by Barry Napier
UNRAVEL
It Falls Apart Series
Book 2
By
Barry Napier
Mike Kraus
© 2021 Muonic Press Inc
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Special Thanks
Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.
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It Falls Apart Book 3
Available Here
Chapter 1
The conference room smelled like strong coffee and sweat when Katherine Fowler stepped inside. It wasn’t the sort of sweat she was used to smelling when she walked into the gym or during a bureau pick-up basketball game, though. This was the smell of tension and stress—of worried men and women that were nearly at the end of themselves. She noticed it for only a moment as she filed into the back of the room and poured a cup of the pitch black brew from the well-used coffee pot.
Conference Room C was the largest room in the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia field office. Katherine—called Kat by just about everyone standing in the room even if she didn’t know them all that well—had been in the room more times than she could count and it felt much smaller today. As she sipped from her coffee, she scanned the room and guessed that there were at least thirty agents and supervisors in attendance. Each one looked just as scared as the next. Katherine was pretty much scared out of her mind, too, but she’d become something of an expert at pushing fear away.
She spotted Section Chief Rollins at the front of the room, talking animatedly to a man in a suit that Katherine did not recognize. As a matter of fact, there were several men at the front of the room she did not recognize. As she studied these men fluttering around Section Chief Rollins, she saw a familiar face enter the room. Luis Puig, her sometimes partner in the field, took a moment to take in the size of the crowd before entering. As he weaved his way through the sea of agents, he spotted Katherine and gave her a perplexed look. He mouthed an exaggerated curse word at her and though he was trying to be comical, she could see the fear in his eyes.
As he drew up next to her, she saw that even in the midst of a national catastrophe, Luis had dressed with expert precision, just like always. Crisp white collar under his jacket, paisley tie, dress pants that you could tell had been ironed or pressed very recently. Katherine had settled for something much simpler, tossing on a pair of jeans and a somewhat professional-looking white blouse after getting the All Hands on Deck emergency text an hour ago.
“Can you believe this?” Luis said, once again trying to take in the size of the crowd in the room.
“Given the way the last three days have gone down in the country, I sort of can,” Katherine said.
Not trying to hide his nerves, Luis ran a shaky hand through his black hair and said, “This isn’t going to be good, Kat.”
She knew this was true. She’d wondered how their jobs might be affected the moment the Blood Fire Virus had started to tear New York City apart. Then when the bomb went off in Texas and released it there, she’d stopped wondering and started to put together worst-case scenarios. It was her belief that whatever was about to happen in Conference Room C might very well be the start of one of those scenarios.
There was no podium at the front of the room, but she could see Section Chief Rollins placing a headset on. It was wired into the room’s PA, so when he tested it by plucking at the mic, the room was filled with a thumping noise.
“Quiet everybody,” Rollins said in his haggard voice. “We don’t have much time and I want to make this quick.”
The man commanded authority. Having spent twenty-nine years with the bureau meant that his name had gotten around. His voice was also the sort that demanded attention—loud, boisterous and filled with evidence that he’d spent much of his life as a smoker. All chatter died down instantly as every eye in the place, including the suited men up front, went to Rollins.
“None of you live under rocks,” Rollins started, “so I won’t waste time going into great detail over what we all know. New York City is gone. Most of the upper east coast is also gone. Upwards of seven hundred thousand military personnel are dead and the fatality count for citizens is estimated to be well over fifteen million. All of that, and this damned virus is slowly making its way towards us. As of now, there is no known way to stop it. No cure, no vaccine, no hope at all.
“As of about two hours ago, we now know that what the virus did to New York, it is currently in the process of doing to both Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Fort Worth Texas is also gone and from what we can gather, it happened much quicker there. Estimates suggest that we can kiss the entire population of Texas goodbye within a day or two.”
There were muffled gasps in the crowd as Rollins took a moment. Some were openly weeping while some simply stared ahead in shock. Rollins stared out to them in a way that let them know that though he was in charge here, he was just as terrified as the rest of them.
