“And if the food runs out the Guardians won’t stay in power for very long,” said Kane.
Lena nodded, “A steady food supply and maintaining public order are at the heart of the Guardian’s claim to legitimacy. If there’s a serious food shortage, people will become angry and desperate. Harken won’t hesitate to unleash the SPD and Red Legs to stay in power, but he’d prefer not to. His dream is to bring the entire continent under his control, not spend his days putting down food riots.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt your fascinating chat about crop yields,” said Cap. “But let’s get back to the part about how we’re going to get out of here.”
Bernie looked at Kane. “I’m gonna help you, but you had better help me when I get to the other side of the river. I had better not get stopped at the border or chucked into some shithole prison.”
Kane nodded, “I promise.”
“And you’re going to give me two hundred cases of Iowa rye whiskey,” added Bernie.
“I will, but that’s a lot of whiskey to move,” said Kane. “We’ll have to break up the shipments or they’ll be confiscated.”
“Don’t send it over the Heartland Road. For big shipments, I’ve got another way,” said the supply officer, a broad grin on his face.
Chapter 41
The abundance inspector uniform and coat Bernie had acquired fit Logan reasonably well, so he was chosen to be the lookout for the group as they traveled. Bernie explained the role of the inspector to Logan, which was basically to check the food containers’ locks and monitor the inventory on departure, on arrival, and at any depots they stop at in between. Bernie’s other inspectors on the train were part of the smuggling operation, but they wouldn’t know that part of this train’s illicit cargo included people.
Bernie led the group to the depot just before dawn and led them to a railcar in the middle of a long string of cars. He explained that the cars’ load of potatoes was loaded through holes in the top by a large chute and unloaded by opening the bottom of the railcar into special receptacles at the destination. This particular railcar had been fitted with a false wall, which created a space about a meter wide, where the others would have to sit single file. All railcars were outfitted with a narrow gangplank running along the outside, which inspectors used to move up and down the train. There would be a railcar in the middle where inspectors could sleep and eat, but Bernie did not recommend Logan go in there. His inspectors were used to seeing the occasional stranger on the train, but the less they knew the better.
“If I can’t go into the inspector’s railcar, where am I supposed to be while the train is moving?” asked Logan.
“There’s a little place for you to stand between this railcar and the one in front of it,” explained Bernie.
Logan wasn’t too happy with that answer but nodded his head.
“Don’t complain,” said Cap. “At least you’ll be in the open air.”
“The train is bound for Erie,” explained Bernie. “It’ll go directly to the shipyard, but you’ll have to be careful getting out. Look for a cargo ship called the Chippewa. The captain is named Larson. He’ll get you to Lake Michigan where he’s already planning to meet a few of my business partners to exchange a little extra cargo. That’s when you all get onto a ship called the North Witch. Captain’s name is Carrington. He’ll get you to shore. You’re on your own after that.”
“Are Larson and Carrington aware we’ll be coming?” asked Ravenwood.
“They will be,” said Bernie. “Leave it to me.”
Bernie looked at Logan. “To get your friends out of the compartment, pull this bolt.” He demonstrated and they heard a click. Bernie pulled on the bottom of the false wall to reveal a door about two meters high and a little over one meter wide.
“Any questions?” asked Bernie.
Kane shook his hand and said, “Thank you. We’ll make arrangements with Captain Larson for your whiskey.”
“And for my new home in Kansas City,” added Bernie.
“Sure thing, but why Kansas City?” asked Kane.
Bernie shrugged. “I like the sound of it. Now get in there, Flat Foots will be here at dawn to do a sweep of the rail yard.”
He nodded to the others, hopped off the train, and headed toward the rail yard’s control tower. The others slipped into the hidden compartment and Logan closed it behind them.
Logan buttoned his coat and raised his collar to keep out the morning chill and hide his face. A few minutes later, a line of about twenty regular army troops appeared at the end of the rail yard. As they slowly walked along, they looked under and between railcars. A separate group was inspecting the various small buildings along the yard’s perimeter. As the line of Flat Foots approached Logan’s railcar, he pulled his collar close to his face.
Suddenly, Logan heard a metal clank above his head. He looked up to see a soldier on the top of the car looking down at him. Just then, the line of Flat Foots reached his car as well. The soldier above him pulled his M-35 from his shoulder.
“See anything?” asked the soldier.
“All’s quiet,” said Logan, trying not give the soldier a very good look at his face.
The soldier stared at Logan for a few moments and then stepped onto the top of the next railcar. The soldiers on the ground moved on as well.
A few minutes later, the train lurched into motion, causing Logan to stumble. He regained his balance and cursed his clumsiness. He told himself a seasoned abundance inspector would have anticipated the train’s movement. He did his best to remain alert but appear bored as the train slowly gained speed and left the rail yard. After a few kilometers, the train split away from the westbound track and headed due north.
