Impact (Book 5): Black

by Isherwood, E. E.

“Lots of threats, E-Z.”

  Sure enough, as he continued upriver, the woods on the left side cleared out. A number of tents had been pitched along the open shoreline. Lanterns illuminated many of them, despite the late hour.

  “It looks like a campground,” Haley volunteered.

  “No,” he replied. “Those are refugees.”

  “Come back!” a man bellowed across the water. There was a pregnant pause before the guy added, “Or we’ll shoot!”

  “Crap,” he said under his breath. “Hang on, guys.” After giving his crew a few seconds to prepare, he shoved the throttle forward, getting them up to a reckless cruising speed for the middle of the night on unfamiliar waters. The wide river made it easy to avoid the shore, but everything below the surface could potentially destroy his prop.

  Flashlights followed Susan’s Grace, despite Ezra’s push to reach maximum speed. Seconds later, the man made good on his threat. The boom of a shotgun echoed across the water as if chasing his speeding pontoons.

  “Stay down!” he ordered his people, knowing it wasn’t necessary to be so obvious.

  The shooter manually cycled another round and shot toward them.

  “What are they thinking?” he asked the wind. “If they shoot us, do they think we’ll then willingly come over to them?”

  Somehow, Kelly heard him. “People aren’t right in the city, dude! The space rock has ’em spooked.”

  “I’m spooked, too,” he agreed.

  Butch edged over to Ezra. “Want me to pop a few back to shore?”

  “No, there are tents everywhere. I don’t want to hit an innocent bystander. Then the whole city would be after us.”

  “Smart, as always, E-Z, but I think the whole city is already after us…” He pointed to the riverbank ahead. More lights blinked on, as if the tents weren’t part of a small campground isolated by the river but were instead part of the city itself.

  The man with the shotgun gave it one more try, but they were at the edge of the gun’s range. However, Ezra wondered if the man was trying to hit them at all. Maybe it was a call to arms for those on the shore.

  “Ezra, look back there.” Haley pointed behind them. More tents lit up, on both sides of the shore. Running flashlights were everywhere.

  Kelly cautiously peered over one of the seats. “I told you the gangs were out there. Now they’re going to get us.”

  The boat was in the middle of the river, but Ezra wasn’t sure any distance would make a difference. Ahead, more lights focused on the waterway, some very bright. Car headlights were turned on, pointing toward his boat.

  “My God, why are they doing this?” he shouted to his friends.

  “I don’t know,” Kelly yelled back. “But I see the casino.”

  While almost everything else in the city was dark, or run by battery lights inside tent canopies, the two-story hotel and casino was shrouded in bright white floodlights. A three-story clocktower served as the centerpiece. The time showed three thirty.

  “I’m not sure if we can—” Ezra started to say.

  He was cut short as Kelly sprang up, climbed over the rail, then jumped into the water. He didn’t explain himself or say goodbye.

  Ahead, more headlights came on.

  Apparently, they were about to be the main attraction.

  CHAPTER 16

  Somewhere in Central Wyoming

  “Please be all right,” Grace mumbled to herself while driving off road toward the train. The moonlight provided enough of a guide to see the stopped engine and she was able to drive alongside the tracks to get there. When she got close enough, she saw several small fires burning in the wooden boxcar, showing her the extent of Nerio’s attack. Things weren’t going to be all right.

  “Stop here,” Misha instructed when they were about a hundred yards out.

  “No thanks,” she replied.

  Misha made a sound of frustration from the back, but she ignored it. He might have been thinking about a repeat attack, but she knew Asher needed to see his sister without delay. Grace skidded the truck to a halt as soon as she was next to the smoky engine.

  She glanced over to Asher. “You check on her. I’ll help at the front.”

  “Got it,” he said, springing into action.

  “You are too close to train,” Misha said quietly.

  She yanked the keys out and tossed them back to him. “Move it if you want.”

