Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He strode across the camp, fixing the gaze of his good eye on the command tent. Inside the open flaps Connor could see the bearlike general sitting across a small folding table from Sergeant Morris and two colonels, debriefing her. An airman stood in front of the tent, but Connor brushed the guard aside.

  “General, I’m leaving,” Connor announced.

  “What did you say?” Bayclock rose to his feet.

  “You can’t hold me, General. I came here of my own free will to offer you a deal—which you refused. I’m a United States citizen, and you can’t hold me prisoner. I’m going to take my horses and my wagon and my satellites and I’ll be on my way.”

  Connor turned before the general could say anything, glancing quickly at where his wagon had been impounded. He took one step before Bayclock said in a loud growling tone, “Sergeant Morris, I’ve had enough of this. Take Mr. Brooks into custody. If he resists, shoot him as a deserter.”

  Connor whirled. His face burned with livid anger; he felt the scab from his slashed cheek break open. “Deserter! I’m not part of your damned army! You’re not my commanding officer.”

  Bayclock gripped the tent flap as if he wanted to rip it to shreds. “You have been conscripted, Brooks. This is martial law, and we don’t have time to quibble in a war zone. That is all. Sergeant Morris!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Guard him. Don’t let him out of your sight. This insubordination makes me want to puke. And if it doesn’t stop, there’s going to be a bloodbath.” He fixed his gaze on Connor. “And we’ll start with him.”

  * * *

  Late that night, after feigning sleep for forty-five minutes, Connor Brooks opened his one good eye.

  The camp was dark and still, with outlying campfires glowing behind dirt berms; extra guards stood on alert because of the previous night’s attack by Lockwood’s people. Connor didn’t move, but kept staring, taking in details. He could feel the ropes against his arms, his legs.

  Near him, beside the fire, Sergeant Morris lay curled on top of her blanket. She even slept in an uncomfortable position that gave the impression of readiness, as if she would snap awake and leap into action at a moment’s notice. She still wore her uniform—not that he expected the thick-lipped blonde to slip into a sexy nightie!

  The sergeant had stuck to him like a leech the whole afternoon. She even stood outside the latrine door when he had to take a crap! She seemed to be on full-time PMS, and Connor was amazed at how fast he began to hate her.

  But finally the sergeant slept, as did most of the people around the camp. She had led him away from the main troops, as if afraid Connor might contaminate them. The following morning they planned to take over the EM launcher facility, and they needed their rest.

  Connor flexed his arms, minutely loosening the rope that bound his arms and legs. He relaxed his body as much as he could, and was surprised at the play in the rope.

  Lucky the bitch tied me up, he thought. She could have gotten one of the security police to help, someone who knew what he was doing. Connor had drawn in a full chestful of air and tried to keep his muscles as tight as he could when she used the rope. Now he had plenty of slack, and time to escape.

  It took longer than he expected, and impatience made him wrestle unproductively until he scraped his wrists raw. Finally, the rope popped off the ball of his thumb.

  Connor slowly sat up, an inch at a time to keep from making noise. The campfire crackled and popped. Sergeant Morris stirred but remained asleep. The guards watching the perimeter of the camp moved out of sight.

  Connor untied his feet and rose up. His knees cracked. He froze, but nobody moved. The orange campfire flickered, but the light was too dim to illuminate him.

  He took a step toward the fire. His boot crunched on the ground. Sergeant Morris stirred again, but did not wake up. If he couldn’t slip away before she sounded the alarm, then the general would have Connor’s balls on a grappling hook for sure!

  He took another step, focusing on the metal tire iron lying in the ashes to stir the logs. He took a third step toward it. Bending down, he wrapped his fingers around the heavy metal rod.

  When he lifted the iron up, the smoldering wood in the fire shifted, sending sparks into the air. Connor froze, but he had gotten this far. Maybe something would go his way—for once!

  He tiptoed toward the sleeping form of Sergeant Morris, one step at a time, approaching her as cautiously as he could. The tire iron felt warm in his hand with the opposite end glowing a dull red. He stood over her and smiled.

