Josh checked his watch. It was time for the next meet-up. Slowly, he led Karel back towards the designated rendezvous point at a burned-out tattoo parlor a mile from where they’d made their base. It was blackened and wrecked inside, but some of the tattoo artist’s pictures had survived on the walls, giving the place the sense that the past was still alive in some way. Josh could look at the pictures and trigger memories of a past where getting a tattoo might have been an exciting highlight a person’s life. Back when you didn’t have to fight for your life, or spend your days searching for lost loved ones.
Most of the others were there already, and they looked as exhausted as Josh felt.
“I don’t think we’re getting anywhere with this,” he said. “If she was close by, we would have found her by now, and as much as my heart is telling me to keep looking, my head tells me there’s going to need to be a different solution. We should take some time to recuperate.”
Donald and the others nodded their agreement, and Josh could see they welcomed at least the promise of a few hours’ rest. Filly, Martha, and Henry turned up soon after that and agreed readily to Josh’s suggestion, so they made their way back to the house where they’d left Halley guarding the thermite and the rest of their meager supplies. He’d been charged with making the Molotov cocktails while they were gone, as well as seeing what else he could come up with in terms of improvised explosive devices.
Josh was the first through the door, though, and it was clear that something wasn’t right. Halley wasn’t with the thermite or the cocktails. There was a smashed bottle in the middle of the floor, and gas had leaked out of it in a puddle.
Josh drew and cocked his SIG, signaling to those behind him to do the same. Walking in with his gun raised, he covered the door into the kitchen while Donald and Henry came behind him with their weapons raised, eyes squinting along the barrel.
“Halley?” Josh called.
“I’m here!” Halley called back. The voice was muffled and sounded like it was coming from upstairs.
“What’s happened, Halley?”
“It’s very simple, but he doesn’t want you to shoot him.”
“Who doesn’t want me to shoot him?”
“I believe his name is Dolan. But you know him as Ten-Foot.”
Josh looked at Poppet, and Poppet, whose own pistol was drawn, mouthed “Ten-Foot?” back at him with incredulity.
Every gun was now pointed at the stairs in a porcupine of muzzles.
“He’s brought Tally back!” Halley called down.
Josh froze, the worst possible images of what bringing Tally back might have meant. Her body? He steeled himself. “Is she… okay?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m okay. He’s right. Ten-Foot brought me back here.”
Josh turned to Karel and whispered, “Take Henry, Filly, and Jingo. If Ten-Foot’s here, it’s a trap. Go and see the lay of the land. See if there are any Harbormen waiting to take us all down.”
Josh then turned back to the stairs. “Can I come up?” he called, walking to the stairs and putting his foot on the bottom step.
“Only if you come unarmed, Mr. Boss Man!” It was Ten-Foot, all six feet of hard muscle with that scarred face on top. The molasses in his voice with its underlying sneer was there. The petty criminal teenager who’d turned into a vicious murderer in the wake of the apocalypse.
“How do I know you’re not going to shoot me, Ten-Foot?”
“If I wanted to shoot you, I’ve had enough chances, Boss Man. I’ve brought back your precious daughter.”
“Who you took in the first place!”
Tally called down again, “No, he didn’t, Dad! Ten-Foot… well, he rescued me.”
“Rescued you?”
“Yes. I was about to be… well, whatever. He rescued me. Killed the guy who had taken me, and instead of taking me back to the castle, he brought me here.”
It still stank of a trap to Josh. He couldn’t quite understand the play, but he trusted Ten-Foot no further than he could shot put an elephant.
“Come up, Boss Man, and you’ll see I’m on the level. I just wanted a chance to speak to you before you got all hotheaded and shot me in the face for what happened back with the king.”
Josh looked at Poppet again. She shook her head. Donald shrugged. “Let me shoot him in the face for you.”
Josh handed his gun to Poppet, and then he began to climb the stairs.
