“Don’t know what happened,” he said.
“Carbon monoxide poisoning,” Buzz said.
Pope looked across at him woozily. “I feel like sh—”
“Me too.”
Jo reappeared alongside him. “We’ll get you back and showered. Then we’ll get you into bed.”
He smiled.
“Well, at least you’ve still got a sense of humor,” she said, flushing. “One step at a time.”
Buzz managed to stumble to the ATV without needing any help, and he wrapped his arms around Pope so he could grab the handlebars before setting off back to the farmhouse, following Tom who was sharing the other vehicle with Dom.
The children came running out to them as they arrived, followed by Maisie who’d been left in charge of them but who clearly had little control. But they were soon back in the schoolroom, repelled by the stench of the returning heroes.
“The house is gonna stink for weeks,” Tom muttered as he helped Ted Pope up the stairs while Dom and Buzz put a kettle of hot water on the range to boil. Buzz somehow doubted that there was enough water in the tower to wash him truly clean, but he was going to manage it even if he had to scrub a layer of skin off entirely.
Minutes later, Tom appeared at the door. “He’s in bed. Who’s next?”
“You go,” Dom said. “If push comes to shove, I can wash myself in the sink.”
Buzz wasn’t going to argue, but he accepted Tom’s offer to bring the kettle of hot water upstairs to refill the hot water tank. “Jeez, the house feels cold,” Buzz said as he reached the top of the stairs.
“Yeah. It came in while you were away, like a change in the weather. Coming from the north.”
“Good grief. I thought I was being so smart with my preparations. Food, water, and solar energy. But I didn’t see another ice age coming. We’re going to run out of fuel and freeze to death before we starve.”
Tom slapped him on the back. “You are a ray of sunshine, amigo. Go have a shower, and you’ll feel better. And smell better, too. Then maybe we can bear to be in the same room and talk about it. Don’t worry, we’ll be okay.”
Buzz grunted as the door shut behind him, then listened for the sound of Tom pouring water into the tank. The frame of the cubicle was splattered in mud, but Buzz didn’t care. He could feel the grime drying as it soaked through his clothes, so he shed them and climbed in, turned on the shower and sighed.
Chapter 13
Motel
“What is place?” Yuri said, gesturing with his good hand.
Bobby had spotted the small gas stations, but Yuri was pointing farther ahead. “Looks like a motel.”
“Motel? Like hotel?”
“Sort of. With any luck, there’ll be a car we can…”
“Steal?”
Bobby sighed. He hadn’t wanted to face it. Truth was, he’d be in a whole heap of trouble if he didn’t go back to Ragtown with the Humvee he’d had when he left. And, of course, there was the question of Duarte and the others. He didn’t dare try to contact H.Q.; it was too likely the call would be intercepted. But his choices were limited. He was convinced that Yuri’s intelligence was vital—if only because of the effort the Californians were making to capture him. That, in itself, was suspicious and begged the question: what skin did they have in the game? He could understand the Chinese being keen to keep their operation under wraps—though he felt he didn’t fully understand even that—but why was Booker risking a conflict with the Mountain States for the sake of one cosmonaut?
Bobby turned into the motel’s parking lot, then took the Humvee around back where he left it under a large tree—the only one he’d seen since they’d gotten on the road.
He helped Yuri down. “I don’t reckon we can be seen from the road, but we’d better hurry.”
“What we doing?”
“You stay out of sight,” Bobby responded before leaving the blue-suited Russian beside the vehicle and walking up to the office.
“Morning,” he said, trying to act as normally as a man in a military uniform driving a Humvee into a motel parking lot can.
The woman behind the hatch window looked up from her paperwork, and put on her glasses. “Howdy, son. What can I do for you?”
“I know this is going to sound odd.”
“I run a motel, son, I guarantee I’ve heard odder.”
He smiled. She was a small woman in her sixties with dyed black hair. “I’m on a mission and I need to get myself some civilian clothes.”