“Sorry if that seems a little too blunt and to the point,” Rollins went on, “but we are currently in a time and place where there isn’t room for niceties. So I’ll just get straight to the whole point of this. Because the virus is spreading so quickly and because there seems to be no current way to stop it, Washington DC is in a state of absolute lockdown. The National Guard has been deployed and just about every single member of the bureau is currently assisting where they can. We’re talking Homeland Security, the CIA, black ops, and on and on. Every available body is ensuring DC stays locked down. No one out and absolutely no one in. Because of this, we have orders from the President himself to do some heavy lifting on our end. As of this moment, we need every available body out of Richmond to start scouring the city for explosive devices. The exact same process will be undertaken in most majo
r cities along the east coast. We’ll be digging in records as far back as twenty years; any report or threat, no matter how miniscule or ridiculous the tip may have been, is to be thoroughly investigated. We’ll be working with the help of local PD for the next several days or however long this virus gives us.
“In the meantime we will have our own lock down. A few National Guard and Coast Guard resources are being sent to every city along the east coast with a population of more than two hundred thousand in an attempt to keep the virus out. I don’t mind saying to all of you—though I’ll deny it if it comes up later—that I think that’s going to be about as effective as fighting off a tsunami with a couple of sandbags.”
Rollins stopped here, gauging the crowd as if he wished he could take the last comment back. It hadn’t bothered Katherine in the least. She’d much rather have the bad news without flowery prose and soft edges. Diluted bad news was, in her not so humble opinion, just another way to lie.
“If you work directly under me, you’ve already been emailed your assignments.” Rollins continued. “And if you don’t work for me, meet with your direct supervisor immediately to get your first assignment.” He glanced around the room one more time before adding: “This is going to suck, and I wish I had better news. I wish you all the luck in the world. And though I know we may not all agree on matters of religion, I will be praying for all of you. Thank you.”
With that, he took off the headset and instantly started speaking with a few of the suited men up front. Katherine wondered if they were representatives from Washington. Before she had time to wonder too much, Luis was in her ear.
“Going back twenty years,” Luis said. “Even if the country wasn’t currently being devoured by a rogue virus, that would take forever.”
“Well, weren’t you complaining to me two weeks ago about how sick and tired you were of riding your desk?”
“I don’t think I actually said riding my desk. I believe I said being blinded by cyber crimes.”
“Same difference,” Katherine said as they started to quickly follow the flow of traffic out of Conference Room C. She did agree with Luis; pouring over so many reports and tips from over twenty years was going to be an insurmountable task. It would probably only serve to keep them busy and distracted while the virus descended upon them. She didn’t know the exact numbers, but she was pretty sure a city like Richmond averaged somewhere around fifteen or twenty bomb threats a month, almost all of which turned out to be totally fake—nothing more than the bored pranks of teenagers and delusions of conspiracy theorists. Still, reports had to be filed and, in some cases, some poor cops ended up driving to the reported site to find absolutely nothing. Fifteen reports per month, over twenty years…topped off with any so-called tips about suspicious activity every now and then. Yeah, that was going to be a lot of research and searching.
Still, Katherine thought it was a decent idea. Even if it turned out to be fruitless, they had to do something. Trying to protect the country from a virus was quite different from trying to protect the city from criminals and murders. Sitting around and waiting to see what happened would be far less efficient than digging around in old reports of bomb threats and paranoid tips from concerned citizens.
She and Luis were walking side by side as they came to the door, where agents were hurrying out to meet with their supervisors to get assignments. Because both Katherine and Luis were under the direct supervision of Section Chief Rollins, their assignments would be waiting in their inboxes—probably a dated list of tips and reports to thumb through.
But before they made it out of the door, Katherine heard Rollins’s voice faintly through the thinning crowd. “Fowler. Puig. A word, please?”
Katherine turned right away. She was often teased that she was something of a teacher’s pet, easily one of Rollins’s favorite agents. She didn’t mind the ribbing because she could back it up. She’d been at the top of her class at Quantico and had won marksman championships all along the east coast four years in a row. Her impressive number of arrests and assists with other bureau divisions wasn’t a bad notch to have in her belt, either…and all by the age of thirty.
She assumed anyone that saw her walking towards Rollins would assume she was being shown some sort of favoritism, but she didn’t care. There was a little too much going on right now to worry about such drama.
