Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5)

by Arthur Bradley

  Mason swung the forklift in line with the bags and slowed, once again studying the controls. There were three levers on the right side of the steering wheel. Each had etching on their face, but in the dim glow, he couldn’t make any of it out. He slid the left lever up, and the forks started to rise. He did the same for the second lever, and the blades tilted forward. Likewise, the third lever moved the blades wider and narrower. Okay, he thought, this I understand.

  He raised the blades until they were in line with the loops at the top of one of the bags. The width appeared to already be set right, so he inched the forklift forward. The left fork snagged on the edge of the loop, but it finally pushed its way through. When he had both forks through the loops, he nudged the center lever. The engine moaned as the forklift hoisted two thousand pounds of peanuts into the air.

  Something heavy smashed against the door to the receiving area. The enemy was at the gates.

  Mason wheeled the forklift around, careful not to swing the vehicle too quickly and risk flipping it over. He lined up with the door and floored the gas pedal. Even with a full load, the forklift quickly accelerated to a respectable eight miles an hour. As he neared the doors, the sliding latch broke free, and one of the doors burst open. A pishtaco pushed its way in and immediately shuffled away into the darkness. A second one was halfway through when Mason collided with the door. The momentum of the peanuts and forklift slammed the door against the creature, pinning it between the door and the frame. Bones snapped, jabbing through layers of fat and sending blood spattering across the white tote bag.

  The creature bellowed, screaming and thrashing.

  Mason lowered the second lever, tilting the blades down and then shoved the forklift into reverse. As the forklift retreated, the huge bag of peanuts thudded to the ground in front of the doors. Without waiting to see whether it would hold, he wheeled the forklift around and headed back for a second load.

  From the other side of the room, Bowie started barking. They had problems of their own.

  Mason swung the forklift in their direction, using the headlights to flood the area. The pishtaco shuffled toward them with its arms outstretched and mouth gaping open. Bowie slowly advanced, snarling, determined to stand between it and his charge.

  Mason was still fifty feet out—too far away to affect the outcome of what would come next.

  As the pishtaco neared, Bowie leaped forward, latching onto a huge roll of fat that at one time had been the creature’s nipple. The monster screamed in pain and tried to shake him loose. Bowie’s bite didn’t falter as he shook his head from side to side, tearing at the slab of flesh.

  Mason lowered the forklift blades to a few feet off the ground. Five seconds from impact!

  Blood ran down the creature’s stomach as Bowie ripped at its flesh. The pishtaco struck him on the side, and the dog tumbled away, taking a flap of skin with him. Bowie cried as he hit the ground, but he quickly rolled back to his feet and lunged forward to latch onto the back of the creature’s calf.

  The pishtaco was preparing a tremendous downward strike that probably would have killed Bowie when the forklift finally hit. The forks straddled its enormous body, scraping their way across the creature’s rib cage. An instant later, the heavy steel mast drove it back against one of the totes. Too large to duck under or climb over the forks, it resorted to mindlessly beating against the mast and hydraulic lift cylinder.

  Mason quickly considered his options. He didn’t dare back the forklift up and try for a better hit. He had to work with what he had. He reached for his Supergrade but stopped short. There was a better way. He grabbed the third lever and shoved it all the way down. The engine whined as the forks slowly inched closer together, crunching bone and collapsing the creature’s chest. It began to cough blood, and its eyes bulged out. As the forks slowly ground to a stop, the creature collapsed forward, its head smacking against the lift with a wet slop.

  Bowie shook the pishtaco’s leg one final time before finally letting go. Then he looked up at Mason as if to say, There! I killed it for you.

  Rather than chance moving the forklift, Mason hopped down and raced over to another one. He quickly started it up and retrieved a second tote bag, transporting it to the doors like he had the first. Despite the powerful banging from the other side of the door, the first bag was still holding. As Mason lowered the second bag next to the first, he was confident that nothing, not even a mob of peanut-eating mutants, could push through a four-thousand-pound barricade.

  At least, he hoped not.

  Chapter 12

  Dr. Tran and General Carr stood in front of Greenbrier bunker’s main exterior door, watching as a UH-60 helicopter slowly descended toward the concrete pad. The door was one of six entrances, all hardened to the point where they could withstand anything shy of a direct nuclear strike. This particular door was nineteen inches thick and weighed more than twenty tons. Yet it could be opened with as little as fifty pounds of force, a true testament to the engineers at the Mosler Safe Company.

  Huge pistons protruded from the edge of the door, barely clearing the tremendous steel frame nested into the concrete. Above the door was a line of rusted exhaust fans. Even though they hadn’t run in twenty years, the fans provided enough passive ventilation to keep the air in the facility from growing stale. A faded white sign hung on the door that read Warning: High Voltage, a clever deterrent thought up by designers of the mine to prevent curious locals from poking around the Cold War facility.

  As the wind from the helicopter began to buffet them, the general placed his hand on top of his hat to keep it from blowing off.

  “Take care of her while I’m away,” he shouted.

  “She’ll be fine. We just need to give her time to heal.”

  “And to adjust to the situation.”

  Tran nodded. “Yes, that too.”