  Connor raised the metal rod over his head. God, she looked ugly with her fat lips, chubby face, and mussed blond hair!

  Her eyes flickered open—and she saw him.

  Connor brought the hot tire iron down with all his strength.

  The iron smashed into her skull with a muffled thump; the sound seemed incredibly loud in the night. The red-hot metal sizzled in her face.

  A log in the campfire slumped over again. He heard a few people talking quietly in another part of the camp.

  She bled into the ground. Her body twitched, but he had smashed down on her eye—dead center—and she wasn’t going to be spying on anybody else. Stupid bitch!

  If she had just left him alone—if Bayclock hadn’t assigned her as his bodyguard—Connor could have just taken his own possessions and gone quietly on his way. But, no, they couldn’t make it that simple. So Bayclock and the sergeant had to deal with the consequences of what they had done. Connor felt no remorse whatsoever. How he could feel anything but scorn for military robots following the orders of a butthead?

  He crept over to the wagon. The horses had been unhitched, though they stood nearby. The satellites were still there, but Connor didn’t think he could take the wagon and still escape with his skin. After all, he had just killed one of Bayclock’s sergeants. If he didn’t get away—and get away quick—he wouldn’t live to see another morning.

  He reached into the wagon bed and quietly rummaged around. He found Heather’s aluminum-framed backpack with the stupid neon-pink fabric—real camouflage! Still, it was large enough to carry what supplies he needed. He stuffed the pack with food, a canteen, and one of Henrietta Soo’s blankets that had worked so well keeping the blistering desert heat away.

  Mounting the backpack on his shoulders, he ducked low and made his way out of the camp. He crept quietly around the sleeping forms and out into the desert.

  He intended to be far away by morning.

  * * *

  Well past midnight, Lieutenant Bobby Carron awoke with a start to the gentle touch of a knife.

  Tense, Bobby lay absolutely still as the blade moved down to the ropes binding his wrists, then started to saw through them.

  From the deep darkness and the constellations overhead, Bobby could tell that it was probably only an hour or two before dawn. The moon had already set, and the bone-biting chill of the desert night had settled into his joints.

  “I know you’re awake,” a man whispered behind him. “I’ve got to get you out of here. The general’s crazy, and you’re the only one with nothing to lose right now.”

  Bobby opened his eyes. The general’s crazy? Thanks for telling me something new! He felt a burning curiosity to know who the stranger was, but couldn’t see. The ropes at his wrist finally fall away, and he brought his arms around, flexing them to get the blood circulating again.

  His rescuer began to work on the bonds at his ankles, and Bobby looked down, astonished to see the gangly form of Lance Nedermyer. Nedermyer looked up at him, his mouth set. His gaunt face seemed swelled with fear, and his eyeglasses glinted in the starlight.

  “Take the wagon, get the satellites away from here. Bayclock is going to destroy them tomorrow to call Lockwood’s bluff.”

  Satellites? Bobby thought. Could these be the ones that were coming from the Jet Propulsion Lab? How did they get into the general’s camp? “What do you want me to do with them?” Bobby said in a low whisper.

 
“Hide them. Keep them safe. Even take them to Lockwood if you have to. But I’d rather have you steal them than let the general smash the only ones left.”

  Bobby rubbed his ankles, trying to massage the soreness out. “I tried to tell you about the general when you left White Sands. Now do you know why I chose to stay down here?”

  “Yes,” Nedermyer said in a harsh bitter voice. “But I suppose it isn’t the first mistake I’ve made in my life.” He helped Bobby get to his feet.

  “I’ve secured the horses to the wagon. There’s no way you can sneak past the perimeter. What you’ll need to do is just drive the horses like a bat out of hell and keep going into the night. The guards will shoot at you. Bayclock will send out search parties, but you have to get away.”

  “You’re telling me!” Bobby said.

  When they reached the wagon, Bobby saw that the campfires had burned low. All three horses had been hitched to the wagon; they stood stamping and restless, as if they could feel the excitement.