“I’m coming up and I’ve left my gun downstairs. Don’t make me look like a fool for trusting you. Tally, is he on the level?”
“I think so… I can’t be one hundred percent… but everything he said he’d do, he’s done. And? There’s one thing I haven’t seen in him before.”
Josh reached the landing, and in the dim light coming through one open bedroom door, he saw Halley on his knees, Tally with her hands up, and Dolan “Ten-Foot” Snare behind them, pointing a gun at the back of Halley’s head.
Tally didn’t need to tell Josh what that one thing was. Ten-Foot was scared. There was a line of sweat across his top lip, and the gun wavered a little with a tremble that was being transmitted down his arm.
“Okay, Boss Man. You trusted me. That’s good.”
“I hope I don’t die to regret it,” Josh said.
Halley shot Josh a razor of a look, its translation clear: Don’t antagonize him, you idiot. But Ten-Foot didn’t seem at all perturbed by Josh’s retort. They’d known each other long enough before the Barnard’s event to have built up a rapport, enabling them to work together to keep Ten-Foot just on the right side of the law. The rapport had extended far enough for the boy to tell Josh how he’d gotten his nickname. He’d been a snot of a kid who’d tried to rob a convenience store and, when chased by the owner, managed to scramble miraculously over a ten-foot high wall in order to escape. He’d even told Josh the one part of the story he hadn’t related to anyone else. As he’d made it over the wall, he’d landed on the hood of a local police car and been apprehended anyway.
“So, here we are,” Josh said. “And where are we going?”
Ten-Foot licked at his lips, but didn’t lower the gun. “Can I trust you, Boss Man? Really trust you?”
“You have my word, Ten-Foot. I’m not going to shoot you. I’m just happy my daughter is safe. I don’t understand why you brought her here rather than taking her to Gabe, but we can come to that later. Why don’t you put down the gun and we can talk?”
Ten-Foot considered his next move for several seconds that seemed to expand to geological timescales in the stuffy atmosphere across the landing.
Josh’s work as a cop, before he’d changed careers to become a probation officer, had offered him many similar situations. With really scared people who were on the cusp of fight or flight, there was a good chance that they would shoot out of reflex if they were threatened or startled by something unexpected.
The best armed person to talk down was someone who wasn’t scared and who had stuff to lose. The mere fact that Ten-Foot was here, and that Tally hadn’t been taken to Gabe, told Josh that Ten-Foot had already calculated his losses, and it was just the fear that Josh had to contend with now.
Josh raised his hand, palm up and fingers wide.
Halley’s eyes sliced into him.
“Come on, Ten-Foot, give me the gun. We can talk about this. And I promise you, you won’t be harmed.”
Ten-Foot raised the gun.
5
Gabriel Angel, self-styled King of America and man who didn’t think he was going to get stabbed, screamed and put his hand up to the side of his face. Blood already seeped through his fingers as Maxine propelled herself away from him, overturning the chair she’d occupied and rolling away. She kept the knife Gabe had offered to her tight in her grip.
She knew already that the blow she’d struck hadn’t been even remotely fatal, but it had felt good to slice along the side of his face and dig the blade into his ear before he’d knocked the utensil away with one hand and tried to punch her at the same
time with his other. It wasn’t Maxine’s speed which had saved her from the punch, but the sudden flush of pain from the wound that had scrunched up his face and drawn the scream from his lips.
Maxine rolled up onto her feet and ran for the door of the dining room that would take her through the stateroom and out into the wide thoroughfare that ran through the center of Castle Jaxport. A Harborman who must’ve been drawn to the dining room by Gabe’s screaming clattered into her as he ran in. The Harborman staggered sideways, Maxine’s knife embedded between the ribs to the left of his sternum. He had only a second to register what had happened before he fell to his knees with a whimper, and Maxine reached down and pulled the Colt Government from the holster at his side.