“Okay,” she said, her confidence slipping a little.
“And I’ll be leaving my vehicle here for my unit to recover. Have you got any cars or trucks left behind?”
The woman wiped her glasses and squinted up at him through the open hatch. “You got any way of paying, son?”
Bobby reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Sure.”
“Well, dollars ain’t much use around here. Folks put stock in gold.”
“I’ve got some Ragtown credits.”
“And what am I gonna do with them? I ain’t about to go live there, am I? Now, if you got some ammunition, then we might be able to do a deal.”
Bobby regarded the woman for a few moments. She was a sly one, that was for sure. He knew that he shouldn’t be giving her anything that belonged to his unit, but he figured he was already in deep enough that a few 9mm clips wouldn’t make much difference.
So, the deal was done. Trade had been very quiet since the flood, she said, and some of those who’d been staying here that day hadn’t come back. She’d gathered their clothes and belongings together and piled them up in one of the rooms. She said it was so they could claim them back if they returned, but Bobby suspected he and Yuri wouldn’t be the first to pick through the bones left behind by victims of the deluge.
She handed him a key and told Bobby to go to the door at the end of the row round the back of the motel.
“Any idea where I could get a car?” he asked with a wholly manufactured casualness.
“What for? You got the Humvee.”
“As I said, it’s a secret mission.”
She raised an eyebrow and said, “No.”
Bobby pretended not to care, but he’d seen three cars parked out front and there would probably be more around the back. He needed one of them, and, though he hated himself for it, he knew he’d have to rely on the skills he’d picked up in his youth.
For now, however, he had to get fresh sets of clothes for the two of them.
“What do you think?” Yuri said, a half hour later. He was standing with one arm holding on to the top of some dresser drawers.
Bobby turned around and fought back the temptation to laugh.
“You do not like? I think I look quite Yankee.”
Bobby could see what he meant. Yuri looked like the sort of caricature American he must have seen on Russian TV. He wore mirrored sunglasses under a black baseball cap that bore a white tick on the peak. A mint green T-shirt and powder-blue short-sleeved jacket were complemented by a pair of blindingly white chinos. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a time machine that had transported him two thousand miles and forty years from 1980s Miami.
“I guess we know how long she’s been stealing clothes from customers,” Bobby said. “But you’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”
“Don’t all Americans look like this?”
Bobby suspected the Russian was joking, but he didn’t have the time or the patience right. “Just find some jeans and a hoodie. You can keep the T-shirt.”
For himself, Bobby selected a pair of black jeans and a light shirt with an embroidered pattern. “We should just check around in case there’s anything else we could use,” he said, once they were both dressed.
Yuri found a pair of canteens that might have spent their early years attached to a cowboy’s saddle—but were more likely to have come from a gift shop somewhere—and an old wheeled suitcase that he stuffed with spare clothes including, Bobby suspected, his Mia
mi Vice sunglasses.
“We go now,” he said as he snapped the case shut and stood up, panting from the exertion.
Bobby sighed. The last thing Yuri needed now was to go anywhere. Maybe they should spend the night here, he thought. Then something made him halt. It might have been mere instinct, or perhaps his subconscious had better hearing than his waking mind. Yuri went to speak, but Bobby shushed him, stuck his head out of the door and listened.
“I can hear a vehicle,” he said, moving back inside but leaving the door open a crack. He couldn’t see clearly, but whatever was parking on the other side of the Humvee looked like a truck of some sort.
The engine cut out and two pairs of boots crunched across the gritty surface toward the reception office. One of the walkers seemed to be dragging his foot a little.
He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he recognized the voice. Apparently, he hadn’t quite killed Carl enough.
Bobby decided he had to take the risk, so he gently opened the metal-framed window and stuck his head out into the fresh, dry air.
“It was you who called us?” Carl said.
“Yes. Say, son, shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”
“That don’t concern you none.”
“Did he do that to you?”