  “Your best bet is to charge south for about a mile, then veer due east. The terrain is flat and hard, and you won’t really need to watch where you’re going in the darkness. You just need to gain distance. When you veer east, you’ll head into the mountains. You can hide there. It’ll be daylight in another hour, and then it’ll be up to you.”

  Bobby gripped the thin man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Dr. Nedermyer. I’ve got to admit you surprised me.”

  Nedermyer took two steps backward, as if uncomfortable with the compliment. “I’m doing it to keep the satellites safe. Our civilization has fallen far enough. I can’t let Bayclock intentionally destroy what hope we have left.”

  “I’ll hide the satellites… or die trying.”

  “I hope you don’t have to,” Nedermyer said, then waved him off.

  Bobby smacked the reins and shouted. The three horses burst into motion, lurching forward in a full gallop. Rearing against the harness, the three mounts gained speed rapidly; the wagon and its cargo rolled across the flat hardpan of the desert. Within moments they flew beyond the perimeter of the military encampment.

  Behind him Bobby heard sudden shouting and alarms being raised. He heard other horses, but none of them came toward him.

  Within minutes gunshots sounded in the night. He ducked low on the buckboard. Only once did he hear a bullet whiz past him; all the other shots went completely wild. He drove the horse team by cracking the reins again and again, and they ran in blind, hot panic through the flat darkness. Bobby prayed they wouldn’t stumble across a sudden ravine or arroyo.

  After about ten minutes of hard riding, Bobby assumed he had gone more than a mile, and so he pulled the reins to turn the horses eastward. Against the blotted backdrop of stars, he could see the craggy silhouettes of the mountains. The terrain would get more rugged, and he would have to slow down.

  He knew the wagon wheels left a painfully clear trail across the gypsum sands, but Bayclock’s trackers wouldn’t be able to see them before the morning light. If Bobby could ride into the hills by then, he could perhaps find a place to hide.

  Across the clear silence of the night, he still heard gunshots, the turmoil back at the encampment. He had gotten away for now, but remaining free would require all his wits.

  * * *

  By morning Bobby had driven the wagon into the foothills. He made slow progress at first, forced to get down from the wagon and lead the horses along the winding, hilly path. More than anything, he wanted to get back to Spencer’s enclave by the solar-power farm, but he knew he couldn’t get past Bayclock’s siege. Certainly, he could not take the bulky wagon with three horses up to Spencer’s command center. He would have to hide the satellites in a safe place, hoping to retrieve them when, or if, the scientists ever managed to defeat the general.

  By the time full sunlight penetrated the hills, Bobby found a steep arroyo. Its jagged corners were clogged with piñon, scrub-oak, and mesquite. The dense branches and sparse gray-green leaves provided good cover, and Bobby tied the horses while he tried to camouflage the wagon.

  He covered it with branches, masking the wagon from sight unless someone stumbled directly on it. As he worked, he thought that this was something Rita Fellenstein would enjoy, playing some sort of mind-game with the general. He smiled as he thought of her—she certainly wasn’t the prettiest woman he’d known, but she was the most interesting; and the only one he knew who wouldn’t take any baloney from him.

  As he finished, Bobby knew he had to get back in touch with Spencer. If he got killed before he reached the microwave farm, then no one would ever know where the satellites were—and Bayclock might as well have destroyed them. The smallsats might become a sought-after treasure like the Lost Dutchman Mine.

  But Bobby would do his best to keep that from happening.

  Knowing he would be much more versatile with only one horse, Bobby packed some supplies and ate a quick breakfast. He picked the strongest-looking horse and mounted up, turning the other two loose to run wild.

  Bobby rode down out of the hills in hopes of finding a good route to the solar-power installation. He would try to make his way there after dark.

  The time passed quickly as he tried not to follow the way he had come. The White Sands valley stretched out below him as his horse picked its way down. Who would have ever thought that only months before he had been a carefree Naval aviator—

  A gunshot rang out, a loud crack that echoed around the hills. The horse was startled and trotted ahead, rolling its head from side to side. Bobby looked around to try and find the source of the gunfire. Another shot rang out, closer this time, and he spotted four riders emerging from the hills, all of them wearing Air Force uniforms.

