Long Road to Survival: The Prepper Series (Book 2)

by Lee Bradford

  “Drink?” Van Buren asked, following Perkins’ gaze.

  The president shook his head.

  “You’re wondering about the painting,” Van Buren said, rising from his seat. It was a flower bed of irises. A single white flower stood out among a sea of violets. He grinned. “You’re far too polite to ask if it’s an original.”

  Perkins laughed and shifted in his chair.

  “I bought it from the Getty six months ago. A priceless work of art. I paid an arm and a leg for it, you know.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “Were you aware that Van Gogh painted it in an asylum the year before his death?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Not many are.” Van Buren ran his fingers over the canvas. “Each of the flowers is unique. Van Gogh studied every contour and shape to capture a variety of curved silhouettes. The overflowing borders are influenced by Japanese woodblock prints.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “One of his best,” Van Buren said as he opened his desk drawer, removed a box cutter and swung it, slashing the painting.

  Perkins stood, alarmed. “What are you doing?”

  Van Buren brought the blade down again, cutting so deep he scored a chunk out of the wall behind it. After a few more frenzied moments he stopped, his white hair out of place. With the palm of his hand, he fixed his coif and sat down and replaced the box cutter.

  Perkins was standing now, eyes wide and fearful. “Why did you do that? You said yourself it was priceless.”

  “It was, Edmund,” Van Buren assured him. “One of a kind and I did it to make a point.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That if need be, I’m perfectly at ease destroying something beautiful. Especially when something better is set to take its place.”

  Van Buren was referring to the country. But did he need to nearly give Perkins a heart attack to make that point? And hadn’t he proven himself in this regard already? They were here after all, which meant the plan had worked, the cost in human lives be damned.

  That last word was one Perkins had thought of often these days. They would be damned for what they’d done.

  “Those congressmen and senators shuffling about on the floors beneath us don’t know you’ve enacted Executive Directive 51, do they?” Van Buren asked, dusting flecks of paint off his shoulders.

  “Not yet, but they will soon. That’s what took me so long to get here. Tying up loose ends.”

  ED51, signed into law in 2007 by Bush, essentially bestowed full executive powers on the president in the event of a catastrophic event. The aim was to facilitate the continuity of government, but in effect it facilitated the creation of a dictatorship. All they needed was a catastrophe.

  “Why am I getting the overwhelming feeling you’re having second thoughts?” Van Buren opened his desk drawer, removed a silver coin and began deftly flipping it over his knuckles. Another one of his magic tricks.

  Perkins’ eyes fell to the floor. “How can anyone ever be prepared for something like this? So many people have died.”

  “And so will many more. Eventually, we’ll all be dead, Edmund. Is that what’s got you scared, death?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You knew what you were getting involved in.”

  “I know…”

  Van Buren set the coin down and steepled his fingers. “Have I ever told you about Jocelyn?”

  Perkins glanced up. “I don’t think you have.”

  “She was my only daughter,” Van Buren said. “A lovely girl. Smart as a fox with a head for business. She was twenty when we discovered she had a rare, incurable blood disorder. Like all parents, my first response was shock, then disbelief. But unlike most parents I had billions at my disposal and I threw the weight of my considerable fortune into finding a cure. Donations to research and pleas to politicians came to nothing as I watched my daughter wither away. It was about that time that the anger began to settle in. How was it, with all my resources, that I couldn’t save my daughter’s life? I was at a biomedical conference in Switzerland when I heard the news about Jocelyn’s passing.”

  Perkins exhaled loudly. “Oh, no.”

  “I’d been so focused on finding a cure, I hadn’t even been by her side during those final days and hours.”

  “You never gave up.”

  “That’s right, but one good thing did come of my trip. A great thing in fact. I met a gentleman at the conference in Zurich named Samuel Rutledge.”

  “The oil tycoon?”

  “That’s the one,” Van Buren said. “But I was less interested in what he had to say about the future of arctic drilling than I was in the ring on his finger. I saw it when we shook hands. A simple band with a triangle centered with an eye. He said it had something to do with the Bilderberg Group, but wouldn’t say more. A secret society of wealthy businessmen, that was all I knew.

  “Over the succeeding months, I peppered him with a barrage of letters and phone calls until he finally relented. I suppose in my grief, I needed something new to channel my energies into. Then one night I received a phone call from a man I’d never spoken to before. He gave me an address in New York City and told me to be there at eight sharp the following evening. He then proceeded to give me a list of instructions. Things I wasn’t supposed to do between now and then. I couldn’t eat or drink any alcohol and, most importantly, I had to come alone. The following day, I took a private jet to JFK and did as the man instructed. To say I wasn’t nervous would have been a lie, but I saw no reason not to trust Samuel Rutledge.

  “I didn’t know it then, but I was being brought to an initiation ceremony. What I witnessed that night was strange and frightening and I was strictly forbidden from discussing it with anyone. Suffice it to say, I was inducted into a brotherhood whose power and influence were far greater than I could ever have imagined. I’d only wished I’d discovered them sooner. Maybe then my Jocelyn could have lived.” His glassy eyes met Perkins’. “That was twenty years ago and over that time, I’ve worked my way up within the organization to become its leader. Which was why I reached out to you when you were nothing but an outmatched wannabe congressman.”

