“I saw the drone fly over,” Rando remarked. “This is not a trick?”
“Negative. Not unless it was your drone? We need to break up so the next drone can’t locate us all in one place. They could kill us before we got close to the target.”
Ted didn’t expect the man to protest too much. After establishing himself with the men from the convoy, and after a brief period of mistrust for Ted, Rando seemed to grow complacent in his leadership. He had underlings do dirty work, such as putting gas in his truck, and he seemed content to follow Ted’s advice for taking a wide arc across the plains and hitting Lamar from a direction other than head-on. The crime boss probably thought he didn’t need Ted and his inconsequential band of ex-prisoners anymore.
“Okay,” Rando said nonchalantly. “We’ll meet you in the target town as soon as possible. We’ll be on this channel.”
Ted drove for another mile or two, making sure to inform Jacob’s men on the other frequency. He had them turn off the main road, toward the north. Rando’s crew powered onward as a group.
“Any idea where we’re going?” Emily asked, seemingly like old times.
“Nope. This time, I don’t even have a map. We’ll have to see where the winds take us.”
He couldn’t go north for long. He didn’t need any maps to tell him where the main force of the enemy would be found.
To the south.
Pike National Forest, CO
When Tabby and Dwight reached the camp, the first thing the men did was take Poppy. They said they only wanted to play with her, but Dwight became frantic with fear and almost seemed ready to fight anyone and everyone. He almost hit Tabby in the face when he was pushed against a tree by one of the men.
“Sorry,” Dwight said, not even looking. “They’re going to hurt her.”
“I don’t think they will. No one would be so heartless they’d hurt an innocent little bird.” She wouldn’t take that bet if money was riding on it, but if it helped Dwight feel better, she was willing to say it.
The bird cawed repeatedly as the men carried her over to some picnic tables. Dwight tried to follow, but several of the Legion soldiers had been placed in front of him, as if they expected it.
“Dammit, Poppy, how could you let yourself get caught?”
She calmly stood by a tree, watching the action unfold. They were surrounded by forest, which offered endless hiding places if she could sneak away. However, her first task was keeping Dwight from getting himself punched in the face. Unlike her, he repeatedly bumped into the guards, as if harassing them was going to get them to let him pass.
“Dwight!” she called out, getting his attention.
He turned around, red-faced. “Did you see that? They’re trying to feed her hot dogs.”
“Come here for a second, please.”
Dwight considered her request for a moment before side-stepping his way to her. He kept one eye on his bird. “What do you want?”
She whispered, “You have to stop for a second. There’s nothing you can do for Poppy right now, but you can help us all. Just be quiet for a little bit. We might be able to grab your bird and escape, but only if you’re quiet.” It was a stretch, but the root of her statement was true. None of them could escape if he caused trouble and got them all locked up. As far as the men knew, she was one of them. A lost pioneer girl who needed the brave guards to rescue her. The fiction had value.
He twitched his head, as if he’d heard something. She tried to listen for what had his attention, but there was nothing there. Even the bird was quiet.
The strange man in the baggy suit became calmer. “I’ll try,” he said.
She leaned closer, unwilling to break the spell but super interested to see if he’d snapped out of his emotional outburst. For a good ten seconds, he calmed his breathing and dialed his feelings back down to a tempered level.
All at once, the crowd of men cried out, as if they’d seen something amazing. She and Dwight turned with the commotion. A flash of red flew into the air above the men. A large bird flapped its wings in a desperate search for altitude.
“Holy shit!” Dwight screamed. “You said it would get better if I was quiet!”
The men who’d been playing with the bird pulled out all manner of weapons and aimed at the fleeing animal. Twenty smoke plumes billowed up as the bullets sought the feathers of Poppy’s colorful plumage.
“No!” Dwight cried out again, hitting a guard on the back of the head with all the strength he had.
The man went down, tossing his pistol. His attention, like that of the other guard, was on the scrum around the picnic tables.
Dwight went for the second guard, which left her in a dilemma. If she kept out of it, she might solidify her position as one of David’s pioneers. Her other option was—
She sprang to action by picking up the pistol. Ignoring the scuffle between Dwight and the guard, she figured out the safety, then made it hot.
The shooting continued in the front part of the campground. Men hooted and shouted as they tried to shoot the little shape flying higher into the tree canopy. She turned toward Dwight, intending to help him with the guard, but the man in the black uniform was slumped into a pile on the ground, so she didn’t have to fire the gun.
“I’ve got to save her!” he cried.
She had to think fast. “Dwight. Poppy wants you to escape. I heard her say she’s going to meet us out in the woods. But we have to leave right now.” She kept her voice as steady as possible, so her ruse would have legitimacy.
“You heard her?” he asked, taken aback.
“Sure,” she fibbed. “I can see her too, remember?”
He cast a furtive glance back to the men hunting for his bird in the trees. It was a huge party now, with constant gunfire. If she didn’t get Dwight out of there that instant, he was going to see his bird fall to the ground in a heap.
“Okay. I’ll follow you. As long as she said so.”
