He sat still, in the tall grass of his hill overlooking the neighborhood. The vehicles holding the abductees began pulling out; a mix of big family-sized SUVs and school buses. He’d already decided he was going to follow and had just started to move when two tractor trailers rolled in and disgorged a large team of armed foragers. He couldn’t help but be impressed with their technique. They moved quickly and worked as a team, emptying the houses and garages of anything of value. He could follow the tractor trailers more safely than he could the cars and trucks that had already departed.
He was even more cautious during the hike back out to where he’d hidden the Land Rover than he had been on the way in. The whole operation had been run like a forced relocation of an Afghan village that lay in the path of some impending operation. If he’d been planning what he’d just seen, he would have detailed a group of slow trailers to watch the area for a day or two.
Whoever these guys were, wherever they were headed, his trip out to Dagman’s farm would have to wait.
*
Chapter 3
Newport News, VA
Pavel Eduardovich Volkov looked down at the sleeping form of Captain Naylor. He’d almost been surprised when the captain had reappeared on the deck of his submarine before it dove for the last time. The American Navy captain had finally dispensed of his responsibility to his ship, without letting go completely. Captain Naylor had, unlike so many others, decided to live. In Pavel’s mind, it entitled the man to some uninterrupted sleep.
The fishing trawler with which they’d followed the Boise to deep water rode through the waves with a rocking motion that the submarine had not had. When he’d vomited over the side during the first day, he’d felt it a small victory that there had been anything in his stomach to void. They were going to live. None of them feared the virus any longer, not even Dr. Mandel. They’d lost one of the American Antarctic researchers in Cuba, but to insanity, not the virus. The woman had refused to get back on the submarine and wandered away into the hills above their beach.
The Boise had brought them to the famed American Newport News naval port before dropping off most of its passengers and returning to the sea for one last voyage. Colonel Skirjanek had remained ashore with the rest of their people, “to try and get organized,” while he had accompanied some of the Navy crew on the trawler. The same trawler was just now motoring across some invisible barrier where the dark blue of the ocean took on a muddier green color that reminded him of the Sea of Azov and the waters around Rostov na Donu, where he’d grown up.
He took that as a sign. This place wasn’t home, but nor was it Chechnya, Syria or Libya, and his new companions seemed like decent people. To his genuine surprise, he found that he liked Colonel Skirjanek. He didn’t yet know if the man was worthy of being followed for the long term. To date, the colonel had been nothing but fair in his treatment of him and his fellow Russians. Time would tell. For the moment, he was grateful for the suddenly smoother ride of the fishing boat and very anxious to have his feet on solid ground again.
“You look like a man with a lot on his mind.”
Pavel looked behind him to be certain there was not someone else in the wheelhouse besides Captain Naylor, who was still asleep on the couch. There was only the Boise’s executive officer, Hoyt Sweet, driving the ship and looking at him sideways.
“I am anxious to get to land.”
“I hear that.” Sweet was older than his captain by a good ten years, perhaps in his early fifties. His hair was gray, his face weathered from worry and a lifetime at sea. Pavel knew the type; this man had given his life to service. The Navy personnel on his submarine would have been like his children. Pavel thought the big man could have passed for a Russian until he opened his mouth to speak.
“How long, Mr. Sweet?”
“Another ninety minutes in this tub. It’s just Hoyt, by the way. I figure my Navy days are just about over.”
“What means your name, Hoyt?”
“Doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that it was my grandfather’s name.”
“I see.”
“Meant a lot to me and the others that you were ready to go after the captain, pull him out.” Hoyt spoke softly with a glance back at his sleeping captain.
He shrugged. He’d given Skirjanek his word that he would do his best to make certain Captain Naylor did not take the same path as his ship.
“He saved us; he is owed.”
“He wouldn’t see it that way,” Hoyt whispered. “Still . . . thank you.”
He didn’t know what to say. No one should have to thank anyone for doing their duty. He was going to have to get used to these Americans and their practiced politeness.
Hoyt motioned out the window with his chin. “Given how far you are from home, it seems a shitty thing to say, but I grew up around here. It’s going to be strange to see the place with no people.”
“Will you remain with Colonel Skirjanek?”
“I suppose I will,” Hoyt answered after a moment. The man let out a short bark of a laugh. “Not like I have anything else to do.”
“Will all your people feel the same way?”
Hoyt shook his head. “You saw them when we made port. I’d be surprised if half the people we landed with are still there.”
He hadn’t noticed. He’d just assumed they’d all stay with the colonel. “Would the colonel just let them go? He is in command, no?”
Hoyt just gave him a strange look. “In command of what? The boat is gone, country’s gone, no more Navy. I figure whatever his plans are, it’s going to be a volunteer effort.”
“I would think people would know there is safety in numbers.”
“I don’t think a lot of our people care, Mr. Volkov.”
“Just Pavel, please, or Pavel Eduardovich.”
Hoyt barked his laugh again and nodded his head knowingly. “Pavel it is.”