She turned and brought the gun to bear on the table where Gabe had been sitting and fired off three rounds, the bullets breaking crockery and spitting food up into the air. She couldn’t see Gabe at all, not until he rose up from behind the table like a periscope, a pistol gripped in his hand and spitting fire from the muzzle. Maxine was already out the door before the bullets slammed into the wall just behind where she’d been shooting from.
Maxine sprinted across the stateroom; the gun held out ahead of her. She needed to get out of here now, and fast, before Gabe came after her. She blessed Josh for forcing her to learn how to shoot way before the Barnard’s event. He had gotten her a pistol that she’d kept in a lockbox in their bedroom so that she’d be able to defend herself if Josh wasn’t home to resist burglars trying their luck on their property. She’d had regular sessions on the firing range and knew more than the basics, but still, the adrenaline was backing up in her body, making her tremble as she ran and shortening her breath.
Should she have stayed to try to kill Gabe?
Would that have been the right thing to do, the right thing for the people of Jacksonville and the wider surviving population of America?
No.
She had to find Storm.
Storm had to be her priority. If she could get to him and keep the gun, then she might, just might, be able to get out of this hellhole alive.
She sprinted through another door, right into the path of two guards who had been brought on by the sound of the gunfire. They hadn’t been expecting Maxine to be speeding towards them, and even if they did register the gun in her hand, they didn’t think she was a threat.
Maxine put on the brakes and turned on the tears. “Quick! Back there. The Harborman! He’s tried to kill Gabriel! He shot at him while we were eating! I don’t know if Gabe is alive or dead! You’d better go and help!”
The Harbormen brushed past her and moved toward the dining room door.
She shot them both in the back as they ran, then delivered two more shots to assure herself they were dead. Approaching only after that, she reached down, took the magazines from their belts, and ran back towards the door into the main thoroughfare. A bullet chewed into the frame of the door as she pelted through it.
Gabe had followed her from the dining room as she ran. She heard him curse as he saw the bodies of the guards she’d felled. Gabe might have hoped that would have been the net to snare her, but she’d outwitted him there, too. But she could only ride her luck for so long. As soon as Gabe got word to his men, the castle would be alive with danger—even more than it was now.
She fired off two shots behind her and then ran blindly forward.
At this time of night, there were few people walking about in the corridors of the castle. Most of Gabe’s so-called subjects only spent their days in the castle to carry out the building work that was going on, or to provide meals for Gabe and his courtiers. She’d seen staff filing out of the castle earlier as the Harborman she’d accidentally stabbed in the dining room had brought her to Gabe’s table.
She jogged on, throwing looks back along the corridor to see if Gabe was following her, but at first glance, he was not. Perhaps he was worried she was waiting for him to stick his head around a corner so she could blow it off. With all three of his bodyguards down, and no one Gabe could easily call on for help, she might have a few minutes’ grace to find Storm and the others.
How she’d get out of the castle after that was another matter, so right now, she would concentrate on finding Storm. One thing at a time.
The corridor that ran alongside the room where she’d been kept for the last four days was only a hundred or so yards from Gabe’s quarters. There was evidence of carpentry that had been abandoned for the day all along the hall. Trestles and tools as well as saws and boxes of nails abounded as she jogged on.
She came across two Harbormen walking in the opposite direction as she turned a corner into the corridor she’d been aiming for. Breathing hard, she crouched down and waited for them to turn away at the end of the corridor and disappear from sight. She was far enough away from Gabe now, she figured, that opening fire would be a mistake that could draw him or whichever of his Harbormen he’d ordered to her vicinity. When the coast was clear, she saw that the door behind which she’d been kept was open, but the three other doors down the line were closed. Throwing the bolts free, she found Larry behind the first door. He was asleep on his bed. His face was haggard, and he had a thickening growth of beard on his face.
“Maxine…?” he asked, sitting up on the bed as the meager blanket he’d been given fell off his frame.
“Get up. We’re getting out of here.”