  “It goes without saying that you are not to let anyone into or out of the bunker while I’m away. These doors stay locked.”

  The doctor nodded again. “I understand.”

  “I’ll need two days to meet with various parties. Assuming I can gather the necessary allies, I may not be alone when I return.”

  “Good. It will do her some good to see a few friendly faces.”

  The wheels of the helicopter touched down, and General Carr shuffled out to meet the small crew of Marines. While not yet aware of the situation with President Glass, they knew that he was engaged in some kind of secret activity but had never felt the need to question his movements. The time for secrecy, however, was nearing an end. Soon, battle lines would be drawn, and every man would be forced to choose a side.

  The trip back to Mount Weather was tiring and noisy, the way all helicopter flights are. While he still had much to do, General Carr looked forward to a few hours of shuteye. He stopped at the metal hatch leading into his room, knelt down, and felt for the toothpick that he had inserted in the bottom of the door to detect intruders. It wasn’t there. He looked more carefully and found the toothpick lying in the railway beneath the grated metal floor.

  Someone had been in his room.

  He pushed open the metal hatch but stopped short of entering. The room was orderly and sparse, exactly as he had left it. But there was something out of place. Not an object, per say, but an odor. Like most soldiers, General Carr had been exposed to cigarette smoke for much of his adult life, and while he didn’t smoke personally, he could identify most of the popular brands by their smell. This particular odor was from a Lucky Strike cigarette, an iconic brand that traced back to American GIs fighting in World War II.

  He glanced over his shoulder and considered retreating back down the hall. No, he thought, even though someone had been poking around while he was away, it didn’t mean they were still in the room. An intrusion to be sure, but not likely a physical threat.

  Still, it was better to be prepared.

  General Carr pulled the belt out of his trousers and wrapped it around his hand with the buckle facing outward
. A knife or a sidearm would obviously have been better, but Carr was a man who believed in fighting with what he had.

  He stepped into the room and closed the hatch behind him. Placing his back against the heavy door, he stood for a moment, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the dim lighting. There was an almost palpable energy heating the room, a living presence that could be felt as clearly as the pulse in a man’s neck. Call it the delusions of an old man or the instincts of a veteran soldier; he was now certain that he was not alone.

  There were only two places to hide, under the bunk or wedged behind the cabinet that contained his uniforms. Choosing to go under the bunk was the action of a man hoping to wait things out. If, however, he was standing behind the cabinet, it could only mean that he was planning on a more violent confrontation.

  “You might as well show yourself,” Carr said in an even voice.

  Nothing moved.

  With his back against the wall, he slid left toward the sink, hoping to get a better look around the cabinet.

  “If you had bothered to shower, I might never have known you were here. Too late for that now, son. I’ve moved away from the door, so if you’re planning to run, now’s the time. I’m too old to chase you.”

  Still nothing.

  “I see. That’s not what this is about then.”

  When Carr reached the sink, he stopped and slowly unbuttoned his jacket to provide a little more freedom of movement.

  “The way I see it, you’re either under the bunk or beside the wardrobe. You’d have to be a damn fool to hide under the bed, so I’m going with the wardrobe.”

  After a long moment, a man slowly stepped out wearing fatigues and a black ski mask. He held a Gerber Mark II in his right hand. The knife’s six-and-a-half-inch black oxide blade had been perfectly designed for one purpose. Killing. What was perhaps even more telling was the soldier’s cold gaze, filled with a resolve as unshakable as that of the famed assassin Jozef Gabcik.

  Carr eyed the pillow on his bunk. Beneath it sat a Colt M1911, cocked and locked. Once in hand, it would take less than a second to disable the thumb safety and fire. Unfortunately, it was ten away, too far to make a hasty grab for the weapon. He bent slightly at the waist and prepared for the attack.

  “All right then,” he said. “Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to carry out your mission.”

  Jozef advanced cautiously, wary of being drawn into some kind of a trap. As he got closer, however, his confidence seemed to grow. He slashed out with the blade, hoping to nick Carr and perhaps cause him to panic and run. General Carr leaned back against the sink, and the blade passed three inches in front of his stomach. As soon as it did, he lunged forward, grabbing for the man’s hand. He managed to get ahold of Jozef’s wrist, pushing the knife away while he punched him squarely in the face. The belt buckle tore the man’s upper lip and cracked his two front teeth, sending small chips flying into his mouth.

  Jozef struggled to pull his knife free from Carr’s grip, but no matter how hard he pulled, the general refused to surrender the weapon. He fired a short elbow strike, hoping to loosen the old man’s hold. The blow caught Carr in the eye, and he fell to one knee, still clutching the man’s wrist. Jozef brought a knee up, but as his foot left the ground, Carr dove forward, knocking him to the ground. They briefly fought for control of the knife, finally ending up chest to chest with the blade pinned flat between them.

  Still afraid to let go of the weapon, Carr reared back and headbutted him in the face. The blow hit solid, breaking Jozef’s nose. Before Carr could hit him again, Jozef leaned up and bit the general’s right ear, gnashing his teeth from side to side until he tore away a chunk of bloody cartilage. Carr screamed and rolled away, stopping only when he bumped into the metal slats supporting his bunk.

