the table, and kissed Joe on the cheek.
It took everything Joe had not to lose it right then and there. He took the dolly, loaded it in the truck, waved to Mary Lou, and then got in.
After placing that order on his seat, he removed the Post-it and crumbled it in his hand. He couldn’t move or breathe, he was overwrought with emotions and gratefulness.
Toby, his only family member was alive and Mary Lou pretty much broke some serious rules to give him a ticket to go get him.
After pulling it together, Joe drove off. He was indebted to Mary Lou, more than she ever would realize.
San Antonio, TX
While they fed her well, gave Madeline a clean and comfortable environment, they found a way to torture her.
It wasn’t physical, it was mental.
There was a television in every single room, including the bathroom. They all played the same thing all day long and straight through the night. Nonstop. She didn’t have the ability to turn off the sets or even unplug them. The volume adjustment was manipulated as well. She could increase it but not lower it.
Snippets of BBC news showed rioting and fights in Europe, how a food shortage was breaking the country. There was news from other countries as well, though brief. However, for the most part, it was footage of what was happening in the United States.
None of it was good.
A computer-generated voice narrated the video images of United States citizens, starving, living, and huddling in destroyed buildings, children crying and injured. And the worst were the images and videos of those suffering with the new virus that was raging not only across the United States but the world as well. Patients on cots or lying on the ground, covered in sores, barely moving and struggling to breathe.
Sickly images all while the narrator said, This is your country. Feed your people. Your people are dying. You can save them. There is no room for pride when it comes to the wellbeing of others. Come to us so we can help them.
Adding to that, Fen Shu would come into the room four times a day and say the same things to her. Badgering her relentlessly.
“Give up. Surrender. Save your people.”
Madeline would look away from the television. “Face that.” Fen grabbed her chin and made her look at the footage of those sick with the virus. “Save them. Let us save them. Look at them. They are a few of many. Thirty million people have this. Thirty million could die.”
Madeline lowered her head.
“It has spread that fast. We know how to beat it. Thirty million,” Fen said. “Surrender.”
Sadly, with each passing day that surrender looked more like an option than not.
Fen stepped from the hotel room and merely pointed at the door for the guard to lock and secure it. She fixed her blouse, lifted her head high, and walked down the hall.
Another agent waited for her by the elevator.
“Well?” he asked.
Fen shook her head. “Nothing. Not yet. Soon. I believe it.”
“Then we wait?” he asked.
“No.” Fen pressed the button on the elevator. “She needs a push. The Americans need a frightening message about this virus. Clean the western camps.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.” The elevator opened. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another problem to eliminate.” She stepped inside the carriage. “General Liu.”
The elevator doors closed.
Chapter Eighteen
Twenty Days Post Bombs
USNORTHCOM, Colorado Springs, CO
The radio played like something from the days of old when families gathered around listening to stories and tales. Layered with static, the voice had a tin can sound to it, but its message was clear.
Following the announcement that they are in the midst of government restructuring of the US, People’s Republic of China issued an apology for the delay in exports. Food supplies and aid export will resume within the week and they are reaching out to leaders of the world to negotiate terms in efforts to return to seamless commodity exchange.
“Goddamn, mother fucking son of a bitch!” Welch tossed his empty mug across the room. It pissed him off even more that it didn’t break. “Arrogant shits announcing they took over pretty much.” His temper tantrum fell upon a quiet control room. “Get me Gilbert in Alaska.”
A few seconds later, a specialist announced, “Gilbert is on.”
“Gil,” Welch called out. “You hearing this shit?”
“I just heard,” Gilbert said over the speaker. “Did we surrender? Was there one?”
“Not that I know of,” Welch said. “But with arrogance like this, I am betting it’s not long until there is one.”
“You think they’re expecting one?”
“Oh, yeah, I think they know it’s coming.”
“So, what now?”
“Timing is still good,” Welch said. “Word is out. I’m waiting on a response and a yes.”
“What do you think?”
“I think intel is good, things are in order. I think you and others should hunker down … I’m pretty confident. This is will be a go. And in two days, this whole war will look a whole lot different.” Welch paused. “Thank God.”
Caldwell, OH
There was something intimidating about the big man named Harris, when he made his approach to the table. Cal had seen him before, he was always with the younger guy with the beat-up face. But the big man never made an attempt to register. Yet on this day, he not only made it to the table, he pushed his way through to get to Cal before the cut off. And no one argued with him. He brought the younger guy, Toby, with him.
“Name,” Cal asked.
“Harris Clemmons.”
“We need your help,” Toby said. His voice was weak and cracked.
“I don’t know what I can do,” Cal said. “Are you ill? Hurt?”
“Duh,” said Toby.
“I’m gonna stand here,” Harris said, “pretending I am checking in and you are going to answer his question.”
“How do you know you can trust me?” Cal asked.
“We don’t,” Harris answered. “I don’t care.”
“You know he needs medical attention,” Cal said.
“He needs to eat,” Harris said. “The feed us pig slop. He won’t eat it.”
“That’s not important,” Toby said. “We’re looking for our friend. She came in with us. She’s not here. We’re worried. Is she okay? Sick? Dead?”
“She?” Cal asked. “I can tell you that all women are kept separate. I haven’t registered any female deaths if that makes you feel better.”
Toby exhaled in relief. “Yes, dude, it does. Are you able to check her name?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Marissa.”
“Marissa what?” Cal questioned.
Toby looked at Harris. “What’s her last name?”
“I don’t know. Shit.”
Cal threw up his hands. “We search by last names. It won’t even let me search first only. I’ll tell you what, I’ll look around. I’ll see what I can find out. When I come back later, I’ll let you know.”
“Time’s up!” a soldier shouted.
Cal shut the lid to his laptop. “I have to go.” He stood and reached for his items, stopping things from falling, and that’s when he saw them, the peanut butter packets. He inconspicuously grabbed them in his hand. “I will be in touch.” He held out his hand to Toby in a handshake manner.
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Toby hesitated but as soon as he connected hands with Cal, his eyes widened.
“Take them,” Cal said. “It’s not much, but it’s food.”
“Thank you,” said Toby.
“Thanks, man,” Harris said.
Cal nodded and finished gathering his things. There was one other manner to tend to.
A phone message.
He wore a large bulky sweatshirt that hung pretty far covering the front pockets of his jeans where he kept that military phone. It vibrated when he received a message. No one could hear it, but his testicles knew when a message was received.
Cal had been feeling the vibration the last few minutes of the conversation.
He paused on the way to the next yard to use the porta john. Inside, he grabbed the phone from his pocket and held it near the vent for light.
“Sunday Mass at two o’clock. Lose the phone.”
Cal lowered his head in relief. If he understood the message, the liberation was going to take place the next day. Cal would be gone, but he would leave knowing he at least helped in some way.
It made him feel less guilty.
The message also gave an instruction, lose the phone, and Cal was happy to do so. Before leaving the porta john, he tossed it where no one would ever search … in the commode. When it splashed, he knew it was gone, and Cal walked out of the portable bathroom.
San Antonio, TX
General Liu stood leaning in toward a long table in his office. Other military personnel including Sergeant Huang were there. On the table was a large map of the area.
“We have a lot of manpower at these health camps,” General Liu said. “We need to move some around. The sick aren’t going anywhere. We have rebel activity up near Austin and our docks are getting hit daily down at Corpus Christi. Our men are tired. We have relief troops on the ships in the gulf. Let’s move those men in. Focus on these rebel …” He stopped talking and lifted his head when the doors to his office opened.
Burning Skies (Book 2): Fallout Page 14
