Hard Road: Deadly Horizon (Dark Plague Book 2)

by Bradley West

  “Roger that.” Johnny pulled the handset from his ear and felt a muzzle at the base of his neck.

  “Reach back real slow with that walkie-talkie and hand it to me. Good. Now put both yer hands behind your head and kneel. Good. I can see you’ve done that before. How many of you are there?”

  “Just me. We figured it for an ambush and I volunteered to be the guinea pig. I’m looking for someone I can negotiate a safe crossing with. Is that you, or do I need to speak with your boss?”

  The man replied by clubbing the back of Johnny’s dreadlocked scalp with a gun butt, pitching him forward onto his face.

  “That waren’t too smart now, Dale,” a second man said as he walked up. “How do we interrogate a man who’s knocked out?”

  “Knocked out, hell. I caught him good. If he’s still breathin’, he’ll be in a coma ’bout now.”

  * * * * *

  Jaime and Arkar crept forward as they scanned for movement. They found a solitary man motionless in a chair: the relief sentry. Arkar and Jaime made short work of him, leaving the guard gagged and hog-tied. Then they crawled under the tractor trailer and looked for more adversaries.

  Five meters away, two silhouettes stood almost shoulder to shoulder as they glassed Foothill Road to the south with their night-division devices and spoke in low voices: “That’s them! Those big suckers are either buses or RVs. Either way, boss will want ’em. I see two men headed this way. Best sound the alarm.”

  Arkar had his late best friend’s A-Klub knife—more like a machete with a twelve-inch blade—held to the speaker’s throat, but Jaime’s upraised hand stopped him. In his worst Frito Bandito accent, Jaime addressed the two peckerwoods: “Señors, you not calling no one. Drop your weapons and radios very slowly. My friend here wants to cut your throats. All I want is to tie you up. ¿Entienden?”

  Jaime and Arkar trussed up and gagged the two guards, then Jaime blinked his Maglite three times toward Travis. He heard engines start. Next, he used his handset to check in with Johnny but drew a blank. Arkar was halfway up the steps to the big rig’s cab when Jaime hissed and motioned for him to look back the way they’d come.

  Arkar returned in thirty seconds. “Three men spread out and headlights coming. Big trouble.”

  Jaime thought fast. “See if you can drive that semi south toward our side and I’ll let Travis know a friendly’s inbound. Use it to shield the RVs.”

  Arkar scampered up into the cab, started the engine, and had it on the move before the first shots sounded. Jaime was already around to the side in a prone position. He used the CP-4x optical sight and fired his MR556A1 rifle—the civilian version of his Marine Corps M27 standby—in double-taps. Jaime got back on his radio as he changed mags. “Firefight in progress. Two Echoes down and three more engaged. Arkar’s inbound driving the semi. Johnny’s MIA. Vehicle lights out of range and more inbound. We have a major force blocking us. Over.”

  “Copy,” Travis said. “Assume Johnny’s a POW. We’ll need one or two hostages to trade. Over.” He hobbled up the road to identify a spot where the semi could shield the RVs from sniper fire and the ’Bagos could go off-road without foundering.

  Arkar stopped thirty meters in front of the lead RV as per Travis’ flashlight beam.

  Travis’ handset crackled again. This time it was Tom on rearguard duty. “There’s movement behind us—at least two vehicles with their lights out. I’d assume the way back’s blocked.”

  “Just watch them. It will be light soon and you’ll need concealment. Tell Yonten not to shoot unless fired upon but hold your positions six hundred meters from our position.” Travis shook his head. This was going to be ugly.

  Carla walked over as pink slivers illuminated the east. “What’s wrong?” she asked as Arkar turned off the ignition and jogged back to Travis. Derek and Melvin inspected the back of the semi, and, after finding nothing of interest, took up sentry posts at either end.

  “We’re stuck in a hotbox with the road blocked in both directions,” Travis said. “Let everyone know and give a weapon to anyone who can pull a trigger.”

  “They’re civilians,” Carla said. “They aren’t trained and we have children and wounded with us too. It’ll just make matters worse. There has to be another way.”

