The woman didn’t look over to Howard. She kept the pistol pointed at the floor as she stood back up. “I’m Dorothy, by the way. I’ve been working inside the TKM organization ever since Petteri brought me in as part of his think-tank to save the world. If you ever wondered who saved your lives when the planet-killer asteroid didn’t drop on your heads, it was me.”
“Thanks, I guess, but why are you still working with him?” she wondered.
Dorothy snickered. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Grace chuckled, feeling some of the tension ebb out of the room. She’d experienced the same attitude about some of her missions over the past several days. Dorothy used the moment to turn toward the major. “It’s great that your thugs have gone out and killed everyone, but I don’t care about clearing streets or collecting rock right now. You shouldn’t have left me alone with Stricker, you ass.” In one smooth action, she aimed the pistol and fired.
Grace jumped a foot in the air with surprise.
The target only had time to half-raise his hands.
Dorothy had put a single round into the head of Major Howard.
“Whoa!” Asher screamed, seemingly about to shoot her.
Dorothy dropped the pistol on top of one of the dead security officers. It bounced onto the floor, clanging loudly on the tiles, then came to a stop.
Asher aimed at her. “Tell me why I shouldn’t put you down!”
“I know where your sister is. Don’t you remember?”
Asher breathed loudly through his nose, seemingly thinking it over.
“Where is she?” Grace pressed, recovering from the loud bang.
Dorothy pointed to a nearby door. “In conference room A. Through there. But be careful. Mr. Tikkanen went through there, too. He has a guard with her.”
Asher ran to the door, opened it without listening to what might be inside, then ran in.
“Or you can go in like a bull in a china shop,” Dorothy said sarcastically.
“Diedre’s here! She’s hurt!”
Dorothy smiled weakly. “My boss doesn’t do anything halfway. Trust me. She’ll need help if she survived him.”
“You should know your boss isn’t who he claims to be. He’s made my life hell over the past several days. His, too.” She pointed to Asher, who came back out supporting his sister.
“They shot her before they left,” he lamented.
“Who?” Grace asked.
“Tikannen,” Diedre wheezed.
Asher got her situated against a wall. “The bullet went right through her shoulder, but it made a huge mess. We have to get her some help.”
“Not here,” the sister replied. “Anywhere but here.” She seemed to noticed Dorothy. “Why is she still around?”
“She killed this guy.” Grace pointed to the dead major. “We all saw it.”
Dorothy didn’t miss a beat. “He took pleasure in seeing me in an uncomfortable situation. I paid him back in spades.”
“Whatever. She also stopped me from talking to you,” Diedre said to her brother.
Dorothy held up her hands again. “What happened upstairs was out of my control. I delayed killing your connection as long as I could because I know what it’s like to have family members in desperate situations. But you have no idea what I had to do to get to where I am, and I’m not going to risk anything else. Get out of here. I promise I won’t tell anyone what happened here.”
“We could kill you,” Asher said, not in a convincing way.
“Nice try, tiger,” Dorothy replied in a more upbeat fashion. “You people are the good guys. You don’t kill in cold blood.” She turned dramatically to face the body of the man she’d shot.
“All right, we’ve got a long way to go to return to the truck. Grab what guns you can and let’s move.” Grace pointed to the dead guards. Each had a stubby-looking rifle and a big handgun.
Dorothy didn’t look at them as she and Asher took the weapons. “Good luck. Maybe someday you’ll read about me in the funny papers.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Grace strode for the door, hoping their exit would be less dramatic than their entrance, but knowing it wasn’t likely.
Asher walked next to her as they headed for the sewer, though Diedre held on to his far shoulder. The sound of gunfire was so thick, it had become ever-present background clutter. “It sounds like Chinese New Year out here.”
“Happy New Year,” she replied.
St. Charles, MO
The house did have a back door. Ezra, Butch and Haley ran across the shady yard to the detached garage about fifty feet away. They kicked open the gate and ran into the alleyway, but Butch stopped abruptly. “E-Z, point at the house.”
He followed Butch’s lead and aimed his rifle at the back door. After a two-second pause, a man appeared. His veteran friend didn’t wait. His first shot took a chunk out of the door frame. A second hit the man, sending him back into the dark interior.
“Run!” Butch hissed.
Ezra’s ears rang from all the gunfire, but it seemed to affect his brain, too. He ran as ordered, but he also grasped the fact he’d failed to fire his rifle. It wasn’t a case of not wanting to; the situation was moving faster than he could think.
Get your head in the fight, Ezra.
Shooting at the first man slowed the others, but it didn’t stop them. Windows shattered in Xander’s place as the TKM men fired through them. Bullets impacted the vinyl siding of a nearby house as they ran to the next block. By then, they were out of the line of sight.
Haley’s stride was more purposeful and poised as they ran, as if she got stronger the farther they got from her ex-boyfriend’s home. She now wore the cat-holding backpack over her shoulders and Liam ran alongside her. The young woman stayed on Butch’s heels as he led their escape.