Logan watched from his post as the landscape passed by. He saw many abandoned farmhouses and rotted barns along the train’s path. Contrasting with these scenes of abandonment, there were large areas of land enclosed by concertina wire. SPD officers occupied towers outside the wire. Inside these farm developments, he occasionally saw tractors traversing the length of the fields. Spring plantings were starting to emerge from the soil. The tractors were spraying the small plants with chemicals from large containers of liquid mounted on trailers they pulled. Dozens of people walked behind the tractors, stooping down from time to time to dig in the dirt with little hand trowels, not bothering to look up from their work as the train passed by.
He passed by four or five similar farm developments before they arrived at a small depot. As the train eased ahead to fill cars with grain, a group of kids in dirty coveralls came to the fence of the adjoining farm development. They stared at the train as it was being loaded. A girl in the group waved at Logan. He fought the impulse to wave back.
An SPD guard in a nearby tower noticed the children. Using an amplifier, the female guard said, “Return to your development team. Return to your development team.”
The children gazed at the tower. Then they turned around and ran back toward a group of people swinging hoes on the crest of a hill.
The train left the depot about ten minutes later. It passed by more farm developments and old ruins, not just of farmhouses and barns, but also of little towns. Logan could tell that most of them had not been occupied since the Impact, but a few showed signs of life. Sometimes he saw little lines of smoke rising from a chimney or the occasional person staring at the train from the doorway of a rundown building.
Late in the afternoon, Logan caught a glimpse of a wide expanse of blue water. He knocked on the metal wall and said, “We’ll be in Erie in a few minutes. Get ready.”
Erie’s boundary was fenced off from the surrounding countryside by concertina wire. There were SPD guard posts located at the few entrances Logan could see. Erie did not appear to be a wealthy city, but its inhabitants were clearly better off than their neighbors in the countryside Logan had just passed through. There was another SPD inspection station at the shipyard entrance where SPD officers boarded the train and walked up and down its length, oc
casionally asking for a compartment to be opened for them to see inside. One of them asked to see Logan’s inventory list, which he handed over without speaking. The officer reviewed it and handed it back.
After the inspection, the train rumbled forward half a kilometer, finally stopping near the ships. Logan saw the first few railcars open their bottoms and dump their contents into large receptacles. Leaning out the right side of the train, he saw several ships moored along the docks, including the Chippewa.
“Okay, get ready,” he said to the others inside the secret compartment.
He pulled on the bolt to open the hidden door, and they all exited, blinking in the sunlight. With Logan leading them, they quickly hurried across a number of tracks toward the ships, hiding behind parked railcars as they went. They were about to dash to the next group of cars when Logan held up his hand. They instantly froze as a large truck drove up to their hiding spot. It suddenly stopped. Kane drew his sword and the others did the same.
They heard a door slam shut and a man came into view from the other side of the truck. He looked at Logan and said, “You lookin’ for the Chippewa?”
Logan nodded.
“Okay, let’s go.”
The man waved his hand and opened the doors to the cargo space in the back of the truck. Seeing that Logan and the others hesitated, he said, “It’s now or never, let’s go.”
Logan took several quick steps and jumped into the truck. The others followed him. The man closed the doors, and soon they felt the truck move forward. It turned sharply left and headed back in the direction it had come from. After a minute or two, the truck stopped and the man opened the doors.
“Out!” he ordered.
As they got out of the truck, he handed each one of them a heavy sack of grain. “Up the walkway. Captain’s waitin’ for you at the top.”
Logan pulled at his coat’s lapel and asked, “What about the uniform?”
“No time. Just put the sack on your shoulder and go.”
They did as instructed as the man got back into the truck and drove away. Kane led the way, hefting a large sack on his bent back. When he reached the top, a man took the sack from him and stacked in on top of some others. He did the same for each of them as they reached the top.
“I’m Larson,” said the man. “Follow me.”
He quickly ducked into a door in the side of the ship and turned immediately to his left. He led them down a few flights of metal stairs until they reached the bottom of the ship’s hold. He walked toward some large boxes stacked on top of each other along the wall. He pushed some boxes aside to reveal a door.
“Get inside,” he said. “I’ll come for you when we’re out of the harbor.”
As Cap walked by him, he said, “I need to piss.”
“Hold it for another hour,” said Larson.
“I’ll try,” said Cap, “But my eyes are turning yellow.”
Larson turned on a light in the storage room before he left, closing the door behind him. Logan heard him push the crates in front of the door and rush back up the steps.
“Well, it’s been an interesting day so far,” said Ravenwood as he sat down against the wall of the dimly lit room.
“We covered a lot of distance,” said Kane. “Let’s hope the boat ride is a smooth one.”
“I’m sure we’re safe as kittens,” said Cap ironically as he sat down on a crate.
Just then they heard the deep rumbling of the engines coming on line. A few minutes after that, they felt the ship starting to move. Thirty minutes later, Larson returned and pushed the boxes aside.
“Here are some bottles of water. I will take you to a bathroom on the deck above us, but you have to be very careful not to draw attention to yourself. Every cargo ship has an SPD officer on board to keep an eye on things. They know about the trading arrangements we have, and we pay them to stay in their cabins when the exchanges occur. But smuggling people is different. Stay down here in the room unless I come for you. It’s a two-day trip to the rendezvous point with the North Witch. If you stay out of sight, everything will be fine.”
