Mark is coming on duty for the only active detail, so he is read in to go along. He is with four other men; one driving and the others in the back of the truck to guard the prisoner. Mark thinks this is a lot of overkill to transport one man, one tired, old man. But Mark is not in charge.
“He’s going to Central Park for a mugging,” is what the detail is told. They are given a pair of gloves that belong to a particularly unsavory character that lives in Hell’s Kitchen, whom they intend to blame for the mugging. The scapegoat has already been acquired and is being held, drugged, sleeping, and unaware, in a flophouse nearby. He will be released when the deed is done.
Mark doesn’t want Jeremiah to be killed, and he does the only thing he can think of which may help. Before loading into the truck, he goes to the restroom, pulls out his phone, sends a text to Mike, along with the username and password to his Lookout account, so she can trace his phone. She does.
The camp is in shut-down and erase mode, so, in the hubbub, she takes off on a motorcycle belonging to another of the men in the back of the truck. It’s not one of those rumbly ones, making huge noise when accelerating, but more of a whir, so she garners little attention on the way. She had learned that the destination is Central Park, so she plans to beat them there. No big deal, since she is on a very fast bike and they are driving a government truck, governed at seventy miles per hour.
She blows past them at ninety, on the first highway they enter, and when the truck arrives at the park, she is already in position to follow them to their exact destination. She’s in the middle of the park, and when the truck enters the area, she is able to cut across the ground to arrive very near their location and jog in. She’s thinking that she is going to have to take them out by knife, but a stroke of good fortune befalls her.
She parks a couple hundred yards from where the truck stops, so she sneaks in to reconnoiter the place. She gets close enough to hear some plans. They are to wait, out of sight if possible, until nightfall, at which time, one of the men who fit the gloves are to beat the old man to death, leaving the other man’s DNA on his wounds. It shouldn’t be too painful for old Jeremiah. In a couple of quick punches, he should be out, and a couple more should do it.
Mike had seen a boy hunting pigeons on her way in, and since she has some time, she goes to find him. He’s about thirteen years old and two hundred yards north of the site when she finds him, and a conversation begins.
“Wassup with the pigeons?” asks Mike.
“What’s it to ya?” is his reply.
“How long ya been here?” Mike probes.
“‘Bout six months.”
“Family?”
“Mom and sis.”
“Ready to leave?”
“Shit yeah, but to where?”
“I know a place in the country with real guns, real game, and real food.”
“What do you want from me?” he asks.
“I want to rent your pellet gun.”
It’s a very nice pellet gun, like many of us have had, with a pump action below the barrel for increased power in the shot. It’s a Crossman 760, with what the boy calls a “bird scope” on it. The boy, whose name is Gene, has placed small cushions under the wood of the pump lever, so it doesn’t thump, thud, or clack when pumped. It is a bird hunting machine, and he’s proud of it.
“Fifty bucks an hour!” is his price.
“Done!” is her reply. She shoulders her M4 and reaches for her wallet, pulling out a pair of twenties and a ten. She hands the cash to the boy and curls her fingers, requesting the gun, which he surrenders.
“Got any pellets?” she asks, noticing the chamber is empty.
“Buck a piece!” he says.
She hands him a five and he reaches into his pocket to get her five small, lead pellets, each with a bullseye stamped into the top. “World’s best pellets!” he says. He has a case of twelve boxes at home, with five hundred in a box, minus the ones he has used to hunt game this past six months.
Mike returns to the clearing of the truck, young Gene in tow, mostly because he would not let her out of his sight with his gun. When they arrive, the sun has already fallen below the Hotel Des Artistes.
“You gotta stay extra quiet,” she says to him in a whisper. “Like you’re trying to get three pigeons on the same limb.”
Gene makes the sign of zipping his mouth and tossing the key, with a smile.
