As he got it going, the little fender rubbed against the side wall of the tunnel, but he backed it off, then did a ten-point U-turn to get them pointed back toward New York City.
Emily spoke as he made his maneuver. “It’s nice we keep finding cars and planes to borrow. We should put notes in each one we use. An IOU, if you will.”
“Yeah,” he mused, “we should go to the coin factory and make up your presidential challenge coin.” He tapped his pocket where he still had the one Ramirez had given him. “We could drop a coin in each one.”
Ted got the Yugo clone to about thirty-five miles per hour.
Emily tapped her nails against the wood-grained glove box. “Do you really think they want us dead? I mean, not us as important government employees, but as generic American citizens. It seems like they aren’t very discerning in who they kill.”
“It seems that way.” He stole a glance at her. She still wore the torn blouse material over her nose and mouth as part of their disguise. His was gone, though it was hard to remember where he’d lost it. Probably when he dove away from the Camaro and fell down that hill. “This is almost certainly an invasion, Emily, and the bad thing is there are no war correspondents left alive to report it.”
“Our bases around the world know about it. Air Force Two told them while we were airborne. We just have to wait until they come home and start fighting back.”
“Maybe,” he said with great distraction. Driving in the arched tunnel reminded him of going through a long public bathroom. Large, white tiles covered every inch of the walls, archway, and ceiling. The faint scent of sewage seemed to hang on the air. It went in a perfectly straight line for almost a mile with few abandoned cars, but there was a jam up ahead.
Several cars had come to a rest in the sideways position, blocking those behind it. He guessed he might be able to bully the little vehicle through the first couple of cars, but not all of them behind it.
“We’ve got to ditch our ride, but I can see the light ahead. We’re almost home free. The city is right there.” Ted shut off the motor.
Emily put one hand on the door handle yet glanced over to him. “Yeah, but are they waiting for us out there?”
That was the million-dollar question.
San Francisco, CA
Dwight followed the footprints up the beach, but the people walked onto a nearby sidewalk, which made it impossible to track them. However, thanks to Poppy’s nagging, he couldn’t give up and turn around without a brief search, so he trudged on armed only with a wine bottle.
The low foghorn of a ship drifted in from over the harbor. Far out on the water, near the Oakland Bay Bridge, a long ship carried hundreds of shipping containers to an unknown destination. A second one was a few miles behind.
“You can’t have mine back!” he yelled.
Poppy gave him a serious glare.
“What? You think they can see me?” He realized what it meant. If there was a ship on the bay, it meant he wasn’t alone. The real test was whether they could see him.
“Hey! Wahoo! Hello!” He waved his arms and did his best to jump up and down, though the liquor slowed him. “It’s finally happening!”
A man startled him from behind. “Yes, it is.”
Dwight spun around. The wine bottle slid out of his hand and shattered on the pavement. “Oh my! You scared the holy bejesus out of me.”
“Where have you been?” the man asked.
“I’ve been walking around the city.” He had no intention of giving away his old home in the sub-basement of the skyscraper because he might need it again. “Just now I crawled out of my new shipping container.” He looked down. “I don’t have a snazzy outfit like yours.”
Dwight saw two of the man because his eyes wouldn’t focus right. However, when he really put all his energy into the effort, he got a good look at the guy: he was middle-aged, somewhat Asian-looking, and was dressed in a black jumpsuit with black sneakers.
By contrast, Dwight wore faded, dirty blue jeans that were two sizes too big, and a blue shirt that was two sizes too small. The only times he cared about how he looked were in the brief moments between finishing a drinking binge and starting the next one, which was where he was at that moment. “I, uh, have been down on my luck today.”
The man nodded. “Some of us have found this city to be full of dangers. Come to the welcome center and we’ll get you squared away.”
“What? Me?” He was always wary of do-gooders who tried to give him more than a few dollars. Those people who handed him sandwiches or savings bonds were always trying to get him on the right path. All he wanted was more money for the cheapest happy drink he could find.
“Sure! We’re all in this together now.” There was something about the man’s behavior that made Dwight agree to go along with him.
“No, I don’t want one of those fancy suits,” he whispered to Poppy.
But he kind of did.
CHAPTER 19
New York City, NY
Ted stood at the edge of the Lincoln Tunnel, in the shadows of the surrounding skyscrapers. The traffic must have been light when the event happened; there was a short line of cars and trucks backed up two or three blocks. However, there were dozens of vehicles at the threshold to the underground highway, as if they’d all come to a stop at the same place when their drivers disappeared.
Emily came up behind him. “We’re in midtown Manhattan.”
They listened intently for the sound of Predator drones, but he didn’t hear anything in the air except for a faraway helicopter.
“You know this area?” he whispered.
She leaned to get a better look outside. “My husband and I used to live here. We talked about it earlier.”
“New York is a big city. Are you saying you lived right here?” His sister lived in the city, but far north of Central Park in a place called Pelham Bay. He had no idea what was around this exit tunnel because it was miles from her apartment.
Emily pointed to a connecting avenue. “Yeah, close. I live up by Central Park, which is about ten blocks that way.”
