Hope Of The World

by Boyd Craven III

  “I’ve slimmed down some, did a lot for my mobility. You come play, I’ll show you,” King replied.

  Another voice broke into the transmission, “…you don’t want to test him, I’m 18 now, and his idea of PT leaves me sore and hurting for a week. Over.”

  “Ok, I’ll get on the horn here, and maybe me and the old man can catch up some other time. My partner in crime is ready to get the coordinates when you’re ready to read them off. Over.”

  Courtney looked around and, found a pen, and held up the palm of her hand. Dick was listening and pulled out a folded map from a pouch on his left hip and handed it to her. She unfolded it just as John’s voice came through the speakers. She quickly wrote down the GPS coordinates in the margins and, when John signed off, so did Mike.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Mike grunted and took the map.

  “Most people have forgotten how to do this. Without fancy equipment, most folks have no clue what the numbers on the bottom and sides of the maps mean,” he told her.

  “Well, now that you mention it, it’s common sense,” Courtney said and then leaned into Mike in a brief contact of comfort.

  “It’s not common sense, it’s old school, and I’m starting to feel my age,” Mike told her, searching around the Hummer for some sort of straight edge.

  “It can’t be that old school, you’re not that much older than me,” she snarked.

  “I’m older enough to know better, but young enough to keep on going,” he told her with a grin.

  “That makes no sense, Grandpa.”

  “You want to walk?” Mike teased back.

  “No, because from eyeballing this, we have most of a day’s drive to get to where we’re going. Look,” she said and traced the longitude line with one finger and the lat with the other.

  A straight edge would have made the job helpful, but as soon as she started tracing it with her fingers, Mike saw right away where they were going to go, and it was going to take them all of a day, maybe more, to get near El Paso, the direction they were headed in. They would stop outside of a large city somewhere and get a map with a better breakdown of the state and fine tune the GPS coordinates when they got close. John hadn’t given them any radio frequencies to contact their men there, but he was sure John would be sending advanced word via secure comms to let them know that Mike and Courtney were on their way.

  “My turn to drive,” Courtney said.

  “Like that went so well last time,” Mike sniped back, but he was already opening his door.

  6

  “How do we separate who is working against the US government and who is blameless?” Stu asked John.

  “We have the files,” John said, pointing to Caitlin who patted her pocket where a USB drive rested.

  “But you’d need a computer?” Stu asked again.

  “Bingo,” Michael told him, pulling a military Toughbook that he’d liberated from one of the DHS APCs out of his backpack.

  They had been holding the men in the top level of the bunker after Caitlin had got into a pressurized suit and gone down to the fourth floor and fixed the venting issue. She’d also got some of the government computers functioning from hard drive images stored on offline tapes. She hadn’t got everything back online, just the communications and the door/elevator access control. Right now, the only ones with access were Sgt. Smith’s men and the Kentucky Mafia. Well, and Shannon, but that was because when she wasn’t fighting with Michael, she was his close shadow, listening in on everything that had been going on.

  “What we need to do is figure out who we can trust, and that would make the rest of the work easier as we vet these men and women,” Smith said, his fork going in and out of an MRE packet as he chowed down.

  “The first level is cramped. I know we have all the normal base men separated and cuffed, but it’s been a couple of days, and the men here are growing tired of constantly watching the people and staying in a heightened alert of readiness. If we had more help…”

  “You know,” Shannon said, “My CO is a pretty good guy. I don’t think he’d ever be involved with any of this. If you checked his name first… Well… he has the respect of a lot of men. If we could get a leader like him on our side helping…”

  “Give me his name, sugar,” Caitlin said, already booting up the Toughbook and pulling the USB drive from her pants pocket, “spell it out for me.”

  “Barnes, B A R N E S,” she said, “Clayton Barnes.”

  “Okay, easy enough. He’s not on the list. Actually, your entire group isn’t on the list.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you guys,” Shannon said indignantly.

