“How much do we have?”
Colton did the math in his head. He had squirreled away an entire crate of MREs in the basement, plus gallon jugs of water, some kerosene, and plenty of canned vegetables and preserves, thanks to Kelly. His little family would be fine for a few months, but he doubted most residents would be in as good a shape.
“I want you to walk to Safeway with Tim and Linda next door. Take the cash from the safe and buy canned food, water, and anything else with a long shelf-life. We’ll also need more batteries, toilet paper…” Colton sighed, frustrated. “You know what to get.”
“It’s just like preparing for a camping trip,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“I need to get to town hall and meet with Mayor Andrews.”
“Knowing Gail, she’s probably already there.”
“She’s going to be mad.”
“Because you declared a state of emergency?”
“Because I didn’t consult with her first.”
Kelly came up behind Colton and put a hand on his shoulder. Goosebumps prickled up and down his arms. Even after all these years, she could still give him the chills.
“You’re going to have to make some very unpopular decisions,” Kelly said. “But stay strong and trust your instincts.”
Colton kissed his wife, jotted down a few more tasks on his ever-growing to-do list, and then went to his office to get the rest of his hardware. The room was small and furnished only with a desk and a comfortable chair. A bookshelf took up most of the wall to the right, and a window with wood blinds looked out over their rocky backyard.
He walked over to the closet. A Western-Style duty belt hung from a clip on the wall. It was the one his father had carried during his thirty years of service as Sheriff of Larimer County.
Colton removed his duty belt and exchanged it for his father’s. After securing it around his waist, he took a knee in front of the gun safe in the corner. Inside were some of his most prized possessions, including an M14 rifle with a scope. He grabbed the rifle and set it against the wall before he turned back for his favorite gun.
The Colt Single Action Army revolver was another gift from his dad. He held the gun across the palms of both hands like an offering, admiring the beautifully engraved metal and scrimshawed ivory grips.
“Morior Invictus,” Colton said, reading the motto on the barrel. “Death before defeat.”
It was his father’s favorite saying, one that Colton had adopted after losing the man who had meant the most to him. He holstered the revolver and then grabbed the M14.
When he turned to leave, Kelly was standing in the door. “Be careful, Marcus. Please, by God, be careful out there.”
“Do you have your Glock?” he asked.
She lifted up her shirt and turned, cocking a hip. The black grip of the pistol was sticking out of her waistband.
“Good girl,” Colton said with a grin. “Got any more moves like that?”
Before she could answer, they both flinched at the sound of a horn honking outside.
“What in the hell?” Colton said. He hurried to the living room and looked through the window. In their driveway was Jake Englewood’s red 1952 Chevy pickup.
Colton grabbed his backpack with a smile on his face. Risa came thundering down the stairs a split second later, crying out, “Uncle Jake!”
Kelly and Risa followed Colton out to the driveway.
“Mornin’ Kelly,” Jake said. He tipped his Stetson at Risa. “How you doin’, little lady?”
Colton almost laughed when he saw Jake had shaved most of his bushy red beard, leaving only a handlebar mustache.
“Can’t call me a Viking anymore,” Jake said.
“You never were good at history,” Colton chuckled. “Vikings had mustaches, too.”
“Whatever you say, Chief.”
“You’re a cowboy Viking,” Risa chirped.
That earned a bellowing laugh from Jake.
Colton looked over the vintage truck. The windshield had a major crack, but it was at least on the passenger side. The chrome grill was off, and only two of the tires had hubcaps, but the tread was good and the lights all seemed to work.
Jake put his hands on his hips and turned to look with Colton. “She may be old, but she runs,” he said. “Rebuilt the engine with my own hands.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Colton said, laughing. “In fact, I think we’re looking at our new squad car.”
Jake patted the hood fondly. “You’re beautiful, baby. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“We better get going. Mayor Andrews is probably on her way to town hall.”
“Actually, she’s already there. I dropped her off before coming to get you. She isn’t happy.”
Kelly laughed. “Told you, Marcus.”
Colton kissed his wife on the cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.” Then he crouched down and hugged Risa. “I love you. Be good while I’m gone.”
“Love you too, Daddy.”
He grabbed his gear and rifle, and forced himself to walk away. Leaving them suddenly felt wrong, but he had a duty to his town. With threats coming from all sides, he had to get to work. Colton climbed into the passenger seat of the truck. Jake wedged his bulk behind the steering wheel and turned the key. The engine coughed to life. Both men waved at Colton’s family, smiling as if this was just another ordinary day, but as soon as they were out of the driveway, their conversation became serious.
“You got any updates for me?” Colton asked.
“Detective Plymouth has been checking the Geiger counters every hour. Looks okay so far. Still trying to contact all the reps for the EOC. Other than that, we’ve got officers stationed at all critical facilities, including the YMCA.”
“The YMCA?”
“I thought we could use the pool as an additional water source.”
“Good call,” Colton said. “But that won’t last very long. We need to think long term here.”
