He looked up in shock. “Misha?”
“I believe it is, sir. I’m trying to track him down, but we don’t have many resources in south central Wyoming anymore.”
Petteri absorbed the implications. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t let Nerio know the man who’d killed her husband was still alive. He already had her doing the work required of her. If she got wind of Misha’s continued existence, she’d drop everything and go after him.
“Let’s table this for now, Mr. Aarons. Very good work finding this. No one wants Misha Gagarin out of the way more than I do, but we’re in a delicate phase of my operation. I can’t afford to be sidetracked again. Neither can Ms. Torres. Do you understand?”
Dorothy came in as Aarons saluted. “I understand completely.”
“Very good. Keep up the good work.” He turned to the black-haired woman. “Do you have any news from our reconnaissance assets to the south?”
“That’s why I’m here. The civilians gathered along the railroad and highway are finally attacking.”
Terrorists were pressing in from the east and the south. Nerio was working her magic on the front lines. His hacker employee had set up the mother of all goodbyes with his spacecraft. An outsider might think he should be worried at all the moving pieces, but he ran the largest conglomerate of businesses in the world. He was used to grand complications. In fact, he was elated at how things were playing out.
“It’s time to make them pay.”
Chapter 13
Near Boulder, WY
As Grace looked into the valley, it evoked memories of the old saying she’d often seen characters use in the movies: though I walk into the valley of death….
“This place is a disaster area. It might have been even before the asteroid came here.” Compared to the lush greenery of Yellowstone and the Tetons, at least before much of it was turned to ash, the land sprawling in front of her had never been more than bare rock. The mountain ranges on each side of the valley were snow-capped with gray, ashy snow, and they stood tall above the relatively flat table of land between them. A few paths of green foliage ran along curvy little streams, giving the appearance of veins of a leaf all leading to the stem. From her position at the high point of the valley, she and her friends could see the entire region as it sloped away, though the details became murky toward the horizon, which she figured was about twenty or thirty miles away.
Asher stood next to her. “Do you see the dig site? We should see a big black rock, like the one in Denver. There won’t be any buildings to hide it.”
There were broken trees and divots in the earth nearby, where the rock had bounced, but its final destination wasn’t in her field of view. However, they didn’t need a map to know where to go next.
“I don’t,” she declared. “But Boulder is down that way.” She pointed to the eastern direction, away from the three-way junction.
Rocky walked up behind them. “You’ll pass Pinedale, first. It’s the only town of any substance up in this part of the valley. Population, two thousand. Boulder is next, then there’s nothing until the interstate far beyond.” He pointed to the other highway heading southwest. “Ain’t nuthin’ that way except for Big Piney until you get to Kemmerer about a hundred miles away.”
“Wow,” she said, impressed. “I haven’t seen an area this desolate since we were in the grassy part of eastern Wyoming.”
“Yeah, we’re known for being an empty state,” Rocky agreed, finally smiling.
After some discussion of directions, she and Asher got back in their truck and started the convoy moving again. They headed southeast, toward Pinedale, which boosted her morale during the drive.
“If there are two thousand people in the town, I’m sure we can find a few who want to help us. They’ll see our group of park service trucks and be tripping over themselves to be a part of this. I feel good about what we’re doing.” The memory of bullets ripping through the air had begun to fade.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Asher cautioned.
She ignored him and pulled out her phone. There was a weak signal, so she tried calling her dad. It rang for ten seconds, then went to voicemail. “Hi, Dad. I was right about going to Yellowstone. I have…” She counted the vehicles behind her. “About eleven trucks following my lead. We’re heading for a town called Pinedale, then we’re going to push on to Boulder. We’ve heard there’s going to be trouble there. I can’t wait to meet up with you. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”
Grace hung up without clapping, as it wasn’t easy to do while holding the steering wheel. Besides, the new town was approaching.
Asher chuckled. “You let him know he was wrong, didn’t you?”
“I did?” she said, playing coy.
“Yeah, remember that whole back and forth you had with him about how he didn’t want you to go off alone to the park? How he wanted you to wait for him to arrive? Any of this ringing a bell?”
She may have deliberately forgotten about those phone calls. After getting away from Nerio, she and her dad had finally linked over the phone. He explained why it would take him several days to reach her. She explained why she couldn’t sit around for that time. It turned into a point of contention, except her dad relented much sooner than she would have expected. It was almost as if he trusted her to make her own choices, which both surprised and pleased her. Without Mom around to put the kibosh on her grandiose plans, her dad seemed easy by comparison…
Grace wasn’t going to let memories of her mother get her down. If Mom had given her a hard time, it was a result of Grace planning to do something dangerous. In this case, it was absolutely true. As such, maybe she did gloat a little in leaving the message for her dad. She might have told him she’d been right about heading for Yellowstone to look for help, but next time they spoke, she would tell him he was right, too, about how insanely dangerous it had been. She’d almost been doused by scalding hot water and shot at by a rogue TKM guard.
The day was young, too. It was barely past lunch time.