  “Trust but verify,” King rumbled.

  Shannon stepped back from the big man who’d gone back to his normal combat comfort wear, black pants and his tactical vest. How not having a shirt on and the vest not chafing the big man was anybody’s guess, but Michael had been with King for months and months now, almost as long as he’d spent in the national forest with John and the kids, and this attire was his norm.

  “Shannon, will you go collect your CO? If anybody gives you problems, refer them to King or me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and snapped off a salute – and nobody was quite sure if it was given with sarcasm or a hint of irony.

  Michael watched her leave and swore she made her hips sway a bit as he watched. He was about to ask why suddenly everybody was snickering at him when Shannon turned around and dropped him a wink. Busted, he turned around to see King grinning.

  “May not have gotten you away from Kentucky fast enough,” he said in a rare display of words.

  “I’m not getting hitched and having babies,” Michael shot back, “I just met her.”

  “I just got together with Tex a couple months back, and we’re getting hitched and having a baby,” Caitlin said with a sardonic grin.

  “Guys…”

  “Hey, you roll with the punches,” John said, liking how the kid still acted like a kid, “otherwise you’re not grown up enough to be… well…”

  Michael was standing facing John and saw a blur of movement as somebody in sweats rushed at John from behind. Actually, almost everybody but Smith had been facing the young warrior when the DHS turncoat hiding in plain sight made his move. He was one of the volunteers who’d been working on getting food and water for everybody with help from the kitchen. In his hands he had a butcher knife, and was within ten feet of John’s back when Michael made his move.

  The young man had kept his father's matching set of Colts, and in his first gunfight, he’d shot several corrupt cops in the vests squarely. The cops had been stealing supplies and vehicles from survivors, and when they’d tried to strong-arm Michael and John, Michael had found out he had the gift of shooting naturally ingrained in him. The guns just felt right in his hands, almost like an extension of his fingers. He could also draw and fire them fast, not quite as fast as a cowboy in a spaghetti western, but faster than most men.

  John saw Michael’s hands blur as the kid made an impossibly fast draw with both guns and dropped just as the knife was swinging down at his back in an overhand strike. He trusted Michael, and he knew if he was fast enough, the best thing he could do was clear the way for Michael to have a clean shot to whatever danger he’d seen.

  King also registered the problem as the kid made his move. He half turned, seeing Michael using his natural talent, and was horrified to find he wasn’t going to be fast enough to help him out. Caitlin, Tex, and Smith were caught flat footed and jerked in surprise when John flopped, but Michael fired four times. He hit twice in the chest, once to the throat and once in the forehead of the knife-wielding man. The man’s momentum kept him going and, instead of the knife plunging down into John’s back, he tripped on John’s dropping form and went over the top, the knife clattering to the ground inches from his left eye.

  John rolled, and the corpse kept moving, almost embracing him with a wet sticky trail. He got to his knees slowly as Mic
hael kept the guns still aimed at a forty-five degree to his body scanning for more attackers. Then he hazarded a glance behind him and saw that everyone within a hundred foot radius had stopped and gotten down low when the shooting had started. Seeing no threats, he holstered one gun, performed a magazine change, and was doing the same on the other side when King put a hand on John’s arm and pulled him to his feet, his shoes leaving the ground for a second.

  “What…?” John looked at Michael, confused.

  “I didn’t recognize the danger until he had the knife out and was making his move. I’m sorry,” Michael murmured, putting a full mag in his left gun.

  Then he pulled some loose rounds from his pouch and started to reload mags as he waited for John to answer.

  “That was the slickest kind of cowboy shooting I ever done saw,” Tex drawled.

  “Sugar, I didn’t hardly see you move, and I was looking at you,” Caitlin said in awe.

  Michael’s face burned, but it wasn’t embarrassment, it was a shame. He’d been almost too slow, and it could have cost his friend's life. This was the man who’d promised to take care of him when the world went belly up, when he hadn’t quite figured out the kind of man he wanted to be. Well, now he had figured it out, and he’d almost failed - and failed badly in his own view.