  Travis turned to Arkar. “Use your NVGs and work your way back to Jaime. Shoot anyone trying to flank him. If we can’t negotiate safe passage via a hostage exchange, I’ll drive the semi through the roadblock and everyone can follow.”

  “That’s idiocy!” Carla snapped. “You’ll just get people killed, starting with yourself.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Peace Pipe Dream

  Thursday, July 16, 2020: Foothill Road, California-Nevada state line; and Oakland, California, after sunrise

  As the dawn threatened, Jaime felt exposed in his hide dug in a sagebrush-peppered field off the road. Reinforcements had arrived in two additional trucks and more than a dozen men had spread out two hundred and fifty meters away. He could have shot another handful, but what was the point? Every man he killed lowered the likelihood that they’d get Johnny back in one piece, if he was still alive.

  One of the captive militiamen strained against his bonds and worked his gag loose. “There’s only one of ’em! Come get us, boys!” he shouted.

  Jaime doubted that the man’s voice was audible at that distance, but he still fast-crawled over and nudged him with his rifle butt. The gag went back into the unconscious man’s mouth. Jaime turned to the second hostage, whose wide and rolling eyes reminded Jaime of a steer headed up a chute into the slaughterhouse. “You maybe have something to say, too, señor?” The man shook his head.

  Jaime keyed his radio. “Travis, you coming or am I going?”

  “Arkar tells me there are too many of them. Can you bring a hostage and retreat?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get him on his feet and keep him between you and the Echoes,” Travis said. “If he stops or drops, kill him. I’ll try to raise the bad guys. What channel are they on?”

  Jaime crawled over to his captive. “Where’s your two-way? What channel?”

  “Top-left shirt. Eight,” the man said and the gag went back in. Jaime relayed the information.

  “Got it,” Travis said. “Start moving before the light’s better. Once you’re back, we’ll open negotiations. Over.”

  “Roger that.” Jaime used his KA-BAR to slice the zip-ties binding the prisoner’s ankles and grabbed him by his empty armor plate carrier. The man staggered to his feet, dirt adhering to where he’d wet himself. Jaime didn’t expect trouble, but it never hurt to make certain. He pulled the prisoner’s face close to his and brandished his big knife. “If you run, duck, or slow me down, I’ll gut you. ¿Comprendes?”

  * * * * *

  Travis tried channel eight on FRS. “Looking for the commander of Foothill Road team. This is the convoy commander. We have a prisoner to exchange. Over.”

  “Convoy commander, this is the commander of the Nevada State Line Safety Detail. The border is closed. Return to California. Over.”

  “We can’t do that because you have another ambush set up a half mile south and militiamen advancing on us from the north. We have one of your men and you have one of mine. I wish to speak with your prisoner. Over.”

  “I’m afraid he’s unconscious. We saw one of your men use a rifle stock to beat one of ours and returned the favor. Leave your vehicles and proceed on foot. I guarantee you safe passage back to California and I’ll release your man under a white flag once you cross.”

  “That won’t happen. I’m here to swap prisoners and continue across Nevada. Over.”

  “I’ve already suffered two KIAs and two WIAs. The Douglas County sheriff says your group faces capital murder charges. Over.”

  “I doubt that there’s a functioning police force or court in the state. We responded with force to your hijack attempt and we will continue to defend ourselves. Instruct your men to withdraw to the north and I’ll
meet you one on one at the midpoint for the exchange.”

  “We have our own marksmen, and right now your retreating sniper with the bandage around his head is about to catch a bullet. Tell him to release his prisoner or this conversation ends. Over.”

  Behind Travis, an engine started and the blue Winnebago lurched ahead. He turned and tried to run after it, but he could only hobble. Switching channels, he called Arkar and Jaime. “Someone’s taken the Horizon! It’s headed your way. Take out the driver and turn it around.”

  To his side, he felt a touch. It was Barb Maggio, the sober version. “This violence must stop. Carla’s driving the RV.”

  In an instant, Travis was back on his comms. “It’s Carla behind the wheel. Don’t shoot. DON’T SHOOT!” He switched handsets. “Commander State Line, this is convoy commander. The driver is unarmed and she wants to talk with you. Do not shoot. Repeat, DO NOT SHOOT. Do you copy? Over.”

