“Finally. We’re there.” From the back seat, Asher pointed to the green sign next to the highway.
“Thank God,” she said with relief, exiting the interstate. “I think that was the most boring stretch of highway I’ve ever driven. It was grass. Then grass. Then, wait for it, more grass.”
Shawn found it funny. “My people don’t mind it. It gives us some peace and quiet, except for highways like this one.”
Grace shook her head. “I’d die if I had to live here, no offense. Sure, I like to be in the outdoors, but I need variety. That’s why Yellowstone is such a great place to work. There are different things to see around every curve. Out here, you can drive a hundred miles and think you’re seeing the same stretch of green over and over.”
“Yeah, it’s an acquired taste…” Shawn sounded distracted. “Look up ahead. There’s a roadblock.”
The route into Cheyenne was four lanes. The roadway was surrounded by a lush park full of tall pine trees and manicured greenways. It appeared to be the kind of place where families would spend the day picnicking and having fun. However, there was no one there, nor were cars moving on the roadway. When they approached the line of Humvees stretched across the lanes, she assumed someone was going to flag them down.
As she stopped the truck, no one came running out. “Hello? Anyone home in Cheyenne?”
Shawn leaned forward in his seat, intently studying the situation. “I don’t see anyone in those trucks. I think we should go around them. The airport isn’t far beyond this point.”
“You’ve been there before?” she asked.
“Sometimes we have tribal leadership conferences with other tribes. Some of those meetings are held in Washington, DC, though I’ll never know why they can’t have them somewhere nice, like a grassy field in Wyoming.” He glanced over to Grace with a twinkle in his eye.
“All right. We’ll go around them.” She briefly left the pavement and drove on the greenery at the edge of the blockade. The ground was entirely flat, making it impossible to seal off the roadway. The police would need a solid line of cars, or a fence, running for miles in each direction.
Back on the road, they soon made it through the park and came alongside the fence for the airport, as Mr. Runs Hard had promised. The grizzled frontiersman surveyed the landing strip as if he’d spotted a bear. “No! What’s going on here? There should be activity everywhere.”
The Cheyenne street hugged the outer fence for about a mile before coming to the entrance to the main terminal. They still hadn’t seen any sign of people, even in the residential neighborhood on their right side.
“Should we go in?” she asked, not sure if the lack of people was really as bad as it seemed. Maybe everyone was confined to their homes. Maybe there was a big meeting going on. She could think of a few explanations, though it strained belief that everyone would follow such a rule or attend such a meeting.
Shawn pointed to the terminal, in case she missed it. “Yes. Someone in the airport will know what’s going on. There will be police inside, too. We’ll get answers.”
“No problem.” Grace drove the street and went directly up to the front doors of the fancy glass-faced building. No one came out to complain. No baggage handlers ran out to take her suitcases. Nothing happened.
“Follow me.” Shawn got out of the truck and headed for the doors, but she noticed a couple of police cars parked on the nearest runway. If she had to guess, it was almost as if law enforcement had placed those cars there to stop anyone from landing.
Instead of going in, she walked toward the police cruisers, which were about three hundred yards away across a long stretch of the endless grass. Asher ran up and caught her by the arm before she went too far. “Hey, the terminal is this way.”
She motioned ahead. “You see that? There’s something on the runway.” The two police cars were parked near some debris; their flashing lights were off. Her first instinct was a small plane had crashed, though there was no smoke or fire, suggesting it came down a while ago.
“I have to see what it is. It doesn’t look right.”
Asher still didn’t let go. “What difference does it make? Maybe it’s a military plane. They’re probably busy as hell with all the scared and fleeing people they have to manage. We’ve seen those folks ourselves.”
That was true, but she remained committed. Shawn Runs Hard had gone into the terminal, but there was no need to go in with him. The man knew how to talk to people. Grace gently pulled at Asher’s grip, spurring him to continue walking with her.
“I hope the chairman doesn’t get mad at us,” Asher casually remarked. “I feel like I’m playing hooky from school, and the teacher is about to find us holding hands on school property.”
She laughed. “Did that ever happen to you?”
“No,” he admitted. “I was too chicken to ask girls out back then.”
“But not anymore?” she said with a flashy smile in his direction.
Asher gripped her hand even more. “No. These days I seem to get lucky.”
“Whoa, Nelly,” she spit out, mimicking one of Dad’s sayings. “Ain’t nobody getting lucky just yet. We’ve got—” She stopped in her tracks, having gotten close enough to recognize it wasn’t an airplane. It was also larger than she thought, though it was an easy thing to misinterpret on the mammoth runway. The warped wreckage was about the size of a tractor trailer; the police cars were parked fifty yards from it, further confusing the scene. “We’ve got a problem.”
They both stood there, frozen, as they got a good look at it. The dull metal was pockmarked with black spots, it had been dented and scraped, but the white letters of a name were clear: Petteri-2.
Asher spoke at barely as whisper. “It’s TKM’s asteroid transporter. Diedre said they were dropping nukes into the approaching rock. She didn’t say anything about the spaceship coming down with it.”
