“I’m impressed,” he replied, not dawdling over pleasantries. “You’ve managed to get our people into the city and have made considerable progress collecting what belongs to us. Good work.”
Howard beamed. “It was easy once we got the mayor in our pocket. She tripped all over herself when I explained how much a half a percent of the value was worth. Her bank account is going to be very happy when we clean up all the debris from her city.”
Petteri shared a knowing smile with the man. He’d leveraged the value of the rock as necessary. Sharing with the mayor was a worthwhile concession as long as it greased the skids of the clearing operation, which it had apparently done to perfection. They’d even passed a police cordon on the way in, suggesting the mayor was going all-out for him.
A couple of blocks away, the piece of asteroid loomed large. TKM miners had already used explosives to slice off a good chunk of one side. Five or six excavators worked to pick up the payload and dump it into the beds of a line of dump trucks. It wasn’t that much different from any of his normal mining operations, save for the location and time factor. It also helped that he didn’t have to screen any of the source material. Every truck load was worth millions. There was no slag.
He practically held his breath. Things were going better than he ever expected.
Dorothy appeared from a nearby tent. “I’ve got data on the other drop sites. I think we’re ahead of everyone on this!”
It really was too good to be true, but he figured his good luck was due to his own superior planning. It was only way back in his mind, behind the little bucket of remorse he had for being responsible for dropping the asteroid to Earth in the first place, that he worried things weren’t quite as good as he thought.
“Show me the good news,” he replied, content to bask in his own glory while it lasted.
CHAPTER 5
Billings, MT
“I’ve heard enough,” Grace said nervously. She put the truck in drive and stomped on the gas. The rear tires chirped, giving her a feeling of satisfaction at moving away from the threat. However, a second or two later, gunshots replied from the group of men.
She ducked low, still guiding the truck out of the parking lot. Asher fell to the floorboard, but he already had his pistol out of the holster, ready for trouble. She acted as if they were experienced travelers, unafraid of mere bullets whizzing at them. By comparison, the kid in the back seat screamed in panic.
“Hang on!” she shouted, taking a quick left, then a hasty right.
As she turned the vehicle from side to side, she expected bullets to ping off the metal, or zing by her head. Since all the windows in the back were already gone, she wondered if the bullets passed through without doing any additional damage.
“We’re clear,” she reported, sitting up in a normal posture.
The kid stayed on the floorboard behind her seat, though he’d stopped screaming. “Are they chasing us?” he asked in a voice filled with fear.
Grace adjusted the rearview mirror, seeing no pursuit as they traveled along the edge of the parking lot toward the far side of the mall. The shopping center remained a place of chaos, but it was hundreds of yards away, across the entirety of the parking lot. “No one’s back there. We’re cool.”
Slowly, the boy sat up. “Wow, you two are badass. I think I peed my pants back there.”
“You get used to it,” she fibbed. Her stomach was in a tangled knot at that moment, but it was the new normal for her. The improvement came in knowing how not to show it as much.
Asher was back in his seat, too. His pale face suggested he was handling it about as well as she was.
The officer barked in the radio. “I have the address. We need you to go to the Bureau of Land Management on the south edge of town. You’re looking for Director Felicia Nicktov. She needs to be driven to the airport and put on a plane; do you understand?”
“Where’s the BLM office? Where’s the airport? We don’t know where anything is.” She hid her frustration as well as she concealed her fear, but it was close to the surface. It helped when she had to concentrate on driving around a few abandoned vehicles, as it gave her a reason not to think about being helpless in an unfamiliar city.
Officer McCracken replied, “Ask a local. BLM is next to Cabela’s. Everyone here knows where that is. The airport is on the north boundary of town. It’s also impossible to miss.”
“I know where Cabela’s is,” the boy exclaimed. “I can help. Just get me away from the mall.”
She didn’t like the idea of involving the young man, but the mall and everything around it was obviously more dangerous for the kid than being inside her truck. As she drove off the parking lot and went back into the residential neighborhoods to the south, her mind was already made up. She keyed the microphone of the CB. “We tried to get to the mall. You might want to send real reinforcements. A few hundred officers will probably be necessary to save the guys inside. People shot at us while we were still in the parking lot.”
“Understood,” the officer replied. “It was a longshot getting you there. Sorry it didn’t work out, but don’t worry about them. Worry about your new mission. I’d really appreciate if you feds took care of your own, okay? Saves my manpower for local issues.”
“Thanks. We’ll cover for you.” She placed the mic back in the holder, and immediately imagined the day was getting out of her control. They’d spent the night in the church, and she’d figured today they were going to get on the road toward home. The only thing that kept her from finding the nearest highway and driving away was the sense she owed the town a little compensation for allowing her convoy to come inside. Plus, those same folks from Yellowstone were in the city, too. Helping keep the peace could potentially save them some grief.
Grace craned her neck to look behind her. The boy sat as far from the missing door as he could. “Do you live around here? We could drop you off, get you home safe. I’m sure we can find Cabela’s if it’s as popular as he said on the radio.”
