The first group of four men had already encircled Chuck’s Mini and were talking to him. Their voices came through low and garbled over my phone. Nothing angry, though. Talking, but about what, I couldn’t make out.
Two of the men advancing toward us stopped about twenty feet in front of the Range Rover. They wore fatigues and boots, but weren’t army—at least not in whatever capacity this was. It wasn’t only the mismatched uniforms, but the way they slouched. They held semiautomatic weapons to their chests in casual yet threatening poses.
Chuck’s voice was still calm over the phone.
A blond man advanced to Irena’s window. “How y’all doing?” he said.
“We’re okay,” Irena replied.
“Where you headed?”
“DC.”
“Why you going there?”
“We have family.”
“My wife,” I said from the back. “My wife and children are there.”
The blond man squinted and lowered his head. “Can you roll down the back windows?” he asked Irena. “I need to look through your truck.”
“What for?” I asked.
Irena rolled the windows down.
“Not what,” he replied. “It’s a ‘who’ we looking for.” He squinted and surveyed the back of the Range Rover. “What the hell is that?”
“Our drones,” Damon answered.
“Those look military.”
“They’re not. Well, not really.”
“Do all y’all have some identification?”
The voices on my phone became louder. I heard Chuck swear. The driver’s side door of the Mini opened and my friend uncoiled from the tiny car. One of the camouflaged men put a hand under Chuck’s arm as he got out of the car, and Chuck flicked him away. The man staggered back. Two more advanced on Chuck, pointing guns and yelling.
The voices echoed on my phone.
“What’s that noise?” the blond man asked. He glanced behind him at Chuck, who now had his arms up.
“My cell phone. I was talking to my friend over there.”
“You have working cell phones?” The blond man took Irena and Terek’s passports as she offered them through the window.
“It’s a mesh app,” Damon explained.
“A what?”
“So your cell phones can talk to each other.”
“I need to see your identification.”
“I’ll help you install it on your phones,” Damon offered. He slid over to the side and started to open the door. “And I lost my wallet in a storm a few days ago. We had everything ripped from the roof of the car.”
The blond man backed away, his hand going to the gun on his hip. He had just taken Terek and Irena’s passports. “Please stay in the car, sir,” he said.
But Damon was already stepping out his side door, his hands up. “I can help you.” He reached into his backpack.
I groaned as I saw him do it.
One of the men standing guard in front of the truck, a short, squat guy with a shaved head, had advanced to stand next to the blond man. He took two steps toward Damon to try and get him back into the car, but the second Damon reached into his backpack, the reaction was swift. He brought his rifle butt up.
Damon started to say, “I got this th—”
He spat his air out as the butt of the gun caught his midsection. He doubled over to the ground.
“Hey, hey, hey.” I squeezed through the back seat, my hands up. “There’s no need for that. What are you doing?”
“Stay back, sir,” the blond one said to me.
Damon was on the pavement, curled into a fetal ball and sucking air.
The shaved-head guy who had hit him kicked away his backpack, then picked it up and gingerly looked inside. “Please get up, and keep your hands where we can see them,” he said to Damon.
“I was...trying to help.” Damon got to one knee.
I stumbled out the side door but kept my hands held high. “Who are you guys? What do you want?”
“Mike!” Chuck called from a hundred feet away. All four of them were out of the car, their hands up as well. “You guys okay?”
“We’re fine,” I yelled back.
Chuck had his hands high now as well. The four men around his car all had their weapons up and aimed.
“He looks Chinese or Asian or something,” the shaved-head guy said to the blond man. He pointed at Damon, who was still on one knee. “I thought he might be reaching for a gun.”
“What is this?” The blond man held up Irena and Terek’s passports. “Ukrainian? Isn’t that like Russian?”
“We are not Russian,” Terek said.
The blond man backed up two paces and brought his weapon up. “Out of the car. You’re coming with us.” He aimed his chin at Damon. “You too.”
I held my hands up, palms out. My pulse quickened. “Where are you taking them? Who are you?”
“We’re the Vanceburg regiment of the Lexington Rifles,” the blond man said. “We’re taking your friends and those drones there.”
“Lexington Rifles?”
“Kentucky militia.”
Militia? “You have no right.” I stood in front of Damon. “You can’t—”
“Do you know what day it is today?” the blond man said to me.
I was at a loss. Something to do with Kentucky independence? Veteran’s Day? He looked at me as if I was an idiot. “I don’t know.”
“Have you not been listening to the radio?”
“We had it on. What exactly should I—”
“Today is September 11th. Does that ring any bells?”
I hadn’t even noticed the date. My mind had been elsewhere. That made some sense. They were jumpy. Worked up. “You can’t just abduct people,” I said.
“Have you not heard who did this?” He pointed up at the orange sky. “The Islamic Brigade, they claimed responsibility. Now they’re saying they’re loose across the country.”
“Who’s loose?” This sounded like another wild conspiracy theory, but there was something about the way he said it. The specific detail. “Responsible for what?”
