Theatre of War (Matt Drake 28) Tenth Anniversary Novel

by David Leadbeater

  The SUVs left the environs of Las Vegas, heading north. The highways were relatively empty since it was early in the morning, but Kinimaka still chose the minor roads in case some of the bigger interstates had been blocked.

  “Feels surreal,” Mai said, staring out the window into passing blackness. “We’re living it, but it doesn’t feel real.”

  Drake nodded and reminded Karin of the next potential attack on the power grids.

  “We’re on it,” she said. “But nothing so far.”

  They left her to it, ending the call and driving deeper into the night, temporarily lost in their own thoughts. Drake wondered how the escalation had been so effectively managed. It was surely beyond most news chiefs to imagine a full twenty-four hours of average America as anything more than a chain of fleeting calamities, captions that were gripping one day and forgotten the next. Many hadn’t yet grasped the terrible certainty that their lives may change forever and President Lacey, for one, had done nothing to discourage that belief.

  Random reports came in of entire families in North Dakota, out for the duration of the night, praying to the stars and the aliens that inhabited them that tomorrow would be a better day. In Texas, an oil baron hanged himself after witnessing firsthand the violence “good men and women inflicted on each other in the name of materialism.” In Colorado, people held vigils on their front lawns, holding candles aloft and wishing for a return to normality.

  Don’t we all, Drake thought.

  Some news reports claimed the attacks were over. Others promised more to come, in knowing tones that almost had newsreaders licking their lips. Experts were wheeled in from around the fifty states, each one expressing an opinion that may or may not be true.

  “Getting worse?” Kinimaka asked from the driver’s seat.

  “As bad as you can imagine,” Hayden said. “I’m dreading what tomorrow will bring.”

  “But so are they.” Drake shook his phone. “The people. They’ve been essentially isolated by the State. The hardest thing they face right now is the lack of information. It’s what fuels all the worry and the crazies. What we need is—”

  “A united states?” Hayden cut in. “Yeah, many of us have been hoping that might eventually happen.”

  Drake nodded. “America is greedy,” he said. “Like most first-world nations. We want our correct cereal, our rindless bacon, our ground coffee just how we like it, and we whine if it doesn’t happen. Now, the food supply lines are blocked, the main routes closed, the cities burning. How does your average worker come to terms with that?”

  “It’s terrifying,” Dahl said. “If you’re sat at home with your kids, in the dark, through the night, not knowing what’s coming next—that’s terrifying.”

  “Any destruction of the power grids will be catastrophic,” Kinimaka said.

  “There are container ships full of produce sitting at docks in Florida, Louisiana and California,” Mai said. “Untouched. Their cargos left to rot. The docks have become a no-man’s land of violence, run by snipers. The looting... it’s got worse. The grocery and electrical stores are no longer the focus of people’s attentions. Now it’s actual homes too. Warehouses. Small businesses. Mostly the perpetrators are the dregs getting what they can while they can, but normal people have been arrested, seeking food because they’ve run out, willing to pay but unable to find anyone to ask.”

  “It’s spreading,” Shaw said, raising her own phone. “Helicopters are being shot at. Sometimes shot down. Police and news and others. There’s no reason to it, apart from the embracement of anarchy. Police stations are already being targeted. And government buildings. Even places like libraries, civic halls. Community centers.” She shook her head. “And people are organizing defenses.”

  “I guess they have to,” Dahl said.

  Drake wondered what the average father and mother would do. First, they’d watch the TV or check their phones, not knowing how bad things were. Maybe they’d go to their neighbors for second and third opinions. Maybe they’d even mention clubbing together. But then normality would set back in, forcing them to feel a little foolish. They had locks and they had alarms and a line to the police. They could keep their kids safe in their own home until this latest madness passed over.

  Like it always did.

  “Our choices are narrowing,” Alicia said. “And I don’t just mean our transport situation. As I see it, we have to find Zuki, the Scourge or the President.”

  Drake closed his eyes in disbelief, even though he’d been expecting it. Alicia’s first two targets were well hidden and unclear—they could very well be on a different continent...

  But the third target was right here in America.

  And, even better, the daily news had already told them exactly where he was.

  “We once had a direct line to that office,” Hayden said wistfully. “Now, we’re talking about planning an op to breach it.”

  Drake stared out the window. Everyone, he guessed, was hoping for that sudden call—a message from Karin, Sutherland or Bryant to say they’d located one of their targets. It certainly wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. All three had sublime connections inside the government, military and private sector.

  Outside, nothing broke the dark monotony, not even a distant light or a glittering star. It seemed that night had well and truly fallen across America.

  “We can’t save everyone,” Drake said, repeating something that, in his SAS days, had fast become a mantra. “But we can take out the source.”

  “You’re talking about a trip to Washington DC?” Hayden asked.

  “President Lacey has to know the plan. He must have been briefed. Probably even knows where the Scourge are. I don’t see a choice.”

  “And the fifth attack?” Dahl challenged.

  Drake clenched his fists. “Time’s against us, yes,” he said. “How long to DC?”