“No, man, I don’t want to go home. Noah is dead. How am I going to explain how he died to his parents?” He had to speak louder to be heard over the wind noise.
She settled into her seat, realizing it wasn’t only her life spinning loose. “Kid, I’ve seen things the past few days I never thought I’d see here in our country. Yellowstone Park was a disaster area, and I’m not even talking about the forest fires and asteroids falling from the sky. People always get a little rowdy, but these days they’ve gone bonkers.”
The next words out of her mouth required finesse. She wanted to impart some ranger wisdom to the kid, but they also needed his navigation skills, so she didn’t want to insult him. “We saw you taking those video games. The act is probably something you wouldn’t have done a week ago. And that’s okay. We’re all acting different than we do on normal days. I don’t normally walk around with a pistol on my hip.”
Grace smiled at his partial reflection in the mirror, much as Mom used to do when she was a young girl in the back seat. “So don’t beat yourself up about being responsible for your friend’s, uh, death. Yesterday, he would have gotten a slap on the wrist from the police. Today, the police are gone. You’re at the mercy of those jerks who fired guns at us. As I said, we’re all acting differently.”
The boy broke out of his shell and smiled. “I’m Logan.”
“I’m Grace. He’s Asher. Nice to meet you.”
“Take a left up here. We’re already almost where you want to go.” Billings was a modest-sized city, perhaps ten miles long and three wide. She came to a halt on a small rise, giving her a clear view of her surroundings. Large, smoky fires rose into the skies to the east, at the far edge of the city limits.
“I hope we’re not going that way,” she said in jest.
Logan didn’t say anything.
Cape Girardeau, MO
After the red speedboat left, Ezra suggested they wait fifteen minutes before returning to the pontoon boat. He didn’t think i
t was a trap designed to get them to reveal themselves, but over the last few days he’d learned not to trust anyone.
Butch pointed to the green car crushed against the concrete slab. “It’s too bad we can’t get one of these abandoned cars to work. We could use it to drive due west. Save ourselves a lot of sailing time.”
He knew as well as anyone how floodwaters destroyed the insides and electrical work of any vehicle they touched. He’d seen it a few times on recovered postal trucks after they were swept away by floodwaters. Sometimes, letter carriers took their duties a little too seriously. Neither rain, nor snow, and all that, was true, but there were limits to what the machinery was built to endure. Being submerged in ten feet of water wasn’t one of them. It was a death sentence for the vehicle.
“Nah, I couldn’t stand the smell for days at a time. It’s going to be soaked into the seats and carpets, for sure.” He loved the smell of Kentucky Lake, which was a mixture of fish, algae, and fresh air. However, the Mississippi smelled more like spoiled fish guts, decades of oil spills, and a healthy dose of raw sewage. The cutaway path left by the overflowing river had left those smells in the open air. He hated sitting on the muddy rocks, but the gunmen gave him no choice. His clothes were going to smell like the river soon enough.
“Although…” Ezra looked over the wreck of the sedan. Water must have sheared off the hood. The exposed engine bay appeared mostly intact, with hoses, belts, and the motor itself muddy, but not destroyed. “I think I see how this wreck can serve our purposes.”
They stood up together. “We can use spare parts for the boat?” Butch asked, interested in what he’d discovered.
“Kind of.” Ezra ripped a long black hose out of the bay. “We can use one of these to siphon gas out of the tank. As long as it’s still sealed, the fuel should be fine to use.”
“We’ll be able to tell if there’s water in there once we drain a gallon or so.”
“Agreed. It will separate nicely in our container, but I think we’ll be fine. Other than the hood and interior being swamped, it doesn’t look like any of the fuel lines were cut, nor was the gas cap ripped off.”
Over the next few minutes they worked together to stick the hose into the gas tank, start the siphon, and fill up the entire five-gallon container.
“It’s a good thing those guys showed up, eh, boss?” Butch asked, back to his old humorous self. “We wouldn’t have been forced to look at this car.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted, still keeping a wary eye out on the water. “Though I’m sure we would have thought of it eventually. If all the stations are closed, we’re really going to be limited in how we can get gas. Even so, I’m not sure how many abandoned cars we’re going to find on our travels. This was a lucky one because of the flooding.”
“I guess that makes sense, but I bet we can get at least ten gallons out of the tank. Let’s dump the first one out and fill up the next.” Butch held out one of his empty sports drink bottles. “And you can use this to test for water in the fuel.”
Moving fast, Ezra poured some of the gas into the clear container. None of it separated, meaning there was no water in the tank. It was another break, allowing them to collect almost ten gallons in total from the car. They were almost back up to a full tank on the boat, which would give them about sixty miles before they needed to look for the next fuel stop.
After stowing the empty can and rubber hose near the rear, he shoved off from the bank of the Cape Girardeau riverfront. Susan’s Grace backed out into the current, and Ezra lowered the prop back into the water. Ahead, on the wide river, there were no other boats, which was exactly what he wanted to see.
“I hate to say it, but we should keep our rifles where we can grab them immediately.” Ezra laid his weapon against the dashboard, next to the steering wheel. “Those men are out there somewhere, and I doubt they’re the only ones aiming to cause problems for other boaters. Sadly, no part of our watercraft is bulletproof, so it wouldn’t be smart to get into a shooting match with anyone.”