  “You helped to get me elected,” Perkins said. “I owe you for that, I know.”

  “This isn’t about owing,” Van Buren said. “This is about scooping the country up off its feet and making it great again. Don’t you want to make it great?”

  “I do,” Perkins said and he meant it.

  Van Buren’s silver coin was out again, jumping from one finger to the next. “Then never forget. From chaos comes order, a new world order.”

  Perkins nodded.

  “Do you like parties?” Van Buren asked.

  The director never called him Mr. President. Even after Perkins had attained that lofty position, there was still a power differential between the two men.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “The morale in the Ark’s been rather low lately. With the second phase of Project Genesis officially underway, I think it’s only fitting that we organize a celebration.”

  Chapter 30

  Working her way through the airlock and into the Park, Susan didn’t waste any time looking for Buck. He’d left her a note in the room, telling her to meet him here. She could only guess her father was with Paul since the two men had been nearly inseparable these last few days.

  The Park was busy, making Susan’s task all the more difficult. Couples in beige civilian tunics strolled hand in hand next to families sitting down for a picnic beneath a row of evergreens. Not far away, a child squealed with joy as he played with a Pitbull genetically modified to never bite him. It was a strange world they were living in, but more amazing was how easily the folks here had adapted to it. That was one of the greatest strengths of our species, she thought philosophically, and also one of our greatest weaknesses. We often adapted to incremental changes, even when they laid the groundwork for our demise.

  After a few more m
inutes of searching, Susan finally spotted Buck, standing next to a large boulder with two men. As she approached, she realized that neither of them was Paul.

  “There you are,” Buck said with his usual lack of patience. He looked sweaty and anxious. “You know Jeb and Allan.”

  “Of course. We thought you’d left.”

  Jeb flashed a gap-toothed grin. “We made the mistake of lettin’ them know we used to be mechanics.”

  “They’ve had us down in the depths of Ark Two working on the backup diesel generators,” Allan continued. He still had a smear of grease across his forehead to prove it. “Buck says he had something important to tell us, but wanted to wait till you was here.”

  “What about Paul?”

  “He ran off to fetch Autumn,” Buck said, shaking his head. “He’s been gone a while now. Giving that guy a job to do is like playing the lotto. You hope it’s gonna happen, but you’re always ready for a disappointment.”

  “Be nice, Buck.”

  “Ain’t no time to be nice.” The old man looked around again. “Paul can fill Autumn in on his own. I’m just gonna lay it out.”

  Buck spent the next few minutes describing in detail what they had seen in the Waste Management area. The sorting rooms, the bodies being fed into furnaces and the murder of innocent people.

  “Earl and his whole family,” Jeb exclaimed, touching his forehead with fingers swollen from age and years of manual labor.

  Susan felt the Park and the people in it begin to spin. She shot out a hand, gripping Buck’s thick shoulder. He caught her before she could fall.

  “I don’t wanna believe it,” she said, her breathing still shallow.

  “Neither do I,” Buck said. “But everything I told you is the truth. They’re killing people who can’t work, people who cause problems, and it probably won’t be long before they start adding to that list.”

  “We need to get outta here as soon as possible,” Susan told them, a thought that was clearly on everyone’s mind.

  “That’s the problem,” Buck replied with disgust. “This place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Ain’t no way they’re gonna open those giant steel doors just ’cause we ask politely. When I thought that Earl and his family had been allowed to leave it gave me a touch of hope. An ace up my sleeve. And I figured we could always follow suit and do the same if push came to shove, radiation or no radiation.” He turned to the two men. “But neither of you two can breathe a word of this either. Don’t mention it in your rooms either ’cause they’re bugged.”

  “What the heck kinda place is this?”

  “It’s an evil place,” Susan told them. “Masquerading as the Garden of Eden.” Then something hit her. “What about the others?”

  “Which others?” Buck replied.

  Susan waved her hands around to the dozens of civilians enjoying the Park and the manmade sunlight overhead.

  “You’re starting to sound like that bleeding-heart husband of yours.”

  “Dad, leaving them here to be killed is just as bad as killing them ourselves.”

  She could see the battle going on behind Buck’s eyes. His intense need for self-preservation was in a cage match against the empathy he tried so hard to deny.

  “You’re asking me to risk my family to save a bunch of people I barely know?”

  Jeb and Allan were watching the back-and-forth like a tennis match.

  “How can we plan an escape and leave everyone else behind? Could you really live with yourself knowing they may all be killed?”

  Buck swore. “Why do you always need to complicate things with morality?”

  The old man and Susan were still having it out when Paul showed up.

  “About time,” Buck snapped. “You stop for a snow cone?”

  “I was looking for Autumn when something strange happened,” Paul told them.