“What would these people do if they leave?” He couldn’t see the logic in wandering around a dead America, any more than what he imagined for himself had he been able to get to Russia.
“Try to get back to wherever they came from. If they don’t die getting there, they’ll probably just find that anybody they cared about is dead.”
“They should stay.”
“No doubt.” Hoyt nodded out the window. “That said, first thing I’m going to do is go check on my brother’s family in Norfolk. I won’t be following anybody until I know for certain. They’d be the only people I have left.”
“That is understandable,” Pavel lied. The man had to know his family was almost certainly dead. For him, it was easy to think so; he’d had no family left when he’d volunteered for a two-year rotation at Vostok Base.
“And you?” Hoyt asked him. “The colonel seems to talk to you as much as anyone. Do you know what he has planned?”
“I do not.” Which was another lie, but an allowable one. He could see the acceptance in Hoyt’s face. “He has mentioned he has a location in mind.”
“I’d figured your people would try to find a serviceable boat and get across the pond to Europe.”
He thought about what Hoyt had said; that many of the Americans would leave their party. He hadn’t even considered whether some of his countrymen would feel the same way.
“It would be foolish,” he answered. “If they survived the trip, everyone is as dead there as they are here.”
He could only make out half a dozen figures on the concrete wharf as the trawler passed the massive dry dock holding the rusting carcass of a half-finished aircraft carrier. Pavel thought he could make out Skirjanek’s smaller athletic frame standing next to Antwan Sikes and Chief Petty Officer Cruz, who both towered over him. Behind them, he could make out Dr. Mandel and several of his fellow Russians.
As the trawler neared, he could see a larger group in the shade of an open warehouse door. It was late May, and already the oppressive heat and humidity he’d been warned about had arrived. After their recent experience on the ice pack,
Pavel welcomed it.
He watched with interest as Hoyt’s Navy crew threw ropes ashore to their comrades. He could not pretend to understand most things nautical, but even to his unpracticed eye, the trawler was tied up with what he considered a bare minimum of care or professionalism. Captain Naylor’s emergence from the pilothouse and down the makeshift gangplank was met with a few cheers and more than a few salutes. Naylor seemed to be a different person since awaking. He thought Hoyt had put it correctly when the XO had told his captain that “he still looked like shit, but a lot better than he had.”
The Navy captain had actually smiled in response.
The trawler emptied quickly until he was the last one to cross over to the quay. Skirjanek seemed to have been waiting for him.
“I’ve never been one for speeches,” he began. “Having to give them is even worse than having to listen to them. That said, Captain Naylor, we all owe you our thanks.” Skirjanek nodded towards the captain of the Boise. “It seems somehow small to just thank you, when we all owe you our lives. You certainly don’t need me standing here telling you that your duty is done. You know that in your bones. We all do.
“For everyone still here, your participation would be very much appreciated, but it is not expected. Many of our survivors have already elected to strike out on their own. They have my blessings and prayers. In the event they change their minds, I told them we will wait here for one week. You all need to make that same choice, take the same time to refit and regain some strength.
“Anyone who comes with me needs to know that I can’t tell you what we will find out there, only that I’m personally going to hang on to my mission. Not because of my last orders, but because I believe it’s going to need to be done. Navy personnel and any of our other service members are free from any obligation. I’ve discussed this with Dr. Mandel; the same holds for our Russian friends. The world has moved on. We each deserve to start anew in the manner of our own choosing.”
“What is that mission, Colonel?” Hoyt asked from where he stood next to his former captain.
“I only have a goal,” Skirjanek said without a pause. “Create an environment that is safe, somewhere the survivors can recover, rebuild. We’ve all seen what’s happening with the survivors—this place won’t be any different than Cuba, just far better armed. I don’t have a clue what we’ll find. I do know it will need to be done, and it won’t be easy.”
Skirjanek paused and seemed to nod to himself. “As I said, that’s the goal. As far as an immediate mission goes? It’s to get healthy and organized. That is going to have to suffice for the moment. I don’t want anyone to join me who isn’t committed to the goal I outlined, so take the week, think on it, and decide.”
*
Chapter 4
Charlottesville, VA
Jason didn’t know what to think of Charlottesville, or maybe he needed to think of it as the campus of UVA; other than the one overriding fact that had been echoing in his head for the last hour as he observed the armed camp that had established itself across the University of Virginia campus. These people have their shit together.
He’d followed the tractor trailers back here, expecting them to roll up to a camp of armed goons. They’d instead backed into a package-handling facility on the edge of the campus, and started unloading just as another pair of trucks were departing with a convoy of six SUVs. He’d watched as nearly a hundred people—men, women, even a few teenagers, almost all of them armed—unloaded the trucks in the dark. He moved on to a different part of the campus, moving slow and staying hidden within the forested greenbelt, angling towards the area of the campus that was lit.
