“All right, what are we going to do now?” Sara said.
No one answered. No one knew. Sara thought she heard a clock tick and looked around suddenly, the sound already foreign and out of place. No electricity. No clock. Of course, she had been wrong.
Sam slid off the counter and walked to the kitchen window. Something from outside had caught his attention, and he leaned across the old sink, standing on his toes to peer down on the street. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It seems there aren’t any good options. But I will tell you this, we can’t stay here.”
Azadeh looked around anxiously. Up to this point she’d been quiet, but her eyes were expressive now and full of fear. Sara saw the look on her face but didn’t understand it. Mary, who knew her better, leaned across the table. “We’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do now,” she said to Azadeh to assure her. “Where we’re going to go, how to get there, you know, all that kind of thing.”
Azadeh concentrated, then turned to Sara. “When you say ‘we,’ you mean you and your sons—”
“All of us,” Sara assured her. “We’re going to stay together. We need to stay together. It’s better for us all.”
Azadeh’s eyes remained wary. She didn’t believe them, not yet, not completely. She wanted to. She desperately wanted to believe they wouldn’t leave her, but little in her life experience indicated that that would be true. It seemed much likelier that they were going to abandon her at the earliest possible moment. She was a liability, not an asset, and she had been around long enough to understand how it worked. So, though she tried, she remained on guard, searching for an advantage as they talked.
Sara turned to Sam. “You say we can’t stay here,” she said. “Are you certain that’s true? This might be the best place we could be. It’s safe, at least, and certainly better than being out there on the street.”
Sam shook his head. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. It’s a rough neighborhood. We stand out. We’re a minority and not a welcome one.” He glanced at Azadeh. “Some even less than others. Hard as it will be for us, it will be much worse for Azadeh. She can’t blend in. Everyone will know where she came from. And let’s face it, no one’s too thrilled about Muslims or Middle Eastern people right now, especially out there on the street.”
“But Azadeh’s going to be the minority anywhere we go.”
“That’s true, but it’s a lot more than that, Mom. We need to get out of the city. From the looks of it, most people have decided to stay here. I’m guessing, like us, they don’t have anywhere else to go. But it’s going to get harder and harder to exist here. No food. No clean water. It can’t hold up for very long. And when it falls, I like our chances much more out in the country than here.”
Sara glanced at Ammon, who slowly nodded in agreement.
“I don’t know if I should leave my home,” Mary said, looking around the apartment she had lived in for so many years.
“We can’t tell you what to do,” Sara answered. “We’ll do everything we can to help you, but the truth is, there’s little we can do if you decide to stay here.” She glanced down at Kelly Beth, who was still sleeping in Mary’s arms, then nodded toward Azadeh. “You’ve also got to consider what is best for Kelly Beth and Azadeh. Are you going to be able to take care of them?”
Mary fell quiet. “I don’t know how I’ll even take care of myself.”
Another cold moment of silence.
Sam, who had been listening quietly to the exchange, finally spoke. “I don’t have much time,” he said.
Sara turned to him, her face falling. She pressed her lips together. Her hair was hanging limp now, dirty and lifeless, but she was still beautiful.
“This war isn’t over. I only have two weeks.”
Sara stood and moved toward Sam and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m just so thankful you were able to come to us even for just a few days. Imagine where we’d be if you hadn’t come.” The soldier held his mother. “How I wish you could stay,” she whispered to him.
“Mom, you know I can’t.”
She pulled away and put the palm of her hand across his mouth. “I know. I understand. And I’m not angry. I’ve been married to a soldier for more than twenty years. Believe me, I understand. What it means is that we’ve got to move more quickly. We’ve got to figure out where we’re going and what we’re going to do.”
Ammon stood and moved toward the telephone. Mary watched him. “It’s not working,” she said.
The phone was sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. He didn’t even pick it up. “You have a phone book?” he asked her.
Mary stood, walked to the cupboard, opened it, and dropped a thick black-and-yellow book into his arms. Ammon took it, thumbed through the back, referred to a couple of the maps in the front of the phone book, then motioned to his mother and Sam. They talked together.
Ten minutes later, they had a plan.
NINE
Taxi Two-Five, Thirty-One Miles Northeast of Little Rock, Arkansas
Lieutenant Bono sat alone on a cracked vinyl crew seat in the front cargo compartment of the Air Force transport, his backpack at his feet, his handgun strapped in a camouflage canvas holster at his side. Sometimes he dozed. Sometimes he stared, his head back, his vacant eyes looking straight ahead. Inside the cabin, it was noisy enough to make it difficult to communicate, and the crew members who passed up and down the cargo compartment seemed more than happy to ignore him as they went about their work. For two hours he hardly moved, though sometimes he would glance down at his watch. The interior of the military transport aircraft was illuminated only by a line of small, recessed bulbs that ran along the sides of the floor and a few red lights spaced out on the cabin ceiling overhead. The vibration of the four enormous engines hummed throughout the aluminum airframe and the air smelled like ozone, dry and clean but a little too sterile to be comfortable. There weren’t any windows in the cargo compartment but the cockpit door was open; if the lieutenant leaned over, he could look forward to the cockpit and through the front windscreen to see the utter darkness that had settled outside. It was shocking, how little starlight or even moonlight penetrated the clouds of dust that were blowing through the upper atmosphere—and there was not a single ground light anywhere.