As he listened, he considered where they should go. As long as they stayed within the tall skyscraper canyons of the city, the Predator drones would have a hard time tracking them. Even if a drone operator was cocky enough to fly into the area or drop between buildings, they would never be able to make ninety-degree turns, so Ted and Emily could easily evade them. At least, in a perfect world.
“We should go that way.” Ted pointed where she’d indicated. “Since you’re familiar with the area.”
She flung her head back to clear away her bangs. “I’m familiar with the area, but not how things are now. Even seeing these same streets doesn’t feel right. The last time I was through this tunnel entrance, cars were stacked up for miles in every direction. Now, everything is stopped. The city is dead. Everyone…is dead.”
Ted pulled his rifle over his shoulder and held it in a comfortable two-handed grip. It was the stance soldiers and airmen used when they wanted to convey a sense of wary calm. “We’ll run up the ramp and get to your street, then we’ll take it slow.”
He worried bringing Emily back to her home turf might have been a mistake, especially if her husband was there. It was a fact he’d overlooked until that moment. Still, given the option of walking into strange land or the familiar, he chose the latter.
Emily already had her rifle at the ready.
“Go!” he ordered.
They threaded the needle through the traffic snarl, always with one eye on the surrounding buildings and one ear on the sky. There would probably be no better place to put snipers than at the exits of the bridges and tunnels. Drones could fly above the open waterways bracketing Manhattan, always on the prowl for movement inside the urban core.
Neither spoke when they cleared the vehicles and hopped onto the sidewalk of 10th Avenue. The six-lane road was filled with vehicles all silently facing north. Emily looked at them like they’d soon start moving, but
he only saw how exposed they were to overhead surveillance.
“Em,” he whispered, “let’s keep moving.”
Emily looked at him funny. He thought it was because he’d used a nickname for her, but she seemed to snap out of her reverie. “Oh, right. This way.” She motioned the same direction the traffic had been flowing.
They ran for several blocks, which gave him time to wonder if he’d offended her. Most of his awareness focused on listening for bad guys, including the whump-whump sound of that big helicopter constantly at the edge of his hearing. However, he also found time to second-guess how he’d addressed his boss.
He followed her until she stopped at a street corner.
“Look,” she exclaimed.
All concerns about addressing a superior slipped away as he came up beside her. A long line of blue and gray school uniforms littered the sidewalk for fifty yards. Little pairs of pants were mostly in one row, while girls’ jumpers were in the other one.
Without thinking, he held out his arms and she put her head on his chest. The position left him looking at the fallen children, but he didn’t get choked up like she did. He’d grieved yesterday when those tiny soccer uniforms blew over the highway. Today, he was going to help his friend.
Emily didn’t take long. She’d pulled down her face mask and wiped her nose in an unflattering way, but then she stepped back from him. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve got to be stronger about scenes like this. I’m not being very presidential.”
“It’s all right. I’m not going to lie to you, ma’am, but I saw something like this yesterday and it ripped out a piece of my soul. Since then, I’ve been keeping myself sane by swearing I’m going to get the bastards who did this. Someone, maybe the people driving those drones, used a new weapon on us.” He pointed to the uniforms. “These poor souls are counting on us to hold it together and fight back.”
She fixed her face mask. He got the sense she did it to hide her embarrassed expression.
“Emily, listen to me. I know this is horrible, but it’s good you saw it now. It’s going to make you stronger…” He thought it over for a few seconds. “This is total war on a scale beyond anything in human history. If we don’t shed tears for this disaster, we don’t deserve to be called humans at all. No one on Earth would see this as a weakness, president or not.”
The expression behind the mask flickered happiness for a moment. “Thanks, Ted. I needed to hear that.” She turned toward the school uniforms and spoke in a respectful voice. “I’m sorry, boys and girls. I’m sorry, everyone. It’s like he said: we’re going to get the bastards who did this to you.”
Without waiting for him, she strode out into the street to go to the next block over.
He followed, sure the helicopter rotor noises had gotten louder.
St. Louis, MO
Tabby’s knees wobbled as she faced the shotgun, but the barrel wasn’t pointed at her. Gus had it aimed at Peter.
“No! Don’t shoot! Please!” She still had her gun aimed at him, but she made a split-second judgment not to shoot it. Even if she hit the guy, it seemed likely he would also fire his shotgun, and one of her kids would be dead.
The old man seemed like he might pull the trigger anyway, which led her to put more pressure on her own, but Gus took his eyes off the boy and glanced over to her. “Lower your gun and I don’t have to hurt anyone.”
“Why are you doing this? Are you with them?” She tilted her head toward the Arch, hoping he understood what she meant.
“Hell no. Those people killed my friends in the department. I want nothing to do with them, except to take this here gun down there and blow them away.”
Tabby’s arms wanted to shake as she held the gun with both hands. Audrey and Donovan had guns, too, though they were already through the door, so they were out of Gus’s sight. Audrey looked like she might come back in, but Tabby didn’t want to escalate the standoff, so she stood inside the frame to block her.
“You could have just asked,” she stammered.
Vinny stood off to the side of Gus. “Come on, guys. We’re all friends, right?”