  The engine was a mess. There were many holes in the orange metalwork of the side, and a round or two had gone into the compartment at the front where the engineers worked the controls. As she ran along the side rail, the voices of men in the front caught her attention. She became concerned about being mistaken for the assassin. “Hey, this is Grace Anderson. Is Robert in there?”

  A few seconds went by before a face appeared at the open entrance. She exhaled with relief to see the engineer alive. Robert waved her closer.

  “I’m glad to see you,” she said on approach.

  “You too,” he replied, before turning somber. “I lost my partner.”

  It had been ten minutes since the helicopter attack. It took her about that long to get off the highway, find her way through the tall grass, and drive the rest of the way next to the tracks. Robert’s overalls were covered in blood, suggesting he’d been working those ten minutes to save his partner.

  “What about everyone in the back?” she pointed over her shoulder, toward the boxcar. The flatcar was presumably empty, since her truck was no longer on it.

  He shrugged. “I haven’t been back there.”

  She spun around, knowing there was nothing to be done at the front. She noticed Misha had moved her truck. She heard it in the darkness.

  After hopping off the engine, and running along the boxcar, she found a handful of passengers in the grass, tending their wounded. Asher wasn’t there, prompting her to look around. The boxcar door had been left wide open, giving her a clear view of the fires inside. “Asher?”

  “He went that way,” one of the men said without looking up at her.

  “Thanks,” she replied, already jogging toward the rear of the train.

  The tendrils of flame from the wooden panels lit up the empty surface of the flatcar, as well as the closest parts of the fields next to the train. It was evident in seconds Asher wasn’t there.

  “Ash?” she cried out, feeling legitimate worry for the first time.

  Grace went all the way to the back end of the flatcar. She checked underneath the car, simply to be thorough, but he wasn’t there. She even went to the far side and glanced toward the engine. Not there, either.

  “Where the heck are you?” she said to herself.

  “I’m here,” he finally replied. Asher came running up from behind her, sweaty and winded.

  “Did you run around the whole train?” she asked with surprise.

  “She isn’t here,” he said, ignoring her question.

  “Seriously?” Grace knew he wouldn’t joke about it, so she waved him to follow her. “We’ll check again.”

  He was about to follow when he enacted a robotic halt as he watched the tracks behind the train.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I see someone.”

  They both studied the darkness as several shapes strode into the aura of light thrown out by the fires. One of the figures was limping. Another supported the injured man. A third person walked nearby, though not with much haste.

  “It’s them,” he exclaimed. Then, louder, he yelled to the trio. “Diedre!”

  A woman waved with her good arm.

  “Let’s—” she started to say.

  Asher was already on the move.

  “Go help them,” she finished.

  Kansas City, MO

  Ezra was tempted to turn around and give up the idea of using Susan’s Grace to reach his daughter, but the rising anger on both shores of the river suggested he was on the one and only course to get through the crowds. Kelly might not have been telling the truth a
bout why he was in the woods, but it became clear with each new headlight that something big was going on at the borderlands of Kansas City. The tweaker had run the gauntlet on foot and remained so fearful of doing it again he preferred to swim in the hazardous river.

  Butch and Haley huddled together in the middle of the boat, serving as weights for the tents, so they didn’t blow away. It was also the only shielded position on the deck; the chairs and side rails provided a minimal amount of protection. Butch’s rifle lay next to him. Haley’s was close by.

  “Stay down, guys,” he said over the engine noise. Though they had rifles at the ready, there was no way to fight back against such odds.

  “I’m comfy,” Haley joked.

  They were passing the casino when an explosion of light erupted about fifty feet over their heads. Fingers of purple light shot out in multiple directions.

  “Damn!” Butch shouted.

  The concussion from the blast fell upon the boat, literally blowing his hair back. Butch’s cowboy hat seemed to be glued to his head. It didn’t move at all.

  “They’re using fireworks,” he said as an attempt to comfort his passengers.

  Haley pointed to the next one arcing across the sky toward them. “Incoming!”

