Bunker: Boxed Set (Books 4 and 5)

by Jay J. Falconer

  The Russian tech meant a central monitoring station was operational in town. Buckley hadn’t seen it yet, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He thought it would be within cabling distance from the mobile generators, their diesel engines purring in the background.

  The latest trucks to arrive were a pair of flatbed tractor-trailer rigs. Their cargo—a skid-mounted water treatment plant made by a company called Evoqua. Buckley presumed the equipment was a combination of filtration and reverse osmosis, designed to keep the Russian troops safe from contaminated water.

  The need for a purified water source made sense, given their unwelcome presence. It wouldn’t take much for a lone saboteur to poison an unprotected water supply, taking out a large group of soldiers without firing a shot.

  Water and food are just as important as guns and ammo when you’re the invading force. He thought about the logistics of their arrival and realized water would have been too heavy to transport. Plus it would have run out quickly, leaving the invaders at the mercy of the town’s water supply. That left only one choice—mobile equipment for onsite filter and decontamination before the water touched the lips of their men.

  The buzz of activity continued outside, with scores of citizens and troops doing what they needed to do to survive one more day. So far, no shots had been fired—on either side—but he worried the situation might soon change.

  Clearwater may have been a peaceful town that rolled up its sidewalks at night—a town where life eased forward at its own leisurely pace. Even so, these were Americans under duress. Proud. Resilient. Free. It wouldn’t take much to spark an altercation, which is why he figured the inoculations had been launched first.

  FEMA’s contagion alarm was a masterful stroke of genius, designed to add a layer of control to what would surely be an angry population. At the time, everyone in town was thankful for FEMA’s help, lining up willingly for what they thought was a life-saving inoculation.

  Of course, that perception changed once the residents realized it was only step one of the Russians’ occupation plan. As it stood now, anyone considering resistance would think twice with lethal explosives and tracking devices buried in their necks.

  He wondered if the FEMA plot would have been successful if Bunker and Apollo had still been in town. Buckley obviously wasn’t prepared for the misdirection, nor was he paying close enough attention when it unfolded right in front of him. Bunker and Apollo might have made a difference, noticing that something was off with the FEMA rollout.

  All Buckley could do now was stand back and let the Russians expand their grip of terror. He was outgunned, outmanned, and outsmarted by a band of arrogant Slavs who’d arrived from a land far away.

  He used to be the man in charge of all things Clearwater-related. A man people respected and looked up to on a daily basis. But that status evaporated the instant the Russians snuck into town.

  Their show of force had everyone cowering to their demands, including him. There was one exception though—Bill King, the Silver King Mine owner. The same man who had his own private audience with the General.

  There was no way to know what transpired in that meeting, but his gut told him that King wouldn’t hesitate to sell out everyone in order to save his life and that of his missing son. He might have managed to turn a profit in the process, too.

  Buckley leaned his butt against the edge of Apollo’s desk, giving his back and his legs a rest. Thus far, the Sheriff’s Office hadn’t been commandeered by the invaders like the Mayor’s Office had been. However, that didn’t mean General Zhukov had forgotten about this space.

  His men had already searched the office, removing the pistols, rifles, ammo, tear gas, gas masks, batons, Tasers, Kevlar vests, riot gear, and other equipment. Basically, anything that could be used against their forces, including the letter opener in Daisy’s top drawer.

  The Sheriff’s Office was now a useless relic, with only historic significance behind its name. Much like he felt at the moment. Obsolete. Moth-balled. Forgotten.

  A triple knock came at the door behind him. “Mr. Mayor. We need to speak with you,” a man’s voice said in perfect English. His tone was deep and gravelly, indicating someone of advanced age.

  Mayor Buckley chose to ignore the visitors since the hail was devoid of a Russian accent. He needed whomever it was to go away and leave him be.

  The knock rang out again, this time turning into heavy bangs on the door. “Mr. Mayor. We know you’re in there. We need to speak to you.”

  Buckley exhaled, letting his shoulders slump as a dull headache began to establish a foothold in his brain. The pounds hit the door again and again. Finally, Buckley decided to speak. “Go away. I’m busy.”

  The man’s voice changed its pitch and its cadence. Someone else was speaking now, the tone softer and younger. “Seth, it’s me, Stan Fielding. I’ve got my two girls with me and we really need to speak to you. It’s urgent.”

  Buckley didn’t respond as more fist pounds hit the office door, then all went quiet. The Mayor relaxed, thinking Stan and the other man had given up.

  Thirty seconds of silence ticked by, then the pounding and verbal demands started up again. It was clear Stan and company weren’t going away.

  Buckley needed to take action; otherwise, the incessant noise would soon send his headache into orbit. “Enough already, Stan. Come in. The door is unlocked.”

  The hinges creaked before footsteps entered the workspace. Buckley turned to make eye contact with Stan, but his focus found the innocent faces of the man’s twin redheads, Barb and Beth. Their freckled, pre-teen faces were round and puffy, as if they’d been crying only moments before.

  Four other people had followed in behind Stan and his girls—two older and two younger, all men. Their expressions were identical—they wanted answers.

