A thousand miles away, her mom and dad were probably wondering where she was, and what she was doing. That bit of familiar comfort kept her from losing her composure, at least until she pulled into Cooke City.
He snapped one of his pictures as they arrived. “This ain’t good,” Asher said dryly.
Kentucky
“You can’t come this way!” a man at the roadblock shouted.
Ezra and Butch were off the bicycles, and walking in their direction, but they stopped about twenty yards from the turnoff. He wanted to go right, along the road to Murray. The other way would take them onto a long, thin wedge of land sticking out into the lake. A similar finger came out from the eastern shore. They were joined in the middle by a modern four-lane highway bridge arched over the lake. The flood waters were almost up to the highway leading up to the bridge, so it appeared as if the pavement was floating on the surface. Debris stacked up thick on the upriver side; flipped boats, dock floats, driftwood, and a billion pieces of houses. Another foot of water and the junk would wash on top of the road. He did not want to go that way.
“We’re only passing through,” Ezra replied. “I live up by Fairdealing.”
The man at the roadblock wore heavy black pants and a camouflage shirt, like a hunter might wear. He also wore a camo boonie hat. “Doesn’t matter. You can’t come through here. We saw you take those bikes and try to break into a car. You’re thieves.”
Oh crap.
He held up his hands, balancing the bike against his hip. “You have us all wrong! We only borrowed these bikes; I’ve got to get to my daughter out west. When I bring her back, I’ll return these bikes, too. I left a note in that car.”
“We have no problem with what you’ve done. We didn’t know the owner, anyway. Regardless, the only direction you’re going is there,” the camo guy pointed to the dark clouds beyond the bridge, “because we’re not letting you anywhere close to our properties.” The other men on the blockade closed ranks with him to show solidarity.
“I promise we’re neighbors,” Ezra said in a reasonable voice. “I can show you my ID. We don’t even care if you escort us through your territory. All I want is to get to my daughter.”
The guy shook his head. “Nothing personal, but we can’t risk it. If we let you through, you could always double back with those rifles the second you’re out of our sight. If we send you over the bridge, we’d see you walking this way again. You couldn’t sneak back to us.”
The guy at the blockade waved behind Ezra. “Or you can go back the way you came. We’re already watching in that direction.”
He tried again. “What if we returned the bikes? We’ll put them on the bike rack, no big deal. You can watch us walk over the horizon.” It would take longer to walk south, but anything had to be faster than going east across the bridge. Even on the best of days, it was twenty-five miles due south to the next bridge over the lake. With the rain and fires, there was no telling how far out of the way they’d have to go.
“No dice,” the man replied, sounding as uncaring as when they first began negotiating.
Ezra turned his back to the roadblock. “I don’t want to cross the bridge, but we don’t have much of a choice. The storms look brutal over there.”
“Sorry, sir,” Butch said under his breath, “this was my foul-up.”
Ezra was unperturbed. “What happened to calling me E-Z?”
“This is serious,” the kid replied. “I shouldn’t have made you borrow these bikes. I was thinking like a tired walker, not a soldier.”
“We did what we thought was right. These men don’t know our motivations; they’re playing it safe. We can stand here and complain about it or we can accept our situation and try to make up for it.” His voice changed to a whisper. “We’re lucky they aren’t going to shoot us.” He drew in a deep breath. “You willing to cross with me?”
Butch gave him a mock salute. “Roger that. Let’s keep moving.”
Ezra waved to the men. “We’ll be heading over to the LBL. I want you to know I’ll return someday. I’m going to bring the bikes back, so you’ll see we’re men of our word.” It seemed unreasonable to make the promise, but he also didn’t like the way the men glared at him with distaste. Up until fifteen minutes ago, he thought looters were the scum of the earth, too…
They still are, he told himself. There was a big difference between borrowing two abandoned bikes and stripping the stores of anything not bolted down.
The modern bridge had a steep incline up to the center point, with four lanes going over, two for each direction. Giant silver arches supported both sides of the central span. They were about two hundred yards from end to end and a hundred feet tall at the midpoint. The eastbound lanes were choked by abandoned cars, but the westbound lanes were empty, as if a clog was blocking them on the far side. Rather than risk being around the cars, they entered the dedicated bike lane, which remained completely empty.
“Up and over,” Butch exclaimed as they went along the bike path and started up the incline. Both had to shift to lower gears several times until they were comfortably able to turn the cranks. After a minute or two, Butch was twenty yards ahead and pulling away. “Come on, old man!”
Ezra was forty-five. Hardly an old man, except when compared to a kid barely in his twenties. Ezra pumped as hard as he could, but didn’t catch up until they were both going down the other side of the arched bridge. From there, he saw why the far lanes were empty.
“It’s just like you said yesterday,” Ezra remarked.
“Yep, the rumor mill was right this time. They tried to go around the jackknifed tractor trailer in those lanes. When they came over to these other lanes, it ended up killing traffic in both directions.” A tractor-trailer was sideways across the whole approach to the westbound span of the bridge.