  A giant pink starburst exploded over the middle of the river. The airburst was so large most of the display went right into the water. The top half went up a short way before collapsing and fizzling out.

  The first two fireworks signaled the start of the follow-on show. A dozen streams of industrial-grade pyrotechnics rose up from the area around the casino. Ezra had no choice but to risk going faster, throttling up to about forty.

  “E-Z, you enjoying this?”

  “The fireworks?” he asked with surprise.

  Another went off about ten feet over the water. Fortunately, it was about fifty yards behind them. They were bathed in a wash of warm air.

  “Not really. Susan and I preferred watching them from across the lake, not directly inside them.”

  Haley laughed.

  “Just get us through,” Butch said in a reasonable tone of voice.

  A ping on metal suggested it wasn’t merely harmless fireworks heading their way. Someone, maybe everyone, was shooting real guns at them. It occurred to him what the people on the shore were doing.

  “The fireworks are only a light show. They’re using them to spot us!” More quietly, he added, “I think they believe we’re with TKM.”

  Butch went right to sarcasm mode. “And why would that piss anyone off?”

  “Because TKM are assholes?” Haley replied in a serious voice.

  The headlights, spotlights, and fireworks combined to make the filthy river light up as if it were the feature in a Broadway show. Ezra needed to keep his eyes forward, ever searching for floating debris to avoid, rather than look into the blinding lights. Water spurts shot up in random places around them.

  “I hope they shoot themselves in the crossfire!” Butch yelled, keeping his arm over Haley’s back.

  Ezra couldn’t think of a valid reason why anyone would want to shoot at them. Even if they were with TKM, they hadn’t been given a proper warning or been told the area ahead was off limits. It seemed absolutely random.

  Not far ahead, the line of lights ended.

  “We’re almost at the end, I think,” he said, though he was unsure. The river went around a bend to the left, and it was mercifully dark there, but he wasn’t prepared to say it would be any safer. It seemed like a trap.

  More bullets impacted his pontoons. He imagined them skimming by his head. Under his chin. Through the railing.

  “Stay down!” he yelled.

  A fury of explosions ripped the sky above, as if the fireworks people gave it one last finale to try to stop his boat. Guns discharged in winks of light from many places along the shore. He saw them as flash bulbs in his periphery.

  “A little more,” he begged of Susan’s Grace.

  The darkness ahead beckoned. As he rounded the bend at fifty miles an hour, the fireworks faded along with the gunfire, but the watery path ahead wasn’t much better.

  “What. Is. That?” Haley snarked.

  Ezra’s hand hovered over the throttle, again unsure if the sight ahead called for them to go faster or slower.

  They’d found the reason for all the excitement.

  Denver, CO

  Petteri fired every round in his gun. The entire time he discharged his weapon, a dozen other guns fired through the dark room, every one sounding close enough to be inside his ear drum. Mr. Aarons told him to fire at anyone coming inside the room, and he’d done as instructed. What hadn’t been explained to him was what he was supposed to do when he ran out of bullets. When he fired the last round, he thought about it for a few seconds, then chucked the gun in the direction of the door.

  Dorothy was crying on the floor nearby, but he wasn’t going to go out like that. He marshaled every ounce of his composure and stood in the darkness, ready to take it like a great leader.

  Seconds went by. The spray of gunfire became a trickle.

  His ears rang like Sunday church bells, but he caught a snippet of Mr. Aarons yelling to his men. He sounded close.

  “Are you okay?” a voice asked from directly next to him. “Damn! You stood on your feet through that attack? Hardcore, sir.”

  “Mr. Aarons?” he said with surprise.

  “I’m going to turn on the lights. Don’t shoot me.”

  “I won’t,” he replied, trying to hide how helpless he felt. The other man seemed to thrive in the darkness.

  When the lights came on, Dorothy gasped. A dozen armed men, each with the word Police stenciled on their backs, were on the floor. Aarons and his men stood above them, their night-vision goggles shoved up over their heads.