Another voice broke the tension. “Whoa! We heard about this on the news. Captain Davis was the guy who saved the planet. That’s his ship!”
She let go of Asher and spun around. “Logan?”
He grinned sheepishly. “No one checked the cargo area after you loaded up. That big medical bag was like a pillow. I really have to pee though!”
Grace was speechless. Behind the boy, about a hundred yards back, his father came stumbling out of the terminal, looking around for her and Asher. When he saw them, he waved and shouted, “There’s no one inside!” Then, he seemed to notice his son. “Logan?”
The boy’s father spoke a different language, presumably Crow, but she didn’t really need a translator to understand the curse words intended for his boy.
She wanted to cuss to the world, too. Having to care for Logan added one more stress to her day; a day which included learning her mother was gone. “Jeez, speaking of getting lucky. I wish I got lucky once in a while. Trouble seems to always come back at me like a boomerang.”
St. Louis, MO
“We either turn around or go forward. Those are our only options.” Ezra had no idea which was the better course of action. Ahead, it was impossible to move forward due to the wall of debris blocking their way. Behind, pirates. If they went downriver, they’d be forced all the way back to Chester, nearly sixty miles, to get more gasoline. Floating downstream would make it easier to save fuel, but, again, pirates.
“I’ve got to tell you, I think we need a third choice. You know? Maybe we abandon the boat and try to find a car or truck. Even bikes would be better than being stuck on this river.”
Ezra idled the motor as Susan’s Grace floated free in the current. Water poured out from the jumble of debris rammed against the bridge, creating a whitewater rafter’s dream for a few hundred yards. He surveyed the shoreline on both sides of the river, deciding the St. Louis side, on the left, was more inviting.
“I’m going to pull ashore over there.” He pointed to a long incline made of cobblestones at the edge of the brown water. It ran north and south on the shore, creating w
hat looked like a mile-wide boat ramp underneath the Arch. It provided a nice, clear spot to beach his boat. “Let’s get out and check around.”
“Aye, aye,” Butch replied.
He swung the vessel around, facing toward the western shore. The left pontoon obviously rode lower in the water. After convincing Butch they weren’t going to sink, he’d kept a close eye on the situation. As they neared St. Louis, it was apparent to him one side was lower than the other. He sighed. “I guess she’s a goner anyway.”
They held on as the boat cut through the chop. As they neared shore, he goosed the throttle to lift the front end. It allowed them to hit the rocky bank with enough momentum to keep from being washed back off. As soon as they made contact, he raised the trim, hustled to the front, then jumped off with a guide rope. Even if they were abandoning it, he didn’t want it to wash away.
“Landfall,” he said dryly, hating what he was being forced to do.
Butch grabbed his backpack and the rifle, but stood at the edge of the deck before jumping down. “Are you sure about this? I was halfway kidding about a third choice. I don’t get paid by the hour, you know, but if you wanted to go back downriver, I’d be fine getting some more windshield time with you.”
“Yeah, I appreciate the offer, but the thing stopping me is those pirates. The people of Chester put their skin in the game to get us out of there. It wouldn’t be right to go back and say we gave up. Besides, pulling up on the cobblestone shore gave me an idea. What if we could find someone with a boat trailer? They could pull us out of the water, then deposit us somewhere upriver, beyond this mess.” He thumbed sideways to the clogged river.
“That’s about as likely as me voluntarily going for a swim.” He chuckled. “But you seem to have good luck from time to time. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a boat trailer right around the corner.”
They both glanced to a white stone staircase going up the thirty-foot hillside below the Gateway Arch. Climbing up would allow them to see what was going on at the Arch grounds, but it would also give them a better look at the river. Ezra scrambled back into the boat to collect his rifle and backpack, as well as the bobber keychain. No sense making it easy for any of the fishermen to walk by and hop in.
“You ever been to St. Louis?” Butch asked, evidently trying to make small talk.
The energy of the water streaming through the blockade of barges and other metal objects created a low-pitched whine, almost sub-sonic in nature. The howl ate at him, sounding like there was an injured animal in the water, so he was anxious to talk over it. “I did some traveling for the Post Office, but I never had the pleasure of coming here for business. Passed it on the highway a few times driving to other places, but never visited downtown. Looks like a nice area, present situation excluded.” They’d walked up the bank of the shore, along a giant flood wall. Bits of driftwood balanced on top of the wall, suggesting the water had splashed to that height.
“Hey, there’s someone up there.” Butch peered up the staircase.
Sure enough, Ezra saw the men at the top. They appeared to be gawking at the half-mile-wide river.
“Let’s go see what they see,” he replied, hitting the steps two at a time. Butch ran past him, skipping steps, too. Ezra managed to keep pace for a short distance, but soon reverted to trotting up one step at a time. His fitness level wasn’t great to begin with, and the last few days of foul sleep and constant tension had drained him.
When he reached the top, he turned to look out on the river. It was worse than he’d imagined when seeing the blockade from below. From his new position, it was clear how the whole mess began. A pair of old bridges had collapsed upstream, perhaps aided by the runaway barges, and the strong current then brought them downriver. However, the modern interstate bridge remained standing, and it acted as a catching glove for the others. From there, with portions of three bridges working in concert, almost every piece of floating debris became trapped, including the barges, towboats, and shipping containers he’d seen earlier.