Carl’s voice rose in frustration. “Just tell me where they are!”
At this, Bobby shut the window. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Is your friend Carl, no?”
Bobby grabbed Yuri’s arm and pulled him out the door, throwing his suitcase back across the room. He almost buckled under the cosmonaut’s weight as he heaved him around the corner of the motel building.
“Hey! You!”
For a split second, he caught sight of a man striding toward them—an Asian man in black body armor carrying an assault rifle—and behind him he saw Carl. Bandages covered his cheeks, blood-soaked on one side with a dark red-turning-black stain over his right ear. He limped behind the other man like a recently reanimated mummy. Another figure followed behind—a carbon copy of the first. Bobby could see they were outgunned and, from the body language of the two men in body armor, out-trained.
All that in a moment. Then he was pushing Yuri forward until they reached the corner and began stumbling along the row of rooms facing the road. Bobby tried doors until he found one that was unlocked. “Hide in the bathroom, I’ll draw them off!”
Not waiting for Yuri to respond, Bobby pulled the door shut again and ran as fast as he could. He was two thirds of the way to the end when the cry went up. “Stop!”
Bobby kicked open a door, then fell to his knees and used the cover of the doorframe, taking aim at the three figures pursuing him.
No time for second thoughts or half-measures. He pushed the safety lever, leveled the M9 and squeezed. The first round caught the nearest black-armored soldier in the shoulder. He twisted back a little, righted himself and, raising the assault rifle, broke into a jog, making no attempt to seek cover other than to weave from side to side.
Bobby fired twice more before the soldier smashed sideways through the next motel room door. Someone screamed inside and then went quiet as the rifle’s muzzle appeared, aiming at Bobby, who spotted it just in time and darted back into the room.
He shut his eyes for a moment and tried to construct a model of the tactical situation. He’d been focusing mainly on the first soldier. Was he Chinese, or was Bobby jumping to conclusions? As he examined the scene in his memory, he saw the second armored figure and, stumbling along in the rear, the bloodied form of Carl.
Bobby had no doubt what would happen to him if he was taken. Yuri might survive for a while given his intelligence value, but Bobby would be toast. Perhaps it was because he realized how desperate his tactical situation was, or maybe he was just out of options, but he felt his mind focus until it was like a lighthouse beam. Nothing existed outside of himself and his enemies. No quarter. No mercy.
All of this had taken milliseconds. When he peered around the doorframe, the first attacker had darted out and was halfway between his room and the next. Without a moment’s conscious thought, Bobby squeezed the trigger, and the soldier fell like a stone, a look of surprise on his face and a chunk taken out of his right temple.
Bobby fell back under a shower of splinters as automatic gunfire shredded the doorframe. It was coming from the other direction. They’d surrounded him. He cursed himself for not assuming there was more of them than the three he’d seen so far.
He retreated into the room and pushed the wardrobe over before heaving the mattress onto it to form a defensive position he could crouch behind. A pathetic defensive position, but marginally better than nothing.
He waited. It was probably only seconds, but it was long enough to register sadness and regret. He’d finally found his daughter, but had only enjoyed a couple of months with her in his new domestic setting before getting involved in this craziness. And there was another emotion. Guilt. Truth was, he’d been glad to take on the mission. Maria hadn’t changed much, but Bobby Rodriguez wasn’t the same man he’d once been. The relatively carefree and levelheaded engineer who enjoyed nothing more than spending a day at the pier with his daughter had been replaced with a damaged human being who was fueled by rage. He’d felt his anger gradually grow as he’d fought to be reunited with his daughter, focusing only on the achievement of that aim and the fulfillment of his duty as a father, and imagining nothing beyond it. But he hadn’t yet quelled the fires of wrath that had built within him like a furnace. So, he’d spent his spare time building an illegal radio with Earl when he should have been with his daughter. And he’d jumped at the chance of danger.
