by Bobby Akart
Duncan stopped pacing as he digested this information. He continued with his questioning.
“What commandos?”
“The Lightning Death Squads. There are thousands of them in the States now. Maybe tens of thousands, I don’t know. Several hundred of them snuck into Texas.”
“What are they doing?” asked Duncan.
“Tonight was about taking down the Texas grid. Outside of that, I don’t know what they have in mind.”
Duncan lowered the back of his fist onto the man’s gaping wound on his leg, which was beginning to bleed again.
“I swear!” the man screamed between screams of agony. He renewed his pleas for help from anyone who could hear. “Is there anybody out there? This dude’s crazy! Help!”
“Next question. Do you have a base of operations? A camp of some kind?”
The prisoner hesitated and began to look wildly around the room. He continued to avoid answering the question when Duncan, who had been circling his prey, came around the back of the desk with a box of Epsom salts. He began to pour it over the gash in the man’s cheek and the rest of the box into his leg.
The initial burn of the salt in the man’s wounds caused him to squirm, but Duncan’s gripping the man’s leg wound and rubbing the salt into his bloody flesh caused him to scream in agony.
“Answer me!”
“It’s a little town. I don’t know what it’s called. There’s no stoplight and a high school nearby. It’s an hour or so south of here. Nobody was there when we arrived, so we just moved in.”
Duncan rubbed more salt into the man’s wound and then struck him with his right fist in the jaw, knocking him unconscious before the force of the blow toppled him over in his chair.
His job was done here.
He calmly walked into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him. He wouldn’t discover until later when the sun rose and he found a mirror that his face was covered with the man’s blood, as were his hands and arms.
Duncan exhaled and avoided eye contact with Espy, who had stepped back to the opposite side of the hallway to give Duncan plenty of space.
He immediately approached the second prisoner’s room and quietly entered. He closed the door behind him and walked in front of the man who hadn’t been injured and had willfully surrendered.
As soon as he came fully into the view of the captive, the man began screaming for help. He pushed his feet off the ground in an attempt to get away from the menacing Duncan.
“I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything. Please don’t kill me. I swear. Just ask!”
Ten minutes later, Duncan was satisfied with the results of the interrogation. He left the man in his chair, bawling like a baby, with his pants soiled from both his own urine and feces.
Duncan exited the room, and a horrified Espy stood waiting.
“Sir, did you learn anything?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yup, sure did,” said Duncan as he began walking away.
“Sir, did you really resign?” asked Espy as he walked briskly to catch up with Duncan.
“Nah, just for a little while. C’mon, I’ll tell you what I learned.”
PART FOUR
Welcome to the Apocalypse
Chapter 39
January 21
Patricia, Texas
Holloway led the three-truck entourage at speeds exceeding one hundred miles an hour as they traveled away from Lubbock back to their base of operations in Patricia, seventy-five miles south. After he took a few side roads to be comfortable they weren’t being followed by the Texas Guardsmen, he roared down the highway without concern of detection.
None of the members of his team who accompanied Holloway had been wounded except for the near-concussive headaches inflicted upon them from the blast inside the armory. He resigned himself to the reality that most likely the frontal assault teams either perished or were captured in the ill-advised raid upon the National Guard armory.
Frustrated, he pounded the steering wheel repeatedly, drawing the attention of his men, who looked at him as if he were becoming unhinged. Holloway opened his fist and held his hand in the air, indicating that he was in control and there was no need for concern about his mental stability. His men had hitched their horses to his wagon instead of General Lee and the rest of the Lightning Death Squad commandos. He needed to continue to maintain their respect.
Nonetheless, Holloway was still angry with the outcome and vowed revenge on the Texan who’d outsmarted him. Their maneuvers were like an intricate game of chess, and his adversary had set the perfect gambit, a trap, which had almost ensnared him. Holloway vowed to seek revenge, but for now, he had much bigger concerns.
Most likely, some of his men had been taken alive and forced to sing like canaries. He doubted the Texans cared for things like Geneva Conventions or United Nations mandates on prisoner treatment. His adversary was probably extracting the information about him and their temporary base at that very moment.
“Gentlemen, we’ll have a couple of hours’ head start at the most,” started Holloway. “We’ll start at the old cotton gin where we left two men to guard the fuel truck and the bulk of our supplies. There’s no time to return to the houses. We’ve got to get packed and ready.”
“Yes, sir,” replied his top lieutenant, who was beside him in the front seat of the truck. “We have five pickups. If we fill them with fuel, we can leave the tanker behind. It’ll be close to empty anyway.”
Holloway took a deep breath and exhaled his anger. It was time for the next phase of his operation. “Okay, what about the food trailer? I don’t want to be slowed down by that rig.”
“Same thing, sir,” his right-hand man responded. “After providing General Lee’s men equal portions to last them three days on the road, we have enough food for a week. We can divide it up easily between the five trucks, sir.”
“Anything else? Is the high school emptied of provisions?”
“Yes, sir. That was one of the tasks I assigned the men to do while we were gone. The other was to create the appearance of a stalled car just to the west of town with evidence it belonged to us.”