Beyond the accident, they encountered another problem. The swollen lake was high enough to allow a lone barge to run aground. The rust-colored container was about two hundred feet long, maybe thirty feet wide, and about twenty feet from top to bottom. It was a brick-shaped boat and it had been shoved about halfway across the eastbound lanes.
“It must have been moving pretty fast,” he mentioned to Butch as they rode next to and around the hull.
“It’s empty, too. That’s why it rode up the land so far.”
Butch was right. It never would have come ashore if it was filled with coal, as he often saw while boating the lake. Barges went up and down the Tennessee River, including through the locks at the dam, adding a small hazard whenever he and Susan took the pontoon boat out.
A couple of minutes later, Butch led them away from the bridge, toward the thick clouds billowing almost directly above. He called back to Ezra, “Looks like we’re not going to be dry much longer.”
Ahead, the four-lane highway went into the forest, though most of the trees were toppled over, and almost none had any greenery left on the branches. The hazy skies were much darker ahead, and thunder rumbled almost continuously from deeper in the woods. The terrain was relatively level, so they had a great view of the clouds to the north and south. It didn’t look like there was a break in the line of storms, though the south looked marginally lighter.
When they reached the start of the fallen trees, he put a foot down and pointed to a dirt path intersecting the roadway on the north and south. “We’re going that way.” He pointed south.
Butch acted surprised as he slowed and stopped. “We’re not sticking to the roadway?” There were still lots of parked cars, though it wasn’t quite as jammed up as the road by his house. They hadn’t seen anyone alive, however, which was a sign of how bad things had been the night before.
“No. The highway takes a longer way around before it reaches the other bridge. This trail runs along the lake for sixty miles, from the dam to Tennessee. All we have to do is stick to it until we reach the next bridge.”
“And how far is that?”
“Twenty-five, give or take,” he replied, knowin
g from experience his guess was close. He and Susan had hiked the North-South trail shortly after they moved to the lake. Back when he was in much better shape. It was one of the first times they’d left Grace alone with a babysitter—Susan’s mom—for the three days and two nights it took to complete the hike.
“Are you sure?” Butch asked.
Ezra was close to sharing details about the hike he’d taken with his wife, but the sound of motorcycles came from the forest on the north side of the four-lane highway. Since they were going south, he hopped on his bike and pedaled for the muddy trail. They cruised over the rocks and mud for about fifty yards before they reached the first fallen tree. Ahead, two more trunks blocked the way. It wasn’t quite as nice of a trail as he remembered it.
“We’ll never ride through here,” he lamented.
There was no time to go back.
The whiny engines were already on the highway and getting closer.
Ezra stayed calm and pulled off his rifle.
Butch already had his out.
Isla Socorro
Petteri had barely hung up the phone with Secretary Stricker before Howard came into his posh living room. It was fitting his security chief would show up. Howard’s job was to make sure no surprises would jump out of the bushes now that Petteri had hitched TKM’s wagon to the government response.
“Good day, Howard. What have you got for me?”
“Hello, sir. As ordered, I’ve been keeping track of all the moving pieces back on the mainland. I’m happy to say we still have all the scientists and the other threats to our public relations program under wraps. They’re locked up in Texas, mainly.”
“Being kept comfortable, I assume?” In one of his moments of brilliance, he thought about putting all those people on a plane and dropping them into one of the meteorite craters. It would serve as a foolproof way of ridding himself of troublesome ex-employees, but he couldn’t spare the aircraft for such a trip. Plus, if things were as bad as they appeared, brainpower could be an important commodity in the near future. Having them around could benefit his bottom line.
“As you instructed. They think we’re keeping them locked up for their own protection from the falling rocks.”
“Excellent job. Keep them happy enough they don’t come out of isolation wanting to sabotage me and my company. I think I’ll have work for them soon enough.” He hesitated, needing to address the one loose end Howard seemed unable to close. “What about Asher and the park ranger?”
Howard scrunched his face in disgust. “Still no word from my man on the ground. I’m beginning to think he was hurt in the impact last night. It’s not his style to go offline like this, though the entire middle of the country is now in a communications blackout.”
Petteri walked to a window to look out on the ocean. If their cleanup man had taken care of things the previous night, he might be able to focus entirely on the recovery effort. As it was, he needed to worry about preventing the spread of Asher’s lies. That included the video he and the park ranger lady left on the internet, where he implicated TKM in general, and Petteri in particular, as having caused the world’s near-destruction. His tech people had done a great job scrubbing it, but they refused to say with absolute certainty they’d erased every copy in existence.
“If Misha comes back to life, tell him he better track down and resolve these outstanding issues, or he really can kiss his family goodbye.” He’d issued the same threat the night before, hoping it would result in the termination of the thorny pests. Since he hadn’t heard from the man, he had no idea if he needed to order Misha’s family killed. He didn’t consider himself an unreasonable monster; he’d wait a little bit longer.
“I will, sir. Does that include the scientists?” Howard asked cautiously.
Petteri harbored no personal animosity toward the confined scientists. He’d happily let them go free when they could no longer help him. Asher Creighton had made it personal when he and his park ranger girlfriend stood in front of video cameras and dragged the Tikkanen name through the dirt.
