On a whim, she jerked the wheel to the right and pulled into the lot.
“What are you doing?” Asher asked with surprise.
“Logan, are we close to the Cabela’s?” she said over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” he pointed, “it’s a few blocks that way, a little past the interstate.”
“Okay, great. We’ll drop you off with the fire guys and they’ll make sure you get home.”
She expected an argument, but Logan went quiet.
Asher glanced back at him, then over to her. “Sounds like a good plan.”
Grace guided the truck next to the fire engine, then put it in park. She figured it would be an easy sell for the fire department to help one of their citizens, but there was no one standing around. “Hold up in here. I’m going to go inside and talk to them.”
The door creaked as she got out. The lights flashed silently on top of the engine, leading her to believe everything was normal. However, there still weren’t any people visible around the truck, or even in the windows of the fast-food building. On the upside, there was no fire present either.
“I’ll be right back,” she yelled to her people.
Asher’s door screamed as he opened it. “Wait up! Something’s not right. You shouldn’t go inside. We should leave.”
His pleading reminded her of Mom. She was always quick to point out dangers, real or imagined, when near any hint of civilization. As she always did with her mother, Grace waved off Asher’s warning as overblown concern.
She walked around the back of the engine, then crossed the small lot to go to the door of the restaurant. “I’ll only be a few seconds,” she called out over her shoulder.
Grace pushed through the entryway and stood in the vestibule between a second glass door. The firefighters were inside…right in front of her.
“Crap,” she deadpanned.
The firemen were on the ground, dead. Blood was everywhere, on the floor tiles and up the side of the front counter. Her first impression was that they’d been ambushed and then shot, though her brain couldn’t piece together why anyone would do such a thing.
“Mistake,” she blurted.
She backed out through the front door. “This was a mistake!”
Grace fumbled to free her pistol from the holster. She didn’t feel the least bit like an authority figure, but it was what she imagined a police officer doing, if faced with an identical situation.
“What is it?” Asher shouted, sounding worried.
“I made a mistake,” she repeated, mantra-style.
She hustled across the parking lot, scanning all around for signs she was about to be ambushed. She visualized someone like Misha as being responsible for the slaughter, but strangely, she was unable to put him neatly into that box. He was a hitman, but he had a code of sorts, and seemingly only killed in pursuit of his prey. A guy like him would never conduct wholesale slaughter.
On the way back around the rear of the pumper truck, she noticed a large medical bag sitting on the bumper. Without thinking of the implications, she grabbed it and walked it over to her truck. After tossing it in through the open rear window, she climbed into her seat, waited for Asher to join her inside, then casually drove off the lot. She assumed it was better to play dumb than to rip tires and make it obvious they’d uncovered a major crime.
“What was in there?” Logan finally asked, exasperation in his voice at her mysterious retreat.
Despite the boy’s question, she glanced over to Asher. She needed to see his calm brown eyes, which at that moment weren’t perfectly calm. They spoke to her in a way she immediately understood. “Grace, are you all right?”
She nodded. “From now on, you’re my city tour guide. If you say something doesn’t seem right, I give you permission to grab me and physically drag me away from the situation.” She gathered in a deep breath. “I should have listened to you back there. God, I should have listened.”
He smiled, silently conveying the words, “I’m here for you.”
She finally looked at Logan in the rearview mirror. “I’ve changed my mind. We’ll take you home after the BLM office, okay? We aren’t leaving you with anyone.”
Grace glanced over to Asher again, all the while gripping the wheel with both hands to hide her shaking. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Grand Tower, IL
“Well, there’s a wonder you don’t see every day,” Ezra remarked. Ahead, a huge rocky island jutted about fifty feet in the air, giving the appearance of a Godzilla-sized creature hunched over in the water. The floodwaters had stripped all greenery from the island, reminding him of the barren and toppled forests back in Kentucky.
“I bet this was a nice place to visit before the rocks came down,” Butch added.
Ezra remained vigilant for the red speedboat, but they were twenty miles upstream from Cape, and they still hadn’t seen it. He’d begun to relax, thinking it had diverted to one of the many side channels of the river created by the flood. If looter pirates were looking for big scores, they’d have better luck near the towns, not out in the country where he and Butch were at the moment.
He pointed ahead. “Looks like there used to be a bridge here.” His first impression was that it reminded him of the Golden Gate Bridge, though it was white rather than red. A tall metal tower stood on each shore, suspension wires dipping between them. However, instead of a road, it seemed to hold a pair of pipelines.
“I think it blew up,” Butch said with awe. The white cable was blackened near the middle of the river, suggesting whatever the pipeline had been carrying detonated when it broke apart over the waterway.
Ezra whistled. “I’m glad we weren’t anywhere close when that happened. It must have been a doozy. Not as big as a meteor falling on a city, mind you, but enough to burn us up if we’d been passing underneath at the time.”
They laughed together for a few seconds before Ezra noticed a man waving on the right bank. A large hill ran along the shoreline, contrasting with the flooded, flat farmland which had been almost everywhere else on the Illinois shore. “Hey, there’re people up on that hill.”
