by Greg Gotti
Now Maria found herself feeling antsy as they waited for Martinez to return. She wanted to get far away from here before her fiancé returned. She couldn’t think of anything she feared more than the thought of Diego finding her. What did he know? Did he know about John? Did he know about the baby? Did he know she had hidden John and nursed him back to health while he had torn the entire region apart looking for him? Even if he knew none of this, he would wonder why she was here. He might even try to touch her, and she could think of nothing worse than that. She felt her chest get tight and her breathing become labored. A sense of panic began to well up within her. She looked to the sliver of golden sky in the east and prayed God would hide them.
Suddenly, the quiet of the morning was shattered by the sound of vehicles approaching. They were still some distance away, but they were getting closer; their engines gunning hard as they drove through the dips and uneven ground of the dirt roads running through the area. The sounds quickly grew closer and it wasn’t long before jeeps rolled into view and stopped in the Facility 4 courtyard. Soldiers hopped out and began forming up as another jeep came tearing down the road at a high rate of speed. It bounced crazily as its front tires hit a dip in the road and came off the ground for a moment. The jeep zoomed into the courtyard and skidded to a stop. Maria saw Fuentes jump out and trot over the where the men were forming up. She swallowed hard and gave a worried look to Perez as she felt the familiar sense of dread creeping into her. She prided herself on being a strong, self-sufficient person, but something about Diego Fuentes made her feel like a scared little girl. She wondered how Martinez was going to get back to where they were without being seen by the gathering soldiers. The courtyard was in front of them to their right, and Martinez was somewhere in front of them to their left. The morning sky was brightening more with every passing minute, and there was now no chance he would be able to cross the field between them and wherever he had gone. Maria stayed low in the bushes with her two protectors and wondered how they would ever get out of here.
John stood in the arsenal of the SSS outpost as he and Williams strapped on their gear. Schwarz had sent them there while he made final preparations. John had showered and gotten into a standard camouflage uniform like the others. Now, he and Williams were now each being issued a rifle and a sidearm.
“So tell me,” John began, “what happened after you left us at the river?”
Williams’s face looked guilty.
“John, I’m sorry about that. You told me to go, and we both knew how important it was that I get away and…”
“It’s fine,” John said waving him off. “We both know we couldn’t afford to let them find you. There was nothing you could have done. So what happened after that?”
“I followed your instructions. I waited up in the trees and saw the Ristas take you. They knocked you unconscious and one of them dragged you up to one of their little vehicles. A group of Soona showed up and killed the others. They got Maria loose, but she was a whisker away from drowning by the time they did. They had to revive her to get her breathing again. I worked my way to the west; evading detection until I crossed into the border territory and made my way to American soil.
I was naïve, John. I thought I could just report in and tell them what happened. Why not? I was just a loyal officer whose plane had gone down in the zones and was fortunate enough to escape. I saw no reason why that would be an issue for anyone. But I found once you’ve been in the zones, you aren’t welcome back in the States.”
“Why is that?” John interrupted. “Are they afraid you’ll carry the Haze back there?”
“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Williams said shaking his head as he fastened the clasps of his body armor. “But it’s only part of it. What the government tells the American people about the zones is different than what actually happens here. For instance, we are told the airwaves here are jammed from within the zones because the Ristas and Soona don’t want information being transmitted from outside and informing their people. That’s true, but it is also jammed from the borderlands as well. The United States government doesn’t want its people knowing what is actually happening here.”
“Why do they care?” John asked. “They all want us sealed up in here because of the Haze, right?”
“They’re all scared of a Haze outbreak. That part is true, but it goes way deeper than that. It isn’t like it is in here. In America, there are a lot of people who remember that we all used to be one people: Americans. They still call this by the old names: Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and so on. If they knew what was going on in here, people would start feeling sympathetic and demand action.”
“Ok, Williams,” John said as he finished suiting up and sat down on a bench with his rifle between his knees. “What exactly is going on here? I mean all of it. What’s the whole story?”
“Yer being lied to!” A booming voice came from the doorway. John and Williams turned to see a tall, slender younger man in a uniform matching their own leaning against the doorframe. He had sandy blonde hair and spoke with a thick twang John had never heard before.
“John, this is Tex,” Williams said as the man gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment. “He is with us; part of the resistance.”
“Where are you from?” John asked him.
The skinny man in the doorway smiled. “I’m from a place you probably aint never heard of. It’s called Houston, and it’s the best city in the whole dang world.”
“Is that in America?” John asked.
“It’s in Texas,” Tex said indignantly as though John had offended him, “so, yes and no at the same time. Used to be America; now it aint.”
“The Texans are the ones who lead the resistance,” Williams explained. “They’re pretty much the only ones left who aren’t feeding their people a line of propaganda from what I can tell. They’re flying the American flag there again; even though it’s still considered to be part of the zones.”