“Haley, can you get us to the river?” Ezra asked as he tried to keep pace with her. They made it to the next street over and they used the sidewalk to make better time.
“Are you leaving?” she asked with a bit of panic.
“Not before we get you to safety,” he replied. “There’s a forest where we came ashore. We can lose anyone in that mess.”
She jogged on the sidewalk for a few seconds. “Yeah, the whole town is a grid. All we have to do is go that way. My house is about four blocks over. The river is one block past it.” Haley pointed to a cross street ahead.
Once it was put into perspective, he figured they had a fighting chance of escape. Rather than run all the way to the street, he cut into a yard. “This way! Stay between the houses!”
Butch shifted direction like a gazelle. Haley ran into the grass right behind him, pulling the tiny-legged puggle with her. They passed Ezra before they made it to the backyard of the first home. The youngsters made him feel about a hundred years old. Susan would be shocked at his lack of physical fitness and would probably have a snarky word or two about spending too much time in his boat, on his rear end.
Squealing tires and high-RPM engine noises suggested the TKM thugs hadn’t given up. After what happened at Bass Pro, he figured they’d chase him to the ends of the earth. They ran through another yard, waited to ensure the next street was empty, then sprinted for the next block. Despite the raging blood pressure and icicles of fear piercing his spine, Ezra took a lot longer to cross the street and get to the backyard of the two-story stone structure where his friends already waited.
“You gonna make it, E-Z?” Butch asked, hardly sounding winded.
He sucked in air. “I’ll be fine.”
“You want me to carry that heavy backpack?” Haley asked, making him suddenly feel a full two hundred years old, and the unhappy owner of an overly faded man-card.
“No, I’m good. I’ll keep up.” He’d never wanted to be back on his boat more than he did right then.
Butch slapped him on the shoulder. “Break time’s over. How far?”
Haley knew he was talking to her. “I was a little off. My house is on the next block.”
A few cars drove on the next street, so they needed to wait a minute for them to clear out. When they finally went for it, he managed to spring at the same speed as Butch and Haley, but he was still the last one into the corridor between two of the buildings. It struck him they’d come full circle; the alley where Haley had pulled the tire was a little way ahead. They were in the same place where the officer confiscated their rifles.
That officer, he now realized, was Haley’s old boyfriend. Was he able to respond so quickly due to the fact he was already circling her workout area? Spying on her? All the pieces seemed to fit.
“My home!” Haley cried out.
They ran across the alleyway and into her yard. He wondered if she was going to go inside, but she trotted into the corridor next to her building. As he ran into the gap, a car appeared at the end of the alley.
“They’re here!” he shouted.
“Don’t stop!” Butch yelled.
Ezra came out a good twenty feet behind his faster friends. They shot out onto the cobblestone street, ignoring a nearby orange car. He followed as best he could, but he had to admit he was running out of gas. Someone seemed to drive a sword into his body as running cramps flared up. By the time he was on the far sidewalk, he had to hold his right side to control the pain.
“Susan, dear, I need a little help.”
The navy-blue truck turned the corner down the street, maybe a hundred yards away. He chased Butch between the last row of buildings; the park came into view.
“Hold up,” Butch advised, stopping them next to a big metal dumpster set behind one of the buildings. There was a narrow street between the structures of the city and the sparsely wooded parkland now used as a refugee campground. A few people strolled along the path in the afternoon sun.
The three of them panted from the escape, but Ezra believed his breathing sounded the worst. He had to hunch over to try to open his lungs all the way down to their bottom level. Talking was almost impossible, but he wanted to stay involved. “The boat is downriver about a thousand yards. You two go. I’ll catch up.”
“No sale, E-Z.”
“Yeah, we have to stick together,” Haley added. “I got you into this mess. I’m not leaving you.”
It made him feel good, but also vulnerable. He was the weak link in his own team.
A bullet slapped into the dumpster; the bang of it leaving the gun followed an instant later.
“Down!” he ordered.
As he and Haley got behind the dumpster, Butch was already aiming and firing. The running didn’t seem to slow the big man in the least, nor did the threat of incoming bullets. It was like he moved at twice the normal speed during the most intense and dangerous moments, while Ezra’s movements slowed by half.
He fought against the molasses and pulled his rifle off his shoulder. Butch managed to unload about five aimed shots before Ezra brought his to bear. It took him an additional few seconds to orient on the blue truck parked about ten buildings down the roadway. It was probably the same one that had been following them, but he couldn’t be sure.
After checking to confirm the walkers had all run for cover, he finally squeezed the trigger. That was when he noticed another truck pull up behind the first.
“Shit, E-Z. We’re going to get pinned down if they keep coming.”
He thought it an astute observation, but they both kept on firing.
Chapter 23
Denver, CO
Grace had gone down the ladder into the sewer. Many bodies crowded the sloppy base of the drain tunnel. “I give credit where it’s due. That Petteri guy doesn’t do anything halfway. How many miners do you think his goon squad killed around his dig site?”
Asher held his elbow to his nose again. “I’d say he killed them all.”
