Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1

by R. E. McDermott

  “Head to the main gate of the container terminal on Shipyard Boulevard,” Kinsey said. “Our boat’s at the container dock.”

  The driver nodded, no further instructions needed, and Kinsey radioed the boat to tell them he was coming in with friendlies in a Humvee. Five minutes later, they were rolling through the container terminal. Wright’s head was on a swivel and they passed row upon row of brightly colored shipping containers.

  “Hmmm? I wonder what’s in all these containers?” Wright said.

  “All manner of useful stuff, I’d guess,” Kinsey said. “The custody transfer is all computerized, but I suspect there are some paper copies of the cargo manifests somewhere in one of these office buildings.”

  Wright looked thoughtful. “Overall this isn’t a bad location. Pretty good fence, river to your back, and it wouldn’t take much to rearrange these containers into a defensive wall, presuming some of these container transporters are still running. Not much in the way of shelter or power, though.”

  “I don’t know,” Kinsey said. “I suspect there are tugs, ferries, tour boats, and maybe other abandoned craft up and down the river that might have generating capacity and berths, and you’ve got a damned long dock to tie them up. Some of the larger vessels might have water distillers as well.”

  “Yeah, if we just had the fuel to run them.”

  Kinsey hesitated, then thought what the hell, Wright was a smart cookie and he’d figure things out quickly anyway.

  “Matter of fact, the product terminal just downstream has great big tanks full of fuel. Food for thought,” Kinsey said.

  Wright was still looking around. “Damn right it is,” he said, just as they reached the river and saw the Coast Guard boat moving in to where a recessed ladder extended from the dock down to the surface of the water.

  The men all got out of the vehicles and handshakes were exchanged all around before the Coasties moved toward the ladder.

  “A word before you go, Chief?” said Wright as he moved down the dock away from both the vehicles with Kinsey in tow. When they were well away from the others, Kinsey spoke.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Just a little chat, NCO to NCO,” Wright said, then hesitated as if choosing his words carefully.

  “You just took a helluva sucker punch, right between the eyes, and you likely need to process that a bit. The thing is, you also have to make some hard decisions, and fast, and you don’t have the luxury of time to grieve.”

  Kinsey bridled. “Look, Wright, I appreciate the help, but I don’t need you to tell me—”

  Wright raised his hand in a calming gesture. “Hear me out. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I want you to fully appreciate the situation, because as negative as you think I was before, I was actually holding back in front of the other guys.” He paused for emphasis. “This is a complete and total shit show,” he said slowly. “We got a Humpty Dumpty situation here. You know, as in an ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again’ situation.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Kinsey said.

  Wright shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. What I’m telling you is the guys calling the shots on a national level couldn’t find their own assholes with both hands and a mirror on a stick, and there ain’t no way anything is ever going to be the same again. There just aren’t the smarts or the resources to make this better at a national level even if everyone played nice, and as you may recall, the country was pretty polarized before this happened. It’s unlikely to improve with folks starving to death and killing each other. Even if the powers that be do manage to mobilize the Army or the other services, what can they do but kill people to keep them from killing each other over a dwindling supply of food and water? And in the end, they’ll be killing people to take the resources for themselves, because that’s the only way they’ll survive.”

  Kinsey nodded. “Okay, but what’s your point?”

  “My point is most people are going to die, and it’s gonna be up to guys like me and you to survive and help as many other people survive as possible, and we have to use our own best judgment, right or wrong. If we wait for orders or follow stupid ones, more folks are going to die, and we might be among them. Also, if I’m gonna try to save anyone, my family’s got to be at the top of the list. Until five minutes ago, my plan was to haul ass with those of my guys who wanted to go and two Humvees, to collect our families and make it up to my uncle’s farm about twenty miles north of here.” He gestured around the terminal. “But you got me thinking we might be able to establish a foothold here, so I’m going to at least put that plan to the major before I take off.

