“Yes,” Misha agreed. “Get whatever help you need. I like the way you think. Be warned, Nerio will be back again. She has no end to weapons provided by TKM. Even if you do not let me come along, please take the Lahti.” The big gun had been placed on Robert’s truck, which was parked over by the train shed. The workers stood around it admiring the giant weapon.
Robert seemed pumped. “I’ll get the engine ready. It took some bullets, but she’s built to withstand anything. It won’t take me long.”
Misha followed up the statement. “If you can, tell TKM you are heading east. It will throw Nerio off scent for a time.” He hesitated, slowly turning to Grace. “That is, if you are going with us?”
She and Asher exchanged a look before she made her decision. Grace tossed the backpack over to Misha. “Fine. It’s obviously as bad as you say. If we have to go to Yellowstone to make a stand, I’m all for it. I just have to change my voicemail message.”
Misha looked at her as if she’d gone nuts, but she was happy to let him think it. She couldn’t trust him, and she wanted him to be unsure about her motives, too. As such, she pulled out her phone and walked away, careful not to let him overhear her important discussion.
Someone had left a message. She checked the network and found it wasn’t connected at that moment, but the voice message had downloaded to her phone, suggesting it had temporarily linked up at some point recently, as Asher had predicted.
Unsurprisingly, it was Dad. “Hi, Grace. Me and Butch are on the river, moving closer to you…” He went on to assure her he’d gotten her message about not going to Denver, and he added one of his claps, which warmed her heart.
She pressed the button to re-record her greeting for him. “Hi, Dad. I’m changing my voicemail message again. My last one said I was heading east. You won’t believe it, but lots has changed for me. Now I’m heading back toward Yellowstone. I’m going to the dig site south of the park. I’ll change my message again when I know exactly where it is. I love you. Please leave your message, and one of these.” She clapped as close to the mic as she could get.
She hung up smiling. Simply thinking about her father did wonders for her morale. And if they were going back toward danger, she needed all the positive vibes she could summon.
Arrow Rock, MO
“Well, this doesn’t look good.” Ezra and Butch came up the steep bank of the Missouri River and found themselves at the edge of what looked like a tasteful country subdivision, rather than a town. The roads weren’t much larger than a single lane, and the small brick houses were dominated by huge oak trees and sprawling grass yards. A two-lane highway was partially hidden by trees about a half mile away, but there didn’t seem to be anything except houses between him and the other end of Arrow Rock.
Haley came up a few moments later, Liam yanking on his leash ahead of her. She also insisted on bringing Victoria in her crate, though she didn’t let it slow her down.
Butch hung back, not helping her, but appearing ready if she asked. When she walked by, the young man took note of the cat carrier. “Would your kitty survive in a backpack? Would be a lot easier to carry around.”
She seemed to consider. “At this point, I don’t think she’d survive in anything. All the noise and shooting has her terrified.” Haley brought the cage up, so she and Butch could look inside. “See? She’s even afraid of me right now.”
The big guy chuckled. “Maybe it’s me?”
“Naw,” she said, lowering the crate again. “My sweet baby has been like this since I took her from Xander’s place. It isn’t healthy for her to have so much stress.”
Ezra crouched to pet the puggle, who’d taken a seat after the long walk up the hillside from the river. “It’s not healthy for any of us, but we came up here for an important reason.” He glanced down the narrow asphalt lane. “Maybe there’s a gas station at the other end of the street. We should find out.”
“Why don’t we ask someone?” Haley said, walking out onto the shady lane.
“Sounds good,” he replied, motioning Butch to go first.
They walked for a short time before seeing several people out in their yards. He and Butch waved to a man sitting on his back porch, though Haley kept going forward. He was about to ask if she’d missed him, but soon figured out her intentions.
The young woman power-walked toward the fenced yard of a house a little farther up the street. A woman threw a bright yellow tennis ball for her black Labrador retriever. As soon as Liam caught sight of a friend, he barked with anticipation. The other dog stopped in place, dropped the ball, then barked in return.
“Now I get it,” he said jokingly to Butch.
Haley heeled Liam about twenty feet from the low chain-link fence before speaking to the other woman. “Hello! We’re on a boat down on the river. We need a gas station so we can fill up.”
Ezra held up the red five-gallon container.
The woman was probably in her fifties, with straight blonde hair with several streaks of gray. She was dressed in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, as if she hadn’t been expecting visitors. “We don’t get many people come up from the river here in Arrow Rock. Tourists usually come here in cars. ’Course, we haven’t got many visitors since the TV went off last week.”
Haley struggled to control her dog. “But does the town have gas?”
The Arrow Rock resident came over to the fence, moving at country speed. Ezra was well familiar with that mode of travel. It was for those times when you wanted to pull up a stump and chat with a neighbor. It didn’t matter how long it took, or what you talked about. It was simply a way to pass the day. “I’m sorry, we don’t. If you’re on the water, you might go up to Glasgow and hit Stallman’s. You could also go downriver to Boonville. Lots of stations there.”
Ezra spoke up. “I’m afraid we can’t go up or down. We’re running on fumes. We need at least five gallons to get us to Glasgow. More if we can find it.”