Larry’s eyes cleared. “How? What’s happening?”
“No time—come on!”
Larry had difficulty pulling on his boots with his injured fingers as Maxine watched the corridor outside for Harbormen. When he’d finished, Larry joined her outside and they moved to the next door along the line.
Halley’s sister Grace erupted from the door in a wildcat whirl of arms and snarls. She was bedraggled and stank of sweat and waste. It seemed that Gabe’s men had just left her to her own devices, and as the door had opened, she’d leaped towards the light with her fingers clawed and her eyes on fire. She barreled into Maxine, throwing her back into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. Then she swiped at Larry, who was just trying to get out of her way.
Her murderous fingers thrashed through empty air in much the same way as Maxine’s mother’s had when she’d been at her worst back on the ranch. Larry betrayed his years by propelling himself backwards as she slashed at him again.
With a roar, Grace turned, saw an escape route down the corridor, and made for it. The only sounds in the corridor then were Larry’s ragged breathing and Grace’s bare feet slapping the wooden floor until she skidded around the corner—headed in the direction where the two Harbormen had gone.
“There are two Harbormen down there,” Maxine said, striding to the next door and throwing the bolts. “She’s going to bring them back, and we need to find Storm now!”
The door opened onto a room furnished like all the others, with a camp bed, a chair, and a small table. One of Storm’s T-shirts was draped over the back of the chair, but he wasn’t there and the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.
“Dammit!” Maxine hissed, slamming the heel of her hand into the doorjamb. “Have you seen Storm, Larry? Heard from him? Anything?”
Larry shook his head as he looked nervously down the corridor to where Grace had disappeared.
It was time for Maxine to weigh her options. Should she stay and suffer the wrath of Gabe for the knife attack, made via the bluff he’d never thought she would have the courage to call? Or should she get out with Larry? Leave Storm behind and live to fight another day? Knowing that Storm would at least be safe with Gabe.
Well, alive rather than safe was incontrovertible. There was no way Gabe was going to harm his only son.
Then there were the practicalities––the castle, the wider facility, and the port itself were too vast an area to search right now. Especially when Gabe and now Grace would raise the alarms. If Storm wasn’t in his room, then he really could be anywhere. The grinding dilemma in her heart and head wa
s reducing both to bitter shards of thoughts and feelings. And even if she found Storm, Maxine realized, chancing upon him in some explosion of luck as he came the other way on the main thoroughfare, after what he had nearly come to do for Gabe… Nearly killing Josh? God, would he even come with her?
Maxine didn’t know. So, she just had to hang on to the notion that Storm was going to remain alive at Castle Jaxport. She had to believe that. Had to. Or what she was about to do would be something she’d regret for the rest of her life.
And then she heard the dull detonations which shook the whole castle.
Halley’s improvised thermite frame charges worked perfectly. They ignited with the first of the Molotov cocktails thrown at them by Donald. They sizzled, spat, and gave off tremendous heat and blinding light where they’d been placed against the outside wall of the warehouse. Smoke billowed up as the integrity of the warehouse wall was compromised by the 4,000 degrees of heat directed onto the surface. Molten aluminum dripped and pooled with the hissing of a thousand snakes reaching across the concrete, and Josh’s heart hammered inside his chest as he got ready to lead the group on a mission that could end badly for any one of them.
But really, the mission was getting off to a confidence-boosting start as the side of the warehouse where the thermite charges had been placed began to visibly buckle and split along the lines formed by the cable-trunking frame. Of course, as Josh ruefully observed to himself much later, no battle plan survived first engagement with the enemy. And in this case, the enemy wasn’t Gabe or his Harbormen; it was far more unremarkable than that.
If it hadn’t been for what had been stored behind the warehouse wall they were burning through, then everything would have worked out pretty much okay. But in the end, that nearly ended the attack before it had begun.
Supernova EMP- The Complete Series Page 79