  After a long pause, the leader’s voice crackled through the handset: “There are fifteen guns on that RV. If it doesn’t stop on my say-so, it’ll have more holes than a screen door. Over.”

  “I have no way of speaking with the driver, but she’s a scientist and the RV is full of injured noncombatants. Inside, it’s a Covid-free quarantine zone. Over.”

  “There isn’t a ‘Covid-free’ spot in all of Nevada. Stay where you are. If everything’s as you say, we’ll talk again. Over.”

  Travis roared like a bear with his paw in a steel trap. “Bring me the sniper rifle!” he bellowed.

  * * * * *

  Carla’s brain worked overtime as she drove, dodging Jaime and his prisoner as the RV rolled past them up the skinny road. The past two days had been a living nightmare, first at work where she’d learned that the Federal government had slain Covid-20 survivors for their blood as the basis for convalescent plasma treatment, the “Dark Cure.” Next up was the battle on the Golden Gate Bridge where she’d killed a man. Add in Aunt Pat’s skull fracture, Uncle Sal’s heart attack, and that she was cut up and bruised in the Berkeley Marina shootout. Here was the 3M, not even six hours after the last gun battle, facing another showdown. She knew there had to be a better way, but she didn’t know what it was.

  She saw a line of parked vehicles in the distance. Armed men scattered out of the headlights while aiming at her. Someone placed a highway flare in the road ahead and she braked to a halt.

  “Steph! Tina! I’m going outside to talk. One of you should come up front to keep them out of the RV.”

  Stephanie Ferguson, Carla’s cousin, walked up with her tiny baby in the crook of her unwounded left arm. “I’ll sit here, but I’m worried about Tyson. He hasn’t nursed properly since he woke up.”

  “We’ll have Tina look at him later. I have to talk some sense into these people.” Carla exited the RV, adjusted her mask, and put on sterile gloves.

  * * * * *

  Back in Oakland, the local police department and emergency services disappeared at five a.m., leaving the McClatchy High School crime scene unoccupied. In short order, more than a dozen people in trucks and on motorcycles drove around to the back where hours before an IED had blown a hole in the building and partially collapsed the roof.

  Dr. Katerina Kiel slipped out of her civilian clothes and into sterile coveralls, acutely aware of the feral stares directed toward her as she stripped to her underwear. Her primary objectives were to retrieve two half-pints of Stephanie Ferguson’s involuntarily donated plasma and the equipment necessary to extract her antibodies. Her secondary goal was to avoid being groped or worse.

  Rolf Muller declined the offer of protective clothing. He’d suffered a through-and-through gunshot wound to the left abdomen. He should have been in a hospital ER to be checked for internal bleeding and clean the wound site, but that ship had sailed long ago: Dying Covid-20 patients had overwhelmed the few open hospitals and gunshot victims were left to fend for themselves. Muller’s job was to lead the salvage team past the boobytraps and to the science lab and an adjacent classroom. His goals were to collect more than twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and locate an encrypted USB drive and laptop with dark web connections he could convert to gold once they had Dark Cure to sell.

  Norris, the Twisted Souls Motorcycle Club’s bearded leader, had summoned his men and organized the vehicles they would need to transport the lab equipment. He handed out N95s to his formerly maskless subordinates with a gruff announcement: “If you don’t have one of these tight to your face, you’ll die from what’s in there. Do this right, and in two days we’ll get shots and you’ll never again wear another fucking mask.”

  * * * * *

  The Horizon had drawn a crowd as Carla climbed down from the driver’s seat. Even in the half-light, it was clear to the armed blockaders that their foe was a tall, curvaceous redhead with empty hands. Gun barrels drooped and one man stepped to the fore. “I’m Hugh and these people are State Line volunteers aimed at keeping the virus out of Nevada.”

  “I’m Dr. Carla Maggio, a coronavirus researcher at Livermore Laboratories. I have a vaccine formula that prevents and treats Covid-20. I’m hoping to train your local scientists to make it, and I have spare lab equipment too.”