“I’m not sure…” she started to say.
“We’re being chased by assholes with guns,” Haley said dramatically. “We expect they’ll come through here looking for us in the next thirty minutes or so. That’s why we’re in such a hurry.”
“Oh, you poor dear. Why didn’t you say? How could I refuse helping such needy people? And your puggle is just so darned cute.” She waved them to the gate, which was near the back of her small but tidy brick home. “Can your dog meet my boy? He’d love some company while I help you out.”
Haley exuded excitement, which seemed to make Liam bounce on his tiny legs. “Oh yes, he needs some puppy time. Thank you so much!”
Once inside the gate, Haley unclipped his leash and he took off after the black lab, which had also gone crazy with excitement. Some dogs became aggressive when interacting with others—he’d seen it back at the lake—but Liam didn’t seem to have a mean bone in him. The lab had a similar temperament.
While the dogs circled each other in the yard, the woman pointed to the crate. “Whatchya got in there?”
“My tabby cat. She’s petrified right now. So much shooting…” Haley’s words faded.
The woman looked inside for a moment, then popped up with a concerned look. “I’ve got a pair of calicos inside. Probably sleeping, of course. I know what you’re going through, being on the road.”
“Thanks,” Haley replied. “I love your hair, by the by. The white streaks make you look like royalty.”
The woman’s smile lit up the yard. “Aren’t you the nicest young thing? I really appreciate the pick-me-up. It’s been a long time since I’ve bothered to fix myself up, with the lockdown and all.”
“Lockdown?” Ezra interjected.
“Sure. Governor has everyone confined to their homes until the situation in Kansas City clears up. They’re saying the whole city is ash after being struck by an unidentified object from above. Of course, they aren’t telling us what it was. News has been no help, either.”
“You don’t know? It was a chunk of aste
roid. Pieces of it came down around the country. One of them blew up our town” —he motioned to Butch—“of Paducah.”
“Seriously? It was one of the rumors we heard, but we couldn’t be sure. The Missouri governor didn’t say much, neither.” She said the state’s name as if it ended with an ah, rather than an ee. “In the absence of news, my neighbors and I have been trying to figure it all out on the internet, but even that’s been cut off out here. We’re the last to know everything.”
The homeowner waved them to follow her to a tiny shed directly behind her place. “I’m Josephine, by the way.”
They all rattled off their names.
“Nice to meet y’all,” she continued. “My husband is driving a truck OTR, so I do most of the chores ’round here. He’s why I know about this.” She opened the sliding door of the tin structure, revealing a riding mower and several familiar red containers.
“Whoa!” Ezra blurted. It was a gold mine, but he couldn’t ignore what she’d said. “Hey, where is your husband right now?”
She shrugged. “He don’t tell me. Sometimes he calls from Maine. Other times, he’s in Oregon. That man has seen more of the country than I ever will. We’ve talked about riding together once in a while, but we never got around to it. I guess I do enjoy time to myself…”
He didn’t want to ruin it for her. Truckers were probably sitting on the highways, like those he’d seen around the ruins of Paducah, waiting for cities to be opened and traffic to clear. If she hadn’t heard from the guy in a week, he also had to wonder if he’d survived at all. None of those were ideas he wanted to share with her.
The woman went on. “Why don’t you leave yours? Take one of mine. We’ll call it even.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Ezra said in a wistful voice. He wanted to say yes. Her cans were the old style, without all the useless emissions garbage attached to the spout. They were a lot easier to use when in a hurry.
“Pshaw!” Josephine replied. “You think I’ll need all this gasoline for any other purpose? My lawn isn’t even very big. It’ll last me all summer. You’re doing me a favor by taking some of it.”
Haley cheerfully pulled out her phone. “Give me your number. When we get back to civilization, I want to send you a little token, okay?”
Josephine stepped closer to her, speaking quietly. “Haley, you do have a little token I might take as a temporary payment.”
Haley looked confused. “What? I’ll do whatever I can.”
The woman brushed back her hair, then pointed to the cat crate. “Let me help you take care of your little precious. Leave her here with me. When you come back through, she’ll be waiting for you.”
The pretty girl’s face folded up in horror. “I can’t!”
Denver, CO
Petteri was hip-deep in status reports and updates from Mr. Aarons and his counterparts at all the other dig sites. Each phone call brought him a mixture of good and bad news about how his workers had gained control and continued extraction of his precious ores, but the bad news seemed to edge out the good.
The situation in Denver had been going downhill for days. After the brief interlude of peace imposed by the barrels of TKM guns, the city was breaking down into anarchy. More men were required to travel with each dump truck both in and out of the city. He’d paid off thousands of men to work for him, but there were hundreds of thousands of residents and competing miners trying to stop him.
Similar reports were rolling in from Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, and Kentucky. He still kept full control of the more remote dig sites in Wyoming, Nebraska, and western Oklahoma, but pinprick attacks were common, even in those places. To speed things up at the sites near rail lines, he’d tried to up the flow of ore by commandeering every coal hopper in America. There was no genuine need to have them all, but it was all about control. As long as TKM had contracts on them, none of the other companies could use them. Rail companies were more than happy to take his money.