Holloway was intrigued and curious about his lieutenant’s actions without consulting him. I hope it was a good idea, or you’re gonna hear what I think about it.
“Explain,” he growled.
“Assuming that the soldiers chase after us and either find our base on their own or through weaklings who gave in to questioning, I wanted to lead them in the wrong direction when they continue their search. I instructed our guys to drive one of the old cars a mile outside town and leave it in park with the motor running to keep the engine warm. When our pursuers come upon it, they might feel the motor as hot, and it should send them in the wrong direction.”
Holloway thought the idea was stupid so far, but he decided to indulge the man in the last ten minutes of their trip back. “What makes you think they’ll associate the car with us?”
“They’ll find the stolen food truck and gasoline tanker first. When they fan out through the town, they’ll find this car. Inside, I’ve instructed our people to leave a map indicating the route to a phony rally point. I had them write information on the map in Korean, sir.”
Nice touch.
“Why send them west? Maybe I wanted to go back that way?”
“Sir, you once said to me that you’d never go back,” he responded.
“I meant I’d never go back to LA,” interrupted Holloway. He recalled an alcohol-fueled conversation back in Roswell, New Mexico, in which Holloway had reflected upon their days in the Fullerton Boyz gang and what a mirage LA truly was. Behind the glitz of Hollywood, Venice Beach, palm trees and pretty girls lay an underbelly of slime, a world that, if exposed, would knock the luster off the City of Angels.
“Sir, I remember exactly what you said,” his lieutenant continued. “You said at the end of the day, the sun doesn’t set over Venice Beach, it just gives up and drops into the ocean with an evil hiss.”
Holloway smiled and shrugged. He had said that. Holloway was impressed with the young man’s analytical approach. Maybe he should have involved him in more of the planning.
“Okay, maybe you’re right, and that might apply in this situation as well. Do you have a suggestion as to where we should go?”
The young man eagerly responded, suddenly excited to have an opportunity to voice his opinion without fear of derision or repercussions.
“Sir, your stated goal is to find a large ranch and settle down. This part of West Texas is wide open and will most likely provide you with many options to suit your needs.”
“Hold up a second,” interrupted Holloway. “Were you a real estate agent or something?”
“No, but I used to bang a girl who was.”
Holloway started laughing, and the young man’s frank response eased the tension in the cab of the truck. Holloway checked his speed, which hovered around ninety now. He checked his mirrors and saw the two sets of headlights behind him keeping up the pace.
“Okay, go on,” he instructed his young realtor.
“If you move near the more populated areas like Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or the coast, large ranches will be difficult to find. Also, it’s most likely the government will use their military forces out of Fort Bliss and Fort Hood to protect the larger cities, making it difficult for us to do business.”
“So far, so good. Keep going.”
“If we stay in this area, we’ll have small to midsize cities that are relatively unprotected. Look at Lubbock, for example. That contingent of guardsmen could barely protect their own base, much less the whole city. Remember how we got these trucks? We were able to make several trips without being caught.”
“Good point. So where do you suggest?”
“Sir the next logical place the Texas Guard will search for us is straight out of town, following the highway to Midland. They don’t have the manpower to search every Podunk county road in the area. Plus, they don’t have the time. With the grid down, they’ll be recalled to their own base to help Lubbock. Do you remember how quickly LA collapsed after the EMP? It was a matter of hours, not days.”
They were approaching Patricia, which meant they’d be scrambling around to vacate the premises. He needed his new brainstormer to get to the point.
“Okay, which way do we go?”
“I suggest we head east on the road leading past the high school. There’s a big lake about fifty miles away. With the grid down, we’re gonna need a source of water. Where there’s a lake, there’s a house with a well. Even if it isn’t a ranch, we could take over a neighborhood or even claim all the land around the lake. Either way, if we can’t find what you want, we’ll make it one way or the other.”
By hook or by crook.
Chapter 40
January 21
Camp Lubbock
Lubbock, Texas
Duncan and the rest of his team were surrounded by a mess of death and destruction. Every window was blown out. The walls and doors were riddled with bullets. Dead bodies were strewn about. But that did not dampen the spirits of those lucky few who had been chosen by Duncan to accompany him as they used the information from the hostages to chase down this guy named Holloway who’d orchestrated the attack on Camp Lubbock.
He and Espy discussed the possibility that Holloway might try a counterattack, assuming the base would mount a good old-fashioned posse to hunt him down. Out of an abundance of caution, they delayed their departure from Camp Lubbock and stood guard around the perimeter while the dead bodies were removed.
His guardsmen were placed in body bags. Duncan hoped to find a way to get through to their families in light of the circumstances. Otherwise, he’d arrange for a memorial service that afternoon and create a cemetery within the confines of Camp Lubbock to honor them.
The dead commandos were loaded into the back of a utility truck and hauled a mile off base into an open field, where they were covered in gasoline and unceremoniously burned.
With the facility in shambles, he’d have to determine whether they’d remain at Camp Lubbock or find a more suitable location. One of his lieutenants was also a local resident and promised to come up with several alternatives that would suit their needs.