Slowly, they cycle around to where they are directly behind the man putting on the gloves. She cocks the weapon six times in silence as they go. Hidden from view behind a log and some bramble, she carefully lowers the barrel, sets her eye behind the scope, and pssffft!
The man with the gloves half on, suddenly starts saying stupid things. “Thank you for calling,” is first, probably because he used to work in tech support, before joining the military and the Teams. “I don’t think, narf, sharffle, pizza would be fine! I know that you draggle glab bodgie smallkill toilet powder.” At this the other men stand, staring at him, about to ask what the hell is wrong, but he falls on the ground backwards and twitches, glaring at the sky, looking toward the dusk to his right, just before glazing over completely. Mark kneels down to check on him, puts his hand behind his head, and when he feels the warmth on his hand, pulls it out to find it holding a puddle of blood. He rolls the guy over and sees a small puncture wound in the top of his neck, which seems to have damaged his brain stem, and then some.
Amid the din of the city, Mark hears the pssffft sound of something as another soldier begins twitching his way to the ground. Mike had repositioned and taken another shot. Mark raises his hands but the remaining soldier grabs his weapon and spins about, just in time to see his right Foster Grant, polarized lens shatter as the .177 caliber pellet flies into his eye, straight through the bone, and into his brain. He begins cursing and dancing about, grabbing his face, screaming, and at a ranger’s highest speed, without a pack, he reminds Mike of that long-ago pop singer, and congressman, Sonny Bono, as the ranger bangs headlong into a seventy-year-old tree. The tree did not forgive the collision and the man will quickly die.
The driver remains, but as soon as he turns his attention to where he thinks the aggression is, Mark pulls his knife. With the blade against his wrist, Mark pushes it across the neck of the man who has turned away. He slices through the jugular and the carotid at once, and the blood flow is so fast, evacuating the brain completely, that the man doesn’t even have time to turn around and look Mark in the eye, not even enough time to think about his mortality. A fog glazes over his eyes as he crumples to the ground, laying backward, staring at the new-sprung stars of twilight.
Mike comes into the clearing, followed by the boy. Mark wipes his knife off on the man he’s sliced.
“Glad to meet you, Eugene,” says Jeremiah, to the boy frowning at the use of his formal name. And as they shake hands, Jeremiah fades from view completely. He is just plain gone.
Mark agrees to help Mike get the family out of New York, but from there, he plans to get back to his motorcycle, and get on with his life.
“What if Jeremiah was one hundred percent right?” asks Mike.
“You can’t really think this has anything to do with all that Jesus noise going on, do you?” asks Mark.
“I don’t know about that,” says Mike. “But I also don’t have any idea where he just went. You gotta admit, that’s pretty weird!”
“I just watched a woman kill two SpecOps soldiers with a pellet gun! I think that weird shit is what we are in for. Hell, there are space ships, a global economic collapse, a president who wants us to kill a retired newsman, and a newsman who disappears. Damn! Just that thing with the zip-ties was way too weird.” He looks around, hands on his hip, moving one hand to his chin, rotating a full circle. “We are alone in Central Park, at sundown, and that’s not weird enough? Hell, the whole fucking world is weird.”
“But we gotta go, don’t we?” asks the kid.
“Yeah, baby!” says Mike. “We gotta go.
”
Mike and the kid take the truck, as Mark starts up the bike. He could use the key, which he doesn’t have, he could use the thumbprint of the owner, or he could cross-wire it like Mike did. But he has already taken the thumb. As he walks to the bike, he has taken out his med kit, removed a couple feet of thread, and tied off the bloody end of the appendage. With another couple feet of paracord, he ties a lanyard for the thumb, and hangs it inside his shirt.
The boy directs as they drive to the family camp, well hidden from most all foot traffic. Mom is there, waiting for dinner to arrive, but with an extra distraught look on her face. She appears almost completely undone in grief. Her boy runs up to her, and she takes him into her arms, crying.
“Your sister is gone!” she says, tears racing down her face. “She just disappeared when we were bringing the berries back to camp.”