“Vin, get her gun. Get all the guns. We’re going to fight back.”
The young guy didn’t move, which made her realize how fast she’d been put in the position to use her pistol. Within the space of seconds, two men threatened to disarm and do her harm. The gun was the only thing preventing that from happening.
“No,” she said dryly. “Take Peter’s shotgun if you must, but we’re not giving up any of the others. I need them to keep the kids safe.” If he didn’t see the logic of why, then there was no reasoning with him.
Gus aimed square at Peter’s face. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, least of all a kid, but we need those guns and we’re going to get them.”
Vinny sidestepped to within a few feet of his co-worker. “Gus, I don’t want to hurt them. Let’s take the one shotgun and call it good.” He looked at Tabby as if to say Sorry, I don’t want to be a part of this.
Gus held the shotgun steady, but then he looked beyond Tabby, through the door. “Oh, crap, they’re already here.”
A woman’s computerized voice interrupted. “Please state your name.”
Tabby didn’t want to take her eyes off Gus, but she had to see what was outside the door. It was the floating white drone that had been searching the streets earlier. By all appearances, it had come in through the automatic front doors and now hovered about six feet off the ground in the station lobby. It was closest to Donovan and Audrey.
“Please state your name,” it repeated.
“Audrey Hampton,” the young girl stammered with fear.
Tabby wanted to tell her not to give any information to the strange machine, but she couldn’t decide where to focus her attention. Would the drone harm Audrey in the front, or would Gus attack Peter at the back?
“Please confirm social security number,” the white floating machine asked.
“Why?” Tabby replied, finally having enough.
It hung there for a few seconds as if thinking about whether to respond.
“This area has been designated as inhospitable due to an industrial accident. Social security ident requested to ensure proper dispatch of emergency services extraction vehicle. Please confirm social security number to ensure speedy recovery.”
Tabby wanted to believe it. Her entire mission was to get the three kids to safety and having a police car show up was her greatest wish, but this wasn’t what she expected.
“Where are the police?” she inquired of the drone. “We need help right this second!”
The drone’s fans tilted a tiny bit, which made it drift closer to Donovan. “Please state your name.”
Behind her, Vinny pleaded with Gus. “Give me the gun. We can’t fight them by threatening Tabby and these kids.”
The older guy grunted. “Stay away.”
Tabby imagined the entire room was rigged to detonate with explosives. It was a mineral-extraction procedure she’d often explained to visitors while doing tours in the Bonne Terre lead mine. Thinking about home made her nostalgic to get back there someday, and that would never happen if Gus kept threatening her people.
She re-oriented on the man. “Please, this is what we want, isn’t it? Help is on the way.”
Given a choice between the authorities and a crazy guy with a gun aimed her way, she was going with the authorities.
“They’re not here to help,” Gus began. “It’s with those people down by the Arch. You saw all the drones, didn’t you? This is one of them.”
Tabby wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Did the sewer men really see their friends get shot, or was it all a ruse to get her and the kids away from help, so the men could rob them? That suddenly made a lot of sense.
She turned back to the drone. “Whoever you are, we need help. This man is threatening my friends.” By taking a step back, she made sure the drone saw Gus.
That seemed to anger him. “You don’t know what
you’re doing. They’re going to kill us all!” Gus lifted his shotgun and re-aimed it at Peter, who had his hands up. “Give me all your guns, dammit!”
Tabby sought some spark of sanity in Vinny’s blue eyes. Why wasn’t he stopping his partner from going down this path? Was he too scared to act, or did he want to disarm them, too?
Like any good Mexican standoff, she raised her pistol again and made sure it was on the target. Her hands had never stopped their shaking, but she fought to hold them steady for at least one solid shot.
The fuse had been lit, and the explosion was coming. There was no way in hell she was going to let Peter die like this.
CHAPTER 20
Poor Sisters Convent, Oakville, MO
“Please return to your assigned housing unit. Help is on the way.” The woman’s computerized voice sounded as even and unemotional as before, but the order had a little intimidation to it. She’d spent the past few years inside the cloistered convent taking orders from Abbess Mary Francis. She never once had an uneasy feeling about a request.
Perhaps it was the dog. She glanced over to Deogee. She refused to get out of the van, even though she’d opened the door for her to climb down.
“Maybe we’ll just wait out here. I don’t have anything I really need inside.”
The machine seemed to think about it. The floating box didn’t do anything different, but it was a sense she got. It was a little like how she guessed her new dog’s mood based on its behavior. For a machine sent to rescue her, its standoffish attitude was disconcerting rather than reassuring.
“Negative. Help has been assigned to your postal address. You must return there to ensure proper help from approaching assistance.” The drone moved from its position next to the driveway and floated over the walkway. By all appearances, it wanted to lead her up the walkway and inside.
Deogee still sat on her haunches inside the minivan. It was as if she wanted her to refuse the order of the computer voice; she showed her how it was done.
“I’m sorry, but me and my dog are going to wait inside the van for the next seven minutes.” She walked around Mary Francis’s vehicle, then climbed back inside. The voice had told her help was coming in a few minutes, so there couldn’t be any reason why she had to be inside the building to receive them.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 36