  Susan grabbed his arm. “Right now we don’t need any more strange, Paul.”

  “Two Secret Service agents found me in the mess hall during my search and told me the president wanted to have a word.”

  “Have a word?” Buck said in disbelief. “Are the two of you pals or something?”

  “I didn’t think so. But they brought me into this tiny room, looked almost like an interrogation booth, and I was sure this was it. They knew Buck and I had seen something we shouldn’t and he was going to have me choose from a list of horrible options.”

  “So what’d they say?” Susan demanded.

  “The president said he’d been a big fan of The Wanderers.”

  Buck threw his hands into the air. “Oh, no.”

  “Said he was sad we’d broken up all those years back. Asked me for an autograph and then said he was putting together a little celebration and wanted me to be the headline act.”

  “Did you agree?” Susan asked.

  “I didn’t have a choice. I tried to tell him I was rusty and didn’t remember the lyrics anymore, but he insisted. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Buck shouted. He wasn’t just mad, he was seething. “Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  “How was this my fault?”

  “All that fancy-schmancy music stuff, I knew it’d come back to bite us in the big one. A tiny dollop of anonymity was the only thing we had going for us. Now that you’re the president’s new best friend, we won’t be able to fart without him smelling it.”

  Paul swallowed hard. “There’s more.”

  Buck froze, fighting back the eruption bubbling beneath the surface.

  “After I agreed and they let me out, I found Autumn. I told her we were leaving the bunker as soon as possible, that it wasn’t safe here, and she lost it. Said we were being unfair, that things were great here.”

  “You didn’t tell her what we saw?” Buck said, throwing his arms up.

  “How could I? We were in the atrium of Ark Three, dozens of government stiffs walking by. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, honey, we need to motor it ’cause these maniacs are killing people?’ I don’t think that woulda gone over very well.”

  “So what’d she do?” Susan asked.

  Paul sighed. “She ran off and I couldn’t catch her. Right now she could be anywhere.”

  “Not anywhere,” Susan said. “I know Autumn. She went to Brett.”

  Now Buck’s rage was complete. “That’s what you get with liberal parenting. Kids who think they know best.” He ran his fingers down the front of his face. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Paul spoke up. “How we raise our daughter is our business, Buck, not yours.”

  Jeb and Allan looked on, entranced, their jaws dropped.

  “Sure it is. All I’m saying is when you let your kids run wild, don’t be surprised if they wander off and get themselves into trouble.”

  “I bear a lot of the responsibility,” Susan said. “Paul tried to discourage her relationship with Brett and I told him it was fine. I thought she needed a little distraction given the situation.”

  The features of Buck’s face settled. “Listen, right now we need to figure out where to go from here.”

  The others were in the process of agreeing when a nurse showed up, startling them.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, looking at Susan. “But you’re needed in the infirmary.”

  “Do you know what for?” Susan asked, trying to mask her unease.

  “We’re rolling out a new inoculation and we need everyone on deck to help prepare.”

  “When will it be administered?” Paul asked.

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said. “After the celebration.”

  As the nurse walked away, the five stood staring at one another.

  “This might not be such a bad thing,” Buck suggested.

  “Really?” Paul replied. “I thought you of all people hated getting inoculations.”

  “Oh, I do, but if they need Susan, that means they’ll also need Autumn.” He turned to Susan. “When she shows up, tre
ad carefully. This may be our only shot at convincing her to come with us when we break outta here.”

  Chapter 31

  Paul and Buck made it back to their room in Ark One in record time. The chances that Autumn would be here were slim, but they needed to check nevertheless. As Paul pushed the door open and stepped inside, something on the floor went skittering under one of the bunk beds.

  “What was that?” he asked, flicking on the light.

  “Huh?” Buck asked, heading straight for the bathroom to see if Autumn was there. The entire apartment—if you could call it that—was three to four hundred square feet tops. If Paul’s daughter had been here, they would have known the minute they walked in.

  Paul went to the bunk bed and dropped to the floor. Not to look for Autumn, but for whatever he’d kicked when they walked in.

  And it didn’t take long for him to find it. Reaching into a patch of shadow, he emerged with a USB drive.

  “This yours?” he asked, holding it up to Buck.

  The old man glanced over and shook his head. “Why would I have one of those?” He was running his fingers along the wall, tapping every so often.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Paul asked.

  “Searching for little critters,” he replied and winked.

  Paul’s face fell in confusion.

  “You know…” And Buck pointed at his left ear. He was referring to the bug they suspected was in here somewhere.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

  “Of course I do. You just think of a way to…” Buck made a walking motion with his index and middle finger, a sign for ‘help us escape’.

  Paul hoped he found that bug soon, ’cause talking like this was starting to feel silly. He headed to the computer and inserted the USB. No sooner had he done so than a series of letters began scrolling across the screen.

  “Uh, Buck. I think the listening device is in the light switch.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Paul. No one puts a bug in a light…” Buck turned around and saw the same letters dancing across the computer’s digital display.

  Step One: Remove the bug from the light switch by the main entrance.