“Uh, Grace,” Asher said slowly, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“What is it?” she asked, looking around as they drove into the little burgh.
“Signs.” He pointed to spray-painted sheets of plywood nailed against wooden telephone poles. “That one says we should turn back on account of radiation.”
It reminded her of another city.
“I’m going to guess those are BS, like Cheyenne. We know there’s no danger in these dig sites, other than TKM guns.”
Another sign said nothing but the misspelled word “poisin” on it. The word was stenciled with green spray paint, as if the very letters were corrosive.
“Nothing to worry about…” she said while trying not to make it a lie.
Her stomach turned to mush as she scanned the little shops, small homes, and the town park. Grace expected to see some sign of life in any or all of those places, especially given it was the lunch hour. However, as they drove through the town for the next two minutes, there wasn’t any sign of activity, not even the police or military. Cheyenne had at least had men guarding it.
It wasn’t poison, fire, or radiation which had forced the people out.
It had been TKM. Exactly like back in Jackson.
She drove on, determined as ever to find her friends.
Soda Ash Plant, WY
Ezra had a devious plan in his head and was ready to share it with Haley and Butch, but his new phone vibrated to alert him to a message. Despite the growing cloud of dust out on the horizon, he had to take it. “It’s Grace.”
The message was brief, based on the length of the recording. “Hi, Dad. I was right about going to Yellowstone. I have…about eleven trucks following my lead. We’re heading for a town called Pinedale, then we’re going to push on to Boulder. We’ve heard there’s going to be trouble there. I can’t wait to meet up with you. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”
He hung up and immediately spoke to his friends. “Sc
rew this. We’re in the wrong part of the war. Grace is north of here, heading for the town of Boulder. She’s closer than I ever would have thought.”
“What are we going to do? Christian is watching us like a hawk, I’m sure.” Butch pointed down the line of shipping containers to where Christian had gone. “If he’s like most of these chicken-shit wannabe soldiers, he circled around and is now watching all of us in these coffins from a safe perch back in the factory.” He motioned behind them to the soda ash plant a hundred yards away.
Ezra already had a plan in mind, but he stacked on an additional directive. It wasn’t only a matter of helping the approaching people. He needed to get his friends out of the battle completely.
“Okay, we can’t walk straight back to the plant. We’ll be spotted and probably shot for desertion. Instead, we’re going to swing around that way.” He showed them where he wanted to go.
“You think the men in those boxes will simply let us pass?” Butch asked in a low voice.
He drew in a deep breath, knowing what he was about to ask. “We’re going to stop at each one and take them out of the battle.”
Haley raised her hand. “I’m not a coward, but I’m not a warrior, either. How are we going to get this done? What can I do?”
Ezra smiled, handing her the mostly-filled five-gallon water container.
“What do I do with this?”
Briefly, he explained the plan.
Butch whistled in amazement. “That’s ballsy, even for you, E-Z.”
“You guys ready?” Ezra said, not wanting to let how dangerous his plan really was sink in. He’d often scolded Grace for going off on her own, rather than listening to his wise cautionary tales, but here he was, doing an activity way more dangerous.
All thoughts of having a double standard bled away when a bullet whizzed by.
“Hurry,” he exclaimed, waving for Haley and Butch to jump into action. They all ran for the next container. Haley carried the water, which was at least thirty pounds, but he had to admit she made it look easy. After pulling tires for fun, carrying the load was child’s play for her. However, he’d assigned the task to her for a very important reason.
When they arrived at the open doors of the first cargo container, Haley called inside. “Water girl is here!”
A sweaty young man came to his door to greet her. However, what he got instead of a cheery delivery girl were two armed men with rifles pointed at his face. Butch pushed inside, shoving the man backward on his butt.
“Drop those rifles, boys,” Haley laughed.
The three men had no choice but to lay them down. Once they did, Ezra was faced with a dilemma. There was no rope to tie them, their pack and gear was all still back in the pickup truck. They couldn’t let them go, as they would run to the closest TKM guard and report the betrayal. They also couldn’t shoot them in cold blood.
Butch seemed to notice his hesitation. “Make them strip off all their clothes, so we’ll know they have no weapons.”
The three men crowded toward the rear of the container, which was the end without a door. They didn’t seem anxious to strip until Butch aimed his rifle at them. “My friend here isn’t the type to shoot you guys, but I did time over in Iraq. I know how to be very persuasive.”
That got things moving.
Quietly, he instructed Haley to take their clothes and stack them outside the container, toward the front. As she took the load of laundry, a bullet smacked against the outer wall, sending his ears ringing.
Butch slung all three enemy rifles over his shoulders.
“You fellas just stay in here, okay? Those bullets are coming in from the attackers, but if we see anyone running the field in their underwear, my sniper friends are going to make you regret it.”
One of the men spoke up. “We’re not going anywhere. We shouldn’t even be here.”
Another added, “Not our sofa. Not our cushions.”
Ezra almost experienced their pain. Who knows where they were picked up? Who would willingly get into the containers to defend a bunch of rocks? Money could only go so far.