“No, of course not. They’re my guests. I’m only talking about Asher and the girl. Make them your priority.”
“I will, sir.”
He was inspired to hurry things along. “And, Howard, send another cleanup team out there. What the hell, send two. If Misha is dead, we may never know if he succeeded. I’d rather have a second and third team on the roll, so we don’t lose any time, if you know what I mean.”
“I do, Mr. Tikkanen.” He stood there for a few seconds too long.
Petteri smirked. “Then get to it!”
Chapter 9
Cooke City, Montana
It took two hours for Grace to get the convoy to Cooke City, which was little more than a waystation on the drive out of the immense national park. The fire was far behind them, but they were committed to the only road out of the northeast corner of Yellowstone. The menacing clouds squatted over the peaks of the Beartooth Mountains, though Grace feared the two-thousand-degree heat from a forest fire a lot more than any storm.
The frosty white Suburban with the fancy wheels was nowhere in sight.
“They didn’t wait for us,” she said worriedly.
“It looks like they went on, despite your warning,” Asher said as they drove into what was left of the town. It had a few small rustic motels and a gas station, but they’d been abandoned. No one was left, not even the cars who had gone ahead of her convoy.
Her laugh carried little mirth. “I know this might surprise you, but not everyone listens to me. I guess they didn’t think there was any risk in pushing forward.”
“After being out in those woods on my own, I never want to be alone again. Well, at least not in the outdoors.” He fidgeted with something in his front pocket. A hint of a blue box confirmed it was his pack of cigarettes; he’d kept them, even after claiming he’d given up smoking.
She didn’t blame him for being afraid. Her dad taught her not to be a shrinking violet, but she did have nightmares about dealing with criminals while she was alone out on her patrols. That was her mom’s cautious voice; in the few times they’d talked recently, her mom always told her to be careful. Always. Being with Asher had been a welcome relief during a dangerous time, and she was confident they were on the right path. “We’ll push on. I think maybe the people ahead of our convoy scared the locals into going with them. You know, told them the fire was coming. I’d run, too, if I saw a hundred cars speed by.”
She had a deeper fear, based on very real dangers. “Do you think I should wait for Tessa to get into town so we can see if Misha is with her?”
Asher pulled his hand from his pocket and waved dismissively. “Oh, that? I’m telling you, it can’t be him. The guy was so crazy he’d be killing all the people behind us until we were the only two left.”
“Maybe he’s injured?” she said hopefully.
“It isn’t him. Trust me.”
Asher seemed so convinced, she almost believed it. Even so, she decided to hedge her bets by calling back to Tessa. “Hey, Tessa, this is Grace, come in.”
“Tessa here. Go ahead.”
“It looks like we’ll get no help in Cooke City. It’s empty. I’m going to push on and try to get over the mountains. I’d like to, uh, talk to you in person when we get to the pass.” She had to think of words that wouldn’t sound the alarm for Tessa’s passenger. “The convoy will break up once we get to Red Lodge. As park rangers, our authority will end there, so we have to plan what we’re going to do afterward.”
“What about my passenger?” she asked. “He needs medical attention.”
Leave him in Cooke City. Never look back.
“I’m sorry. He’ll have to hold on until we can make it over the mountains.”
Tessa was silent for half a minute before coming back on. “Okay, but he might not make it.” She spoke at a whisper. “Grace, he wears a gun on his hip.”
She wanted to wring the other woman’s neck for giving away t
he game. If Misha knew they were talking about him… Grace waited as long as she dared, expecting Misha to jump on the CB and announce he’d killed Tessa and Chester, and was coming for her next. She almost jumped when Tessa spoke at a normal voice.
“Grace, you still there?”
She glanced at Asher and feigned wiping sweat from her brow. Then, she keyed the microphone again. “I’m here. Let’s talk when we get to the top. I want to keep everyone moving. It’ll do us no good to have to explain why no one is here.” Her reasoning sounded fine on the CB, but her real motivation was to stay ahead of Misha. If she stopped now, Grace was certain there’d be trouble. The longer she could convince the hitman he needed to stay put, and not cause trouble, the better chance she had of getting some help on the other side of the mountains. She also carried a police-issue Glock to keep the odds close, but she didn’t want to use it near all the innocent families.
“Sounds good. We’ll keep this man comfortable until we get some help. Tessa out.”
Yes, keep my would-be killer alive. Sounds swell.
Kentucky
Ezra and Butch had a few seconds to prepare for the arrival of the motorcycles. There were numerous downed trees alongside the trail, so they tossed their bikes over one of them and took cover. He shucked off his pack and rifle, to give himself options.
The high-pitched whining of 250cc engines indicated they were dirt bikes. The riders sped across the road and the pitch changed when they left the pavement, like they had to labor through the mud. The riders took some time to weave around the downed trees, but the motors made it easy. As they went by Ezra’s hiding spot, flecks of mud sloshed over the tree trunk and landed in the forest around him.
When they’d gone by, but before they got too far away, Ezra peeked. There were four of them, filthy with mud down their backsides of their matching white jumpsuits, and they seemed to know what they were doing based on how fast they cut along the trail.
Impact (Book 2): Bounce Page 7