Careful what you wish for, Bobby, he thought. And where was Yuri? He was pretty sure he’d have heard if the Russian had been taken—he couldn’t imagine him going quietly. So, he was probably hiding where Bobby had told him, waiting for a chance to make a break for it. If he had any sense.
A black-uniformed figure appeared at the doorway, then retreated under Bobby’s attack. How many rounds had he used up? He felt in his pocket for his second clip and put it down on the carpet beside him. He leveled his weapon over the edge of the mattress, breathing in the faintly rancid ammonia odor and watched for movement.
“Hey, Bobby!” Carl called from beside the door.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Bobby spat, keeping his pistol aimed at the side the black-armored soldier had appeared from.
“We got you cornered. Bring out the Ruski and we’ll leave you alone.”
Bobby laughed mirthlessly. “Sure you will. I don’t believe you’re the forgiving type, Carl. I guess Warren found that out for himself.”
“Duarte’s alive, ’sfar as I know. There’s no way to win from here, Bob, so just come out and we can do a deal. Come out or I’ll send my friends in after you, and they ain’t as merciful as me.”
Did the idiot really think Bobby was about to give himself up so he could be executed? At least Carl evidently thought Yuri was still with Bobby. Every second Bobby delayed Carl increased Yuri’s chances of getting away. Put like that, perhaps he would do more good playing along.
By now, he imagined Yuri had staggered across to the gas station and stolen a car. Yes, perhaps now would be a good time to convince Carl he was desperate enough to trust to his mercy.
“Alright,” he said, his heart thumping so hard in his chest that he felt lightheaded as he got up. He stood behind his makeshift barricade with his hands up.
An assault rifle appeared around the doorframe, followed by the arm of the black-uniformed soldier. Bobby saw the man nod to someone out of sight and Carl appeared in the doorway, framed against the highway beyond as the occasional cars and trucks rushed past.
“So, where’s he hidin’?” Carl said, tilting his good ear in Bobby’s direction. “I got a bone to pick with him.” He lifted the bandage over the right side of his face and Bobby recoiled from the mess it revealed. The man’s ear had been ripped off
in the fall from the Humvee.
“He’s gone,” Bobby said. “He’ll be miles way by now.” I hope.
Carl’s face twisted in rage and he instantly nodded to the man with the assault rifle, as a second black-uniformed soldier appeared over his other shoulder. He was supporting the dead body of the man Bobby had killed.
Bobby had no doubt he was about to die as an assault rifle was aimed at his head.
But at least Yuri had gotten away.
And then, the sudden sound of a truck moving. A cry from the doorway. The rifle swung around. The screeching of half-rotten wood being crushed and snapped, and the light went out as the door was blocked for a moment.
Dust and splinters showered inside, and then the world paused for a moment.
“Get in quick, my friend. Maybe they are dead. Maybe not. I run over them again to be sure.”
Bobby grabbed the clip of bullets and squeezed through the door, then up into the Humvee as Yuri reversed it, swung it around and, leaving a dust cloud behind, headed for the highway. Bobby just had time to see the mess of broken porches they’d left behind. Nothing moved in the rubble.
Chapter 14
Amelia
“Good grief, it looks like the Cotswolds,” Patrick said as they turned a tight corner and emerged into a fertile valley.
They’d been traveling south on UT-72 which wound through a landscape of trees cutting through the low mountains. They’d seen plenty of animals—deer, rabbits, raptors—but barely a single human being. On the one hand, this was what they wanted. On the other, they were all aware that if they were to be ambushed out here, no one would be around to rescue them.
After a freezing night in the wilderness, they’d duct taped a sleeping bag to the shattered back window so it was now worth having the heating on as they drove. Jodi had spent the past day sleeping most of the time. Once the adrenaline of the ambush had settled, she’d closed down. It had puzzled Ellie, and even Patrick hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of her. She’d been in some hairy situations before, but this one seemed to have affected her deeply.
Deluge | Book 4 | Ice Page 11