  Bayclock’s men. Another rider charged out in front of him.

  Bobby shouted and urged the horse into a full gallop. He hurtled out of the hills, desperately seeking a place to hide, as the other riders launched into pursuit.

  Bobby hunched low over the horse’s neck, the mane whipping in the wind, stinging his face. Hooves thundered as Bobby’s horse leaped over a cluster of rocks and kept charging downhill.

  Behind him, the riders split up to intercept him. They shot again, and Bobby knew they had no interest in capturing him alive this time. At least he had fled far enough that the satellites were safe—but these riders must have tracked the wagon trail. How many men had Bayclock sent out after him?

  The gunshots came in faster succession now. The riders tightened the distance. Another volley of shots—the loudest so far—rang out in a sudden echo like firecrackers.

  The horse whinnied and reared as Bobby saw a sudden scarlet blotch appear on it’s ribcage four inches in front of his own thigh. The horse stumbled, falling over and throwing Bobby.

  He tried to hold on, but then rolled free as the horse thrashed on the ground to get to its feet again. The horse was bleeding heavily from the large gunshot wound close to its heart. It stamped up and down, then staggered back, limping.

  Bobby stood gingerly. His leg was sore, but nothing was broken, nothing sprained. He looked around for some rocks to hide in, anything for shelter.

  Then the hoofbeats of other horses pounded down on him from all sides. Four riders came up, each with rifle drawn.

  Bobby stood slowly with his back against a wall of sandstone, and raised his hands in surrender.

  * * *

  By late morning, Bobby Carron found himself Bayclock’s prisoner once more. They tied him helplessly on the back of a horse, then rode off toward the foothills on the opposite side of the valley. The encampment had already moved, and from his rocking position on horseback, Bobby was dismayed to see that the general’s army had succeeded in taking over the damaged railgun facility in only a few hours.

  The troops had marched up to the control buildings at the bottom of the miles-long electromagnetic launcher. From what he could tell, the scientists had not put up much of a fight.

  Bobby stumbled when his captors hauled him off the h
orse and dragged him to his feet. Smears of soot blackened the launcher control building. He tried to see other people he recognized. He hoped the scientists had gotten away.

  General Bayclock strode out of the burned-out control building. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked at Bobby with disgust. “This time I’m taking no chances. Lead the prisoner to the telephone pole. Right now.”

  One of the guards shoved him down a path toward an old creosote-covered utility pole that had once carried electricity to the launcher facility. Spencer’s people had already removed the wires from the pole—but Bayclock had another purpose in mind.

  “I knew you were a traitor, Lieutenant, but I didn’t believe you would team up with a slimeball like Connor Brooks to steal the satellites. We’ll find him, soon. Which one of you murdered Sergeant Morris, or did you take turns bashing her head in?”

  Bobby stared at him. Sergeant Morris, dead? He said numbly, “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t insult me,” said Bayclock. “I think we’ll go the high route with you.” The general looked up to the wooden crossbars on the electrical pole. “We’ll hoist you up so we don’t have to cut down Dr. Nedermyer.”

  Bobby wavered as the guards pushed him forward. He saw the blue-black clenched face of Lance Nedermyer. Bayclock had thrown a loop of rope around his neck like a garrote, inserted a short stick, and then twisted it to draw the rope tighter and tighter until it crushed Lance’s larynx and severed his trachea. Bobby saw scuff marks in the sand and fresh gouges from the bottom of the utility pole where Lance had kicked and struggled. His body had already begun to bloat in the bright morning heat.

  “I have no patience left for traitors,” Bayclock said. “It’s about time my people realized that.”

  Chapter 73

  Standing on the south balcony of the White House, President Jeffrey Mayeaux watched his military troops patrol the Mall. The National Guard had forcibly removed angry crowds from the Ellipse and the south lawn. Even the cherry trees along the Tidal Basin had been cut down and stored as firewood for the winter.