Hellfire (The Bugging Out Series Book 7)

by Noah Mann

  Fourteen

  The drive north from where we’d been ambushed by what could generously be termed a unit of Russian irregulars was uneventful. Genesee took the opportunity to rebandage Martin’s ribs and put a fresh dressing over the wound where he’d inserted the chest tube.

  “I have pain medication,” he told Bandon’s former leader.

  Martin shook off the offer and slipped back into his shirt and jacket.

  “I’m not doping up,” he told the doctor. “You’d have to drag me through the next firefight.”

  “You sure there’s going to be another one?” Genesee pressed him.

  “You sure there’s not?”

  There was no adequate answer Genesee could offer to Martin’s retort. And he was right. Despite that, though, I felt at ease. I sensed that, for now, we were safe. As safe as one could be in our world.

  Free of dread, though, did not mean my thoughts were completely settled.

  “Angela...”

  Schiavo looked to me from her place next to Martin.

  “Yeah, Fletch?”

  “What was that back there?”

  She thought for a moment, the vagueness of my question clear enough for her.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “They didn’t have much fight in them.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “So why were they here? If it was a land grab by Russia, or what’s left of Russia, they didn’t put much effort into it. Those troops were fodder.”

  “I know,” she said, shaking her head. “That worries me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if their command is treating them as expendable, there might be more.”

  Matheson, who’d heard our conversation from his place near the turret, looked back toward us.

  “There was no sign of them in Seattle,” the sergeant said. “That would seem a logical place for them to go if they were here to plant their flag. Take a big American city without firing a shot.”

  He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t add any clarity as to the Russians’ motive, or their mission.

  “Maybe their focus is to the south,” Martin suggested, joining the exchange now.

  “Bandon?” Schiavo challenged him mildly.

  He shrugged slightly, wincing through the gesture.

  “Kuratov had enough intelligence from us in Skagway to know exactly where we were from,” Martin said.

  “But Kuratov is dead,” I said. “And he was rogue. He wasn’t operating on any orders but his own.”

  “Maybe some of his men had a deeper connection to the Motherland than to him,” Martin suggested.

  “His men died, too,” Schiavo reminded her husband.

  “Maybe not,” Carter said. “Ma’am.”

  “What are you saying, private?”

  Carter Laws had sat in silence next to me, taking in the discussion. Something in what we’d said, though, had obviously struck a nerve, if only mildly.

  “I was young, but not that young, when we were taken to Skagway,” he said. “I wasn’t in the pit with the little kids. I was out with the adults. And I was watching.”

  What had begun with the forced evacuation of Bandon, along with other survivor colonies the government had identified, had turned into a capture through force of Skagway and the Subterranean Survivor Complex by Kuratov and his elite troops. All of whom we’d taken out.

  Or so we’d thought.

  “Kuratov kept his infiltrator among us in town,” Carter reminded us. “I think he may have had someone outside of town, too. Hidden.”

  “You saw something,” Schiavo said, sensing where the young man was going with this.

  “I saw lights,” Carter confirmed. “They were dim and red. Like you use at night to read maps.”

  “Lights,” I said. “More than one.”

  Schiavo eyed Carter, puzzled.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about this?”

  “I did, ma’am. I told Mr. Perkins.”

  Earl Perkins. Leader of the Yuma survivor colony and, if our past radio communications were correct, a traitor to the nation who’d thrown in with the Unified Government.

  “And he kept that to himself,” I said.

  Schiavo, though, despite the path Perkins had taken after being returned to Yuma with his people, didn’t necessarily think that his lack of action in Skagway was damning.

  “I don’t know, Fletch,” she said. “With everything going on right then, a man like Perkins hears something from a kid, does he act on it or dismiss it?”

  “Or forget it,” Martin said. “In one ear and out the other.”

  “I was looking for you, Martin,” Carter said. “I found Mr. Perkins first and he said he’d look into it.”

  There was no blame to be attached to this bit of information that had been lost in the tumult of the situation in Skagway. But there was consideration that had to be given to it now.

  “So, we’re thinking now that at least one of Kuratov’s men remained when we left Skagway,” I said.

  “They hang around, make their way back to Mother Russia, and report on what Kuratov did, and on what he learned,” Martin said.

  “What they learned about us,” I said. “About Bandon.”

  Schiavo leaned back against the Stryker’s stiff passenger seat, processing what we’d just learned, long after the fact.

  “The truth is, we don’t know what they know,” she said. “Or what they were doing here. What we do know is that one group is not going to cause anyone any grief.”

  “Damn straight, ma’am,” Matheson commented.

  The Stryker slowed and made a turn, shifting as it rolled over a short obstacle.

  “We’re here,” Lieutenant Pell said, looking down from the turret. “Have a look.”

  We opened the top hatches and stood, taking in the sights around us, an expansive apron and torched hangars. Anarchy and looting had been visited upon McChord Air Force Base in the wake of the blight, leaving the facility a shadow of its former self.

  One thing, though, stood out as a symbol that, in some part, our once great nation still endured.

  “Would you look at that,” Genesee said.