Late that night, Larson returned with some food and more water. “There’s a general alert out for all of you. I don’t know what you’re wanted for, but I’ve never seen anything like it. About two hours ago, the SPD officer questioned us all in the galley. Nobody said anything. The only other person who knows you’re on board is Watts, the man who met you with the truck. But be alert. The SPD officer is doing a lot more walking around on this trip and might come down here.”
They tried to get some sleep that night, fashioning makeshift beds out of the boxes and canvas coverings they found in the room. They slept in shifts, leaving at least one person awake to listen for any unusual sounds outside their compartment.
Chapter 42
Attika followed the nurse’s movements through bloodshot eyes as she walked around the table checking each wrist and ankle fastening. The walls of the small room were painted white. One wall contained a large tinted window. Above Attika’s head was a large bright circular lamp. The nurse tightened the strap holding her forehead and chin in place, preventing her from turning her head in either direction.
The nurse stepped out of the room but soon returned with a metal cart. She pushed it to a spot next to Attika’s left side. On the cart were a number of surgical instruments spread out on a sterile white cloth. Knitting her brow, the nurse mumbled something to herself and rearranged the order of the instruments, occasionally looking at Attika and smiling warmly as she worked. When they were organized to her satisfaction, she turned and left the room.
Colonel Linsky looked through the tinted glass at Attika. His eyes drifted down to where his missing right hand should have been. In its place he saw a black bandage over the stump where his arm ended. When he looked up, he noticed SPD Chief Special Investigator Kosta’s eyes had also come to rest on his bandages.
“You’re lucky to have survived,” said the Chief Special Investigator. “You could have easily bled out on that mountain, and that would have been that.” He snapped his fingers.
“Yes,” replied Linsky. “I was very fortunate.”
The rescue helicopter had flown him and the wounded Special Forces soldiers to a nearby military hospital. The doctors there had moved quickly and efficiently to attend to his wound. They firmly secured the arteries to prevent further blood loss, pared back the nerve endings to reduce the chances of neuroma-related phantom pain, and closed the wound with the latest version of synthetic skin.
“The pain must be immense,” said Kosta.
“It’s manageable,” said Linsky with a faint smile.
Kosta turned his attention to Attika and said, “But instead of recovering in a hospital bed like a reasonable patient, you came to see our prisoner. The item she helped steal must be very important.”
“It is,” replied Linsky. “Thank you for extracting what she knew. It may prove to be critical.”
“Happy we were able to help,” replied the Chief Special Investigator. “And it gave us an opportunity to test some of our new cocktails. Standard interrogation techniques didn’t really seem to be having much of an effect on her. Sleep deprivation, physical persuasion, psych interrogations, all that stuff was failing. They actually seemed to make her stronger.”
“Our interrogation methods are no secret to our enemies,” observed Linsky. “She’d prepared herself. She may have actually enjoyed the interrogation on some level. Studies have shown that fanatics like her get an endorphin rush when they are punished for their beliefs.”
“These people are nuts,” said Kosta as he folded his arms in front of him. “At any rate, she also failed to respond to the standard drug therapy. Apparently, she’d injected herself with something prior to her arrest, which reduced the treatment’s efficacy.”
Linsky nodded as he stared at Attika. “Yes, so I was told. We will have to dig deeper into that. It concerns me that terrorists like her have access to this new drug. It blunts o
ur ability to gather information and prevent future attacks.”
He looked back at Kosta and said, “Thankfully your new therapy produced results. And the residual migraines should provide us with assurances of future cooperation as well.”
“Agreed,” said Kosta. He took a deep breath and said, “Shall we proceed?”
“Yes,” said Linsky.
Kosta nodded toward a guard standing near the door. He saluted and exited the little room.
The door to Attika’s room opened and a man in surgical attire entered along with the nurse, who now wore green scrubs, a surgical mask, and latex gloves. The man walked to Attika’s side and leaned close to her face, examining her forehead. He removed a pen light from his pocket and shined it in her eyes, causing her to moan with pain. The doctor pulled his mask up to his mouth and walked behind Attika’s head.
The nurse moved a cart carrying a small metal tank next to Attika’s head. Attached to the tank was a hose and plastic mask. A computer of some kind rested on top of the cart. She handed the man a black marker.
He examined Attika’s head where the hair had been shaved off. Then he drew several dashes on the patch of skin on her head just above the forehead.
“Call in the anesthesiologist,” said the man. “We’re ready to begin.” She heard the whirring sound of a drill and closed her eyes.
“Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “Please don’t do this.”
“Just relax,” said the man in a soft tone. “We’ll have you all fixed up in just a bit. You won’t feel a thing. And when you wake up, the headaches will be gone.”
Attika whispered again and again as tears flowed out of the corners of her eyes, “Please don’t do this.”
The door opened and a woman in surgical gear entered. She stood over Attika and tightened her head restraint. Then she turned to the cart the nurse had just wheeled in. She activated the computer and adjusted the mask to fit Attika’s face.
The Navigator (The Apollo Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 24