Ezra whistled in amazement.
A man’s voice startled him back into the moment. “By order of the Metropolitan Police Department of the city of St. Louis, you are hereby ordered to surrender all weapons.”
The guns were the only reason he and Butch were still alive. Ezra wasn’t about to give them up to anyone. He reached for his rifle strap out of habit.
Denver, CO
“Sir, we’ve got the Yellowstone location on flying drone’s video feed.” Howard clicked on one of the big televisions, then he gestured for the technicians to leave the tent. “Clear the room, please.”
The men and women left him and Howard alone. Howard changed the channel until he came to what looked like a black-and-white security camera video. It showed a piece of the asteroid, perhaps half as big as the one there in Denver. The construction company working around the rock were in yellow vehicles, typical of any road work crew in America. However, he also noted the PWI trucks hovering at the edges of the scene, as well as the armed guards standing by those trucks.
Howard coughed to get his attention. “The team is in place. We don’t need your approval for this operation; it’s on my watch. However, if you wish to call it off, please let me know.”
Petteri was impressed, as always, with Howard. If the lawyers ever asked, he could say with a clear conscience he did not order whatever came next. True to his wishes, he didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, though he had an idea.
“Just show me,” he said, keeping it vague whether he was ordering or calling off whatever was taking place on the screen. He put all his trust in his assistant for such matters as security.
“Very good, sir.” Howard held a phone to his face. “You are a go.”
They watched for a couple of minutes, but nothing happened. Trucks arrived at the asteroid, excavators loaded debris into dump trucks, and then they drove away. Based on the volume of the rock, it would take hundreds of loads to get it all, but each truck carried untold riches away from his property. “I want those trucks tracked down afterward, okay?”
Howard acknowledged him.
The screen changed abruptly. There was no audio, but the tempo switched from a hurried extraction operation to a literal evacuation. Men flung themselves into trucks. Tractors sped away from the rock. The guards on the perimeter hunched over and aimed at someone off camera.
“Here we go,” Howard advised.
For about sixty seconds he watched as the men with guns fought and fell over on the rocky rise next to the bulky black asteroid. The PWI guards were picked off one by one, and their trucks were shot up, until there were only a couple of men left.
“There you go! TKM is now back in possession of this dig site.” The ex-major tapped the screen, pointing to the black rock.
“Well, I don’t know how you did it, but congratulations.” Again, his obfuscated language was designed to fool any eavesdroppers. It was blatantly apparent how he’d done it: with lots of guns.
A couple of men walked in front of the asteroid as others scurried up the hill toward the wrecked guard trucks. He may have seen someone shoot at men who surrendered, but those messy details were none of his concern. The only thing that mattered was a favorable outcome.
“Sir. It looks like we suffered no casualties. My team leader said they had no idea we were coming for them.”
He chuckled, reveling in his unending good luck in his recovery efforts. “Tell your man I personally appreciate his hard work and expertise. We may need him again, soon.”
“It’s Misha Gagarin, sir. I flew him in from Billings for this operation.”
“Misha, huh? It looks like he’s more than made up for his slow reaction to our other, uh, problems, hasn’t he? Still, good work deserves praise. Let him know I’m watching.”
Howard sighed in a disturbing way. Almost like he was burdened with passing along bad news, rather than good. “Sir, he’s going to ask about his family. What should I tell him?”
/> “Oh, yeah. Where do we stand with that?”
The man gulped. “Well, in a recent phone call you told him his wife and kids were safe. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to, uh, confirm that’s precisely true. Local police reported finding a dead woman in the apartment listed as his current address in Bryansk.”
Petteri didn’t let the news get him down. At the time, he was so angry with Mr. Gagarin, his whole family needed to die. If some of them were terminated, but not all of them, it was a compromise he could live with. “I did tell him his loved ones were safe, didn’t I? It doesn’t matter. He’s doing good work for us now. By the time he learns the truth, we’ll shove one of those dump trucks of riches at him and he’ll forget he even had a family.”
“So, we operate like nothing happened?” Howard asked.
“Of course. What do you think we’d do, tell him we had his family killed by accident, but we’d still really like him to help us out? I know you’re joking, Howard.”
“I am, sir. I’ll keep him so busy he won’t have time to worry about anything else. When the time comes, we’ll probably need to clean up a few dangling issues anyway.”
He smiled. “Taking out the trash, huh? I knew there was a reason I paid you so well. Hey, if Mr. Gagarin isn’t able to use his dump truck, I’d just as soon give it to you!” He was feeling giddy after regaining two of his dig sites.
All he had to do was confirm Mr. Stricker’s gun restrictions were being enacted. Then he’d set up the meet and greet between him and Dorothy. He wanted to see it happen, if it could be arranged. It would be a lot like the destruction he’d watched on the video screen a few minutes earlier. He couldn’t deny he, like all the other Joe Schmoes out there, enjoyed watching train wrecks, too.
“Now, show me the next site.”
Chapter 21
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 56