  “If you are who you say, shouldn’t you be in your lab? Why are you sneaking across the border into Nevada?”

  “At present, there are only enough chemicals nationwide to make ten thousand doses of the primary vaccine and the president wants it all for her supporters. I left with the formula, my team, and the equipment needed to create the vaccine. I’m the subject of a manhunt.”

  “Bullshit,” someone in the back declared.

  “I don’t care if you believe me. What I do want is to synthesize the vaccine. It should take only a day. If it works, I’ll share the formula and the manufacturing process with your local scientists. Provided you can find or make enough of the ingredients, you can stop Covid-20. I’ll put what I know on the internet and people won’t have to rely on Washington for the vaccine.”

  “That’s a helluva story,” Hugh said. “Tim! Shane! Come over here and search that RV.” He looked back at Carla. “Open your side lockers. I want to inspect this lab equipment.”

  “None of the equipment or the chemicals are in this RV. This ’Bago is our mobile hospital. Inside, there’s a doctor and an older couple. He’s suffered a major heart attack and a gunshot wound, and she has a fractured skull. There’s a nursing mother who’s also been shot and her premature baby. We’re harmless, but all of them are susceptible to Covid-20. Please stay out unless you wear hazmat suits. I can provide those if you’d just be patient.”

  “I’m plumb out of patience. Over half the town’s dead, another quarter are sick, and here you are promising a cure, only you don’t have any of it. Before the electricity died yesterday, we’d heard enough fairytales to last a lifetime. Right now, I’ll settle for a mobile hospital and a healthy doctor. We have plenty of people needing treatment at least as bad as your friends do.” He nodded, and two armed men rapped on the door. Steph unlocked it and they climbed aboard.

  Carla tried again. “If you have any healthy science professionals plus a sterile area, I can train them how to make the vaccine. I can’t do that if your men infect our party or steal from us.”

  “Didn’t you just say that the vaccine requires hard-to-find chemicals?” Hugh asked. “Fat lot of good that formula will do us without the ingredients. How many spare doses do you have for us? How about you make the vaccine and we split it fifty-fifty in return for safe passage?”

  “I only have enough for thirty doses and we need those for my group. I’m not a chemist; maybe the ingredients are relatively easy to recreate or source. That’s something for your people to work on.”

  As Hugh turned away, waving his arm in disgust, his underlings exited the motorhome. “No one in there but a doctor and beat-up people, plus a shitload of medicines and supplies,” one said. “That doctor’s a feisty bitch—she damned near tore me a new one when I grabbed
these bottles. We’ll need one or two men to hold her back, and a couple of trash bags for the meds.”

  Carla was at the end of her tether. Knowing Travis, he’d have taken the past fifteen minutes to position Jaime, Arkar, Melvin, and himself where they could kill these men at the first sign of violence.

  Stephanie walked out of the RV with Tyson cradled against her shoulder. “I can save your lives, but only if you put those guns down.”

  * * * * *

  Katerina Kiel hoped against the odds that the partly processed half-pint of plasma was still usable. The insulated cooler it was stored in wouldn’t leave her side until she’d spun it and extracted the antibodies.

  “What’s the story with you and Rolfie?” Norris asked. “He own you?”

  Katerina smiled behind her mask at the laconic biker warlord. “I’m a free spirit and open to persuasion. Just keep your apes off me and you might get lucky.” The former gymnast turned and watched as a gang member clunked a plasmapheresis machine against the van’s rear door. “Hey numbnuts, be careful with that! You break it and we all die!”

  Muller was the last to emerge from the bomb-blasted school. He had a laptop and power cord under one arm and a carry-on bag full of money in the other. One of his men lay dead on the classroom floor, shot in the chest by a traitor whose well-ventilated body was up the corridor. Meanwhile, his primary quarry, Fraser Burns, was nowhere. Maybe the EMTs had taken Burns with them, but he had been burning up with Covid, so why run that risk? Muller’s mood soured when he saw Katrina flirting with Norris. That cheating bitch.

  “Have your men clean out the cafeteria shelves and freezer,” he said to the biker. “There’s plenty of food in there.”