The McClane Apocalypse Book Ten

by Kate Morris

  “What do we do?” Paige whispers frantically, echoing the same fear Sam feels.

  “Stay calm,” he says. “Put your night-vision gear on.”

  “Ok,” Paige says, her voice quivering. “Then what?”

  Simon answers, “Give them time to get in.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, we need to make sure they aren’t in the back yard when we go out. Let’s try to avoid them,” he says calmly.

  He has not let go of her hand, either. Unfortunately, the cellar door is the kind that pushes upward on hinges and is solid wood. They cannot see outside through it to ascertain for safety. She has to hold in a scream when the front door upstairs crashes in. The sound is deafening in the silence of the night.

  “Shh,” Simon encourages and gives her hand a squeeze. He releases her hand, drops to one knee, and slings his pack to the ground. After pulling out a silencer, Simon screws it onto the end of his pistol, pockets two extra mags, and pulls the backpack on again. Then he takes her hand firmly in his.

  “I’m going to open that door,” he whispers and points to the outside door above them. “We’ll give it a three-count before we exit to see if anyone pops off rounds at us.”

  “Got it,” she agrees.

  “Then we move. Me first. You. Then Paige. Watch for my all-clear,” he directs.

  “Where will you be?”

  “I’m going straight out and across the yard into the woods. I’ll use the laser to signal you to cross when it’s safe.”

  “Got it,” she says and lowers her night-vision goggles, having put away her binoculars.

  Simon reaches over and helps Paige pull her goggles down. He yanks her pistol from its holster and loads a round into the chamber and turns off the safety. Then he cups the side of her cheek.

  “Try to stick to the plan,” he says to her. “I’ll cover you. Don’t get antsy and run. Finger off the trigger until you need to use it.”

  His sister nods nervously. Sam also feels those same nerves but pushes them down.

  “Ready?” he asks, to which she nods and assumes Paige does the same. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s go-time. They don’t have a choice now.

  Upstairs a lot of commotion is going on. The house is being ransacked. Men’s voices trickle down to the basement as Simon unlocks the door and pushes it upward off of its slanted cement frame. Nobody shoots. That must be a good sign. He opens it all the way and eases it down silently to rest in the open position. Turning to Sam, he counts it off, one-two-three and pops his head up through the open space. Again, nobody shoots. Then he’s gone in a flash. She can hear his feet for only a few moments padding double-time against the ground before she hears nothing but the people above them again.

  Sam holds her breath. Nothing happens. She creeps up the four stairs to the opening and waits another five seconds, which feels painfully long. Then she sneaks and carefully exposes her head to take a peek. She catches sight of the green laser light and climbs the last two steps and sprints toward Simon in the cover of the woods. She is almost to him when the laser disappears. Sam squelches a scream when a man almost slams right into her from her right side. It is followed by the report of Simon’s silenced pistol. She doesn’t pause to look at the dead man but keeps going. He meets her at the edge of the forest and snatches her arm.

  “Go another twenty feet in, Sam,” he whispers fiercely. “I’ve gotta get Paige across.”

  That’s when she hears her friend, Simon’s beloved sister, scream.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Paige

  She panics when the basement door slams into the stairwell wall. It scares her something fierce, so she bolts. Whoever is coming down those stairs is not doing so to talk over the day’s events. They are in this house to rob or kill them. Sam made it across just fine. She saw her just as her young friend disappeared into the woods. She felt confident that she could do it, too. She was just wrong.

  Someone knocks into her from behind, taking her breath momentarily. She only makes it four steps into her escape. She hasn’t gotten far, not even halfway across the yard. Her handgun falls as she slams face first into the ground with a man on top of her by the weight of him. A second later, she is hefted up and dragged away, being carried around the waist like a ragdoll. She screams out for help. It’s the last thing she remembers.

  Paige awakens dazed and disoriented on the floor. The room is spinning. Under her, the floor vibrates, too. She is having trouble focusing on one thing for more than a second. She feels nauseous as if she might just vomit.

  “Don’t even think about puking,” a man says to her.

  Her eyes come into focus, and she realizes that she is not really on the floor. In fact, she’s not even in a house. She’s in a vehicle, on the rubber matted floor of a cargo van, to be more exact, and it’s moving at a high rate of speed.

  “Have a nice nap?” the man asks in a vile tone.

  Paige pushes up into a position resting on one hand and her hip. “Where…” her voice cracks.

  “Don’t worry about where we’re going,” he says. “Get up.”

  He sounds so angry. She feels very indignant. She should be the one who is angry. Her head hurts as memories start coming back. Someone hit her on the side of the head. That’s why it hurts. That’s why she passed out and can’t remember anything.

  “I said get up!” he nearly shouts this time.

  Paige pushes to her hands and knees. He uses his booted foot to shove at her hip until she falls sideways again. Then he laughs.

  “So pathetic,” he taunts. “So pathetic without your big, tough husband around, aren’t you?”

  Paige whips her head all the way around and comes to her feet quickly so she can see her assailant. She knows his voice. She knows this man.