“She’s with Jeremiah and his friends,” says Mike. “I’m sure of it. Jeremiah said it would happen to all the Christians in the world. Was your daughter a Christian?”
“I don’t know, for sure, but there was this VBS thing a few weeks ago.” The mother pauses and recalls, “She has been extra helpful since then. I don’t know!”
It is not complete relief she feels, but maybe just a little less terror. She calms a little, but not completely. She wants to yell out “We gotta find ‘er!” but she also wants to thank God her baby is okay. The urge to search gives way to the reality that she has seen her disappear – from in front of her eyes to gone, in just a second. She will puzzle over that for a while.
The truck is an ordinary GMC, half-ton pickup, with two benches in the back, hoops and canvas over the bed to hide the contents – usually soldiers – and a light bar on top, for emergencies. The mother and son pack up all their needed belongings, including eleven and a half boxes of pellets, so Mark and Mike can load it all into the truck, neatly and efficiently. Until they reach the outside world somewhere, Gene and his mom, Julie, will ride in the back. They’ll toss an air mattress on the floor for their greater comfort, but it is still the back of an Army truck.
Escape and Evasion
Never give a sword to a man who cannot dance.[20]
E-Day Minus 7 Years
Mike and Mark are in uniform, and the flashing lights on top of the truck are lit, so from time to time, some traffic opens for them. Several times along the way, they have to stop to lend a hand with some traffic management or crowd control. Whenever someone asks them to stay, keep helping out, they just tap their patches on their left shoulder, which tells the rest of the military and police that they are Special Operations. When asked what they are doing, they generally reply something like, “If we tell you . . .” At which time the person asking usually finishes the saying off with, “We’d have to kill you.” This is usually followed with something like, “I understand. Do your best.”
Even with all their advantages, it takes nearly three hours to exit the city. In the slow times, Mike has filled out the DVIR book for the truck; which in real terms means that the truck is in her lawful possession. She has marked that the truck is without flaws on the vehicle inspection report, but that will not be true by the end of the day. Every few miles it seems, someone is tapping a bumper or a fender. But when Mike, in full battle dress, steps out with her hand on her sidearm, there are expressions of apology and backing off. Inside the DVIR book is also a Gold Wex card. Wex is generally one of the standard trucker credit cards given for fuel, but this one can buy anything, due to the nature of their business; military – SpecOps! They fuel up in the west end of the metro area, nowhere in particular, and in another couple hundred miles, they fill up again, headed mostly west.
As they roll into Emmaus, PA, stopping at the Turkey Hill Minit Market, Mike sets up to fuel the truck again before a long stretch of road. She’s headed down the Penn Turnpike to cross the state, and then take the IH 70 to Denver, and from there they will find the place Jeremiah told her about. Mark is on a different track, and this is where their paths diverge. His bike lies south, near Saltville, where it was taken. He figures it to be at the Reserve facility right outside of Marion, VA.
Using the Wex card they fuel both vehicles, then they pull the truck and bike around to the side entrance. The civilians head to the restroom and back to the truck when they are done. Mike buys supplies to feed everyone, and gets a hundred dollars cash for Mark to fuel up on his way.
At the back of the truck, Mike asks him, “Is there anything you need?”
Mark confirms that he has a bag of chicken for the road, with a biscuit and fries – the fries he will nibble as he drives ‘til dinner time. “I have my M4, and an MP5 in the saddle bag. I have three mags for each, and my 226 with four. I should be fine. You?”
“Naw. We have the Wex card and the kid can shoot, so we should be fine.” The kid is smiling and nodding his head at Mike’s comment. Gene and his mom both want a hug goodbye from Mark before they part ways. He’s a likeable guy who has done them a solid, and one for Mike as well.