They returned to the collapsed chamber where they found Angela’s body. The TKM guy who’d shot the professor from above was dead, too, thanks to Grace. His boots hung off the hole in the tunnel roof. The flying drone remained where it was, still spinning its blades at a low speed. Small LED lights blinked on and off, waiting for a signal which would never come.
“This is insane,” Diedre said sadly. “I had no idea it was so bad out here.”
“Where have you been?” Shawn asked. “How’d you get to downtown Denver without seeing the destruction?”
Asher crouched next to Angela, perhaps checking if she was alive.
“They brought me here in the back of a sealed helicopter, directly from the airport. For some reason, he didn’t want me to know about any of this. It worked, too. He used me to get you to reveal your location on the phone, Ash.” She talked to her brother’s backside as he hovered next to the downed professor. “I’m sorry I gave you away.”
Asher stood up and faced her. “You couldn’t have known where we were. It was my fault for blabbing our location to you like I was a kid in grade school. We’ve faced some mean people out here. I knew better.”
“We have to keep moving,” Grace advised, hopping over the slippery rock, leading them deeper into the sewer tunnel. The route would take her along the path they’d used to sneak close to the rock, and they’d be out of view for a time, but eventually they’d have to rise to the surface. Major Howard had bragged his men went out to kill all the miners. She figured that included anyone not wearing a blue shirt.
Grace almost fell over a body in the shadows. Angela’s small light provided the minimum to see, but rubble was everywhere. When she pointed the light at her feet, she recognized the dead grad student from Angela’s group. “Dang, this kid was no threat. He didn’t even have a weapon.”
Shawn limped by, patting the rifle Logan had brought. “It’s a good thing we’re armed. There’s no way they’ll let us out without a fight.”
Grace carried the fancy rifle she’d taken off the dead guard; Asher had the other one. Logan carried the handgun Dorothy had used to kill her coworker. An act she still didn’t understand. What she did know was they were armed to the teeth and willing to fight for their lives. “I only wish we could have gotten that Petteri guy.”
“I tried to shoot him,” Logan stressed, helping support his father. “He pushed one of the guards and ran for the door. I figured it was more important to shoot the men with guns.”
“You were right,” Shawn replied.
They walked for fifty yards before the crumpled street pressed in on the sewer tunnel to the point there was no roof at all. It was the same place they’d used to enter, and it was still a confusing tangle of rebar, concrete chunks, and smashed cars, joined now by bodies. The last two grad students were face down, with blood soaking through their shirts.
“Don’t let up for a second,” she advised. “We have to run back to the lobby where we met Angela. From there, it’s one block to the train tracks.” She pointed to the side street filled with trucks. If she focused on the sounds of gunfire, she imagined they came from high up. Were the sniper’s nests now being cleaned out? Which side was winning? Maybe the fight upstairs would provide a distraction so they could sneak underneath.
“Run for it,” she said, leading the advance.
Grace ran for about twenty feet before realizing the futility of speed. Shawn and Logan picked through the rubble as best they could, but they barely walked, much less run. Asher stuck with his sister. She was hit in the shoulder, but it seemed to hurt when she hopped or stepped down too hard. He supported her as best he could.
The exposure bothered her as they walked the streets. They passed the same clogged streets filled with stopped trucks, but now there were numerous men lying in the gaps between vehicles. Some of them were TKM employees. Most weren’t.
“Almost there,” she said when they came around the last corner. Ahead, the broken glass doors waited for them in silence.
The lobby was wrecked, with broken chairs everywhere, tipped-over potted plants, and numerous broken windows. She expected to find it stuffed with dead bodies, but apparently the people inside decided to run when they saw the shooting start. She turned to watch the two pairs of survivor friends come across the glass-covered sidewalk.
“We’ll go through the lobby and through to the road which will take us to the railroad yard. From there…who knows.” She hadn’t thought beyond the moment. They had to get away from the core of the TKM operation in Denver, but where they could go from there was a mystery. Maybe Asher would know, since he lived in the city.
She guided everyone across the lobby as well as any cattle dog, but the quiet was unnerving. Looking to the far side, she was glad to see the last street and the railroad tracks beyond. They’d soon get lost under the bridges and along the abandoned tracks.
“We’re almost—”
Two men strode around the corner from the elevator area. They were in the middle of laughing, as if one of them had told a funny joke. Grace had been on high alert, and despite almost losing bladder control, she swung the rifle off her hip and aimed at them. From twenty feet away, even she couldn’t miss.
They knew they were beaten.
“Hands up!” she yelled. If there were more behind the first, she’d have to shoot. She didn’t want to kill them, even if they deserved it. “I said, hands up!”
Asher joined her by pointing his weapon at them, giving her much-needed backup. Even Shawn had his rifle clumsily aimed toward the security guys.
The men put up their hands.
“Now, give us your shirts,” she said, realizing she’d struck on an important detail back in the tunnel.
They kill everything not wearing a blue shirt.
St. Charles, MO
Crush: Impact Book 4: (A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Series) Page 18