  “In this?” Kinimaka sounded miserable. “Almost a day. Might be able to shave a few hours off that but it depends on the state of the roads.”

  Shaw said she’d check the live road apps to find the best route. Mai hit speed dial on her phone. “I’ll try Bryant.”

  Alicia raised her eyebrows. “Hey, am I on speed dial too?”

  “Yeah, but it’s causing issues. Every time I type the word ‘bitch’ in text it brings your dumb face up.”

  Alicia nodded, appreciating the banter.

  Drake let the others work as Dahl scrolled once more through the burgeoning news reports. “The country’s tearing itself apart,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Across the country, the madness was multiplying faster than a virus.

  Brad Nelson, a convenience store manager from Anaheim, Los Angeles, saw the crazies coming. They began gathering outside his place before dark. They were mean looking, probably hungry, and looking to fight. In fact, as he watched, they were fighting. Scrapping among themselves like wild dogs.

  Nelson locked everything first, windows and doors, then set about dragging the heavy gear to block the door. A low freezer that he could barely shove, a rack of cans that held some weight, a drink-mixing machine. Every window too small to admit a man, he left alone. After the front of the shop was done, he barricaded the rear, sliding an old storage chest across the metal door and giving the lock a good rattle. Finally, satisfied, he approached the front windows and looked out.

  Eyes, he thought. Eyes, all watching me.

  They glared at him, glittering as darkness fell; men and women looking to rob him, to take advantage of the misery sweeping the United States like a plague, to swarm in here and destroy.

  He’d seen it on the news. On social media. A gathering madness. Well, Nelson was a community stalwart. People around here appreciated him and enjoyed chatting, and he liked chatting to them. A band of thugs appearing out of the darkness wasn’t going to drive him away.

  Besides, he had a right to protect himself and his property.

  They came then, a tight group of
people. As they drew closer, in their midst, he recognized mothers, sisters, and a regular clutching what looked to be a damaged right arm. People armed with bats and hammers walked alongside faces he recognized. Outside his store, they stopped and yelled a warning.

  “We’re desperate, Nelson. Please. Let us in.”

  Nelson was hard-headed. He rarely backed down even when he knew his wife was right, forever clinging onto the dying threads of a lost argument. Now, he told them to head home, to leave the community be.

  “We are the community,” someone said before throwing the first bottle, which set fire to his store.

  *

  In San Diego, Misty lay on a stripey sun lounger, allowing the artificial light of the sunbed to coat her back with an all-even tan. She lay face down, goggles on. The top half of her bikini had been discarded, the bottom half artfully cut to allow maximum tan. The alarm was counting down. Misty had googled the correct amount of time for the best tan.

  In the background, the TV belted out new reports of unrest across the nation. Misty was sick of it, just wanting it to be over and her world to get back to normal. Today, at her local coffee shop, they’d even run out of those salted caramel sprinkles she enjoyed so much.

  Misty had huffed and puffed about it, given the barista a good talking to for his failings, and then stalked off, ignoring the stares of both men and women in the queue, used to it. They probably recognized her from the many magazine modelling shoots she’d done during the last two years. Every month a different location, jetting to Jamaica, Cancun or the Maldives. It was a stressful life, of course, possibly even verging on the side of manic, but she tolerated it for her art and for her army of fans.

  Misty sat up now as the alarm went off and padded into the bathroom. She toweled off a slight sheen of sweat that the sunbed had produced and took a long look at herself in the floor to ceiling mirror.

  Not bad.

  Tomorrow, she’d be competing to be part of a local modelling calendar. Miss March, by all accounts. But tonight, she decided that she wanted some special company. Crossing to her computer, she brought up a website and scrolled past several “couples” photos before deciding on the right one. It was expensive for one night but looked worth it.

  After booking her friends for the night, Misty hit the shower and spent some time deciding what she would wear. By the time a discreet knock on the door drew her attention, she’d picked out a lacy, knee-length babydoll over black, barely-there lingerie, and padded to the front door.

  “Right on time,” she said as she threw open the door. “Usually, you’re—”

  But it wasn’t her date for the night. It was dopey Jake from next door. Misty covered up as best she could and glared at him with all the fire in her heart.

  “The fuck do you want, Jake?”

  “I came to warn you.”

  “Warn me? Look, Jake, if you don’t get the—”

  “Haven’t you heard? The police have lost control. Riots. Murder. Looting. Emergency squads aren’t enough.”

  Misty stared at him as if he’d gone mad. “But what’s that got to do with me? I don’t care what happens out there.” She waved a hand generally above his head. “Leave me alone, dickhead.”

  Jake looked confused. “But you live here. This is your town, your country.”

  “And it will all be back to normal tomorrow, or the next day. Look, I have an appointment about now and an Insta shoot later tonight. I have to be fresh for tomorrow. Can you please leave me the hell alone?”

  Jake held up both hands and backed off. Misty couldn’t quite understand what he was doing when his head went misshapen. She couldn’t guess at first what spattered her pretty face and underclothes, or why Jake fell to the ground.

  Behind him, waving bats and guns and other weapons, came a horde of figures. Were they fans? Where the hell was Security when you needed them?