He was interrupted by a knock at his door.
“Who is it?” He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
“Dorothy.”
Even she didn’t rise to his level at the moment. “I’m sorry, I’ve got—”
“Stricker called me on my phone. He wants to talk to you.” She sounded disgusted. It wasn’t tough to understand her reasons. She’d piqued his interest. He became intrigued as to why the government employee had called her.
“Come in,” he said tiredly.
She strode in and dumped her phone on his desk. “I do not want to talk to that man ever again. I’ve already paid my dues with him. He doesn’t get to keep tormenting me.”
He smiled, certain she was being dramatic in a passive-aggressive manner. Sure, he’d asked her to meet privately with the portly fellow, but they’d been in the conference room. Nothing untoward could have happened.
Petteri picked up the phone. “Mr. Stricker? This is Petteri Tikkanen. How can I be of service?” Though he saw the other man as working for him, he maintained the veneer of civility to keep things smooth between them.
“Ah, very good. She put me through to you. I was very pleased to hear your assistant’s voice, as you know.” The man sounded winded, even on the phone.
“Happy to hear it. What do you want?”
“Oh, my friend, I’ve been following what’s happening around the country with each of your impact sites. The ore is flowing out. Trucks, and now trains, are flowing in. Well, I guess that isn’t true everywhere, is it?”
He clamped his jaw tight. What was the man’s game?
“Anyway, there is one teensy-weensy clause in our contract I’d like to execute. Something Dorothy fought me on tooth and nail, but which I was surprised you left in there after the ink was dry.”
Petteri’s head spun. His usual army of lawyers hadn’t been around to inspect every line of the contract. He’d read it himself, but in the interest of time, he may have cut a few pages off the word count. It was all boring standard text. “Go on.”
“Right. The United States government is entitled to one of the ten biggest pieces of 586001 Tuonela as compensation for the damage done to the nation. I’m sure you would agree the nation has suffered from the accident caused by your asteroid, and I’m sure you would agree for the sake of publicity we can square up the costs involved with this minor inconvenience for TKM.”
He glared at Dorothy. At first, he was angry she’d given him the phone, then he was upset with himself for letting her come in, and finally he was mad at Stricker for getting him over a barrel.
There was also the issue of devaluation. One of the reasons he’d wanted to collect all his ore on the sly was to time its release on the markets. If a hundred companies collected a hundred different rocks worth billions of dollars in gold, it would make gold prices plummet. If he could parse out gold and other rare earth minerals in smaller doses, it would preserve the price point, and his fortune.
If there was one thing the government would fail at doing, it was conservation. Stricker and his people would gobble the minerals and sell them as fast as possible, even if it meant they received pennies on the dollar.
“Mr. Stricker. Don’t you think this discussion would be better as part of further negotiations? Perhaps another visit to discuss how this might work to both our advantages? I’m sure my assistant Dorothy would—”
Dorothy turned and stormed out.
“—be able to help you.”
The man blew his nose on the phone. “As much as I would love to talk with her some more, I’m afraid the president himself has asked this of me. You and I have our, uh, arrangement, but there are some situations where I cannot meet you halfway. This is one of them.”
He had to press the guy to the max. It was uncouth to discuss the elements of blackmail with the participant, but a curt reminder was sometimes unavoidable. “Even if it means those untidy photographs were to get out?”
The line went silent for several seconds.
“Mr. Stricker?”
“Let me see what I can do.” He sounded deflated, which suited Petteri fine.
“That’s what I wanted to hear!”
He slammed the phone, sure he’d made his point.
Chapter 7
Sidney, NE
Grace wasn’t sure what to think about her recent choices. Misha’s sudden arrival was fortunate, but their group decision to travel west, rather than toward her dad, caused hours of uncertainty for her. They’d crossed into Wyoming before Misha joined her and Asher on the back end of the rolling flatcar. He sat down and hung his legs off the deck, as they were doing.
“Thank you for giving gun back.” Misha patted his pistol. After much discussion about it, she’d decided it made no sense to keep him weaponless. They’d already established he’d had ample opportunity to kill them. She had to take him at his word he was helping them. He couldn’t do it without a gun.
“We also have the rifles we stole from other TKM security goons. You’re welcome to use one. Giving you the guns was Asher’s idea and I supported him a hundred percent.” She talked up Asher so Misha would know they were in it together.
“Harasho, uh, okay,” the Russian man responded. “All very good.”
Grace watched the track roll out from under the flatbed car for a short time. “Misha, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for your family, but, honestly, I don’t know how to feel. If they were still alive, it would mean I was dead. That’s why Petteri killed them, right? Because you didn’t get to us in time.”
He clicked his teeth. “Da. I mean, yes. I understand your confusion. I do. However, you must know I was not always like this. Petteri was good boss for the time I worked for him. I was bodyguard, not paid assassin. I went to gym twice a day. Had nice apartment in city. Made honest living for my family. It was only when asteroid was inbound—” He flexed his arm, drawing a downward path on the horizon, “that he ask too much of me.”
She let him think for a few seconds before he went on.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 86