Rollins excused himself from the suited men and turned his full attention to Katherine and Luis. He crossed his arms, trying to look as causal as possible. His eyes scanned the exiting agents to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
“I’ve got a different detail for you two,” he said. “It’s effective immediately and you’ll report to only me. Tell no other agents what you’re doing. You get any grief from anyone, report it to me and I’ll tear into them. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Katherine and Luis said in unison.
“I’ve got two addresses I need you to check out for me. These addresses are not coming from myself or the Richmond field office, but straight from DC. I think they were going to originally have Homeland Security run with it but, as I said, they’re a little short-handed right now. The first is here in Richmond, in the West End. It was the previous address of a man named Terrence Crowder. Crowder is believed to have been in communication with a group of homegrown terrorists not too long ago. He is currently living somewhere outside of Baltimore and the last team of Homeland Security agents that went looking for him have not been heard from. That, plus the fact that Baltimore is quickly becoming one huge graveyard, is leading some to believe he may now be hiding out at this old Richmond residence.”
“And the second address?” Katherine asked.
“A small town called Hoop Spring,” Rollins answered. “It’s about two and a half hours away from here, somewhere along the Blue Ridge Mountains. I need you to get there and back as quickly as possible. And if you can come back with the man we’re looking for, we might finally get some answers to this hell we’re currently living through.”
“Is this another place this Crowder guy could be hiding?” Luis asked.
“No. We’re hoping it’s the residence of a man named George Kettle—the primary terrorist Crowder is linked to. I’ll send you the addresses as soon as you leave here.” As he said this, he quickly glanced back to one of the strange, suited men.
“Sir,” Katherine said, leaning closer even though nearly all of the other agents had filed out. “Is the assumption that all that’s happened is a terrorist attack?”
“I can’t answer that,” Rollins said, nearly snapping at her. “For now, I just need you to get on this. Waste no time and keep me informed every step of the way.”
“Yes, sir,” Katherine said. She was already heading for the door when she heard Luis give the same response.
As they hurried down the central hallway together, Katherine looked nervously to Luis. “There you go,” she said. “We’ve managed to dodge digging through reports. You feel better now?”
“Not at all,” Luis said. She could still see the fear in his eyes, only now it seemed more centered, more like he’d gotten control of it now that he had direction. “This,” he added, “somehow seems so much worse.”
Chapter 2
When Paul Gault pulled the truck out of his grandfather’s driveway and toward the mountain road that led back into Brownstone, it felt like more than just leaving the house or his grandfather behind. He felt like he was leaving the world behind. He had no doubt that the world he was about to drive into was going to be drastically different than the world he, Olivia, and Joyce had barely survived just a day ago. Burying his grandfather, a kind man named Roosevelt that had taught him more than his father ever had, seemed to be almost symbolic now. The old life was now gone and something new was awaiting them.
That something new, though, was going to be hard. And quite frankly, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to survive it this time.
He looked over to Olivia. She was currently staring at her p
hone as if willing it to ring. He’d caught her checking it out at least five times in the past hour, just staring at the screen. She’d been doing it ever since Joyce’s father had called, but nothing had happened. Honestly, Paul wasn’t quite sure how the call had come through at all. Service was famously bad up here in the mountains, and he could only imagine the absolute mess the cell services were in at the moment. Olivia must have been standing in the exact right spot at the exact right time or something.
“You okay?” Olivia asked, returning his glance.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s just…it’s been a lot. I don’t know what to expect when we get back out on the road. From here to Minneapolis has got to be twelve hours. Probably more. You throw in the unknown condition of the roads…”
“I know,” she said, finally pocketing her phone. “And I would love to be that strong independent woman that could say I’ll understand if you wanted to back out on us and do your own thing. I guess I would understand it, but I really hope you don’t.”
He glanced away from Olivia, then to Joyce. She was sitting between them, snacking on dry cereal and flipping through one of the books Olivia had packed. She’d seemed very happy to know that her father had called and there was still some of that happiness present on her little face.
“No,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t do that.”
But there was a darker truth lurking below. He was quite certain that if the call from Joyce’s father had not come through, he and Olivia might just be having that talk right now—about him staying behind and toughing it out in the cabin until the world started to make some sort of sense. He knew it was selfish, but there it was, ugly and gleaming in the corners of his heart. They would be welcome to stay with him, of course, and hope to ride it all out together. But then that damned call had come through and it had sparked something he guessed was hope.