  “You got nothing to apologize for,” John said, then coughed into his hand, clearing his throat. “I had no idea he was even coming.”

  “Kid, you done good, don’t you worry none ‘bout ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’. You dig?” King asked.

  “I should have seen it earlier. This is exactly what we’re trying to prevent from happening,” Michael said, his anger taking the place of his embarrassment.

  “Kid, you ain’t never lost nobody in battle. Sometimes it happens. You do your best and go on. It’s a good thing you think you’re better than all of us and that you have to protect all of us, but dammit, I’m a fighter, too,” King said, shocking them all into silence.

  “I didn’t say I was better than all of you,” Michael protested in a soft voice.

  “Then don’t assume it’s all on you. You did a good job, now quit feeling guilty. You ain’t responsible for my safety. You got my back, but at the end of the day, we’re all responsible for ourselves. Remember what they say about assumptions?” King asked him, meeting Michael’s angry tone of voice with his own.

  “That they are the mother of all F-ups?”

  “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me,” King said. “Now, unless you want some more PT, let’s figure out who this asshole is and we’ll…”

  King's words trailed off as Shannon and half a dozen men walked up. John held his carbine at the ready, and Michael put his right hand on the butt of the Colt. They hadn’t expected so many to be coming back with her, and more than a few of the men there looked mad enough to start shouting Trump at a Hillary Clinton convention. Smith said something into his radio, and the rest of them got ready for what could be a gruesome situation.

  “Reporting as ordered, sir,” a man with ‘Barnes’ stenciled on his sweats said, snapping off a salute.

  “Agent Barnes,” John said, “Agent Shannon Richardson has told us some about you. I suppose you’ve figured out why we are here?”

  “The rumors I’ve heard, sir, are that your group is to infiltrate this facility, gain access to sensitive data and flush the traitors out into the open,” he said, looking at Shannon, who nodded.

  “Yes, that’s correct. For some time now, the New Caliphate has been receiving high-level leaks from our own government, and were getting resupplied with US Armaments. We discovered that it was elements within your own organization…” Barnes started to respond, and John held up a hand to placate him, “and Sections of the Department of Homeland Security that were working with the New Caliphate. The real tipping point was finding out that the head of DHS, Hassan, went AWOL right before the EMP. Then he popped up again, after it was believed he’d been killed in the small yield nuclear attack on DC. What we’re trying to do here, Agent Barnes, is sort through those who were here and those who actively knew of the treason. I have taken this facility by force, but I’m woefully understaffed, unless I just start lining people up and shooting them.”

  “You can’t do that, the Geneva convention…”

  “Oh, I know, they’ll be treated in a humane matter. What I need help with, though, is sorting through who we can trust, and isolating the men who were working with the Jihadis,” John told him, “preventing lone wolf attacks like that,” he said, pointing to the corpse on the floor that had bled all over him.

  “How do you know they were working with the New Caliphate? I mean, you could be some right wing extremist group claiming you came in here with the government’s blessing and—”

  “Sugar, look at this,” Caitlin turned the computer around so she could show Barnes and his men - and woman - what she was looking at.

  It was a view from a security camera on the third floor. Several bodies littered the floor, where they had fallen after eating the doctored food. Two days of death had given them time to stiffen up and the blood to pool at their extremities. Then Caitlin hit a button and it showed another view with three more bodies out in the hallway, collapsed.

  “Who are those people?” one of Barnes’ men asked.

  “Why are they wearing traditional Muslim garb? That’s not regulation,” asked another.

  “They aren’t DHS, not those, at least. Some of their handlers with the DHS ate the tainted food, though. What I need help with…”

  John told them, and soon everyone was nodding. Several of the men cracked their knuckles and looked at the DHS agents who were still wearing base’s regular uniforms. Then King led them to the armory they had secured, and issued them all batons and side arms after Caitlin had verified everybody’s names and ID.