“All this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but this is kidnap—”
“She’s armed!” I heard someone yell.
Irena had opened her door and stepped out behind me.
The shaved-head guy jumped at me. The last thing I saw was the butt of his rifle rushing at my face.
CHAPTER 24
LAUREN LUXURIATED IN the hot water needling her skin. She turned the shower temperature up even higher and let the scorching torrent hammer against her neck and shoulders. Good water pressure was grossly underappreciated, she thought, and smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t had a shower in four days. She had been able to smell her own stink, when she’d stepped in and gotten the water going.
This was her second shower since arriving. She would probably take another one in a few hours, it felt so good. She let the steaming water ease away the stress. It was almost perfect.
Almost.
If she had actually gotten home to her family, it would be.
Lauren turned the shower off, took a deep breath of the humid air, and stepped out, grabbing a towel. She exited the bathroom, but almost jumped back inside in fright. “Excuse me?”
One of the young men who had collected her from the naval station the day before, the one with a tattoo of a rose on the side of his neck, stood in the middle of her bedroom with a bag in his hand.
“Oh, darn it, excuse me, ma’am. I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I got some fresh clothes for you. These might fit better.”
Lauren cinched the towel tightly around her naked body and retreated halfway behind the bathroom door. “You can leave them on the bed. Thank you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped the bag onto the covers. “My name’s Billy, by the way. William, but everyone calls me Billy.”
He glanced at Lauren, then hovered a little too long for her comfort. She asked, �
��Is there anything else?”
“We’re working on getting a line through to your family. So you can talk to them.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“It’s complicated, ma’am. Telephones don’t work anymore.”
They had explained about the satellites and GPS last night. “Not even for the military?”
“Maybe some, but not us. We’re not military. Not exactly. We’re private contractors, of a sort. Your uncle hired us, like I said.”
She stayed put behind the door. She didn’t like being half-naked in front of a man she didn’t know, especially one with a gun, but the young man didn’t quite seem to get it. He didn’t turn away, but kept looking at her and smiling.
“Thank you,” Lauren said.
She waited until he left and closed her bedroom door, but then opened it a crack. “Will we be able to go into DC today?”
Her room was on the mezzanine of what seemed to be a beach house by the water, not even a mile drive from the naval station. When they’d picked her and Emily up the day before, she had assumed they would be going straight to her uncle’s house in Virginia, but they hadn’t.
Something had happened.
She heard voices over the radios saying there had been some kind of terrorist attack, and they’d been diverted here in the Humvee convoy that had picked her up.
The fact that today was September 11th wasn’t lost on her.
Lauren guessed this place might be her uncle’s beach house—she had never been there, but had heard about it—but the team of people already here seemed to be using it as some kind of base.
A blue house by the water, with bright blue awnings. At least a dozen young men were here, more than was needed to pick her up. And one woman. As Lauren stood by the door and waited for Billy to answer her question, she spotted a woman with brown hair disappearing around a corner.
Was this place a safe house?
She was confused, but then, this was a confusing time.
At least she was clean and had fresh clothes and a comfortable bed and a good night’s sleep protected by a lot of armed men.
Billy was a few paces down the hallway when he turned and shook his head. “I don’t think we can drive in today. The security situation has changed. It’s not safe.”
“Can you at least find out if my husband is with my children?”
“I’ll get right on that, ma’am. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”
How many times had Lauren heard that in the last few days?
“I’m going to go out on the beach with Emily,” Lauren said. “It looks like a nice day. Is that okay?”
Billy took in a sharp breath through his teeth. “We would prefer not, ma’am. We don’t know the security situation, and your uncle told us to take care of you.”
“Can I at least see her?”
Now his expression changed to confused. “She’s already gone. She didn’t say goodbye?”
“She left? I thought you said it wasn’t safe.”
“For you. I mean, for her, she’s not a senator’s niece we were sent to protect. We found her a ride. She needed to go talk to Paul.” He shrugged.
“Thank you. And please tell me when I can talk to my family.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Lauren closed the door and went to the window. It was narrow, not more than a foot high, and three feet long, and too high up to look straight out of. Strange design for a beach house. She opened it two inches, which was as much as it would go, and enjoyed the fresh sea air.
Why had Emily left all of a sudden? Without saying goodbye?
Lauren guessed it was because she had been in the shower. It made sense. The young lady had been in a hurry. She had a whole new life ahead of her.
CHAPTER 25
“YOU OKAY, SON?”
An elderly man with a shock of white hair and iron-gray stubble across his chin and cheeks held a cool rag to my head. Rivulets of water streamed from it across my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped the drops away with the back of one shaky hand. I was laid out flat on a bench by a dark wood wall.
“My name’s Joe,” the old man said, his voice calm. “Everybody calls me Farmer Joe. Sorry ’bout the boys, they got a little skittish on account of the news.” He inspected my face. “You’re gonna have one beauty of a shiner around that eye.”
I took the rag from him. My nose was still sore from two days before. I felt like I’d gone a round with Foreman. “Thanks.”