The biggest issue was the protection of their weapons and ammunition stockpiles. Weapons had been a valuable commodity before the grid went down. Now they would be highly sought after by men like Holloway who’d emerge as a result of Texas’s entry into an apocalyptic world.
Through his interrogations of the prisoners and backtracking his footsteps since arriving at Peach Springs in Arizona, Duncan was able to determine that he and Holloway had crossed paths several times. It all made sense to him now—the encounter on the highway at Winslow and the subsequent events in New Mexico in which U.S. military vehicles carrying North Koreans were observed traveling toward Carlsbad Caverns. Duncan and Holloway had followed virtually the same path to converge here at Camp Lubbock.
Duncan was ready to end this, so he was prepared to put his efforts into hunting the man down. He personally wanted to kill Holloway by slicing his throat open until the evil drained out of him.
After the bodies were disposed of, Duncan conducted one final security assessment before they headed south. He and Espy led the convoy of Humvees and a single troop transport toward Lamesa, the town Duncan had spent an entire day in just forty-eight hours ago. His frustrations grew after he’d determined Holloway’s hideout based upon the interrogations. He wished he’d known this platoon-strength group of North Korean commandos had been barely a dozen miles away from where he’d diffused the hostage situation at the middle school.
In any event, he was hot on their trail now and was ready to destroy Holloway. Just a few miles outside Patricia, he pulled the convoy to a stop.
“Sir, is there something I can do?” asked a puzzled Espy. “Do you need to advise the men?”
“No, Sergeant. I need to take care of something,” replied Duncan, using Espy’s rank instead of their less formal means of conversation. He turned around to the private guarding the handcuffed prisoner. “Private, remove the prisoner and join me outside.”
Duncan exited the Humvee, as did Espy with his weapon at low ready. The private pulled the man out of the Humvee and stood him in the middle of the road. Duncan pulled his sidearm and pointed it at the man’s head, who immediately urinated in his pants, again.
“Private, take him in front of that road sign, unlock his cuffs, and then recuff him to the sign with his arms behind his back.”
The private looked in Espy’s direction, who nodded for him to proceed.
“Sir, may I ask—?” questioned Espy before Duncan cut him off.
“It’s become a family tradition, Sergeant.”
Once the man was cuffed, Duncan holstered his sidearm and knocked his feet out from under him, where he collapsed on his tailbone with a thud.
“Please don’t kill me!” the man begged. “I told you everything you wanted to know.”
“I’m not gonna kill you, but I’m certainly not gonna keep you alive either,” snarled Duncan in the man’s ear. Duncan spun around and headed back for the Humvee.
Espy followed him, looked back toward the prisoner, who was begging to be released, and then circled his hand in the air to advise the other guardsmen to get ready. The engines fired, and the convoy lurched forward—four Humvees, three with fifty-caliber weapons mounted on top, together with a deuce-and-a-half troop transport. The vehicles, carrying twenty-four guardsmen seeking revenge, pulled into the small town of Patricia, Texas, population zero.
Chapter 41
January 21
The Armstrong Ranch
Borden County, Texas
Lucy and Preacher huddled around the kitchen table as Major completed his phone call with Duncan. The description of the evening’s events was harrowing, even though Duncan provided Major the abbreviated CliffsNotes version. He was en route to where the North Koreans had bee
n hiding practically right under their noses. Major twirled the satellite phone on the table, exhaled, and motioned for Lucy and Preacher to sit down.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” asked Lucy calmly, although her demeanor had changed from when Duncan’s call came through. She and Major had been asleep when the power grid went down, so they were unaware of what had happened. It was five in the morning when the phone rang, an early morning call that sends shockwaves through any mother’s body who has a son or daughter in the military.
“Yeah, on several levels, potentially,” replied Major. “Big picture first. Just after midnight, North Korean military forces, trained commandos according to Duncan, attacked substations and power-generating plants across Texas. He doesn’t have the details from his superiors yet because I imagine Austin and the military are in a frenzy.”
“How does he know?” asked Preacher.
“Camp Lubbock was attacked by as many as two dozen North Koreans as part of the coordinated strikes on the grid. In Lubbock, they destroyed the three electrical substations that connected their utility to ERCOT. Then, while Duncan’s men were responding to the assault on the substations, they fired rocket-propelled grenades into the sheriff’s office and then at the front gate of Camp Lubbock.”
Lucy grabbed the phone away from Major so he would stop nervously spinning it on the table. She didn’t want the noise to wake up any of their kids.
“Honey,” she began, “where is he going right now?”
“Duncan interrogated two hostages after they repelled the attack. The men said they were hiding out in a small town with nothing more than a crossroads, a high school and a cotton gin.”
“Patricia,” muttered Preacher. “Everybody always wondered why they built Klondike High in the middle of nowhere like that. Patricia’s Farmers cotton gin is there too.”
“That’s just an hour from here,” said Lucy as she rubbed the hair from her now ashen face. “They could be coming here next. Major, we have to get ready.”
