“Yep. Assuming we can make it and it’s not snowed in by the time we get there.”
“What if it is?” Sierra asked.
“Then we’ll sit it out somewhere like Santa Fe.”
“Ah.”
Lucas ate his last bite of bread and stood. “Time to hit the road, fellas. Best of luck making it back in one piece.”
Arnold also stood and shook Lucas’s hand. “Thanks for the help. We did it.”
“Seems that way,” Lucas agreed.
“You two be careful. I wouldn’t want to be heading into the belly of the beast like you.”
Lucas lowered his voice. “Makes two of us.”
Sierra frowned as she rose. “I heard that.”
They carried their saddlebags to the corral and retrieved their horses and tack, tipping the boys before mounting up. Sierra waved at Arnold and John while Lucas scoped out the area, looking for his admirer from the night before. He didn’t see anyone watching them, so he led Sierra down the dirt path toward the highway, aware of his surroundings as they rode.
“You seem tense,” Sierra noted when they turned south.
He told her about the prior night. She shook her head.
“Probably was staring at me,” she said. “Not that you’re not worth a second look.”
“No, he was eyeing me.”
“Maybe he was interested.”
That drew a tight smile from Lucas. “Takes all kinds to make a stew.”
“Well, I don’t see anyone following us, so we’re in the clear.”
“Still got all the usual suspects to watch for.”
“Their bad luck if they try to get the jump on you.”
“It’s the trying that can get you killed. We’ll stay off the roads, same as ever.” He looked to his right. “And here’s a trail. Time to put that into practice.”
They picked their way through the high grass to a track that stretched toward an abandoned farmhouse with a broken wind vane and half the roof gone. Tango veered left along another trail and Lucas let the stallion have his head while he checked behind them, the nagging sense that all wasn’t well still with him from the night before. Seeing nothing, he lifted his binoculars and swept the trees just to make sure.
“Anything?” Sierra asked.
“Nope.”
“Maybe what’s bugging you is your guilty conscience.”
Lucas sighed and dropped the spyglasses back against his chest. “I’m not proud of the men I’ve killed, Sierra. It eats at me every day.”
She gave him an odd look. “I was thinking more about us living in sin.”
Lucas’s face flushed slightly. “Oh.” He chuckled. “Not feeling too guilty about that just now.”
“We’re going to hell.”
“Way I read the preacher’s sermon, we’re already there.”
“Still time to turn it around.”
Lucas shook his head. “Problem is, if I manage to sneak past the pearly gates, I won’t know anybody. All my friends will be in the basement.”
“You’re irredeemable.”
“Set in my ways,” he agreed.
“There’s always the chance I could make an honest man out of you yet.”
Lucas held his tongue, marveling at how differently their brains worked. He was running scenarios, calculating the odds of making it to Vicksburg without getting killed, trying to figure out their next step, and Sierra…well, Sierra was considering other matters.
She fell silent for several minutes, and when she spoke again, her voice was earnest and hushed. “Thanks for doing this, Lucas. You’re a man of your word. That means everything to me.”
“Even if I’m a sinner?”
It was her turn to smile to herself. “There’s worse things.”
He nodded. “At least the hours are good.”
That brought a laugh. She studied his profile: the worn straight-brimmed hat pulled low over his brow, eyes continually scanning, skin tanned the color of burnished copper. “Why, Lucas, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re developing a sense of humor.”
“Tango will tell you I’ve got a great one.”
They quieted, leaving only the sound of birdcalls from the trees along the trail and the clumping of hooves as they made their way toward enemy territory and the unknown.
Chapter 28
St. Louis, Missouri
Dr. Charles Darby looked up from his desk at his assistant, who’d offered a courtesy tap at the lab doorjamb and was standing at the threshold with an excited expression.
“Yes, Colleen?” he asked, setting his reading glasses down and fixing her with an expectant stare.
“They’re here,” she said.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed, and pushed back from the desk. “Let’s go see what goodies they brought, shall we?”
Darby was a distinguished man in his early sixties, lean with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and a perennial expression of mild bemusement, as though puzzled by the continual folly of the human condition. An oncologist by training, he’d parlayed a chain of free-standing radiation treatment centers into a waterfront home in the Hamptons he would never see again, as well as this walled compound on the outskirts of the city that was now home to a thriving colony of like-minded survivors – the remnants of a militia cell that, like he, had prepared for the worst and who’d agreed to share resources with him and fight against the encroachment of the gangs who’d ridden roughshod over the land since the collapse.
Darby followed Colleen from his office down the hall to the building entrance. Originally a lodge for corporate retreats before it had fallen on hard times and been bought for a song by Darby, it was perfectly suited to its new role as the headquarters of the militia, whose numbers had swollen to fifty over the years as new recruits had joined.
The nucleus of the compound was walled, making it easily defendable, and had ample land surrounding it for vegetable gardens, along with a grazing area for the cattle and sheep they’d acquired through trade. The outbuildings surrounding the main house served as bunkhouses, and one of the original rec halls had been converted into a passable medical clinic and lab, as well as Darby’s offices and storage for all the necessities and equipment he’d accumulated over the years. An ample solar array provided power, a well sufficient potable water, and regular hunting parties reasonable variation in their menu.
