“There’s that burning,” she remarked in a casual fashion, pointing to get Asher’s attention. It was an oil refinery, or a facility built like one. Giant fuel tanks were spread over the massive complex. A few of them toward the back were ablaze, belching up roiling clouds of black smoke. The rising plumes melted into the already-hazy skies, making it seem like eight at night, rather than noon.
He looked up. “I’ve been texting my sister like crazy, but she isn’t responding. I’m worried she’s in trouble.”
She appreciated having something to talk about besides dodging bullets or escaping looters, but hated the thought of anyone being as bad off as they were. “I’m sure she’s fine. No one on the planet had more early warning about this disaster than she did, right? You said she worked in the space center?”
“In Texas,” he said in agreement.
“There, see? I bet she’s in a shelter somewhere and they don’t have a signal for communication. Lord knows we haven’t had much luck with our phones even when the network is online. The whole system is jacked.”
He seemed to think on it. “I hope so. No, I’m sure you’re right. She’ll text me when the network gets a little more back to normal.”
Grace looked back at Logan. “Do you have a phone? Have you talked to your mother?”
He laughed. “We can’t afford a phone. No. We’re not big city slickers like you two.”
She chuckled in response. “This is the first time in my life someone has called me that. I grew up in the country. Can’t you tell by my accent, y’all?” She didn’t go around trying to drawl like a Southerner, but experience had taught her residents in her part of Kentucky did talk a bit different than the shows she watched on television.
They talked about phones, or lack thereof, while she drove them through the wafting smoke over that part of Billings. The interstate cut through the whole town, making it impossible to miss. Five or ten minutes later, cruising along at seventy-five and happily chatting with her new friends, she realized they were well outside the city.
“Wow, we made good time. I expected more of a problem getting out.” She looked in the rearview. Black smoke rose from more places than the one refinery. Billings was in total meltdown, for certain.
Logan sat forward in his seat. “I know this highway! We’re going the right way.”
She let out a breath she’d unknowingly held in her chest. It never occurred to her the boy’s reservation could have been an hour to the west. That would put her as far back as Red Lodge, where they’d come from yesterday. If he’d said they had to backtrack, she might have changed her mind about the whole thing.
As it was, they’d caught a break.
Near Grand Tower, IL
Ezra scrambled to reload his thirty-round magazine, drawing cartridges from the carton inside the kids’ backpack. As he stood there panting and nearly peeing himself out of fright, he noticed the orientation of the barge had shifted. The incline toward the other side wasn’t as pronounced, and water inched up from the bottom, as if the weight of the pontoon boat had caused the other ship to dip down.
“Hey, we’ve moved,” he said excitedly.
Butch didn’t look up from his reload. “We did?” A few seconds later, he looked to his right, down the hull of the container barge. The wreckage once lodged in between the overturned hulk and the far shore shifted, too. A silver storage tank had slid off the hull and floated free, though most of the blockage remained. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He tapped Butch on the shoulder. “You think we can slide our boat down into the water at the bottom?” The twin pontoons sat like a pair of sausages underneath the flat deck of the boat, but they were rounded, which meant they had narrow points of contact with the hull. If they could leverage the slippery mud and the bit of downhill incline, he figured they might get into the water on the other side of the blockage.
Butch was a big man who hated the water. The look on his face at the prospect of both using his physical strength and going back toward water almost made Ezra crack up laughing. However, the sound of bullets kept him on point.
“Well, do you?” he asked again.
Butch set the rifle on the edge of the deck and squared his shoulder with the side of the boat. It shifted an inch or two, moving down the incline. “Yeah, we can move it…but…”
“But what?” he asked in a hurry.
“If we slide it down in a straight line, we’re going to hit the crap blocking the river.” He pointed to the silver storage tank and other debris. “One of us needs to get on the other side of the boat and also push it that way, toward the main channel. Then our boat will dump out on the clear side.”
His voice caught in his throat. Someone would have to expose themselves to the dangerous side. The side with incoming bullets.
“I’ll do it,” Ezra said, after a moment of hesitation. He chucked his rifle up on the deck.
“Nope. I’m sorry, E-Z. I should have been clearer. The strongest dude has to get on that side and push. The other one can shove the pontoon from the rear, on the safe side. But I’m not greedy. I’ll let you take the risk if you think you can bench more than me.” Butch smiled knowingly.
“Damn. You’re right.” He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with physics.
“It’s okay, though. Your job will be to cover me with the rifle if you see those guys stick their heads up. I’ll be pushing the whole time. You can shoot and shove.”
Ezra had a sneaking suspicion Butch could slide the entire two-thousand-pound boat without his help, but let him participate since he knew there was no way Ezra was going to sit it out. However, it made a lot of sense to have someone covering the main pusher, so he didn’t dispute the plan.
“Got everything loaded?” Butch asked.
“Yes. I’ll take your mag, if you don’t mind. In case I need more than thirty rounds.” He honestly hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Butch detached his mag, handed it to Ezra, then repositioned himself toward the back. “All right. Let off a few rounds to get us started. It works best if you can put one in a bad guy’s gut. It will put the fear of God in the others.”