  “But my real point is this,” Wright continued, “I’m just a weekend warrior, so I might be more willing to head for the hills than you career types, but y’all all need to be thinking of yourselves and your families too. However you do that, you can always help as many other people as you can too. It’s sort of like that Marine Corps general said back in Korea when he was surrounded by the Chinese, ‘We’re not retreating. We’re attacking in another direction.’“

  Wright fell silent and Kinsey just looked at him for a minute.

  “Who you trying to convince, Wright?” Kinsey asked. “Me or you?”

  Wright took off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair before giving Kinsey a sheepish grin.

  “Both of us, I reckon,” he said.

  Kinsey nodded. “Definitely food for thought,” he said. “Let’s exchange radio frequencies and call signs. I suspect we might hook up again.”

  Wright nodded and produced a small notebook and pen from a shoulder pocket, and the two men exchanged contact information before Kinsey extended his hand.

  “Good luck to you, Sarge,” Kinsey said as Wright gripped his hand.

  “And to you, Chief,” Wright replied.

  United Blood Nation HQ

  (Formerly New Hanover County Department of Social Services)

  1650 Greenfield Street

  Wilmington, NC

  Day 8, 3:00 p.m.

  Kwintell Banks, first superior of the SMM (Sex, Money, Murder) ‘set’ of the United Blood Nation, sat in the committee meeting and surveyed the small conference room attached to the director’s office of the new HQ he now occupied by right of conquest. All in all, it was fairly shabby, and he knew they could and would do better in the future, but there was symbolism at play here, and despite his lack of a formal education, Kwintell was nobody’s fool. People were already trained to come to the Department of Social Services to bow and scrape for the meager government handouts that defined their miserable lives, so why not take advantage of that? And what better signal to all concerned there was a new order—a new regime controlling their lives—than usurping the government’s administration center? The only difference was, the new regime had teeth, and the populace could either fall in line—or die.

  He shook himself from his reverie and refocused on Darren Mosley, his Minister of Information.

  “… and then they rode off with the soldiers down to the river,” said Mosley.

  “That’s it?” Kwintell demanded. “They just showed up at the building and shot their guns in the air? What kind of crazy cracker shit is that?”

  “No, it wasn’t just like poppin’ off in the air,” Mosley said. “It was like at a funeral, you know, a salute like.”

  Kwintell considered a moment. “Like for all them mofos we capped there two days ago?”

  Mosley nodded. “True dat.”

  “And where we didn’t get shit. You the Minister of Information, Darren, and you said there was some good stuff there, but we didn’t get a dozen gats out of the whole deal, even after we started capping the mofos.” He paused for effect. “Which ain’t very good information.”

  Mosley shifted in his chair. “Straight up, Kwintell, I thought there was shit there. One of the Pee Wees be choppin’ it up ‘bout how his cousin in the Coast Guard and how they have all kinda gats at the HQ
. Machine guns and grenades and shit. I—”

  Kwintell waved Mosley silent. “Ight, ight, just don’t be slippin’ no mo. Now what up with the soldiers?”

  “No change,” Mosley said. “They go out in the morning and sit in the road and go back in at night.”

  “They messin’ with us anywhere?”

  Mosley shook his head. “We been leavin’ them alone, they be leaving us alone. Ain’t very many of them, but they got them machine guns and tanks. Why, you thinkin’ we need to be bangin’ them?”

  Kwintell shook his head. “No. They run out of food and water and they’ll leave. No point gettin’ any of our soldiers shot.”

  “You think maybe the regular army be comin’, or they might be sending supplies?”

  Kwintell bit back his anger at having to provide ‘intelligence’ to his subordinate who was supposed to be providing it to him. It was early days, and Mosley still commanded respect in the set, more for his violent courage than his intelligence. Kwintell would have to be careful in replacing him. He shook his head again.

  “Been eight days, and the radio say this happenin’ all over. If they was gonna send help or supplies, they’d be here by now. I’m thinkin’ this is how it’s gonna be, and we need to move fast to make sure UBN take our share now.”