  Misty decided she should probably call the cops.

  Jake wasn’t moving. The crowd had spotted her.

  It didn’t look good.

  Misty went back inside her apartment, shut the door, and locked the world away.

  Tomorrow, it would all be better.

  *

  A virulent craziness spread across America that night. From vantage points on rooftops across many major cities, news channels including NBC, FOX and CBS, described “hellish” scenes playing out among the streets below.

  Fires raged from fashion stores to apartment blocks and government buildings. Cut scenes showed sights normally reserved for Hollywood horror movies—city blocks filled with lurid fires, ghastly shadows and darting people.

  It was noisy too, screams defying imagination cutting through the night. Countless hotels, restaurants, warehouses and shops were broken into. Proprietors died defending their livelihoods. If the Army was trying to neutralize the local threat that night, it was with a sparse coverage.

  President Lacey oversaw it all, issuing orders from within the safest house in the land. Police commissioners explained how they didn’t have the manpower to prevent such widespread looting and violence. A minimum risk strategy had to employed, where the worst of the violence was toned down.

  Ambulance and other emergency services were stretched until they broke, hospitals performing lesser surgeries in parking lots. The clatter of gunfire was audible throughout the cities. The National Guard was called out.

  Stories came in from all parts of the United States. Stories of desperation and heroism, of daring and disaster.

  A young man running into his burning fourth-story apartment to save his young sister, throwing her over the balcony into waiting arms below and then dying in the blast as a gas oven exploded.

  A semi-famous group of older musicians setting up on the corner of Fifth and East 60th, in view of Central Park, playing their rock music through the night and attracting a large, peaceful crowd that stayed clear of the rioting.

  In New Jersey, Atlanta and Kentucky, older people opened their restaurants and stores, figuring ransacked shelving was better than a burned-down store. But still, their stores burned.

  In Nashville, a forty-strong armed group trucked electrical goods worth $200,000 to a fenced compound, running with armed guards and a drone escort.

  In New Orleans, the poor turned on the rich.

  A boiling, outraged shadow crawled across America, a frenzy of panic that went far beyond hoarding or excitement. Fueled by repressed emotions coming to the boil, a nation that hadn’t realized how close it had always been to the edge, was forced to the very brink.

  Early the next morning, the President gave an address.

  It was dour and uninspiring. Those that tuned in expecting to hear a strong message of hope and action, switched off afterward and then questioned it, quietly, to their partners.

  Did that just really happen?

  Are we alone in all this?

  I’m scared...

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Drake sat forward as a sprawling town came into view ahead. The first thing he noticed was pluming smoke spiraling up to the black skies. The second was the garish flames licking the rooftops, spreading their nightmarish glow along the base of rainclouds.

  Kinimaka slowed. Kenzie drove the car behind. Their way forward led straight through the unsettled town.

  Already tonight, they’d pulled a stranded motorist from his car, guided a busload of tourists to a local town, and dissuaded an angry mob from ravaging a motorbike dealership. The side jobs had been unavoidable but had cost them time. Washington DC still lay ten hours east.

  “No way around.” Shaw had become their navigator for the long drive. “The only way is straight through.” The entire team, in two cars, communicated through their comms system.

  Kinimaka started off. Hayden bemoaned the fact that Bryant had run out of helicopters and, even so, the President had issued an executive order to halt all air and rail travel for the night. The danger was obvious to everyone. Those trapped on gridlocked roads in their c
ars were left to fend for themselves.

  Drake stared as Kinimaka approached the town at a gentle speed. The outskirts were mostly doused in darkness, with only a few lights shining. He imagined most of the local residents sitting at home in lightless silence, hoping and waiting, restless for the storm to pass.

  If it ever did.

  The big SUV rumbled along the blacktop. As the quiet scenes unfolded, Hayden’s cellphone rang. “Sutherland,” she said, answered, and put the call on speakerphone.

  The Assistant Director of the FBI asked where he was needed next.

  “As many trusted men and women as you can to DC,” Hayden said. “We’re going for the big one.”

  Alicia sniffed in the seat next to her. “Huh, I’ve been waiting for that my whole life.”

  “And if I recall,” Mai said, “you found it.”

  Alicia sat back, recalling past days. Drake chose to keep his eyes on the road. Hayden concentrated on her phone call.

  “The target’s not your usual kind of informer,” she said lightly and carefully. “But it’s the best we can hope for under the circumstances.”

  Sutherland agreed and told her that men and women would be waiting. He was spread impossibly thin, dealing with real-time issues as well as the overarching obstacle. “Is DC still untouched?” she asked.

  “Mostly,” Sutherland told her. “No attacks. The unrest here is in response to images the news channels are showing.”

  Hayden ended the call as the car entered a long, wide curve in the road running through the heart of the town. Drake saw movement in the shadows, the long alleyways, side streets and doorways to left and right. Hulking shadows that kept pace with the car.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  They came around the main curve of the bend, the SUV pointed at Main Street.

  Drake sat forward as something grabbed his attention. In the car, all chatter stopped.