“Luke, you okay?” I heard him whispering.
“Go on,” I heard Chuck say.
My son appeared from my right and wrapped his arms around my neck. “I thought you were dead,” he whimpered.
“I’m fine,” I said, but I wasn’t.
I remembered the rifle butt coming at me, Chuck yelling, someone else screaming about a gun. My memory after that was patchy, my head pounding, my vision still swimming. And what was that smell?
Manure? Hay?
Both of those. And shoe polish. And smoke. The fires. The air felt heavier, denser.
I lifted my right arm to hug Luke, then used it to prop myself up. Hay was strewn across a cement floor. Chuck sat on a matching bench on the other side of the stall. There were bars across an exterior window with the hazy orange sky beyond, and bars on the opposite wall. It took me a beat or two to piece together the high arching ceiling and figure it out.
“Is this your barn?” I asked Farmer Joe, who perched on the bottom edge of my bench.
“That’s right.” He was dressed in a red plaid shirt and faded, stained dungarees. His long, bony fingers were calloused and knotted thick as braided rope.
Luke wiped away snot with his shirt sleeve. I whispered to him that I was okay and to go back with Uncle Chuck on the other side. I needed air, and while I wanted my boy close, having his arms pincered around my neck wasn’t helping right now.
I inspected the polished woodwork of the walls. “Nice.”
“Not built for working animals. Made this for my wife, God rest her soul. She liked horses. I do too. Not as much as she did. Had to sell them when she passed. So now it’s an empty barn. And empty house.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Mike, you okay?” Chuck took Luke back between his arms. “You took a hell of a shot to the head.” He glanced out past the bars of the door.
I could see the shaved-head guy. Standing guard, I assumed.
Farmer Joe stood to give me room to swing my legs down and sit up. A wave of nausea doubled me over.
“You want some water?” Joe asked.
For the first time, I noticed a small white dog. He barked. Saying hello. I nodded back.
“That’s Roosevelt,” Joe said.
“Where are Susie and the kids?” I asked Chuck.
“In the farmhouse,” Joe replied. “Not to worry, I got them taken care of. You’d be up there too, except your friend here...well, it was a bit of a Mexican standoff when you went down.”
I said, “You didn’t shoot anybody, did you, Chuck?”
“Almost.” He looked over at the guy with the shaved head again.
I gritted my teeth and tried to will the headache away. I scrunched my eyes closed for a second, took a deep breath, and sat upright. “Is everybody okay? Damon? Terek and Irena? Did she shoot anyone?” I remembered she had a loaded gun as well.
“They’re in the farmhouse with the others,” Joe said. “They’ve been, well, I guess they’ve been asking them questions. They’re not too happy.”
“They?”
“The boys.”
“You mean the Kentucky militia?”
“They’re good men, like I said.”
“You know this is illegal.”
“Vanceburg is a home rule class city.”
“Which means you can abduct and assault people?”
“Well, basically we can make our own local laws. Like an independent state within Kentucky. And with all this happening, sher
iff being gone, and that news of the terrorist attack today, we instituted the Vanceburg Rifles militia to protect ourselves.”
“You can’t band together vigilantes to—”
“Easy, son. I’m the head of the Rifles. Careful what you say next.”
“Damon lied to them,” Chuck said. “Or, stretched the truth, like you said. He told them he went to school with Terek and Irena, that he’d known them for years.”
“How did they find out he lied to them?”
“Because I didn’t lie. I told them the truth.”
“Chuck…”
“Damon doesn’t know them that well. That’s the truth. Look, it makes sense now. All those roadblocks? Why they routed those passenger planes into holding areas? The government knew this whole thing was caused by terrorists. It’s no accident. They’re saying that there are terrorists loose in America.”
That’s right.
My memory clicked disordered bits of recollection together. “The Islamic Brigade? So that’s true? That’s a real thing?”
“As near as we can tell,” Joe said. “We only got one radio station, and some say they heard it on shortwave channels, too. From the hams.”
“It’s a Chechen terrorist group. They’re Russian, and Muslim,” Chuck said. “The news is that they mounted a cyberattack against GenCorp and your hero, Tyrell Jakob, and hijacked the SatCom network of thousands of satellites. They used the fight between India and Pakistan as cover when they launched their attack, so they could cause maximum damage before anyone figured it out. They’re using the satellites as projectiles to knock out everything else up there.”
This sounded like it made too much sense to be fabrication. “For what purpose?” But did terrorists really need a purpose? Inciting terror, wasn’t that their main goal? Mission accomplished, then.
“They’re demanding the release of Muslim terrorists being held by America,” Joe said. “And Chechen prisoners of war. And independence.”
“We have Chechen prisoners?” I asked.
“Not us. The Russians.”
“In exchange for what? Haven’t they already destroyed everything up there?”
“Not yet,” Chuck said. “But they will in the next few days, if they don’t get what they want.”
CyberSpace: A CyberStorm Novel (Cyber Series Book 1) Page 16