It had rained all day, but the evening was clear and warm. The common area, lying south of Jefferson’s famous Rotunda in the middle of campus, was swarming with people. It looked like a giant swap market. It was by far the single largest concentration of people he’d seen since before the die-off, and as opposed to Bauman and the feudal freak show he’d had going in Tysons Corner, all of these people seemed armed. There wasn’t any divide he could see between soldiers and sheep. No one seemed to be guarding anyone, and they’d managed to keep the lights running. The whole picture stood in sharp contrast to the activities he’d seen outside Culpepper.
He sat up from where he hid, atop a thick carpet of rain-slick rotting leaves left over from last autumn. He could see a glow of light over a row of dorm housing, across and behind the large lawn running south of the Rotunda. He backed off through the greenbelt and had started moving westward when he came across a wide strip of cultivated land. He couldn’t tell what crop had been planted, but the wooden sign in front of him reading “4th Hole, Par 5—468 yds” was just one more piece of evidence that someone here was thinking for the long term.
Twenty minutes later, he’d successfully skirted the western edge of the campus, past the golf course; all what he’d seen had been plowed and planted. The glow of light was coming from the football stadium. His cover gave out as he approached the edge of the stadium’s parking lot, and he was forced to stop. He spotted the guards around the place right away. Again, there was a mix of men and women; they all seemed very much awake and attentive as they guarded the tunnel entrances to the stadium. Each of the entrances had two static guards and a chain-link gate backed with plastic tarp, blocking any view within. A single light tower atop the lip of the stadium bowl was lit, and it had only one row of lights burning. Someone had adjusted the big lights to cover the whole stadium.
He was trying to figure out if the guards were there to keep people out or if there were people being held within, when an SUV and short transit bus rolled into the parking lot from the far end and drove slowly around the stadium to the main gate. Unarmed prisoners, subdued to the point that a couple of them were nearly carrying what looked like wounded, were unloaded from the two vehicles and directed at gunpoint down the tunnel. He had his binoculars up and was watching when the covered chain-link gate swung open. He caught a glimpse through the open gate of tent tops and a few figures who stood in the foreground, watching the newcomers come through the tunnel.
Shouts brought his attention back around to the bus. He watched as the guards shouted warnings and pointed their rifles at one teenager or young man who was running for all he was worth away from the stadium.
“Stop! Or we will shoot!”
A second later, two guards opened up and dropped the fleeing prisoner, shooting him in the back as he ran for the woods. The procession of the other prisoners, almost two dozen in all, including a couple of small children, paused for a moment until they were waved on into the stadium.
The gate swung shut, and he lost his view of everything but the guards on the outside, who simply went back to their posts. The drivers of the two vehicles collected the body and threw it into the back of the SUV. The stadium guards waved at the drivers of the two vehicles as they rolled back out the way they had come. Within a minute, the scene looked just like it had before they’d rolled up. There was a practiced routine to the process that left him wondering how long this place had been up and running.
He stayed where he was, kneeling behind a stand of trees and wondering what the hell he had just seen. When the stadium’s PA system blared to life, it caused him to almost jump out of his skin. Five minutes later, when the looped recording started over, the hair on the back of his neck and arms was standing out with goose bumps.
“Welcome to the New People’s Republic . . . We are the safety and new beginning you have been seeking. Together, we will rebuild and make new, a society that we can be proud of . . .” And on it went. It sounded a lot like somebody’s wet dream of a socialist nirvana. Like any other religion, the recorded message hit all the required points of faith, common humanity, sacrifice, and zeal. What was lacking was any room for choice, free will, and most pointedly, any other religion. On that particular point, the suck and the die-off were offered up as evidence that God didn’t exist, and never had.
“Those who put the
ir faith in such lies brought us to this point. Those who remain will not survive to share our new world, nor will any who resist. Others collect the castoffs of the old world. We collect people, the survivors, the builders of all that will be.” The message played twice in the baritone voice of someone used to public speaking. It was as well done as he could imagine anything like it being done in the here and now. Background music accompanying the presentation left him wondering if he was just hearing the audio from a video running inside the stadium.
The false dawn was less than two hours away. He’d seen and heard enough to scare the shit out of him. He had started backing off the way he’d come, through the front nine of the former golf course, when the message started up again, this time in a woman’s voice. He paused long enough to listen for anything new, but there wasn’t; different voice, same message. He felt for the people held within the stadium. If the loop played all night, people were probably agreeing to anything just to be free of the place. Allowed the security of weapons, and fed, housed, and protected by the numbers of the place, why wouldn’t they sign up?
He’d seen how they collected people, and it didn’t mesh very well with the collectivist message of hope and justice that he could still catch pieces of as he moved farther away from the stadium. He imagined their sales pitch had held a lot more appeal last winter. Many people had still been in shock and a lot more vulnerable than the average survivor was at this point in time. He’d seen that himself. Those still alive at this point, at least the people he’d had contact with in Tysons, were a lot harder and in many cases a lot more self-sufficient than the average survivor had been early on. Judging by the new arrivals at the mall, they didn’t strike him as the type to buy into this kind of con. Then again, the group he’d watched get taken in Culpepper hadn’t exactly been volunteers, and they were in all likelihood inside that stadium at the moment, listening to Big Brother and Sister.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 2