He and his pair of helpers backed out of the container and shut the doors. On a whim, Haley used a discarded belt to secure the handles so the men couldn’t open it from the inside.
“Smart thinking,” Ezra said once it was clear what she was doing.
The trucks were closing the distance. He took a quick peek to see them spread out in a line, advancing toward the soda ash plant like a wall of Civil War soldiers. A few shots came in from those trucks, but they were still too far to shoot at him effectively. It gave them time to move to the next container.
Ezra rallied his troops. “All right. We have our procedure. We take out each group of men using Haley as our bait. It’s going to get us all the way to the edge of the battlefield. That’s where we’ll make a run for the rigs with our stuff.”
The plan worked for several cargo containers. By the time they’d made it to the fourth in the line, one close to the edge of the defenses, the trucks were within a few hundred yards. Definitely close enough to target him and his pals.
“Hurry! We’ll knock this one out, then we’re going to skip the last one. We’ve done all we can and we’ll be close enough to the plant to run there.” He balanced the need to help the attackers while safely extracting himself from the area so he could go meet Grace up north.
Haley hurried up to the door carrying the container. “Water girl!” She tried to sound cheerful, but two bullets pinged off the metal, and one ricocheted wildly off a nearby rock.
They were all distracted by that whirring bullet, which made it a mutual surprise when the door opened, and a pointed gun greeted them.
“Water girl?” Ezra repeated sheepishly.
Chapter 14
Boulder, WY
“There it is,” Grace remarked, feeling a little like she was a participant in a war movie. “Our target for the day. The man on the phone said TKM has a trap there. Anyone see anything?”
She peered through a pair of borrowed binoculars given by one of the others. A few park rangers crouched nearby, looking through their field glasses. It allowed them to take up position on a low rise far outside of town, so they could plan what to do next.
“I see nothing,” she added. The word town was too big to properly describe what she was looking at. There was a little gas station and convenience store on a street corner, plus a similar building next to it. A gravel road ran between them, then through a small trailer park. By following the ribbon of white, dusty rock, it was apparent that was the road leading into the mountains. It was where Shawn and his people would come from.
“Wait!” As she scanned the gravel road, a plume of dust appeared toward the mountain range. “I think I see them coming.” She wondered if Shawn knew his vehicles were throwing up so much dust. It was giving them away.
She lowered the binoculars and stood there for a few moments, thinking about traps, the time they had before Shawn reached the town, and how they might warn him. Thus, she was unprepared when someone put their arm around her shoulders.
“Ash?” she asked, sounding surprised.
He held her tight. “I’m not very suave, Grace, but this seemed like the last opportunity to do this before we got back in the cramped truck.”
She shook off her initial uncertainty, then leaned into him. “I’m always available for snuggling.”
“Even when we’re about to go into danger?”
Grace looked into his eyes. “Especially if we are. I couldn’t do this without you, you know.”
Asher’s rich, brown eyes gazed into her soul. “I’m going to kiss you one last time, too.”
She didn’t hold back. Instead, Grace met him as they embraced there on the hillside. It helped to forget, for a few seconds, what was ahead. However, she had to let go long before she wanted to. “Hey, now. Remember our deal.”
Asher beamed. “When we finally meet your dad, I’m going to ask him if I have his permission
to date you.”
It was their game. Despite her mother often holding her back, Grace was a modern woman. She could date any man she wanted. However, by mutual agreement, she and Asher dialed back their smoldering interest under the pretext they needed her dad’s permission to go out on a real date. Still, it didn’t prevent her from sneaking peeks at Asher, and she often caught him doing the same. Ending TKM’s threat and meeting up with her father was what it was all about, but wanting to finally let herself go with the man she’d come to see as much more than a friend, came in a close second.
Now was not that time.
Rocky and Carson came up to her, as if recognizing their moment of intimacy was over. “You want our advice?” Rocky asked.
She and Asher stepped a few paces apart, and she raised the binoculars again to catch her breath. While Rocky spoke, she scanned the town one more time.
“We think you should drive into town as one big procession. They’ll never be able to stop all of you. There can’t be many of them down there. Look at the place.”
He was right; there wasn’t much to see. The two shops along the highway didn’t seem to be heavily trafficked, though there was a blue passenger car parked in front of the gas station. The trailer park wasn’t much of a going concern, either. There were about ten trailers on each side of the gravel road, lined up mostly facing the mountains. Probably for the view.
Grace did notice movement at one of the trailers.
“I see something,” she said, shushing those around her.
“What do you see?” Asher said quietly, almost in her ear.
A man pushed open a set of doors at the end of the trailer, though it didn’t sit right with her. She had to squint to take in the details, but it was hard to square what she saw with reality. Then it snapped for her. The trailers were long and thin, as she’d expect from any mobile home. They sat in a trailer park, furthering the illusion. However, the man exiting from the end made her appreciate what she was looking at. Most of the boxy shapes weren’t homes at all. They were cargo containers.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 110