“Why does Texas care about our war?” John wondered aloud.
“Cuz your war is a lie, John,” Tex said shaking his head. “Aint never been a real war in the first place. They made you afraid of each other, they taught you to hate each other so you’d kill each other, and you fight on and on with no end. Yer all filled with hate. Yer willing to die for that hate, and you do. And they just sit back and get rich off it. They own all of you, and you don’t even know it. Aint nuthin but a buncha puppets dancing to the dang music.”
John felt himself becoming annoyed with the cocky Texan, and he turned his lip up in a snarl as he spoke.
“You keep saying that word: ‘they.’ Who are ‘they’? The Americans?”
“It isn’t just Americans, John,” Williams said softly. “It’s a relatively small group of Americans, Ristas, Soona and some other people you probably have never heard of. It’s all over the world, but the key players are right here in what used to all be called ‘America.’ They’re rich; filthy rich, and they got that way from war, death and suffering. They’re the ones we have to take down if we are going to finally end it all.”
John sat in silence as he processed all this. He hadn’t wanted to believe Martinez, but something had rung true about his words from the first day they’d met. He had been skeptical of Schwarz but figured there was no way he and Martinez were collaborating to deceive him considering they were on opposite sides of a war. Most of all, he trusted Williams. He knew the American pilot to be very intelligent, and he didn’t figure him to be gullible. So it was all true. The war was a lie. Everything he had fought for… it was all a lie. He felt a sense of resignation and acceptance as it sunk in. Some people were going to have a lot to answer for, but he put his thoughts on hold as Schwarz walked in.
“Gentlemen, it’s time to go,” he said as Williams and Wallace stood.
“We’re going to get Maria?” John asked.
“And Martinez,” Schwarz answered. “We have a rendezvous to make and a very strict schedule to keep. Let’s go.”
Williams, Tex and John followed Schwarz down the halls and through the rear lobby to where four more soldiers stood on either side of two sets of double doors.
“We have less than 45 minutes before we need to be at the rendezvous, so I’ll make this quick,” Schwarz said. “None of us will be returning here. After this morning, we will all be considered dead by the Soona Nation. We are evacuating this station. We have set explosives throughout this complex that will destroy it so completely that identifying the bodies will be impossible. We have already dressed cadavers in uniforms and placed them where personnel would normally be stationed. If they can even find anything recognizable as a body after the fires are burnt out, it won’t be close to being identifiable. They’ll declare us officially dead, and we won’t have to worry about agents tracking us in our new home.”
“New home? Where?” John asked incredulously.
“Texas, Johnny. Please don’t interrupt again as we are in a big hurry. I’ll have more time to explain on the trip. As I was saying, we will pick up our passengers at the rendezvous and proceed onward to Texas. Martinez is in the process of destroying the RID facility like this one and will meet us there with Maria and two of his men. I’ll explain the rest on the way. Let’s go.”
Schwarz led them outside into the brisk morning air. The grass was wet with dew, and the sound of many birds singing their morning chorus filled the air. John hurried to Schwarz’s side.
“Karl, how are we supposed to get anywhere in less than 45 minutes?”
“In that,” Schwarz said pointing ahead to where two large metal contraptions sat about 200 feet apart. John had never seen anything like them before.
“What is it?” he asked.
“They’re called ‘helicopters,’ John,” Williams answered, “or ‘choppers.’ They fly. Tex is our pilot. He’s taking us to go get Maria.”
“Dr. Phelps, or Joanna as you know her, will take your son ahead to our new home in that one,” Schwarz said pointing. “We will take the other one to the rendezvous. Everyone go ahead and get loaded up. Wallace and I will be with you in a minute. John, come with me.”
They walked towards the far helicopter with the four SSS soldiers as Tex and Williams climbed into the other. John read the words painted on the pilot’s door.
“Mad Dog?” he asked Schwarz.
“She’s the best pure pilot the resistance has,” Schwarz answered. “She’ll get them home safely. I promise.”
“Her name is ‘Mad Dog’?”
“It’s a call sign, Johnny… like a nickname.”
John shrugged as they reached the helicopter. He could see Joanna sitting inside holding Juan. John climbed up and sat next to her as she handed his son to him. Juan stared into his eyes, studying him, and John stared back; his heart filled with love for the son he just today learned he had. He smiled at Juan, and Juan surprised him as he smiled back. John brought him close and hugged him. He kissed his cheek as he held his head against his son’s for a moment.
“I love you, buddy,” he said as he held him just a few moments longer. He handed him back to Joanna and jumped down to the ground.
“I’m going to get mommy,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
Juan never took his eyes from his father as the other soldiers piled into the sizeable chopper.
“Listen, Johnny, I know I owe you. I screwed you bad and not a day goes by I don’t feel horrible about it. I can’t undo what’s been done. All I can do is try to redeem myself. These guys will take care of Joanna and your son. I trust them completely. They’ll be safe while we go to the rendezvous. You and Maria will be together with your son before this day is over. We gotta go though.”