Ezra peeked over the top of Susan’s Grace to find his first target. It terrified him how glib Butch was about maiming someone intentionally, but was also glad to have the guy on his team. “I’ll do my best.”
The yellow motorboat had wedged itself into some tree stumps near shore, though its motor was still cranking. The engine would turn the propeller until the gas ran out. By contrast, the gold ski boat was out of commission on the mud flat. That left the red speedboat as the primary threat. It was now parked behind the two pontoon boats, like a general watching over his troops. He assumed men were still inside, but they weren’t exposed.
Finally, he saw movement. “I see you.”
It was a guy on one of the pontoons. The man crouched on the deck and peeked above one of the vinyl seats, much as Ezra was doing behind his own boat. However, the man obviously didn’t learn the critical difference between concealment and cover. The seat wasn’t bulletproof. He used the scope, estimating it was about a hundred yards through the crowded field of debris. Ezra aimed for the center of the chair and squeezed off a round. After firing, he steadied himself to look through the scope. The man was gone, though Ezra had no idea of his condition.
“Go,” he commanded.
Butch stepped around the motor and braced himself against the transom holding the outboard motor. It provided a little cover from the gunmen while also giving the guy a lot to push. The boat moved a few inches in response to his first effort.
Ezra leaned against his side of the transom, adding his strength to the push. Susan’s Grace slid a foot or two before he and Butch both lost their footing in the slippery mud.
“Dang, how can we keep our feet in this stuff?” he asked.
Butch kicked the mud away and slid it from side to side with his boots. It seemed to give him enough clear metal to get his footing, so he p
ushed again.
A series of gunshots echoed from nearby.
“They see what we’re doing!” he yelped.
“Just keep pushing,” Butch replied with steel in his voice. “Or we’re dead.”
A round snapped off the top of the motor, cracking the plastic housing. Butch didn’t even look up. “Cover me!”
Ezra grabbed his rifle, ready to oblige.
Denver, CO
Petteri and Howard regrouped inside a tent, which happened to be the one Dorothy was using for her research.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked when he came in.
He wished his team of Manhattan lawyers was in one of the tents, but he was working with a skeleton crew in a city far from the comforts of the East Coast. He had to hobble along with what was available. “Ah, yes, Dorothy. Put that on hold for now. We have a new problem.”
She looked over the top of her laptop, much as she did the other day when he first met her. “What’s your problem?”
“Someone is taking a bite out of your paycheck.” He pointed outside the tent. “Howard and I need to find a way to get rid of them.” Thinking of a way to soften his image in front of her, he added, “Without violence, ideally.”
She seemed distressed. “What? In Denver? Don’t they realize we were here first?”
Petteri laughed at her naïveté. “My dear, the world doesn’t work like that. The spoils go to whoever can sink their teeth into the meat.”
“But there’s billions of metric tons of material spread out across fifteen states. Why did they have to come to the one we were at?”
He wondered about that, taking a stab at what he would do if another company had gotten the drop on him. “I think they’re going to be at many of the crash sites.” Petteri turned to her with a sideways glance. “You didn’t tell anyone about the data you pulled for me, did you?”
“Hell no,” she snarked. “You don’t think I would betray you, do you? It’s my money, too.”
He harbored some concerns about her zest for money, but he’d promised her quite a bit to work for him. It was a bounty he was willing to pay, given her usefulness so far, but he had to maintain some skepticism her intentions were totally pure. He hadn’t become the world’s most successful businessman by trusting people for no reason.
“I had to ask,” he said smoothly. “I don’t expect anyone to find all the pieces as fast as we did, but we have to assume our competition is trying. This might have been a lucky guess on the part of PWI to reach Denver not long after us, but we have to plan for them to be at other places, too.” He cleared his throat and got Dorothy’s attention. “I want you to get me a list of every piece of rock you can find. I want the nearest city over a thousand population. I want the nearest TKM location. And get me the closest Bureau of Land Management office to each one. We need some heavy-hitting backup if we want to enforce our claims.”
“I’m on it, sir.” Dorothy ducked down behind her screen.
It left him and Howard alone.
“Sir, what do you want me to do about the intruders out there? You didn’t really want to show them a strongly worded letter, did you?”
They both opened the flap a bit, revealing several more trucks from the other company as they pulled onto the street, opposite his tents. His men were wiring explosives to crack some more of the ore, which would then be loaded on dump trucks, but having those new arrivals presented unneeded complications for his team. What if the explosives alarm went off, but the other crew ignored it? Who would be responsible if those outsiders were injured?
Petteri let the flap close. “Howard, I do believe we’re past letters. It’s time we take care of ourselves and lock down our dig site. For the safety of the citizens around us, of course.”
Howard patted the gun on his hip, under his suit coat. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Dorothy was right. There were billions of tons of riches scattered all over the country. It was bound to devolve into a scavenger hunt multiplied by a cage match fistfight with his competitors. Not that different than any other kind of mining he was involved with. And, as he was fond of being told by his adoring press, nobody was better at mining than Petteri Tikkanen.