  There were murmurs of ‘straight up’ and ‘true dat’ around the small table, and Kwintell turned this attention to Keyshaun Jackson, his Minister of Food.

  “What up with the food?” he asked.

  “All good,” Keyshaun said. “Most everything was stripped in the ‘hood, but I got copies of the yellow pages so we could hit all the food stores and divided up the city, putting a lieutenant in charge of each section. We sittin’ on most of the food in the city, but it’s spread out, so I’m thinkin’ we need to move it all to one place where we can guard it. The yellow pages gave me an idea too, and I started havin’ them sit on the bottled water companies too.”

  Kwintell nodded approval and turned his attention further down the table.

  “Desmond, help Keyshaun out if he needs more soldiers to sit on the food. Use baby gangstas if need be, just to sit on the stores ‘til we get it moved. And use that yellow pages idea—but look for gas stations, gun stores, beer and soft drink distributors, shit like that, you know, anything we gonna need.

  “And one more thing,” Kwintell continued, “I see all you niggas smilin’ when I said beer distributors, so let’s be straight up here. I ain’t playing around and I don’t want nobody forgetting that! Last week we all seen people running around, acting the fool and looting liqueur stores and stealing TVs that ain’t never gonna work again. We in this for the long run, and if I see a UBN soldier doing that shit, I will cap his ass right there on the street and I expect you to do the same. Is that clear?”

  The rest of the committee members traded hesitant looks, then one by one, nodded their concurrence.

  “Good,” Kwintell said, then turned to the last member of the committee. “Jermaine, where we at on recruitment?”

  “Way more than we can handle,” Jermaine said, “leastwise more than we can initiate anytime soon, and since we got a truce going on with the Crips and everyone else and the cops aren’t out, they ain’t really nobody for the recruits to take out to earn membership.”

  “How many you figure waiting to join?” Kwintell asked.

  “Couple of thousand, easy,” Jermaine said, “and probably anybody we want when the food runs out and we got all that’s left.”

  Kwintell was silent a moment and when he spoke again, he addressed his question to Keyshaun Jackson, the Minister of Food.

  “How many others have food?” he asked.

  Keyshaun shrugged. “The Crips be sitting on the Food Lion over on Oleander and a bunch of convenience stores, and the Sure Shots and Gaza maybe got half a dozen convenience stores and gas stations between ‘em. Ain’t none of the other gangs big enough to matter. Mostly the gangs all just loot and leave, but the Crips and the others started trying to occupy places a couple of days ago, copying us, I think.”

  Kwintell nodded and turned back to Jermain.

  “Okay,” he said, “we gonna change the rules a bit. Accept every prospective member that come and make them all ‘probationary recruits.’ Divide them up in groups of at least fifty and put one of our baby gangstas in charge. Send a group against every rival gang location—that’s the initiation, they have to take the location and cap all the rival gangstas there. The group succeeds or fails as a group, and if one group fails, have another standing by to go right in. This way we initiate the recruits and get rid of those other mofos without risking any experienced soldiers.”

  There was silence around the table.

  “Wh-what about the truces?” Mosley asked.

  “FUCK THE TRUCES!” shouted Kwintell as he pounded the table with his fist. “We got no time for truces! We got the advantage now and we gonna use it to wipe them out so we don’t have to be looking over our shoulder all the time. This is a new world, homies, and we gonna be the kings!”

  “What about the cops?” Jermaine this time.

  “They’ll slip away, just like the soldiers, we give them half a chance,” Kwintell said. “Hell, most of them don’t even live in the county, much less the city. We’ll leave ‘em be for now and concentrate on wiping out the other gangs and controlling all the food and water. After that, we take out all the crackers and toms. A lot of them are armed, but they’re not organized, so we can overwhelm them. We’ll use the baby gangsta swarms again. I’m sure we’ll be getting more recruits that need initiation anyway.”

  “What if anyone surrenders?” Jermaine asked. “We gonna cap ‘em anyway?”

  Kwintell smiled. “Maybe not. I got my eye on a real nice place in Forest Hills, so maybe I’ll keep the mayor around as my yard boy.”