“She did,” Tabby replied, picking up the rifle of the fallen guard. She tried to hand it to Dwight, but he couldn’t be bothered with it. She decided to keep it and the pistol on the assumption she might need both.
Then, while there was still a distraction, they ran into the forest.
CHAPTER 14
Hoover Dam, NV
Kyla stood at the edge of the circular intake building, which stood on top of a concrete tower about fifty feet over the water of Lake Mead. Something was about to destroy the elevator exit, which was a position Avery’s men had been defending in the middle of the dam. The attack would send shrapnel everywhere. Meechum had explained how they were going to get away from the danger.
“You want to jump down there?” she asked incredulously. It was much higher than any jump she’d ever contemplated in her life. Even the high dive back at the community pool was higher than she felt comfortable doing. The water, which had previously struck her as beautiful and calm, was now distant and deadly. There was no way she could do it.
“It’s just that I think—” Meechum began.
An object high in the sky caught the Marine’s attention, making it possible for Kyla to spot it, too. It might have been a jetliner that had decided to drop straight down, but it was long and straight, without wings. The black streak was heading toward the top of the dam, exactly where the red light was waiting. Was it a bomb? It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before.
“I don’t leave unless you do,” Meechum said in a hurried voice.
“You’d stay here with me?” she asked.
The Marine spoke almost as fast as an auctioneer. “Listen, sister, that thing isn’t only going to destroy the elevator. It’s going to take out the whole dam. It’s a kinetic weapon designed to break through anything on the surface of the Earth. I assure you, it’s going to rip this dam a new one, and when it does, this tower is going to fall, too.”
The streaking object moved faster than any jet plane. Meechum sat on the edge of the railing, ready to jump, watching it come
down. Kyla had a good two or three seconds to think about it before the black lance seemed to move even faster, surprising her completely when it struck. A crack of thunder joined a shockwave that blew her against the hard railing of the walkway. A stinging spray of biting sand zapped her exposed skin, which she realized were bits of shattered concrete.
“Last chance, dudette,” Meechum yelled from afar.
Her ears blared with repeats of the impact, as if it were echoing up and down the valley.
“Okay,” she murmured, shuffling up to the edge.
“On three!” Meechum said with assurance, but still sounding a thousand miles away.
“One, two—Oh shit!” Meechum grabbed Kyla’s hand and pulled her toward the edge. With one snappy look back, she got a glimpse of the front side of the dam splitting down the middle like a zipper. Water immediately poured through…
Then she was in the air. It seemed like a long elevator ride to the bottom, but the water’s surface came at her faster than a driving foul ball at the baseball game. She managed to right herself on the way down, but the smack against her feet and legs was almost as loud as the sound caused by the kinetic bomb.
She was immediately out of air, as if she’d forgotten to take a breath before slapping into the waves. She needed a few seconds to establish which direction was up, an act made harder by the lack of sunlight, and then she tested a stroke.
Kyla was met with panic. She needed air and she needed it ten seconds ago.
Meechum was somehow far above, swimming for the surface. She gave her a target to aim for. With great effort, she paddled her arms and legs a second time, rising a little higher.
A muffled roar howled in the depths, reminding her of whale song. A super sad whale mixed with a blender going off inside a metal pot. The odd sound wasn’t natural at all, she decided, arms extended for the surface. Whatever it was, she needed to escape it.
Seconds later, she popped out at the surface.
“Kyla!” Meechum screamed from close by.
“Here!” she replied.
The Marine saw her, then waved her to follow. “Just swim, dudette. Swim for your life!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. The roar was ten times louder above the water, and there was no doubt in her mind it was the dam breaking apart. To think anything else was suicide.
The rocky shore was about fifty feet away. Perhaps the distance across the narrow part of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. She didn’t see herself as a great swimmer, but she did work for the Navy and had lived most of her life near the ocean. Kyla could put one arm in front of the other. However, looking at where she had to go, it became every nightmare where the hallways stretched or the dimensions shifted. As she paddled half the distance, it seemed to expand back to the original length of water.
She paddled harder.
Meechum yelled louder for her to keep going.
Kyla listened as the rushing water noise grew so loud a freight train could have been on her head.
“Kyla!”
With the snap of a finger, Meechum floated by, flailing her arms weakly.
Kyla grabbed her, aware the Marine might be exhausted, or injured. She briefly turned to the backstroke, hoping to pull her to safety, but that revealed the devil’s maw breathing down her neck behind them.
“Oh god!” she cried out as her foot hit bottom. “Come on, Marine!” she yelled, almost peeing her pants.
The water had ripped a hundred-foot hole in the dam, and the lake’s surface curled under itself as it slid over the side of the crack. She and Meechum were seconds away from being at the edge of the grabbing hand of gravity. If they didn’t get out of the water, it would whisk them to their deaths.
“One more step!” she yelled to her friend, tapping a foot on a rock, then missing the next one. “Oh, God.”
She got a better grip on the rocks, pulled Meechum toward her, and made sure they both touched bottom. While the water sucked at her legs and waist, she walked arm-in-arm with the Marine as she guided them into the shallows.
“We made it,” she croaked with exhaustion.
They immediately fell face first on the dry shore.