  Jozef sat up, nursing his left arm. During their brief scuffle, the knife had sliced a two-inch gash on his forearm, and a steady trickle of blood now dripped onto his lap.

  “I’m going to take the skin off your face one layer at a time,” he growled.

  General Carr rose to one knee and reached under the pillow, his hand settling around the ivory grip of the M1911. He clicked off the thumb safety but waited to pull the weapon free. Some moments, he thought, were meant to be savored.

  When Jozef next spoke, there was a nervous rattle in his voice.

  “Don’t tell me you’re the kind of paranoid nut who sleeps with a gun under his pillow?”

  General Carr smiled. “You bet your ass I am.”

  General Carr studied himself in the mirror. The would-be assassin had bitten off most of his earlobe, but the rigid cartilage at the back still remained intact. He dabbed at the wound with a wet rag. It burned, and he had to clench his teeth to keep from screaming. He looked over at Jozef’s dead body. Surprisingly, even after firing three shots, no one had come to check on the commotion. That, he thought, was probably by design. Whoever had arranged for the killer to be in his room had also arranged for the vicinity to be clear of possible witnesses or Good Samaritans.

  He turned back to the mirror. His eye was already swelling and turning black, but his vision remained clear, which meant there had been no damage to the eyeball itself. All in all, the fight could have gone better. Then again, he thought, glancing over at the body lying face down on the floor, it could have gone a hell of a lot worse.

  He checked his watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon. He had already left messages calling together the six people President Glass trusted to keep her secret, and he would have to keep that meeting. Afterward, he would need to flee Mount Weather for good. Once Pike got word that his assassin had failed, he might well decide to make a second attempt.

  The small conference room was quiet, as if its four occupants were being forced to sit in after-school detention. Jack Fry, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sat with his wheelchair positioned at one end of the table. At the other end, Bill Baker, the Secretary of Energy, leaned back with his arms crossed. The room’s two other occupants were Tom Pinker, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and Dr. Sara Green, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  Jack finally broke the silence.

  “I assume we’re all here for the same reason.”

  “I received a note from General Carr asking me to meet him here,” said Pinker. “He indicated it was a matter of grave importance. He also said that I should tell no one about the meeting.”

  Bill Baker and Dr. Green both nodded, confirming they too were there by the general’s invitation. Before anyone could speak further, General Carr burst into the room. He quickly checked the hallway before closing the door behind him.

  “General, why have you called us here?” demanded Dr. Green. When she saw his ear, she exclaimed, “Oh my Lord, what happened to you?”

  Carr said nothing as he took a quick roster of those in attendance. Two of the six he had delivered notes to were not present. Perhaps they had thought better of accepting his cryptic invitation. Unfortunate, but certainly understandable.

  “Were you in some kind of accident?” she continued.

  The general gently touched the bloody flesh that remained of his ear.

  “This was no accident.”

  “No? What then?”

  “Someone tried to kill me.”

  Everyone in the room sat a little straighter.

  “Who?”

  “One of General Hood’s men, if I had to guess.”

  Dr. Green looked to the others for an explanation. No one offered one.

  Tom Pinker studied the general. Pinker was a serious, quick-witted man who had spent the early part of his career working in the intelligence field. Because of that, he had a reputation for getting straight to the point.

  “Why would General Hood try to have you killed?”

  “Because he’s a real tool, and I mean that in every sense of the word.”

  Bill Baker cracked a smile. Everyone else seemed to miss the humor.
/>   “You still haven’t answered my question,” said Pinker. “Why does he want you dead?”

  “Nearly a month ago, I discovered that General Hood and Lincoln Pike murdered a compound of US Marshals in a plot to undermine President Glass. When President Glass revealed her plan to bring them to justice, they had her brutally stabbed.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Dr. Green. “President Glass was attacked by her own Chief of Staff, not some military assassin.”

  “That’s true, but I have since discovered that Yumi Tanaka and Lincoln Pike were lovers.” Everyone at the table except Pinker reacted with surprise. “I see that at least one of you already knew this.”

  The other three turned to face Pinker.

  “Is it true?” Bill asked in a raspy voice. His vocal chords had been damaged from a bayonet wound suffered in Africa some twenty years earlier, and if anything, his voice had only deteriorated with time.

  “I had heard rumors to that effect, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone about it after the assassination?”

  Pinker shrugged. “It was only a rumor. Besides, there was no proof of wrongdoing by anyone other than Ms. Tanaka.”

  “There is proof,” said General Carr, “but we don’t have time for that now. I’m not trying to stage a coup against President Pike. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Then what are you trying to do?” asked Jack.

  General Carr shifted his gaze from one person to the next.

  “Before I tell you, I need for everyone to realize that the secret I’m about to share is extremely sensitive. Lives depend on your ability to keep it.”

  Pinker met his stare. “General, I think you knew before asking us here that we are all capable of keeping secrets. What is it that’s so sensitive?”

  General Carr hesitated. Once the genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back in. Despite his reservations, the decision to let others in on the secret was not his to make.

  He straightened. “President Rosalyn Glass is alive.”