He backed off the throttle, unsure whether to acknowledge the man. “Do you think they need help?”
Butch shrugged. “Maybe they have gas we can buy?”
They’d burned through about a quarter of a tank since they’d filled up with the siphoned gas. He’d planned to drive farther north before stopping at another town, but he admitted it was hard to plan anything when he didn’t own a map. A big town might be around the next bend, or there might not be anything until they reached St. Louis, which he estimated was at the far end of their range.
He turned to Butch. “You okay if I go see what they want?”
The big man shrugged. “I’d be happy to be on shore for a little while.”
The decision made, he turned the boat toward the guy. The river was lower than it had been when the wall of water first came through, but it was still fairly high. Small waves lapped at the rectangular base of what had once been a picnic pavilion. A lone metal picnic table remained chained to a link in the cement. The other tables were gone, as was the roof and most of the poles that once held it up. Butch jumped off the front of the boat when the pontoons ran up on the mud-covered foundation.
The waving guy soon joined them. “Ahoy! Thanks for stopping at our campground.” The man’s clothes were covered with dried mud, like he’d been swimming in the brown-colored water not long ago. He was about the same age as Ezra, though his dirty hair held a lot more gray.
“What can we do for you?” Ezra responded in a friendly voice. He realized there were others behind the man. He’d come down off the hillside, but higher up, where the trees still had leaves, there were dozens of people standing around. A few of them trailed the lead guy, perhaps so they could hear the exchange.
The man stood about ten feet from Butch. Ezra was pleased to see his friend carried his rifle on his back; his own rifle was still propped on the da
shboard next to him. Not that he could fend off a whole forest…
“We’re from the town of Grand Tower. It used to be right there.” He pointed south, beyond the swamped picnic table. Given the hint where to look, he noticed a few isolated power poles, the frames of shattered houses, and about three feet of the foundation of one lone, red-brick building.
Ezra was impressed. “How did you all get out of there?”
“We had a few minutes’ warning. The dams broke up north, and the weather service was on the ball reporting it, kind of like a tornado was on the way. We got all the people we could and drove over here to the Devil’s Backbone. Most of us are fine, and we can wait for our families to come collect us, but we do have some injured. We’re hoping you can take them downriver to the hospital in Cape Girardeau.”
His heart deflated. They’d come from Cape and he hated the thought of going backwards. At the same time, he couldn’t pretend to be too busy to avoid helping them. He scratched the back of his neck to deflect for a few moments, before coming to the only conclusion possible. “You wouldn’t happen to know where we could get some gas, would you?”
Going downriver was easy. They could float with the current and not expend a drop of gas, if they had unlimited time. Getting back upriver would be costly on fuel, though. He didn’t think it hurt to ask, especially if he was risking his ability to reach Grace.
The man laughed. “We have Mr. Harris up the hill. He owns the local gas station. I’m sure he would have given you all the gas you needed.”
“That’s great,” he said with a flash of excitement.
“Except the gas station washed away. It’s a muddy plot of land now.”
“Oh,” Ezra said dryly.
A young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, appeared on the muddy hillside behind the lead man. She was obviously limping, but did all right with the help of two of her friends. Even from twenty yards away, Ezra knew her leg was broken based on how it was wrapped. He couldn’t help but think of Grace…
“I’ll take you guys. We’ll figure out the gas situation on the way. Just, uh, let’s hurry.” The last thing he wanted was to encounter the red speedboat again. Not only would they be exposed out on the river, but he’d be carrying innocent children he’d have to keep safe.
Denver, CO
Dorothy sat at a table with what looked like six laptops and two desktop computers crowded around her seat. The young woman was supremely skilled at multitasking, and she hit a keyboard as Petteri walked up.
“Okay, I’ve got the data you’ve asked for. Overnight and this morning, using a combination of satellite imagery, lidar, and on-the-ground observations, I’ve been able to draw a picture of the sitch out there.”
“Sitch?” he queried.
“Situation,” she replied, continuously typing. “Sorry, I’m amped up on Starbucks. Luckily, they’re still serving joe here in Denver. I think the asteroid landed on one of them, but there was another one on the next block.”
He had no idea if she was being serious. His understanding of her generation was woefully inadequate, but as long as she delivered for him, he was willing to endure her fits of incoherency.
“So, I’ve got the best imagery here in the plains states. Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska. That’s because you’ve already got assets in these states and I was able to use them as directed.” She laughed. “Get it? Use as directed?”
Again, he tolerated her mannerisms, atypical for someone in his organization.
“I see,” he said dryly. “You were saying?”
“Oh, right. So, here is where the biggest rock came down. Denver. We were right about this one. It’s the biggest. The next in line is south of Yellowstone. It was probably adjacent to the Denver piece before they both fell through the atmosphere.” She pointed to the screen with a blunt fingernail.
“And the next one?” he pressed.
“Yeppers,” she said before halting, obviously remembering his dislike for the term. “I mean, yep. The next one is north of here, near Cheyenne, Wyoming. The signature is a bit weird there; I’m still trying to figure out why. However, it’s definitely one of the big ones.”