Mike walks him to the bike and checks to be certain that he has memorized the coordinates she has given him – coordinates she got from Jeremiah. He recites them back to her, even speaking them into his phone so it can plot a course, when he is ready, and it does. She is satisfied that he can get there when he needs to, and after a salute, and a somewhat lengthy hug, Mark is on his way. Mike seems to be softening up a little.
“Okay, guys!” she says to the two in the rear of the truck. “You have about another hundred miles to stay under cover. Then, if you want, you can ride up front with me.”
“Shotgun!” shouts the kid.
Tossing him a roll of paper towels, she says, “Sure, but for now, help your mom with lunch, and keep things tidy back here.”
He gives her a brief, and almost military, salute. She returns it, and closes the flap.
She snacks on chicken nuggets as they go, drinking her Dr Pepper on the way. In the back, Gene and Julie have burgers and fries, and Gene has gotten one of those little fried pies as well. In thirty minutes or so, he is out like a light, and in ninety minutes or so, they are pulling into a Wal-Mart in Colonial Park, a suburb of Harrisburg, PA.
Mike walks to the rear of the truck, letting Julie know that they can get out now. The parking lot at the Wal-Mart is plenty busy and semi-normal for the time being. After all, this is central Pennsylvania – somewhere far less reactionary than New York. This thirteen-thousand-person town lost nearly a third of its population, but most of the people left behind don’t often associate with those people. Most of the pastors in town said that those that were missing from their congregations were the ones that always held up the progress their churches were hoping to make. Many of the businesses in town were all aflutter because some of their most productive people were gone, but all that activity was inside walls, behind doors, and didn’t affect the Wal-Mart parking lot traffic.
They left Central Park shortly after sundown, got out of New York about midnight, out of Jersey in another hour or two, they stopped for about a half hour for restrooms, fuel, and food, and about four or five hours of driving since the city, makes it shortly before seven AM. The store has been open for an hour or so, and the traffic is picking up. Suburbia becomes their shelter.
Mike removes her hat, tossing it in the seat, letting her hair down, and she strips her nametag from her uniform. This is as civilian as she will look for several days to come. They are shopping for staples that need no fridge, and may not need cooking. They get a dozen cans of ravioli and spaghetti-o’s, as well as chicken and dumplings, and soups in a real variety. They get a dozen plastic plates – not the disposable kind – and an eight-person set of camping stainless. They also get a skillet, an iron Dutch-oven, a few utensils for cooking, some cleaning supplies for all of it, and a pair of dishpans. From the other side of the store they will get some blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags. Another pair of air mattresses is also in order.
When they get in the checkout line, Julie
says, “We really can’t afford any of this.” Maybe she said it earlier, I don’t know.
Mike’s reply is, “This one is on me!” As they check out, she uses her personal Visa card, attached to her father’s accounts, and she swipes it for the price, plus one hundred dollars’ cash back. On their way out of town, she will swipe it again at an ATM for a three-hundred-dollar withdrawal. She texts her mom, to let her know where she is and where she is going, but there is no reply. There’s no one there to answer.
Before they can leave the Wal-Mart lot, and when the truck is loaded and the passengers are in the front seat, a man in a forest camo uniform comes up to Mike, saying he’s going to need her to follow him to the nearby post. They’re “gathering all personnel and unassigned resources.”
“I don’t think so, Sergeant,” says Mike.
“Why not?” asks the polite young man.
“Because I am already on a mission, sergeant.”
“And what is that, ma’am?”
“Can’t say!”
“Then I’m just gonna have to hold you, ma’am.”
She turns away from the truck, facing the young NCO, she says, “Am I wearing rank, sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” is his reply.
“And what does that rank tell you, sergeant?”
“It tells me that you are a Lieutenant Colonel, ma’am.”
Tugging her left shoulder, she asks, “And what does this patch tell you, sergeant?”
“I have no idea, ma’am.”
“Then find out!” He takes his phone, snapping a photo, sending it to his Operations Command point of contact, and in a minute or less, he receives a text back with just three words.
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 20