  Stan held up a white sheet of paper, waving it as if it were a priority communique from the President of the United States. The other visitors did the same, their hands clutching single sheets of paper.

  “Have you seen this?” Stan asked.

  Buckley suddenly found the energy to reengage his former life as Mayor. He walked out from behind the desk and met Stan halfway. “What is it?”

  “Work assignments,” Stan said, giving the paper to Buckley. “For everyone on my street.”

  Stan turned sideways and held out a hand toward the pair of men on his right. “These are my neighbors, Jack Koehn and his eldest son Don.” He moved his arm again. “This is Phil Wright and his son Bret.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Buckley said in his mayoral voice. He held out a hand for a shake, but there were no takers.

  Stan continued, “The Russians are going door-to-door with dogs to confiscate our weapons and ammo. Then they’re handing out these notices before they move on to the next house. Everyone is scared, Mayor. You need to do something.”

  Buckley wasn’t surprised by the confiscation of weapons, not after they’d done the same thing to the Sheriff’s Office. He was more concerned about the piece of paper Stan had just given him.

  His eyes scanned the words on the page. Unlike the dossiers he’d seen on Zhukov’s desk, everything was in English, with the name of Stan’s street printed in bold letters at the top. Below it were four columns of names—resident names—grouped together and listed by surname, with a number immediately after it.

  Stan’s last name was near the bottom of the first column: FIELDING: 3. Two other families were listed ahead of his, bringing the count of persons in their group to ten. Above their names was the heading: Ore Transport. Sector 4. Shift 2.

  “What am I looking at here?” Buckley asked in an effort to stall, even though he knew what this paperwork represented.

  “We’re all supposed to work the mine, starting Monday. Even my girls.”

  “Why would they need to assign workers? Bill King has plenty of men for that already.”

  “This isn’t for the Silver King Mine.”

  “Why would you say tha
t?”

  “One of my neighbors speaks a little Russian and overhead some of the soldiers talking. They plan to bus us daily to the abandoned Haskins Mine.”

  “The old phosphate pit?”

  “My girls can’t be working in a mine, Mayor. It’s too dangerous. You have to stop this.”

  Buckley’s mind took a minute to process the information, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “Your neighbor must have misunderstood what they were saying.” He held up the paper and pointed at the task assignment printed above Stan’s group. “Why would the Russians need workers for Ore Transport Duty at a phosphate mine? There’s no ore. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Stan looked at the other men standing with him, then brought his eyes back to Buckley. “We think there’s something else in that hole. Something important enough to risk invading the United States.”

  Buckley gulped after remembering something Bill King had said earlier, when the business owner let it slip that at least one uranium mine was still operating in Colorado, and it was a lot closer than anyone realized.

  Anyone except the Russians, apparently.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Do you think Sheriff Apollo will let me have a gun?” Victor Rainey asked the big man, Dicky, whose powerful hands were holding the precision-guided TrackingPoint rifle in a firing position. The tree line beyond the Old Henley Bridge was the target of the rifle’s scope.

  Dicky brought the high-tech weapon down from his shoulder, then took a swig from one of the three water bottles sitting behind the barbed wire barricade. “You’ll have to ask him. I’m not sure what he’ll want to do.”

  Victor flipped his head to the right, sending the longest part of his hair to the side. “Don’t you have some pull with him? I mean, you’re a deputy. Doesn’t he listen to suggestions?”

  “Actually, kid, I’m only a temporary deputy. So no, I don’t have any influence with the Sheriff. Like I said, you need to ask. Not me. I just do as I’m told. Something I’m guessing you need to learn to do as well.”

  A high-pitched squeal of hinges rang out from behind Victor’s position, then the hollow ping of steel hitting steel. He turned his head in a flash. As did Dicky, both searching for the source of the noise.

  The Sheriff was on his way from Tuttle’s front gate with a pair of rolled-up papers in his hands. The Mayor’s grandson, Rusty, was walking with him, the handlebars of his high-end mountain bike in his grip.

  “Looks like you’ll gonna get your chance,” Dicky said, his tone terse and to the point.

  Victor swallowed hard, forcing down a knot of saliva. “Not exactly what I was hoping for.”

  “I know, but if you want to get somewhere in this world, you need to take ownership of your actions. That means manning up when the situation calls for it. Like now. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “He says no.”

  “Then he says no. At least he’ll know you want to help. It’s a start.”

  Victor nodded as he waited for the Sheriff to arrive. Dicky was correct. Nobody was going to give him any respect unless he did something to earn it. He wasn’t sure if asking for a gun was all it would take, but he planned to ask.

  “Any activity?” the Sheriff asked Dicky when he arrived.

  “No sir. All quiet.”

  “I figured as much. No news is good news,” the Sheriff said, tapping Victor on the back with one of the papers. “Right, sport?”

  “Yeah, no news is good news.”

  Apollo pointed at the bicycle. “I thought having Rusty’s bike down here was a good idea to speed up the notification process.”

  “Yes sir,” Dicky said, sounding more like a soldier than a deputy. “Much faster than running. Every second counts.”

  “What do you think, Victor?”