The perimeter wall was eight feet tall, crafted from brick and mortar and reinforced to stop even armor-piercing rounds, with turrets at each of the four corners that were manned at night by pairs of sentries with assault rifles and night vision gear. An electrified fence encircled the property, whose battery banks stored sufficient charge to fry anyone unwise enough to try to take them on.
With Darby’s help, they’d created a sustainable enclave of sanity in a mad world and had been able to stave off attacks by miscreants to the point where the compound was avoided as a death sentence by the gangs that still terrorized the area.
Darby stepped out into the afternoon sun and shielded his eyes with his hand as a half dozen horsemen rode through the open gate, Lisle in the lead. When the younger man saw his mentor, his face lit with a grin.
“We did it!” he exclaimed, and reined his horse to a halt, slipped down from the saddle, and strode to Darby to shake his hand. Darby embraced him and patted Lisle on the back, ignoring the road dust that covered him.
“Well done. No difficulty?”
“None. We made decent time and avoided the problem spots.”
“Excellent news.” Darby eyed the rest of the party. “Where is it?”
Lisle unbuckled the straps of his saddlebag and withdrew the containers, still taped shut, and presented them like gifts to the doctor.
“I didn’t open them.”
“Let me get them into the lab so I can verify they’re fine. Good work, Lisle. It’s a proud day for us all.”
Lisle flushed at the praise. “Glad I had the opportunity to contribute something.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.” Darby studied his face. “Get cleaned up, fed, and grab some sleep. You look worked.”
“It was a long one.”
“No need to explain. I can imagine.”
Darby handed one of the containers to Colleen and escorted her back to the lab. There he carefully removed the tape from the containers and lifted the lids to peer inside, where rows of sealed vials fitted into cavities in the polystyrene greeted him.
A note was taped to the inside of one of the lids, and Colleen peeled it from the container and read it aloud.
“Charles. Greetings from paradise. Each vial holds ten doses of vaccine, which has been tested as discussed via radio. The other container holds the relevant cultures. Reach out if anything’s in question. Good luck, and God bless. You hold the future of the world in your hands. Elliot.”
Darby smiled and nodded like he’d listened to his favorite symphony’s opening measures. “Elliot’s always been a bit melodramatic,” he explained.
“Well, it’s a big day. Nothing wrong with a little hyperbole,” she said with a wink. Colleen was twenty going on fifty, razor sharp and possessed with a particular charm Darby fought daily to resist. He routinely encouraged her to find a suitable mate among the young men of the militia, but she dismissed his prodding with complaints that they were all immature clods and dullards.
“Future of the world, eh? Well, perhaps not that much of an exaggeration if the virus spreads any more than it has.”
“But didn’t you say that was unlikely?”
“Of course. But nothing’s impossible. This is our insurance against the unthinkable happening. Which, given our recent history, isn’t as far-fetched as we’d like to think. All it would take is one carrier traveling west. Or someone weaponizing it, God forbid.”
“Why would anyone do that?” she asked.
“We as a species have been killing each other since we could hold a rock or a club, so I have little faith that our nature has changed much. Wherever there’s a thirst for power, death follows.”
“But the world’s a shambles,” Colleen protested.
“That it is. But no more than it was when the Mongols or Visigoths swept the land. The poor condition of the planet didn’t stop them from butchering everyone in their path.” He shook his head. “No, the truth is that we’re a warlike tribe, and if there’s an atrocity that can be imagined, it will be carried out by someone.”
“Well, thank goodness you’re here to stop this one.”
“Or do my best.”
Colleen studied her shoes as Darby removed a vial and studied the seal on it. “Will there be anything else?” she asked.
“What? Oh. No. Thank you. I’ll just inventory these and finish up my work. Go ahead and take the rest of the afternoon off. I won’t be much company, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind staying.”
Darby shook his head, pretending not to notice the undercurrent of pleasant tension neither of them overtly acknowledged. He hummed to himself as he walked to a workbench and searched for a felt-tip pen, and Colleen’s shoulders slumped slightly as she made her way to the door.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said. “I’ll be in the mess hall helping my mom.”
“Perfect. Will do.”
Darby stole a look at Colleen’s departing form and exhaled heavily. “Youth is wasted on the young,” he whispered to himself. Much as he was tempted by her thinly veiled overtures, he was the leader of the compound, and she deserved someone young and vital with whom she could start a family, not a broken-down doctor who had socks older than Colleen. He’d tried to steer her toward Lisle, but she’d been uninterested – a shame, as he needed a companion, and even if not of robust physique, he was certainly possessed of a strong moral character and keen intellect.
He sighed and found the marker he’d been after, and pushed libidinous thoughts from his mind as he turned to the work he’d been waiting for years to begin.