  Michael hung back with Shannon whose hand snaked its way into his as they watched them start the rounding up of traitors.

  “Do you think this is the end of it?” she asked him.

  “No, but it’s the beginning of the end.”

  “Hey, kid,” one of the agents who’d been walking with Shannon stopped and turned to face Michael. “Boss might not want to string these guys up, but the rest of us aren’t so squeamish. I always was led to believe traitors should be shot by firing squad.”

  “Right now, I think it’s a waste of bullets, and trust me, we’re gonna need them all,” Michael shot back.

  7

  “…are you sure of that? Over,” Sandra asked.

  “Say again,” Sgt. Silverman echoed, “over.”

  “The President has been assassinated. We’re only releasing this information to very tight, need to know group of people. We’re in contact with Col. Grady, and we’re trying to bring him in. Over.”

  Blake was holding a sleeping Chris in his arm, over his right shoulder. He’d fallen and twisted his ankle playing with the older kids and wanted some extra cuddles. Blake was more than happy to give it to him, but his recently healed gunshot wound was bugging him, and while most of his strength had come back, not all of his stamina had yet returned and he was running on empty.

  “Did I just hear that correctly?” Blake asked as Silverman’s transmission finished.

  “Shhhh,” Sandra chided and waited for the answer, David and Patty turning white as a sheet as they stood beside the large radio setup in Blake’s living room.

  “I said the President has been assassinated. His top aide Patrick is responsible. He said something to the Secret Service agent, before he was killed in an escape attempt, to the effect that he made a deal with the Chinese. We think… it was some sort of retaliation, because of the less than strategic nuclear strike on Pyongyang. We had reports of long range Chinese bombers flying over the Pacific, but they turned back before they reached Hawaii. Over.”

  “What about subs? Over,” Sandra asked.

  “We’ve had several tense moments, and we had to command detonate severa
l torpedoes we fired at what we thought were Korean Navy subs. Over.”

  “Are we still firing on the North Koreans? Over,” Sandra asked, her voice barely audible even in the deathly quiet of the house.

  Outside, you could hear kids laughing, grownups talking, and the pop of the communal fire as dinner was being prepared and eaten in shifts.

  “Yes, ma’am, the holdouts have tried some crude cruise launched missiles on the far east coast, but so far our missile defense system has been more than a match for them - if they don’t blow up on launch, that is. Over.”

  “I can organize the ground war here at home. I’ve gotten word that the main intelligence element of the New Caliphate has been captured or killed, but organizing a campaign to protect the air and sea is more than I am capable of. We need Col. Grady to come in. Over.”

  “That’s why we’re in contact with you, ma’am. We’ve requested the Col. to make himself available to help us out, but he told us he would be in touch and we haven’t spoken with him yet. We were hoping that you’d speak to him, to tell him how much the country needs him right now. Over.”

  “I can try. I have his frequency and scrambler codes, but I haven’t been in contact with his new location as of yet. Over.”

  “I have a pretty good idea of where he’s at,” the airman said with a note in his voice that sounded amused, “but I think he can do what we need him to do from where he’s located. If you’d contact him, we’d appreciate it, over.”

  “Understood, I’ll make the call. Over and Out,” Sandra said and put down the handset.

  Her hand was shaking, and Blake started toward her, but Patty was already sliding a bench under her as Sandra sat down hard. Blake handed Chris off to David who was still silent, and sat on the stool, straddling it and put his arm on his wife’s back as she took deep breaths and held her stomach.

  “You okay?” Blake asked her.

  David slid into place after putting Chris in the recliner and put on the headset so he could continue monitoring communications. He had been a tagalong of a gang that had enslaved women and children and, though he had never committed the crimes himself, he still felt guilty. So while at the Homestead, he had done everything he could to make the suffering less, in small ways. He felt that he’d finally found a home when the ladies had shown him forgiveness and started to make him feel like he fit in.