  “Sure. I guess. If that’s what you need. But seems to me that using the walkie-talkies you found would be better.”

  “Bunker and I discussed that, but we decided to save the batteries.”

  “They’re rechargeables, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are. But charging them takes time and power away from other things—more important things. We also don’t know if the frequencies are being monitored. If they are, it wouldn’t take long to get a fix on our position, and we can’t afford that. So we decided to keep them off, for now.”

  The Sheriff motioned to Rusty.

  Rusty gave the bike to Victor. “Just don’t wreck it.”

  Victor took the bike by the handgrips, his foot fumbling for the kickstand.

  “You do know how to ride a bike, don’t you?” Rusty asked, his brow furrowed.

  “Yeah. No problem. Everyone knows how to ride a bike.”

  “But this isn’t just any bike.”

  “I know. I’m not stupid.”

  “Good then,” Apollo said before Rusty could respond. “If anything pops up, let me know immediately.” He held up the rolled paper. “We’re heading inside to go over these maps with Bunker. There’s something interesting I need to show him.”

  “Good luck, sir,” Dicky said, nudging Victor on the shoulder.

  The Sheriff brought his eyes down to Victor. “Is there something else?”

  Victor’s lips started to answer before he was ready. “Ah, yeah, well, uh . . . I was wondering if I could maybe get a gun? You know, to help protect the bridge and all that. Like Dicky.”

  The Sheriff shot a glance at the towering guard before returning his focus to Victor. “Do you think you’re ready for a gun, young man? It’s a lot of responsibility.”

  Victor felt emboldened by the man’s question. He decided to deliver his words like Dicky would have done. “Yes sir, I am. A hundred percent.”

  “I appreciate your gumption, son, but the answer is no. I don’t feel comfortable with a weapon in your hands. I’m sure your mother would agree with me. And so would your grandmother.”

  “But you don’t understand. Grandma showed me how to shoot last summer with her .22. It’s not hard. I hit every can at least once. Ask her.”

  “I’m sure you did. But chances are, you need a lot more practice. Shooting cans is a lot different than being an armed guard.”

  “What, you don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not that, Victor. There are procedures in place to make sure someone’s ready to carry a gun. Especially someone your age. But even more importantly, I’d need to run it by your mother first, and I think we both know what she’s gonna say.”

  “Yeah, you’re just like everybody else. You don’t trust me.”

  Apollo didn’t respond.

  “Look, I apologized, but I guess that doesn’t count for anything.”

  Apollo took a second before he spoke. “You mean for what you did at the bus accident.”

  “I said I was sorry. If I had known what Bunker was going to do, I would’ve stuck around. But I didn’t. He was just some guy who showed up out of the blue. How did I know he wasn’t going to push the bus over the cliff?”

  Apollo gave the maps to Rusty, then cradled Victor with an arm around the shoulder. He pointed at a flowering bush ten yards away. “Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”

  The two of them moved away from the group, then Apollo spoke again, this time with a much softer voice. “I know you don’t think anyone trusts you, and maybe they don’t, but that’s because of what you did.”

  Victor shrugged. “I said I was sorry.”

  “And we all appreciate that. But it takes more than just words to earn trust.”

  Victor wasn’t sure if he should say anything, so he didn’t.

  “Trust is about honesty and how you conduct yourself when it really matters. You have to show responsibility and quit taking the easy way out. That means no more lying and no more stealing. I know your mother is at the end of her rope with you.”

  “I didn’t steal anything.”

  “Yes, you did. Be honest.”

  Victor held his tongue.

  “We all know you broke
into Franklin’s store and stole his gun.”

  “That wasn’t me. That was someone else.”

  Apollo dropped his head and shook it before he made eye contact again. “You see, this is exactly what I’m talking about. When you lie, people don’t trust you. No matter how many times you apologize afterward. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Victor nodded.

  Apollo continued, his tone more serious than before. “It’s time to grow up and be accountable for what you did. So right now, I need you to be honest and answer me. That was you in Franklin’s store, wasn’t it?”

  Victor considered his options, pausing before he answered. “Yeah, Sheriff. It was me. I broke in, but I needed a gun so I could protect my mom after what happened. Wouldn’t you have done the same thing if you were me? It’s not like my dad is around anymore to protect us. So I had to.”

  “Okay, some of that is justifiable, but why did you destroy the office?”

  “What? I didn’t destroy anything.”

  “Rusty told me about what you did. He was there. The place was a complete mess.”

  “All I did was take the gun under the desk. I didn’t touch anything else. I swear. Took me like ten seconds, then I was outta there. I knew right where it was from what Megan was saying on the bus.”

  Apollo didn’t answer.

  Victor continued, “It must have been the men in black. They showed up right after I got there. That’s how I lost the gun, when I started running.”

  “They chased you?”

  “Well, sort of. I’m not sure. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

  “I see,” Apollo said, his eyes indicating he was deep in thought. A handful of seconds drifted by before the man spoke again, this time tugging Victor by the arm. “All right, come with me.”

  Apollo directed the next question to Rusty. “When you first arrived at the horse stables, was the front door open to the store?”