  “Parker?” she asks with disbelief and stumbles into the side of the van where she catches herself by reaching out.

  “Paige,” he acknowledges, inclining his head.

  He looks different. He has a full beard, which he must’ve recently grown. It makes him look even stranger. His pale eyes and nearly white hair looks odd against the blackish tint of his beard. She can’t see very well due to just the interior light of the van being on and it being nighttime, but she has no doubt with whom she is speaking.

  “What are you doing?” she questions, feeling a heightened sense of panic as she realizes the van is moving and she is not with her brother anymore. Cory is nowhere near.

  “What I should’ve done a lot sooner after I met you,” he says.

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Where’s my brother?”

  “Dead,” he reveals with a wicked smile.

  Paige blinks hard. “Wh…what?”

  “They’re all dead,” he answers. “After the little present we left them, they’re all dead. I actually feel disappointed I didn’t get to spit on your dead husband’s body, but at least I got to witness the explosion. Like fireworks…”

  She flies at him, begins punching and clawing, only to have him backhand her across the cheek, which sends her falling onto her back.

  “Get up!” he yells angrily. “You’ll do as I say, or you’ll end up like that traitor bitch, Isabella.”

  Paige rolls weakly to her side and sits upright again. She can’t think about Cory or Sam or even her brother right now. She has to concentrate on getting away from Parker so that she can warn the rest of the family. Now she knows he killed Sofia’s sister. So sad.

  “You people are ruining everything!” he screeches at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me,” he answers. “I’ve got people on the inside. I know you’ve got Sofia. I was told she was taken away. There’s only one reason the general would arrest her.”

  “We don’t have anyone. Who told you that?” she asks, trying to buy time until she can figure out what to do to get away. Sweat runs down the side of her face, and she wipes it. Her hands comes away with
blood, though, instead of sweat.

  “You sure would like to know, wouldn’t you?” he asks rhetorically. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  “Why?”

  He is still sitting on an overturned orange bucket in the corner near the rear doors. She has no idea who is driving or if someone is also sitting shotgun and can’t see either of them.

  “Because we’ll be running Fort Knox,” he comments.

  “We? Who do you mean?” she asks, worried he is going to team up with the actual President and attack General McClane.

  “You and I,” he answers as if it makes any sense. “And my men, of course.”

  “How many men do you have? How many at General McClane’s?”

  He gives her a sly look, “You’ll know soon enough. Don’t worry about the details.”

  “If I’m to help you, then I need more information.”

  He chuckles, a cruel, empty sound. “We need to build trust between us first. You’ll have full access to whatever you need or want. And, in time, when you’ve earned my trust, then you’ll be given a top-level position, one that’s appropriate for a woman.”

  She tries not to let her former inner feminist lash out. It doesn’t matter. All she needs is information from him that will help the family.

  “What about the President?” she asks next and realizes her helmet is no longer on her head, either. If she had on a headset at the time, which she didn’t, then she could call for help. She’s essentially on her own and has to figure out how to handle him, if it is even possible. The man is clearly unhinged.

  “The President is close,” he says. “I’ve had my men waiting about a hundred miles out. I knew what path he’d take to get here.”

  “How?”

  “Because I told him which way to come, of course,” he reveals with a malevolent smile.

  She notices the blue plaid flannel shirt he’s wearing and the two-inch by four-inch strip missing out of the side. It has to be the shirt he wore on their property the day he killed Isabella in the woods when her brother found that fabric stuck to a bush.

  “Why? Why would you do that? You know he’s going to come here to confront the general.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He rolls his eyes as if he finds her annoying, “Once he kills the general and his loyal followers, or even reduces the number of people at Fort Knox slightly, and, of course, helps me to eliminate the McClane assholes, then I’ll simply kill him. Friendly fire in battle, of course. Completely innocent mistake.”

  “And then you’ll be in charge of everyone?” she asks for confirmation of Simon’s theory.

  “Naturally,” he answers. “I’d be the only one qualified to handle the growth of such a community anyway. And eventually, I’ll move the rest of the people from Colorado here. Fort Knox can accommodate as many people as I need it to.”

  “If you won’t have many people left to rule over because most of them get killed, then why would you need such a big place like Fort Knox?”

  “Oh, you have no idea, darling,” he says, making her want to throw up. “I have plenty more people at my disposal. There are always plenty of desperate people out there who need to be led by someone like me, someone of sound authority, someone strong.”

  “But what about Robert McClane? You were helping him run Fort Knox already. Why not wait until he passes away?”

  “Because the old bastard wasn’t doing it quickly enough for my tastes. Actually, I was hoping he’d kick off before the President gets here, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

  “Are you facilitating his demise?” she asks, hoping he doesn’t admit something that will make her sick in having the knowledge of and not being able to help the man.

  “A little here, a little there,” he confesses.

  “But he seemed very trusting of you. You helped him establish the base and set up a new place for the people and…”

  “Helped him?” he screeches suddenly. “I did all of it. It was all my idea. I planned the entire system there. I got those two old idiots thinking the other was plotting against them. It was pretty easy after that.”