Bono watched for a long moment, shook his head, then leaned back against his seat again.
The cargo master, an Air Force sergeant, walked past him to check his load, cursing the loose straps in overly colorful language and pulling them tight again. Walking back toward the cockpit, the sergeant—himself a little weary from having worked for more than thirty hours straight now—couldn’t help but notice the strain in his passenger’s face. The lieutenant was young and his hair and skin were so dark that he looked almost like a foreigner—Mediterranean, maybe Greek, maybe even Arab. It didn’t matter, the sergeant figured anything but straight-up American was a real unpopular look right now. And the lieutenant acted tired. Dirt tired. Combat tired—the bone-crushing, muscle-sapping, eye-drooping weariness that comes only with combat. The young man had seen a lot of combat; the master sergeant could see that in his face.
The loadmaster stopped and nudged him. “Hey, lieutenant, remember, you can sleep when you’re dead.”
Bono opened his eyes and looked up. The sergeant offered him a bottle of water, which he took gratefully and almost emptied in a single gulp. The sergeant leaned toward him, talking loudly enough to be heard above the noise from the jet engines and hissing high-pressure environmental systems. “How come your watch is still working?” he asked, nodding toward Bono’s wrist.
Bono didn’t seem to hear him but looked down. “I was underground when it hit,” he said. The sergeant tilted his head questioningly. “The Metro in D.C,” Bono explained.
The sergeant nodded. “You know how much a working watch is going for down on the street? I know a guy who was over in Germany when the EMP hit. Just got back a couple days ago, so his watch was still working. Sold it
for two thousand dollars yesterday. At least that’s what he claimed. But he was an Army guy so, you know, who knows if it was true.” The Air Force sergeant smiled. Yeah, the world was falling apart, but things weren’t so bad he couldn’t still get in a little Army dig.
Bono lifted his eyes but not his head. “Believe me, dude, I know what you’re saying. Can’t trust an Army guy any farther than you could throw ‘im.”
The sergeant smiled again.
“Really, two thousand dollars?” Bono asked.
“That’s what he said.”
“Know what?” Bono answered. “I’d have kept the watch.”
The enlisted man leaned forward, bracing himself as the aircraft bumped through a pocket of turbulence.
“U.S. bills, Monopoly money, it’s all the same now,” Bono said.
“No,” the loadmaster shook his head, “it won’t always be like that. Remember, the rest of the world is still out there, pretty much unfazed. They’ll step in to help us. Things will soon get back to normal.”
Bono thought of the nuclear bombs over Gaza, Washington, D.C., other cities in the world. He thought of the EMP attacks and the utter devastation that had swept across the country. “You really think so?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore; his eyes were sincere.
“Promise you, lieutenant.” The sergeant patted Bono’s shoulder. “Keep the faith, sir, keep the faith.”
“Hope you’re right.” Bono closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest.
The sergeant watched, then prodded him again. “Where you headed?”
Bono lifted the collapsed water bottle and sucked the last few drops. “Trying to get to Memphis. My wife and daughter are there.”
The sergeant nodded toward the Special Forces emblem on Bono’s lapel. “Special Forces, eh?”
Bono looked down at the pin. “I only wear it so I don’t have to remind Air Force guys that I’m better than they are.”
The sergeant faked a laugh. “Hey, good one. Never heard that one before.”
Bono smiled and winked at him.
“You’ve been away a long time?” The sergeant was serious now.
“Way too long.”
“Your family, they’re OK, though?”
“Far as I know. They went to stay with my in-laws before the EMP hit. It should be pretty safe there, out in the country.”
The sergeant nodded, then turned and walked toward the cockpit. Half a minute later he returned with a couple more bottles of water and handed them to Bono. The lieutenant took them, thanked the sergeant, and stuffed them in his pack. The sergeant watched, then handed him his own half-empty bottle. “You need this more than I do.”
Bono hesitated. “No, I’m cool. Thanks.”
The sergeant shoved the bottle to him. “Take it.”
Bono took the bottle and gulped the water down, a single drop escaping to his chin. “Thank you,” he said.
The sergeant leaned toward him. “I hope you find your family,” he shouted above the sounds of the cargo compartment.
Bono didn’t answer.
“You got a ways to go to get from Little Rock to Memphis.”
“Yeah. About a hundred miles.”
“You got a way to get there?”
Bono looked away before he answered, “Not yet.”
“That’s going to be a problem.”
Bono thought of his trek across Washington, D.C, just the day before: the forming gangs, the murdered husband and stranded wife, the fires, the unending lines of stalled vehicles, civilians hanging on him, begging him for water, food, or information. Yes, it was going to be a problem. That much he knew.