The roar of thunder could no longer grab them.
Eastern Plains of Colorado
Unwilling to risk being seen on a major highway, Ted and his small convoy stayed on gravel farm roads as much as possible. It was time consuming, and he drove on the shoulder or in ruts, always trying to keep the dust plumes from spiraling up behind them. They’d be spotted from a distance if he wasn’t careful.
“You’ve learned a few things since we came through here yesterday,” she said.
He glanced over. The sun was low on the flat horizon, casting her in the golden hour softness of sunset. If they made it out of the war alive, he was going to buy a camera and take her picture in the same light. Then he’d frame it and put it by his nightstand. He never wanted to forget her beauty.
“Hello?” she prodded. “Earth to Ted.”
Ted snapped to attention. His mind was looking too far ahead. “Yeah, sorry. Every day we survive in this place, we learn a huge amount about fighting this enemy. David can’t have drones on every road, so I figured he’d only be watching the largest ones. Maybe he has more down by Lamar, but not way out here in…wherever we are.” They’d checked the Jeep’s glovebox for a map, but it only had one for Wyoming, not Colorado.
“Well, the enemy learns too. After the scare with the drone, I hope Rando has the good sense to know that much. We’ll never be able to drive in. David’s people are going to have their place locked down like an iron fist. Those roadblocks we made it through yesterday are going to have a hundred men each today. The guards will triple-check every ID. Call every place of employment. They’ll look up old girlfriends for references.”
“So, you don’t think we should go in on wheels?” he asked with surprise.
“What do you think?” she replied with a wry smile.
He was a pilot. His first choice would be to fly in and parachute down. He also knew Emily was capable of doing that very thing, since she’d jumped out of Air Force Two before it went down. However, they were a lost bunch of civilians, not the experts of the 82nd Airborne Division.
“Keep your eyes open for an airfield. It’s where we’ll have to start.”
“Fly in?” It was one of the things they both had in common, so it made perfect sense they would both arrive at the same conclusion.
“I don’t know. We got lucky the last time. Flights are probably controlled tighter than those checkpoints on the road. We aren’t going to be able to bluff our way through transponder codes or pass phrases issued by David’s flight controllers.”
“Then why chase an airfield in the first place?”
He held the wheel and looked over to her again, immediately drifting off in his head. The exhaustion of the day wasn’t helping. Before he got too far away, he blinked back to the moment. “It’s because flying is in my blood. Get me a plane and a runway and I’ll think of some way to get inside that base. If nothing else, maybe I can pull an Independence Day and dive bomb the enemy weapon to take it out of service.” In the movie, the hero died driving a plane into a giant space laser. He hoped it would never come to such an extreme, but it was the type of challenge they faced.
“All right. We’ll find one, but I can promise you this, mister. You aren’t getting off the tarmac without me at your side. We’re partners now. Don’t forget it.”
“I won’t, ma’am.”
A half-hour later, as darkness fell, they found a community airport.
“Jackpot,” he whooped.
Pike National Forest, CO
Each of the gunshots aimed at Poppy was a metal stake through Dwight’s heart. He ran with Tabby, knowing she was right about their need to get away from the men in the black uniforms, but he looked behind almost as much as he faced forward. There had to be a way to save his bird.
“We can hide here,” he suggested, seeing
a thick grove of young fir trees. It would be a good place to oversee the camp and watch for Poppy to come out.
“No, keep running,” she hissed.
“They’re going to kill her,” he pleaded, slowing down.
The girl came back and grabbed his hand. At first, he recoiled at the physical contact, but the fear in her eyes clicked with his male brain. She needed protecting. She was afraid. It was a problem he could solve.
So, he ran with her.
She led him around a bulging hill, across a creek, and into a quarter-mile of leafy green bushes on the other side. He quickly lost track of where he was, though the occasional gunshot from the camp always seemed to come from behind them. That, he figured, was good.
By the time Tabby stopped among some big boulders, he was spent.
“This should be far enough for now,” she said, breathing hard.
Their eyes met, which prompted her to keep talking. “They’re still firing their guns and stuff. I think it means your bird is still on the loose. That’s good, right?” Her smile was kind, but weak. It was a look he knew well. It was pity.
“If we’re going to escape them, we should get above these rocks and see where we’re going. It’s something I learned when I was in the Army.”
“Seriously?” She brightened. “You were really in the Army? I never would have guessed.” As soon as she’d said it, she acted like she’d said something wrong, but he dismissed it.
“It’s no big deal. No one knows I served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t tell anyone…usually. But this time, I figured you’d want to know you could trust me when I say we need to get our bearings.”
Tabby glanced up the hill, seemingly considering his advice. He thought it would take a little route-finding to get around the large rocks at the base, but the hike up the nearest hill wouldn’t be too technical. In his prime, he could have made it up there in fifteen or twenty minutes.
“I have a confession to make, though,” he went on. “After spending ten years on the streets of San Francisco, and smoking like a chimney, I don’t think I have any hope of making it up there. My reasoning for checking out the landscape is a bit selfish. I want to find the route with the fewest obstacles.” He truly was embarrassed.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 101