“I know. Once I drop you off, I’m heading to Bill Catcher’s with Major Sardetti. Maybe he can get some answers from his base.”
Colton pointed at the dashboard of the truck. “Have you tried this radio yet?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get anything but static.”
“You mind?” Colton asked, reaching for the tuning knob.
“Knock yourself out.”
Colton spun the dial as they pulled out of the driveway.
“We’re going to need to hold a town hall meeting,” Jake said. “Tell people what’s going on.”
“Let the mayor handle it. I have other shit to do.”
Jake took one hand off the steering wheel to scratch his mustache. “You’ve never been a man of many words.”
“There’s a killer out there, and I—” Colton paused as the sound of a garbled transmission came over the radio. He slowly twisted the knob back to the left. “Pull over a minute.”
Jake drove onto the shoulder, kicking up a storm of dust. He shifted into neutral and waited.
White noise broke from the old speakers.
“I don’t hear nothing—” Jake began to say.
A robotic voice from the radio cut him off.
“At 5:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, a second attack…”
“Second attack?” Jake asked.
Colton raised a finger and waited for the message to continue, but there was only the hiss of static.
“Dammit,” Colton said. He fiddled with the knob, turning it ever so slightly to the left. Through the storm of crackling came a beeping sound, and finally a barely audible voice.
“This is a national emergency. Important instructions will follow…”
The beeping returned for several agonizing moments.
Colton stared at the knob. “Come on, come on.”
“The following message is transmitted at the request of the United States government. This is not a test. At approximately 7:21 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, three North Korean planes detonated nuclear war
heads above Iowa, Virginia, and Colorado. The subsequent electromagnetic pulse knocked out power across the continental United States. At 5:05 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, a second attack took place. A nuclear bomb was detonated from the Potomac River just outside of Washington, D.C.”
“Holy shit,” Jake muttered.
Colton stared at the radio in disbelief. “D.C. is gone?”
“All residents within a four-hundred-mile radius of the attack should seek a fallout shelter. Fallout is a product of nuclear attack. Prolonged exposure will result in certain death. If there is a nearby fallout shelter, go there now. Otherwise seek shelter in the interior of a building on the lowest floor. Do not leave the shelter until an all clear has been issued.”
The annoying beeping began again.
Jake went back to stroking his mustache with his index finger and thumb, muttering a slew of curse words.
“This is an emergency action notification. All networks and cable systems shall transmit this action message.”
Colton couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Thanks to Major Sardetti, they’d already had some idea of how bad the situation was, but this? This was Armageddon. How could it have happened? And why had the North Koreans followed up their devastating EMP attack with a direct nuclear strike on Washington?
Jake pounded the steering wheel and then grabbed it with both hands, squeezing until his knuckles were white. The tattooed image of a coiled rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread On Me” showed on his forearm.
“That’s it,” Colton said as he noticed that the snake’s head was lost in a mass of pink scar tissue from an old shrapnel wound. “Cut off the head of a snake and it can’t strike.”
Jake’s eyebrows drew together in a single, heavy line. “What the hell, man?”
“D.C. was the snake’s head. With the seat of our government gone, we will have a hell of a time managing any recovery efforts.”
“So what you’re saying is that help ain’t coming,” Jake said. “Shit, Marcus, I coulda told you that. We handled our own problems back in the flood of ’13, and we’ll take care of ourselves again now.”
He pulled back onto the road and punched the accelerator. The metal bones of the old truck groaned.
Colton looked to the mountains in the distance. He had always felt isolated all the way up here away from society. It could be a lonely feeling, but maybe now that isolation wasn’t such a bad thing.
As they drove through Estes Park, Colton saw a crowd gathering outside town hall. At the front, facing the others, was Major Sardetti. He had his hands up like he was fending off questions.
“Shit,” Colton said. “Should have told him to lay low. Now they’re going to want to know why a jet pilot is wandering around town.”
Jake waved at the major and pointed to the parking lot. Nathan nodded, said something else to the crowd, and then limped over to the truck. Colton opened the door and stepped out to let Nathan inside.
There were no good mornings or hellos, just a simple nod between three soldiers.
“Good luck today. Bill Catcher’s a crazy, paranoid son of a bitch, so I’d bet he’s feeling pretty twitchy right now,” Colton said. He patted the passenger door of the truck. “Play that message for Major Sardetti on the way up to Prospect Mountain.”
“What are you going to do, Chief?” Jake asked.
Colton took a deep breath, still not sure if he was making the right call. “I’m going to tell everyone the truth.”
-12-
As Jake steered up the twisty roads around Prospect Mountain, Nathan held the probe of a Geiger counter out the window and watched the needle while the words of the emergency broadcast repeated inside his head. This was the worst-case scenario. Not only had he lost his brothers from the 120th when their planes fell from the sky, but he’d lost his only sister to a damned nuclear strike on the nation’s capital. The only thing keeping him going now was the thought of his nephew. But if the device in his hand picked up fallout from the first wave of nukes, then Ty would probably be doomed, too.