The sergeant looked at Bono for a long minute, then slapped his shoulder. Standing, he made his way toward the back of the aircraft to check the cargo for their final approach and landing.
Bono’s heart raced, a tinge of adrenaline rushing through him as he felt the aircraft begin to descend. Little Rock Air Force Base was straight ahead. A highway map was folded across his lap, and he spread it out and held it up against the dim light to study it. The base was twelve miles northeast of the city limits. He pressed the map with his finger, tracing a path toward the outer edge. He’d seen enough back in Washington, D.C., to know it would be better to avoid the major highways, so he planned to head cross-country for eight miles toward I-40, cross the Interstate, and continue southeast until he hit State Road 70, which ran toward Memphis. It would be far less crowded. Once he hit the state road, it was just a little more than a hundred miles to his in-laws’ home.
A hundred miles. Less than a two-hour drive back in the old days. At least a four- or five-day hike in the brave new world.
Five days just to get there. If he didn’t have any problems or run into trouble, which he knew he would.
He glanced at the empty seat beside him, wishing that Samuel Brighton were there. He missed him. He missed his friend’s company and sense of humor, but mostly he missed having someone he trusted at his side. He felt safe now, in this aircraft, but that was soon going to change. He was about to set off on a cross-country hike in a strange and uncertain world, and it would have been nice to have a buddy with him for the trek. Thinking of Sam, his mind drifted back to the last time he had seen his friend at Langley, when the two men had said good-bye. “I’m going to Chicago,” had been Sam’s last, frightful words. The decision made no sense, and at first it had left Bono completely speechless. But he knew now, though he wasn’t certain why, that it had been the right choice. For whatever reason, Sam was on the right path.
The aircraft lurched through turbulence as it descended through a layer of clouds, then began a slow turn to the right. Bono felt the gentle pull of the turn pressing him down against his seat, and he leaned back. As his mind drifted, a twinge of excitement ran through him, a warm, fuzzy feeling that had sustained him through months of separation, loneliness, and fear.
Closing his eyes, he thought about his wife, Caelyn.
*******
Bono would always remember the first time he had seen her, the entire scene forever imprinted on his mind. He could hear the sounds of the wind through the trees; smell the wet, fresh-cut grass; see the color of the sky; feel the lurch inside his stomach as she walked toward him; the sunlight on her face; and the afternoon breeze playing with her hair. A senior at UCLA, he spent a lot more time hanging out at the ROTC building than he did with his fellow economics majors who were preparing for law school or getting an MBA. Truth was, he was dying to graduate, get through infantry school and into battle. The last thing on his mind was getting married.
He was sitting on the steps of the Wooden Building (all of the campus buildings seemed to be named after someone famous), waiting for his ROTC squad to take to the intramural field, when she suddenly came around the corner of the building with a couple of her friends. Being drill day, he was wearing his cadet khakis and leather boots and, as she walked by, he felt suddenly self-conscious and unsure. Although she looked in his direction, she seemed to pay him no attention. He watched her approach, unable to pull his eyes away. She was tall and athletic (attending on a tennis scholarship, he would later learn) and the most beautiful girl—no, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was out of his league, he knew that, but he really didn’t care. He’d never seen her before and chances were, large as the university was, he might never see her again. He had to talk to her, he simply had to, and he had to make his move now.
But he didn’t. He just sat there, his mouth open, his eyes wide.
She passed by him, the cadet staring at her like a puppy. Ten feet down the sidewalk she unexpectedly stopped and turned around.
Taking a deep breath, he gathered all his courage, stood up, and walked toward her.
She waited. Her two friends kept on walking. Out of the three, she was the only one who had turned around.
“Hey there,” he said as he drew close.
She looked past him, lifting on her toes as if she were looking for someone else. H
e shot a quick look behind him but there was no one there.
“Hey there,” he said again.
She lowered off her toes and looked at him. Tan face. Killer eyes. His stomach flipped again. “Hi,” she finally answered.
He stared, suddenly unable to think of anything to say, his mind empty as an arctic landscape. He felt stupid, his mouth dry, his mind completely blank. Through the awkward silence he started praying that she wouldn’t ask him something complicated like, “What’s your name?”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He almost panicked, his mouth open.
She watched, waited, then smiled, her eyes teasing. Tall as she was, she still had to look up at him. “OK, we’ll get that later.” She nodded toward the cadet rank on his shoulders. “Are you a general?”
He shook his head. “Ahhh, yeah.” He corrected himself. “I mean no. No. I’m not a general.”
She moved her head again, tilting it to the right. “You’re not?”
Bono completely missed the teasing in her voice. “No. Not yet. But I will be one day.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I was, you know, kind of kidding.”
Bono realized how foolish he had sounded and looked away. She glanced toward her friends, who were waiting for her now, then nodded for them to go on. Bono looked back at the group but hardly saw them. All he saw was her.
Wolves in the Night: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Seven Page 7