  “Who? What two idiots?”

  “The President and Robert, of course,” he says. “I saw how close they were. I knew I’d never be able to go any further than I already had. I didn’t want just to run their army out there. I wanted to run the whole thing. Turning them against each other was simple. I fed ideas into their heads about the other wanting a more socialistic style government. I gave them information, fed that growing flame of hatred.”

  So many thoughts and ideas are running full speed through her mind. How many people are on Parker’s side that are still living on Fort Knox base? How will the family or General McClane ever figure it out, especially Robert since he’s sick? Is Parker truly poisoning him? She suspects he meant as much.

  “There was never an easier plot to enact. People are malleable, Paige. You’ll learn that.”

  “Why do I have to learn this? I don’t want to go with you.”

  “You will,” he says.

  “I need you to let me go, Parker,” she says, trying to plead with whatever sense of humanity he still has.

  “Are you listening to anything I’ve said?”

  “Yes, but you aren’t making sense,” she tells him honestly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Parker says. “You’ll understand eventually. Then you’ll come to appreciate the cosmopolitan nature of my ideas and plans. We’ll build an empire.”

  “That’s not what I want,” she tells him honestly. “I just want to go home to the farm. You know the McClanes. You know they’re good people.”

  He laughs loudly and crudely. “They are too good, Paige. We can’t let people like them stand in the way of progress.”

  “Progress? Seems like you want to rule the whole country, be a dictator, forget everything that makes our country great…”

  Suddenly in the mid-sentence, a loud popping sound explodes, and the van begins careening around on the road. The tires squeal in an awful screaming way until it loses all control and crashes. She is thrown into the side wall and then forward again. It isn’t done yet, though. She feels it tip slightly, and she loses balance. Then the world goes topsy-turvy, and she hits the roof as the van rolls. It rolls again, or so she thinks because of the way she can’t tell which end is up. Her body is thrown around like a limp rag doll. She thinks perhaps it rolls three times before it comes to its final resting place somewhere far down, down perhaps a ravine or someplace similar.

  A soft moaning sound comes from her throat, which she does not seem able to suppress. Paige rolls to her side and attempts to kneel. She cries out as a sharp stab of pain shoots through her calf. Glancing down at her right leg, she sees the reason. A shard of glass has embedded itself in her calf. She has no idea how large or how long it is. The headache she had before from being struck is even worse now.

  “Sir, sir!” someone outside the van shouts right as one of the back doors is flung open.

  Paige squints as the brightness of the interior lights hit her. The next thing she realizes is that she is lying on the left side wall and not on the floor. The van is on its side. The two men she knows were in the cab are not making a sound, which leads her to suspect they may be dead. Unfortunately, Parker is not.

  “Get up!” he screams at her, yanking her arm.

  “My leg…” she expresses weakly.

  “Move it!” he rants and hauls her to her feet where she stumbles only to have him pull her upright again.

  “Sir, we have to move,” his man tells him. “Someone shot out that steer tire. Ours, too.”

  Paige cries out at the pain but is helpless to stop Parker as he drags her behind him into the woods surrounding them. She stumbles into a tree and tries to grab onto it for support. One of his men, or the only one she has seen, helps her back up. They keep going for close to a half mile, or so it seems.

&
nbsp; “Please, I need to rest,” she says and is ignored. “Please, Parker. My leg. My head hurts. I don’t feel…right.”

  “Shut up,” Parker answers her.

  “Please,” she pleads again but screams when something splashes against the side of her face accompanying a loud cracking sound. Then a second later, the barking report of a gun echoes through the woods around them.

  Suddenly, Parker stops, and they both turn to see the man escorting them fall to the ground dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

  “Oh, my…” Paige says but is stopped as Parker yanks her forward and against him.

  She has to find a weapon. Her eyes scan the ground around them for the weapon she suspects the man probably had. Not seeing one, Paige tries to lurch away from him. It doesn’t work. Parker is kind of a big man, bigger and stronger than her. In a flash, she can see her life ending out here. Someone is trying to kill them, probably the President or someone else General McClane sent after Parker. Her brother and Cory and Sam are all dead according to him by some sort of detonated device he set off in that house. She’s separated from the family. Safety is gone. Her husband is gone, and soon she will be, too.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Simon

  “Can you make the shot?” Sam asks beside him from her position laying on the ground on the crest of the hill acting as his spotter.

  “Yes, I just need him to turn slightly.”

  “Be careful,” she warns. “If you can’t get it, don’t. Cory’s on his way down there. You and Cory already got all the other ones and their vehicles. You got the one down there with her. Parker’s all that’s left.”

  “This is my sister,” he says with deadly intent.

  “I know,” she whispers.

  “She’s limping,” he notices. “She’s hurt. He’s dragging her further.”

  “Wait,” she says, spying through the night-vision binoculars. “He’s turning. He’s shouting. I can’t hear him.”