CHAPTER 13
Hardin, MT
“This is where I go to school,” Logan remarked as they passed a sign for Hardin, Montana.
Grace tapped the brakes, expecting to take the exit off the interstate.
“No,” he said hastily. “I don’t live here.”
She relaxed. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. You surprised me.”
Asher looked over with concern. “You want me to drive for a while? Despite coming from the big city, I’m a pretty good driver.”
She hadn’t let him drive since they’d met, but it had little to do with trust of his skills. The truck belonged to the National Park Service. During her training and orientation period, Randy might have gone over the rules for using the truck, but she couldn’t remember if he mentioned anything about taking it outside the park. However, even if it was fine to take it outside the boundary a short distance, it definitely wasn’t cool to drive it halfway across the country. If they were pulled over, she wanted to be the one to blame.
“Maybe when I get tired,” she said to be noncommittal. “Right now, I only need some of your stimulating conversation.”
Asher seemed to search her eyes for deeper meaning, but Logan jumped in before he could find any.
“Hey, I have some questions for you. Why are we driving in a truck with no windows, a missing door, and looks like it did one too many spin cycles in the laundromat dryer?”
Asher cracked up, then motioned to Grace that she should do the talking. “You wanted conversation.”
For the next ten minutes she told him about her adventures, starting with the falling star and the man holding the golden rock back in Yellowstone. From there, as she replayed the events in words, she realized how unbelievable it sounded. Hiding in dead geysers. Getting chased by hitmen. Cars falling off cliffs in the mountains. She fully expected him to call her a liar.
“Now I know you two,” Logan remarked. “I saw you in a funny meme.”
“A what?” Asher replied. “A mean?”
“No. A meme. I don’t know, it’s like a short video with a funny message.”
Grace was disturbed. Nothing she’d done lately would be classified as funny. “What, exactly, was the message?”
“Yeah. I can’t remember all the details, but it was something to do with saving the world. I think you tried to warn people about the falling asteroid, but the park visitors shot you instead of saying thanks. The funniest part was how you two didn’t go together. At all. You looked clean and professional and he was dressed like a hobo, with a dirty suit and insane crazy hairdo.” He motioned to Asher.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s about what happened. Only it wasn’t the visitors in the crowd shooting at us, it was the hitman I told you about.”
Asher tapped his phone watch, ignoring the hobo comment. “Wait a second, where did you see our video? I haven’t been able to get the internet for days. You said you didn’t even have a phone.”
“I saw it on the bus ride into Billings. Not all of the kids in my school are poor, like me. A few have the latest models of phones and boy did they love showing them off.”
Grace could relate. Some kids got them in kindergarten, but she didn’t have a phone until high school. Even then, hers was a hand-me-down from Mom, far from the latest model. Some of the other girls enjoyed telling her how far down the social ladder she was, simply as a result of her less popular phone.
“God, I hated high school,” she said to herself.
“Me too!” Logan added.
“Sorry. Go on.” Grace held the wheel, looking outside. The landscape was mostly flat, though low, rolling grass fields dominated the left side of the highway. There were a few trees, and fewer farmhouses, suggesting people lived on the land. “You said you saw us on the memes?”
> Logan leaned between her and Asher. “Yep, each day, new ones pop up and we all check them out. I remember you two, though when we checked later that day, your video was gone. It said the site took it down because it had been red-flagged.”
“The site took it down?” Asher said in a wistful voice. “I wonder who ordered its removal?” He gave her a meaningful glance.
She let it go and concentrated on the road. Minutes later, a small town appeared ahead of them. A few of the low hills were next to the highway, giving small, single-family homes places to nestle among numerous trees.
“This is it!” Logan shouted. “Right here.”
Grace veered right, almost missing the exit. It didn’t occur to her Logan lived in a normal-looking town. He’d said his family lived on a reservation, and she imagined driving down a long dusty road to the middle of nowhere.
“Welcome to Crow Agency.” Logan spoke quietly and sounded like he wanted to be anywhere but there. She figured he was coming to terms with how he’d have to explain what happened to his friend, Noah.
“You know, we don’t have to mention those games, Logan. It was a mistake, right? I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson. What’s more important is we get you home, safe, and we report how your friend was hurt by those bad men.”
He shrugged. “Believe me, I want to leave that part out, but I owe it to him and his parents to explain what we were doing. I’ll take responsibility for my actions. It’s what my father would demand.” Logan pointed. “Take a left here. The town hall is a few blocks up.”
“We’re going to the town hall?” Asher asked.
“It’s coming up,” Logan said quietly.
They drove for a short time, passing more of the single-family houses, a few mobile homes, and an open, grassy park. Logan guided them to a compact, somewhat modern-looking building, at least compared to the homes and trailers around it. Grace already had her school on the brain, so it was easy to compare the tan-colored structure to a small school, complete with flagpole, welcome sign, and a hip-high chain-link fence circling the outside of the property. For a town hall, it was, in a word, uninspiring.
Impact (Book 3): Adrift Page 10