~ ~ ~
Night had fallen and the compound was dark, the sentries in the turrets drowsy as they neared the end of their shift. An owl hooted from one of the trees by the eastern wall and then flapped away, frightened by a loud pop from a nearby thicket.
One of the two sentries’ heads exploded from a custom-loaded subsonic slug, splattering his partner with blood and brains. The surviving guard froze at the drenching, and then his upper dental plate shattered from another round.
The area fell silent again, the other three turrets far enough away that they hadn’t been alerted by the sound of the suppressed shots. The moon disappeared behind a cloud, and a score of gunmen in head-to-toe black ran from where they’d disabled the electric fence and made for the wall beneath the neutralized turret.
When they reached the wall, one of the point men hurled a grappling hook secured to a length of knotted rappelling cord over the top, and after confirming that it was secure, scaled the sheer surface in moments and dropped in a crouch on the other side. He swept the area with his night vision monocle and, seeing no movement, jogged to the gate while keeping to the shadows, and slid the two heavy bolts securing the steel barricade open.
The gunmen were inside in a blink, and the sharpshooter who had taken out the two sentries climbed the iron rungs to the tower as his companions took cover below. Once he was in the guard post, he pushed one of the corpses to the side and unslung his rifle to dispatch the other sentries.
Two pops in quick succession neutralized the watchers in the northern tower, and then a warning shout sounded from one of the darkened bunkhouses, followed almost immediately by the staccato bark of an AK-47. Rounds snapped around the sniper’s head and pocked the exterior of the tower, and he ducked down – the game was about to become much harder.
One of the attackers below him ran in a beeline to the bunkhouse and tossed a grenade through a window. The glass shattered with a crash, and then the structure plumped like an overcooked hotdog and flames erupted from within. A militiaman staggered from the doorway, firing on full automatic, and an answering volley cut him down as another blasted away from the interior of the building. A second grenade sailed through the door and detonated, and the shooting from the bunkhouse fell silent, replaced moments later by a barrage from the second building.
Several of the attackers fell to the onslaught, their ceramic body armor failing after multiple hits from high-velocity rounds, and they tumbled backward as the rest took what cover they could and pressed the assault with relentless fire at the new shooters. Up in the tower, the sniper saw his chance as the sentries directed their aim below, and shot both of the southern tower gunmen during the confusion from the blitzkrieg attack.
The fighting continued with more grenade blasts and gunfire until the second bunkhouse was silenced. Only a dozen of the attackers were left standing, but they wasted no time and made for the main building’s entrance. Once inside, the fighters worked their way through the interior until they reached the last room, where they were stopped by a steel door.
~ ~ ~
Darby stood in the near darkness of his lab beside the refrigerator containing the vaccine samples. Awakened by the shooting and explosions, he’d peered out his window to see the main bunkhouse destroyed and a paramilitary force attacking the second with disciplined fire and grenades.
He’d intellectually prepared for this moment, knowing there was a chance that it would come, and had agonized over how he would react if it did. Watching his people slaughtered with cold, calculated precision told him that his worst fears had been realized – the attackers that had somehow breached their impenetrable defenses were anything but the unruly gangs of predators that abounded beyond the walls.
Which meant that somehow Lisle had been followed or a tracking device had been planted in the containers. He cursed as he felt along the workbench and slid open a drawer – he hadn’t thought to check the boxes. The idea that he might have been responsible for the death of those he cared about was li
ke a physical pain, but he shrugged it off at the sound of someone trying the door handle.
He was under no illusion that the barrier would hold indefinitely, and he knew what he had to do. Strangely, all his fears that he might be paralyzed into inaction proved to be in vain as he felt in the drawer for the metal orb that would deny his adversaries the two things they’d come for – the vaccine and his know-how. Any doubt was replaced by a deep calm that surprised him more than anything else that night.
Before he could second-guess himself, he pulled the pin and tossed it and the spoon aside, and then walked unhurriedly to the refrigerator and opened the door, holding the grenade over his chest, where it would vaporize the contents of the fridge as well as his body.
He said a quiet prayer for forgiveness at his deed, which he hoped would be interpreted as dying in battle and not suicide, and then the world relinquished its hold on him in a blinding flash just as another detonation blew the lab door off its hinges.
Chapter 29
New Orleans, Louisiana
Snake bit back his fury as Zach relayed in a dispassionate tone the message he’d just received from his headquarters. The compound in St. Louis had been raided by a mercenary group employed by the Illuminati, but the assault had failed and they were no closer to their objective than they had been a month before.
Snake eyed the man like he was insane, and then forced himself to breathe deeply. When he finally spoke, he sounded reasonably calm.
“So no vaccine, and no leads on where the Shangri-La survivors are?”
Zach nodded. “Correct.”
“They didn’t follow the group that dropped off the vaccine?”
“Yes, but when they split up, they had to make a decision who to go after. They opted for the pair that went to Springfield.”
“And?”
“And sometime over the last week, they must have gotten wise that they were being tailed, and they lost them.”
The Day After Never - Retribution (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 4) Page 15