“We’ll just have to scare them off,” Butch suggested.
“Unless you did it differently in the Army?” Ezra prodded.
“Don’t know. We never went anywhere without strong metal between us and the bad guys. Armored Humvees, military transports, and so on. I’d hate to be the Army dudes riding on boats like this one with nothing between you and the sharks besides a little slab of wood.” He tapped the main deck. It was carpeted with all-weather material, but wood was underneath.
“Dang. You’re making me doubt the plan. We’re heading off into the unknown essentially defenseless. Maybe it would be better to find a car and stick to the roads? At least there we could blend in with everyone else.”
Butch shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’d bet there are more bad guys on the road than there are out here. Plus, I’ve seen you pilot the boat. I’d put you up against anyone on the river.” He reached over and slapped Ezra on the shoulder.
He kept the speed low as he drove alongside the shoreline of the city. People were out in the streets and yards nearest the waterfront, picking through what was left of their homes and businesses. Some of them waved as he went by, but he stayed vigilant for trouble. Ezra looked with nervous anticipation behind flowing debris fields and around the huge bridge pylons, expecting the red boat to jump out and attack. Each time they passed a suspect location he was relieved to see nothing but empty patches of water.
When they made it north of the city, he let out some of the tension he’d been choking down. He did have 350 horsepower in the big Suzuki outboard, but he had no illusions his skills behind the wheel of the pontoon boat would be enough to outrun the purpose-built speed demon. His was built for stability, while the other was designed to go fast.
Only when they were back up to speed on the main channel of the river did he feel like himself again. The hazy sun beat down from directly above, reminding him how nice cruising on the water usually was. Still, there was no reason to let down his guard. “Keep your eyes peeled for that boat, my friend. I’ll look on this side of the river. You look on the Missouri side, okay?”
Butch saluted. “Whatever you say, boss. Keep me on top of the water, rather than in it, and I’ll be a happy sailor.”
He prayed he could make good on such a simple request.
CHAPTER 6
Billings, MT
Grace kept the truck stopped on the hilltop. “My mom would be freaking out right now. She hated the city. Heck, she’d be freaking if she saw me driving here. I’d probably be grounded.”
“But that’s your mom, not you, right? How is Grace doing?” Asher spoke in a clinical voice.
“To be honest, I’m freaking out a little, too. I can’t decide if I’m terrified right now because my mom taught me to fear the city, or if I’m not scared at all to prove she was wrong.” Internally, she leaned toward the former. After acting cool and collected during the escape from the mall, her hands and arms were jittery, like being cold. She wore a heavy winter coat, and although the weather was overcast, it was not freezing, so blaming the elements was a hard sell. To fight the shakes, she kept both hands on the wheel to steady herself.
“The good news is this isn’t even a city, really,” Asher said sympathetically. “Billings is more of a town. If you ever get to Denver, you’ll see a real city. It’s huge!”
She lifted an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying it’s going to be a lot worse?”
He was taken aback. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that—” He squirmed in his seat. “I meant I’m more familiar with cities a lot bigger than this one. I can help you, keep things from overwhelming you here. You know, big-city guy and small-town girl, keeping it real.”
Logan groaned. “Your mom still grounds you? I thought grounding would end when I moved out.” The black-haired boy leaned forward to insert himself into the conversation.
She chuckled, despite the gravity of her dilemma. “No, Mom and Dad don’t do that
anymore. I moved out when I went to college, then I moved a few states away from them. Mom never let me go into the city when I was growing up. I did get grounded a few times when she figured out I broke her rule, however.”
“Yeah, you should listen to your parents,” Logan said matter-of-factly. “They’re only trying to keep you from getting into trouble.”
Asher turned in his seat to face him. “Says the kid caught running by with armfuls of video games. Where are your parents?”
His eyes turned distant. “Those boxes were already stolen. We found them on the floor of the mall, like someone else tipped over a shopping cart full of games. Maybe we should have left them there, but Noah and I decided to take a few. Anyway, my parents wouldn’t care if I robbed a convenience store, much less a game one. They don’t get concerned about anything I do. It’s kind of nice.”
After getting to know Logan for even a short time, she was convinced of the need to get him back to his parents the moment he guided them to the BLM office. The kid’s dirty jeans and threadbare coat hinted that his “accidental” theft probably wasn’t a one-off thing. Robbing a convenience store might not be far outside his worldview. He was a victim of the big city, too, and now had nothing to lose.
Grace steadied her nerves, mostly thanks to Logan’s roundabout offer to help guide her through the city. She put the truck in gear and drove forward. Once underway, the neighborhoods quickly changed from residential back into more retail spaces. The roadways reminded her of Paducah, except without the little antique stores. The shops were an eclectic mix of tourist help centers, native American art, and “cash now” locations. They drove for a couple of minutes before passing a fast-food restaurant with a distinctive red fire truck parked in front.
Impact (Book 3): Adrift Page 4