“Karl,” John asked with a serious look, “where did you get these machines?”
The helicopter began powering up and the large blades began to slowly rotate as Schwarz shook his head.
“They’re from Texas, Johnny. Listen, I get it. You don’t trust me. But you have to trust me now. This whole place is about to go up in smoke, and we need to get out of here. I’ll be with you, so if I do anything rotten, you’ll know where to find me to kill me… how’s that?”
John smirked as the blades of both choppers were spinning fast now. He took one last look at Juan as the door slid shut. They turned and ran for the other chopper as the morning light began to turn night into day. Pulling the door shut behind them, they sat and strapped in as Tex raised the helicopter into the air and flew low, just above the treetops, as they headed towards the river and Rista territory.
Fuentes stormed across the courtyard of Facility 4 to where the men were forming up and waved his hands.
“Divide the men into 3 search teams!” he shouted at a lieutenant. “We must find Colonel Martinez and whoever is with him. They are to be taken alive. We need information, and we can’t interrogate dead prisoners.”
“Right away, sir,” answered the lieutenant as men still ran for position all around them.
“I am going inside to call Command. I need to report in and get any updates. While I am in there, I want this search initiated. Avoid the usual grid search. Martinez will know how to evade that. Get out in front of him and backtrack. Make him go to ground. We will get more men in here and close the net until we find him and…”
Fuentes stopped in midsentence as the sudden sound of dogs barking like mad came from the trees nearby. Shouting soon followed and Fuentes narrowed his eyes slightly as he peered through the dim morning light.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“I think it’s the trackers with the dogs, sir,”
A shot rang out, and everyone dashed for cover. Fuentes saw a young soldier come running from the woods. He stopped in front of him and shouted excitedly.
“Sir, the dogs tracked them to the edge of the woods about 200 meters north of here! There aren’t many of them; maybe two or three. We have them pinned down.”
“Let’s go!” Fuentes shouted as he grabbed a rifle and ran for the woods. The men tried to keep up with Fuentes, but the young Captain was the fastest runner any of them had ever seen. By the time they reached the edge of the woods, Fuentes had already begun advancing through the woods. They moved quickly until they came within sight of Heredia’s position.
“You may as well lay down your weapons and come out!” Heredia shouted. “You are totally surrounded! There is no reason for you to die today!”
Fuentes could see one of the dogs lying motionless on the ground and realized that must have been the shot he’d heard. The other dogs were silent; extremely well-trained RID dogs from a special breed that obeyed any command without hesitation. He knew they would go tearing into the bush with only a word.
“You have 30 seconds to come out of there before we send the rest of the dogs in!” he shouted. “We will let them chew on you for a while before we call them off if you make us do it! Now come out of there with your hands up!”
There was no movement as they waited. He counted to 30 in his head and felt his anger grow. If they wanted to do this the hard way, he would accommodate them. He opened his mouth to give the command just as he saw three pairs of hands emerge from the bushes. He raised his rifle and watched as two soldiers came out, followed by a young woman he recognized immediately. They kept their hands high as they stopped out in the open, and he signaled for his men to apprehend them. They hurried to hold them at gunpoint as Fuentes walked up slowly. He took in the sight of the short, dark-haired woman he’d thought dead for so long and just stared; unable to find the words.
“Maria?” he said disbelievingly.
“Hello, Diego.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jose Martinez watched helplessly as his three companions were led from the woods and marched across the field to Facility 4. He swore under his breath and rushed back inside to the detonator timers he had just set to go off in thirty five minutes. He went over his options in his mind as he stood in front of the various synchronized digital displays that were
counting down to zero. He had less than 40 minutes before the helicopters would be meeting him at the rendezvous. He could allow the charges to detonate and destroy Facility 4 while he escaped with the chip, but that meant Maria and his men would die too. Perez and Finkes might be willing to die for a cause, but Maria had not asked for any of this. He would never turn his back on his own anyways. He was going to have to try to figure out a way to get them out.
This whole thing would have been so much easier if they had stuck to the original timeline, but Rodriguez had made that impossible when he insisted on coming to meet with him. Changing the night they were to leave had introduced uncertainty into the fragile trust between him and Schwarz, and the Soona had insisted on doing it this way. He needed to talk to Wallace before he was willing to cross over that point of no return, so Martinez had been forced to take Maria back with him as security. He knew her presence guaranteed they would not fly off to Texas without him. They had exchanged coded chips in the medallions for their respective downloads. The Soona would not be able to read the data he took from the RID computers without the code to unlock the chip, and he wouldn’t be able to read theirs without the same. The plan had been very well-thought-out. It was just a very complicated plan involving a lot of moving parts, and complications always arose with such plans.