  I did, we all did, until our individual and collective attention was focused fully on the beautiful blue and white fuselage in the distance.

  “Air Force One,” Carter said.

  We’d done it. Reached our destination, a bit farther than any of us had planned or expected, and through conditions that should have stopped us. But they didn’t.

  “Good,” Schiavo said, an unexpected tightness to her expression, I thought, as she looked to me. “Because I want some answers.”

  Fifteen

  The aircraft sat at the southern end of Runway 34, nose pointed north, its engines spinning at idle. A half dozen troops stood around it, facing outward. In the old world, the number might have been fifty, or a hundred. Now, this was what could be mustered. But mustered against what?

  I feared we all knew what the answer to that might be.

  “You’ll be wheels up in five minutes,” Lieutenant Pell told us as he returned from inside the gleaming 747. “A member of the staff will be out to get you in just a moment.”

  We stood off to the side of the Stryker, its engine off, Matheson and Hammer seated on the open rear ramp.

  “To where?” Martin asked.

  He gave a half chuckle, a tired reaction to a question with no answer that mattered.

  “I was just supposed to deliver you,” Pell said, shifting his gaze to Schiavo to correct his answer. “To deliver her.”

  Schiavo was instantly uncomfortable with the focus Pell’s innocent words had put on her.

  “I don’t suppose your Stryker will fit on this bird,” she said to the lieutenant.

  “No, ma’am. We came in on a transport. It’s supposed to be back to get us. Soon.”

  He offered the information with a glance at the sky, still blue except for the wall of putrid ash just skimming the horizon to the south. There wa
s hope in what he said, but no certainty. Their ride, a C-17, most likely, was supposed to come. Supposed to.

  “We’ll be heading back light,” Pell said, referencing the vehicle and men they’d lost.

  “Where is ‘back’ for you?” Schiavo asked the young lieutenant. “Where is home?”

  “There really isn’t any home,” Pell said. “Just where they move us to when something needs cleaning up.”

  “You’ve seen more action than just today,” Schiavo said.

  Pell nodded and ran a hand through his damp and dirty hair.

  “I think we’ll be seeing more,” the lieutenant said, glancing back the way we’d come. “No, I’m actually sure of it.”

  The exchange between the Army officers ended when a man in, of all things, a crisp blue suit with complimentary striped tie, trotted down the stairs at the rear of the plane and jogged over toward us.

  “We’re ready,” the man said.

  He wasn’t young, maybe fifty, but had the air and energy of one driven to prove he could keep up with those half his age. His hair was grey at the edges, and neatly trimmed. All about him said that he’d lived well, even in the world torn apart by the blight.

  “And you are?” Schiavo asked.

  “Carl MacDowell,” he answered, holding off adding any more until the captain’s silence suggested he probably should. “I work with the president.”

  Schiavo looked past the man, to the entrance to Air Force One.

  “Is he in there?” she asked.

  MacDowell looked momentarily surprised by the question.

  “The president? No. No.”

  His answer was emphatic. Almost too much so.

  “Then why are we here?” Schiavo challenged the man.

  He snickered lightly, his brow furrowing at the lack of understanding.

  “Miss, the—”

  “Captain,” she corrected him, forcefully. “Captain Angela Schiavo, United States Army.”

  MacDowell accepted the dressing down without comment and continued.

  “Captain, the president doesn’t come to you. You come to the president.”

  Despite the man’s off-putting demeanor, Schiavo knew that he spoke the truth, in both a governing and a security sense. This was no place for the leader of the nation to be, particularly if, as seemed logical, he was in a place both protected and well supplied.

  “All right,” Schiavo said. “We’re ready.”

  Once more, MacDowell reacted with mild amusement at her words.

  “We?” he repeated. “Captain, you’re the only one the president wants to see. Your friends can head home from here.”

  “Wait just a—”

  Schiavo raised a hand and cut me off, her stare laser-focused on MacDowell.

  “The message we received said to send a delegation. This is our delegation.”

  MacDowell gave us a quick look, four more bodies than, apparently, he’d expected he’d have to deal with.

  “Right, I know. We didn’t expect you to make the trip alone. But you’re here, and—”

  “I’m here,” Schiavo interrupted, “with my delegation. Who will accompany me.”

  “That’s not the protocol,” MacDowell said.

  “It’s our protocol,” Genesee said.

  Schiavo gave the Navy man an approving glance, then eyed MacDowell again.

  “You could be telling us a nice story,” Schiavo said. “The reality is, I don’t know who you represent, only who you say you represent.”

  “Once she’s on that plane,” I began, “she’s at your mercy.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Martin said.

  MacDowell absorbed the revolt he was facing, looking to Carter, the only one of us who hadn’t voiced an opinion.

  “You have anything to say, young man?”

  Carter straightened, his commander’s gaze shifting sideways in his direction.

  “I go where my captain tells me to go,” Carter told the bureaucrat. “And she wants me with her, so that’s where I’ll be.”

  MacDowell shook his head, frustrated.

  “Look, Mr. MacDowell,” Schiavo said. “You can either fly back alone and tell the president I was unable to meet with him because I refused to abandon the people who’d gotten me here, or you can let us aboard so we can see what this is all about.”