  He brushed himself off. “You planned this?”

  Aarons beamed. “This was Howard’s idea. I just did like he taught me. He said there was a greater than zero chance the local police would figure out this building was your headquarters. He also worried they would try sending a S.W.A.T. team to decapitate your operation here in the city. He set up this floor to cut all power to the lighting as well as bathe it in a low dose of infrared light so his team could see the enemy. It was a trap sprung to perfection.” Aarons kicked one of the dead policemen.

  Petteri experienced a mix of emotions. There was the huge hole created by the loss of his number two, Howard. The guy had planned for everything. He was happy to see Aarons carrying on Howard’s tradition. Obviously, he was pleased to have survived the attack. However, he couldn’t go to war with the mayor of a city. It would set a bad trend.

  “What do we do next?” he asked his security chief. Petteri decided he had to trust him.

  “Sir, I think we’re safe for the time being. The streets outside are still chaotic. They probably struggled to put together this breach team. You can carry out your business tonight. However, once the sun rises on the streets, we’ll have to reevaluate.”

  “Do you think it would help if I called the mayor?” He wanted to chew her a new one, but also to prove the attack had failed.

  Aarons shrugged. “You’re in charge of politics. I wouldn’t tell her about this.” He pointed to the men on the floor.

  Petteri tapped Dorothy on the shoulder. She remained on the floor, crouched with her head between her legs as if prepared for a tornado, rather than bullets. The dark-haired woman looked up with wet cheeks. “Are we safe?”

  He smiled. “Stick with me. No one is going to hurt you.”

  She reached for his hand, hesitating for a second, then relenting. “Thanks.”

  Petteri basked in the glory of being a hero.

  CHAPTER 17

  Somewhere in Central Wyoming

  “What happened?” Grace asked as she ran up to Shawn Runs Hard, Logan, and Diedre.

  Logan spoke first. “My dad heard the chopper coming. Made us jump off the side of the train. It was pretty sweet.”

  His fa
ther was more tempered. “How did the others fare? It looked terrible.”

  Asher hugged his sister, leaving her to answer. “I know one of the engineers was killed. I’m not sure about the others. I think a few were injured.” She turned around. “The wooden car is burning.”

  “Do they have any way to put it out?” the Crow leader pressed.

  “I don’t know. Robert is in the engine. I’m sure he sees the fire, but he isn’t doing anything about it. If anyone would know where to get fire suppression equipment, it would be him.” She absently glanced toward the horizon. The storm she’d seen before sunset was out there somewhere. If only it were over them. As it was, the fire was too big to use shirts to pat it out.

  “So, the train gets smaller,” Shawn said sadly.

  They walked back to the others, who now sat farther from the edge of the railroad grade. The fire had spread throughout the boxcar, and the intense blaze burned fast. The survivors were forced to go deep into the grass to avoid the heat.

  Robert appeared at the rear door of the engine compartment. “I’ve unhooked from the cars. I’m going to move up the line a little.”

  Grace waved at him.

  As the engine powered up and rolled away from the fire, she took a moment to scan the flat plains around them. The helicopter was nowhere to be seen, but there were a lot of cars on the nearby highway, as if the lead portion of a city’s rush hour were coming at them.

  “What do you make of that?” she asked whoever was around her.

  Logan stood up. “It looks like a race. Is there anything of value around here?”

  She thought immediately of the rock south of Yellowstone. The cars were heading west, which was the same way they were aimed. It was possible they were all going there, too. Or, perhaps they were getting away from somewhere else.

  “I think it’s nothing we have to worry about,” she said, trying to sound confident.

  A couple of minutes went by, but the cars were still there. To her eyes, it appeared as if they’d stopped, rather than being a slow-moving line. As she took more time to watch, she became convinced of it. “Maybe it’s the police come to check on reports of a truck being fire-bombed by a crazy helicopter on the interstate?”