“Great. You’ve done well.”
She went on to show him another dozen different locations, with varying degrees of confidence on the sizes of the asteroid fragments. Her intel became less certain in the Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas areas, though the impact near Nashville was well documented by a film crew from Atlanta. It was almost as large as the piece in Denver.
“Now, the billion-dollar question is whether TKM has assets arriving at all these locations.”
Dorothy laughed. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. I’ve spent all my caffeine energy dialing in the pieces you asked for. I don’t know squat about what you’ve got on the ground at each of these. I have, however, talked to your friend at Homeland Security several times. I deflected when I could and reassured him you were doing everything possible to send rescue equipment, but I don’t think it’s the real reason he keeps calling me.” She ended with a sigh of frustration.
“And why is that?” he asked cautiously.
“It’s because he has the hots for me,” she said with an obvious mix of pride and disgust. Her open-ended statement also practically begged him to reply.
Petteri needed to get over to Howard as soon as possible. He’d know where things stood regarding getting his men into position. They had Denver locked up tight, but it was only one small percentage of his asteroid. He needed to get a grip on the pieces all across the middle part of the USA. He didn’t want to indulge Dorothy on what sounded like a personal issue, but he also couldn’t afford to discount one of his surprisingly useful acquisitions.
While he considered his reply, another thought jumped in his head. A weird, out-of-the-blue leap of logic which characterized some of his more brilliant insights over the years. What if Stricker was trying to weasel his way into Dorothy’s good graces to get leverage on him? What if he’d succeeded in recruiting her and she was bringing it up now to throw Petteri off the scent? What if the government was fighting back, using both of them in ways he’d never see coming? What if…
Suddenly aware how paranoid he was getting for no good reason, he let go of the ridiculous speculation. Still, he couldn’t write it off completely, so he had to dig a little into her mindset. Petteri clenched his jaw, hating how off-topic he was about to go. “Please. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
CHAPTER 7
Billings, MT
“There!” Logan shouted. “BLM headquarters for Billings. I see the sign.”
She pulled the truck up to the rock garden serving as the front yard of the building. The property sat in an upscale office park, and the place was designed to look like a stone lodge found in Yellowstone National Park. The lights were off, due to the power failure of the town, and there weren’t any cars moving in the front parking lot.
“You guys want to wait here?” she asked, not sure whether it was smarter to leave them, or bring them. She was far outside her element, though after seeing the men shot in the fast-food lobby, she thought sticking together was the right call. Safety in numbers wasn’t only a cliché for horror movies.
“Hell no,” Asher replied. “Now isn’t the time for you to be alone; not after whatever you saw back there. That, plus what those men were about to do to our resident thief.” He thumbed back at Logan. “We all need to stay close.”
“I agree,” Logan added. “I promise my stealing days are over. Please don’t leave me alone, okay?”
“Fine,” she sighed with relief. “Follow me.” She’d never put the pistol back in its holster after stumbling away from those dead firefighters. Grace grabbed her hat, then lifted the gun from the center console. She held it close as she got out of the truck and walked toward the entrance.
When they all gathered up, she first motioned to push through the two glass doors, but she halted at the sight of broken glass. “Crap. Someone’s already been
here.” Her stomach turned to jelly, imagining a bunch of dead BLM officials inside their offices.
Before she could change her mind, Grace took a few steps forward.
“Wait!” Asher cautioned. “Let me go first.”
She laughed with a nervous energy. “How does that make any sense? May I remind you your uniform is only for show.”
Asher glanced over to Logan. “The guy is supposed to go first.”
The dirty kid nodded. “I think that’s right. Bros before hos.”
Grace sighed with disbelief. “I don’t think you know what that means. Look, guys, I appreciate it, but right now I’m the only one who has any training with firearms. Doesn’t it make sense to have the best shooter at the front, rather than who has the most testosterone?”
Logan put up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m cool. As long as I’m last, I’m happy.”
Asher rolled his eyes, then looked at her. “I was only suggesting I’d go first if asked. Entering buildings is city stuff. You know, the stuff I’m good at. But the main thing is I’m not hiding behind you; I’m trying to be your partner.”
She let go of some of her nervous energy with quiet laughter. “I guess I understand. You didn’t seem like the macho type.”
He reached over and held her wrist for a moment. “I know you saw terrible things in that food joint and you don’t want to talk about them. Since I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you so quiet. Remember, though, you’re not in this alone, all right?”
“Thanks. I’ll tell you later what I saw in there, I promise.” She quieted to a whisper. “I don’t want to scare anyone.”
They both knew she was talking about Logan.
Louder, she added. “Let’s go. The offices should be through here.”
Grace, gun in hand, led them into a darkened corridor. They passed a conference room well-lit by an outside window, but it was empty. When they went through another set of doors, they entered an open floor plan office area with lots of cubicles. The first desk was a mess, with all the personal knickknacks tossed on the floor and the computer removed. A quick scan of the other desks showed a similar fate.
Impact (Book 3): Adrift Page 5