  It wasn’t an offer—it was an ultimatum. MacDowell knew this. For an instant he glanced behind, to the small array of soldiers surrounding the plane.

  “Don’t,” Schiavo said, sensing what scenario might be unfolding in his head. “You’re not here to force anything. You’re here to facilitate a meeting. That’s all you have to do. Any heat that comes because I’m bringing an entourage, well, that’s heat on me. Not you. Understand?”

  MacDowell knew he had little choice in the matter now. Forcing Schiavo to go alone might very well instigate an armed standoff...at best. His desire to imagine what might be the worst faded very quickly after Schiavo spoke.

  “All right,” MacDowell said, acquiescing. “Captain Borenstein will get you all situated.”

  The bureaucrat turned smartly and returned to the plane, nodding quickly to an Army officer who stood nearest the rear stairs. The man approached us, his attention fixing on Martin for a moment where he leaned awkwardly against the jagged front of the Stryker.

  “Captain Wallace Borenstein,” he said, introducing himself. “Are you injured, sir?”

  “I’m okay,” Martin assured him.

  “We have a medic in our unit,” Borenstein said.

  “We have a doctor,” Martin one-upped him, tossing a thumb toward Genesee.

  “All right then,” the captain said, an almost southern manner about him, minus the accent. “Let’s get you all aboard.”

  Martin started off, walking on his own, his gait almost normal, though I couldn’t tell if that was through force of will, or if he was actually beginning to feel better. Genesee stayed close behind, with Carter just to his right, both seeming ready to provide any support should Martin stumble. Borenstein headed back toward the plane as well, signaling his men to pull in the perimeter they’d set up around the aircraft. Schiavo and I hung back, just for a moment, as she looked to Lieutenant Pell a final time.

  “Thank you again, lieutenant, for getting us out of that hell,” she said, offering her hand.

  “Just glad we were able to locate you,” Pell said, taking Schiavo’s hand in his and shaking it.

  “You take care,” Schiavo said, looking next to me. “You ready for this, Fletch?”

  “If I knew what this was, I could give you an answer.”

  She looked toward the aircraft and I could see in her eyes that she shared my sentiment. It was uncertainty, not doubt, which informed our reaction right then. Then again, little that we’d faced had been presented in clear cut terms. This was no different.

  Except, it was. Everything about it was. Particularly the part about being taken to meet with the President of the United States of America.

  Sixteen

  No one disarmed us or searched us. We’d simply boarded the beautiful 747 with our weapons and gear and took seats near the middle of the aircraft as directed.

  “We’re flying east,” Martin said.

  He was comfortable, sitting next to his wife. Every so often he’d shift, searching for the optimum position in the surprisingly pedestrian airplane seats. Simply being out of all the gear we’d worn for days was comfort enough, but, when one added in that we were no longer on our feet in foot deep ash, and the quick opportunity to wash ourselves in one of the aircraft’s bathrooms, it would have been more than conceivable that we should have fallen fast asleep.

  None of us did.

  “East is a big destination,” Genesee said.

  To that fact of ambiguity, Schiavo nodded, no relief in the affirmation.

  “It sure as hell is,” she said, then rose from her seat.

  Martin reached out and put his hand on hers where it now rested
atop the seat back just ahead.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I want some answers,” Schiavo told her husband.

  “That Army captain looked fairly serious when he said to stay right here,” Martin reminded her.

  Borenstein was his name. Wallace Borenstein. That and his rank was all we’d gotten from the man as he’d escorted us to our designated seating area. Neither he, nor any of his heavily armed troops, offered any explanation, all disappearing forward with MacDowell once we were situated. We were in the air in five minutes, and had been flying for nearly half an hour, glances out the right side of the plane showing the distant ash cloud, still well south of us, and vast swaths of dead woods creeping up mountain slopes. Our destination was a mystery. Maybe a secret.

  Schiavo wasn’t satisfied with that. At all.

  “There’s no conceivable reason why we can’t be told where we’re flying,” she said.

  “Actually, there is.”

  The response came from just beyond her. We looked and saw Borenstein. Schiavo turned to face her fellow captain.

  “We’re in the air,” Schiavo said. “We’ll know our destination when we land, so why keep it from us now.”

  Borenstein, who’d left his rifle forward and come to us with just his sidearm riding in a low thigh holster, took a position half sitting against a short conference table that was just forward of the seats we’d been led to.

  “This is the staff section,” he told us, motioning to the small but serviceable space. “Was, I guess. Not much staff anymore.”

  “Captain Borenstein, we’ve traveled through a fair bit of hell to get to where we are,” Schiavo said. “So excuse me for not giving a damn who sat where on this plane.”

  Borenstein smiled lightly and pointed past Schiavo, toward the back of the aircraft.

  “Guests have a little spot just back there, and then we come to the press section,” he said, continuing with his seated tour of the aircraft despite Schiavo’s protest. “The press. Journalists. What did some people call them? The Fourth Estate? I don’t even know what that means. I probably would if I’d paid more attention in college, but, I didn’t.”