  M/V Pecos Trader

  Captain’s Office

  Day 8, 8:30 p.m.

  Hughes once again sat across from Matt Kinsey, who was gazing down into the half-finished cup of coffee grown cold on the low table between them. The Coasties had accepted Hughes’ hospitality, unable to resist the offer of hot showers, a good meal, and a bunk with clean sheets. Kinsey had radioed back to Oak Island to confirm they would return to base in the morning, and Hughes had bedded four of them down in the ship’s hospital while two kept a security watch on their boat tied up alongside Pecos Trader . As an added benefit, they’d gone to dinner clad in the disposable Tyvek coveralls used aboard for tank cleaning and other dirty tasks, and Hughes had arranged for the steward to wash and dry their clothes, all luxuries hard to come by in their crowded base at Oak Island.

  “That must have been hard,” Hughes said, referring to Kinsey’s just recounted visit to Coast Guard HQ.

  “Yeah, it was,” Kinsey said, and Hughes nodded towards Kinsey’s half-finished coffee.

  “Care for something a bit stronger?” Hughes asked.

  Kinsey hesitated, then said, “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Hughes rose and retrieved a bottle from his lower desk drawer and two short water glasses from the cabinet behind his desk. He walked over, set the two glasses on the coffee table, and poured an inch of amber liquid in the bottom of each.

  “Purely medicinal, of course,” Hughes said.

  Kinsey grinned. “Of course.”

  As Hughes resumed his seat, Kinsey raised his glass and said, “Absent friends.”

  Hughes joined the toast, and both men took a swallow then settled back in their chairs.

  “So where’s home and family, Chief?” Hughes asked.

  Kinsey shrugged. “Wisconsin originally, but when you’ve been in the Coast Guard almost thirty years, you find out pretty quick home is anywhere the Coast Guard says it is. I’m an only child and my folks passed, so I don’t really have any strong connections to Wisconsin. My wife is … was from near Baton Rouge and has family there; they’re pretty much my family now. That’s where I’m planning … or at least WAS planning … t
o retire. Our son’s in the 101st Airborne in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, so there’s no telling where he might end up in all this mess. Our daughter is a freshman at LSU in Baton Rouge, full boat scholarship for soccer,” he added, pride in his voice. “School’s out, but she was taking summer courses and staying with my sister-in-law, so I think she should be okay.”

  “So you’re not married now?” Hughes asked.

  “Widowed, two years now.” Kinsey didn’t elaborate and Hughes sensed it was a painful subject.

  “When are … or were … you planning to retire?”

  “I hit thirty years last week, and I already put in the paperwork. No clue what I was going to do for a second career.” He took another sip and shrugged. “But I guess we’re all going to be frigging farmers now—or dead.”

  Hughes smiled at the gallows humor. “So what now?”

  “Damned if I know,” Kinsey said. “But there are over fifty of us all told at Oak Island and I have to figure something out. I’m responsible for them.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so many,” Hughes said.

  “Well, we only had the duty section on station at the time of the blackout, but when it hit the fan, everybody who could make it in did so. Most of my guys live relatively close to the station. When it became obvious everything was going to hell, I let families on station as well. We’re basically camping out in the office and support spaces. There’s a limited solar system from a ‘green initiative’ the Coast Guard put in place a couple of years ago, and the water’s still running, though who knows for how long. Everyone stripped their cupboards and brought their food, and we’re fishing as well, but it won’t last more than another week, two at most. I’m hearing rumblings people are going to take off, and I can’t blame them.” He shrugged. “To be honest, Cap, I’ve no clue what to do.”

  Hughes fell silent a moment, mentally parsing the possibilities.

  “Come with us,” he said finally.

  Kinsey looked confused. “Come with you where?”

  “Beaumont, Texas,” Hughes said. “We’re sailing day after tomorrow. Beaumont’s close to Baton Rouge, or at least it’s a hell of a lot closer than Wilmington. You and any of your folks are welcome to join us.”