The big officer picked at the bottom of his handlebar mustache. “What’s it say?”
“We’re good for now,” Nathan said.
Jake drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and then said, “Look, I know you’ve been through the wringer in the past twenty-four hours, Major, but you landed in one of the best towns in America. You’re welcome to stay if we’re not able to get you a radio. We could use a good man like you.”
“Thanks, but I have to get to Empire to find my nephew after I reach Buckley AFB,” Nathan said.
“I understand. Kids are the light of the world. If my girls weren’t safe at home in Estes Park with their mom, I’d be trying to get to them, too.”
Jake took a swig of bottled water and offered it to Nathan.
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Jake said. He set the water back down and pointed up the steep road.
“Bill Catcher lives off the grid up here. He’s a paranoid bastard and doesn’t care much for law enforcement.”
“Or the military?”
Jake grinned. “You got it. Let me do the talking. If I don’t end up with a gun pointed at my head, I’m going to offer Bill some diesel in return for his help looking over our recovery plan and letting you use any radio he might have.”
He parked on the side of the road and killed the engine. Nathan limped after Jake up the dirt road. That pretty nurse had done a good job wrapping his ankle, considering the circumstances, but it still hurt.
“Remember, let me do the talking,” Jake said.
Prospect Mountain towered over them like a castle. A small cabin was set up high on a clearing peppered with rocks and clusters of pine trees. They approached slowly with their hands by their sides, held away from their holstered pistols.
To the east stood a small barn that looked like it had been made from salvaged wood. Nearby was a well with an old wood bucket hanging from a rope. There were rows of solar panels, plots of well-tended crops, and a chicken coop topped with a faded blue tarp. Rain barrels flanked the front porch, but one of them was knocked over.
That seemed odd. Everything on the property was rough and ramshackle, but it was all carefully maintained. Nathan could tell at a glance that this Bill Catcher took a lot of pride in his homestead, so why wouldn’t he have righted the rain barrel?
“You see anything?” Jake asked.
Nathan shook his head. “Looks like no one is home. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Bill!” Jake said in a loud but non-threatening voice. “It’s Jake Englewood and my buddy Nathan.”
They stood about a hundred feet from the porch, a breeze gusting against them. Besides the wind, the only sound came from the squawk of chickens.
Two of the birds waddled over and began pecking at the ground by the spilled rain barrel.
“That’s weird,” Jake said. “Bill wouldn’t leave them out here alone. Too many coyotes around.”
Nathan squinted at the cabin, trying to see inside. Curtains were pulled across all the windows.
“Bill, you home?” Jake said.
The answering silence was unsettling. A particularly strong gust of wind slammed the screen door on the porch open. It creaked, whined, and then slammed shut again, the impact echoing through the property.
“Maybe he walked into town,” Nathan said.
“Doubtful. The guy’s practically a hermit.” Jake jerked his head toward the porch. “You stay out front. I’m gonna see if he’s around back.”
Jake walked around the side of the house, leaving Nathan alone.
The screen door opened and slammed shut again. A bead of sweat dripped down Nathan’s forehead. He walked up to the porch furnished with a rocking chair and a small table. An empty bottle of whiskey rested next to a pack of smokes on the table.
Nathan reached out to knock on the door when he noticed it was slightly ajar, providing him a glimpse inside the cabin.
What the hell is that smell?
He pulled his M9 with one hand, grabbed the curtain with the other, and yanked it back to reveal a bedroom. A shadow moved in the corner of the room and he almost blasted a cat, which hissed at him from the top of a dresser. The cat jumped onto the floor and dashed around him, vanishing out the front door a second later.
“Major, out here!” Jake shouted.
Nathan looked around one last time, grabbed a ham radio, and then retreated to the porch. Jake was waiting outside, his face pale.
“Thought I told you to stay put,” Jake said. “Doesn’t matter now. You’re going to want to see this.”
Nathan followed him around the side of the house. They halted in the knee-high grass to stare at the body hanging from the branch of a massive ponderosa tree.
Head bowed, the dead man swayed slowly in the wind. The front of his shirt was drenched in blood, and his legs were burned black to the knees.
The scent of charred flesh caught Nathan’s nostrils a moment later. He covered his nose with a sleeve, realizing that this was what he had smelled in the cabin.
The remains of a bonfire lay just below the corpse. Blood from a dozen different wounds had darkened his plaid flannel shirt, and his bare feet were charred down to the bone. Whoever had killed Bill had strung him up and left him to burn. Fortunately for the surrounding woods, the rain had put out the fire. Nathan tried not to think about whether the poor man had died from blood loss, suffocation, or the flames.
“What kind of sick bastard did this?” Nathan asked.
Jake shook his head. “I don’t know, but I got to get back to the station to tell Colton. Whoever killed Melissa didn’t stop with her.”
“We’re at war,” Colton said. He braced himself for the response from the six town officials that were sitting in the Sundance conference room.
Trackers (Book 1) Page 14