Trackers Omnibus [Books 1-4]

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  Charlize exhaled the breath she was holding in. “Kamikazes?”

  “Yes,” Thor said with a nod. “The North Korean submarine snuck past the defenses and self-detonated before Captain Dietz could detect the diesel sub. The North Koreans must have thought President Diego was still on board to pull a move like that.”

  Charlize couldn’t believe it.

  “There’s still one more submarine out there,” Thor added. “We’re working on finding it.”

  Diego fiddled with his red tie and said, “There’s something else…we received a video of your son.”

  — 13 —

  “Chief, the Stanley’s on fire!” shouted Margaret.

  Colton looked up from the map of Estes Park on the conference room table. He was in the middle of briefing everyone on the plan to place sentries at multiple places across the town. All around him, staff, officers, volunteers, and recruits turned toward the department’s dispatcher. Margaret stood a head shorter than everyone in the room, but she had a hell of a commanding voice.

  “Did you hear me?” she yelled. “I said the Stanley is burning!”

  Colton moved for the hallway and bolted toward the front doors. Footfalls pounded the floor as he was followed outside. He pushed open the doors and stumbled into the cool afternoon. In the distance, plumes of smoke rose toward the clouds.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  It took him ten precious seconds to snap out of his initial shock, and then he started barking orders.

  “Officer Matthew, get the truck! Officer Hines, grab the gear. Margaret, get the word out to every officer and tell them to head to the Stanley!”

  Colton pulled up his duty belt. It was looser around his waist. Had he already lost that much weight since the attack?

  Two minutes later, the Chevy rattled up around the side of town hall. Colton took the passenger side, and Hines jumped into the back carrying several packs of gear and heavy turncoats. Several other volunteers climbed in with him. At Colton’s nod, Matthew peeled away from town hall.

  The Chevy chugged up MacGregor Avenue, and Colton used the time to put on one of the heavy coats. Gray and brown hills rose in the distance, speckled with evergreens. The beauty was once again overshadowed by a disaster as he slipped on a pair of gloves.

  Matthew pulled right onto Wonderview Avenue, and Colton cursed when the small gold cap on top of the Stanley came into view. Flames licked the left section of the white neo-colonial hotel. They hadn’t spread to the central or the right wing, but it was only a matter of time.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” Matthew asked, looking at the gauges.

  Colton would have told him not to push it too hard—Jake had rebuilt the truck from old parts on the weekends, and he wasn’t a hundred percent confident in his friend’s skills as a mechanic—but he was too busy staring in horror at the burning building. Flames flickered out the windows and over the roof. At the bottom of the structure, a line of people were passing buckets of water.

  It wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good.

  Storm clouds rolled across the horizon, but they were heading east, away from the park. Rain wasn’t going to save the Stanley. Neither were a few buckets of well water. Without pressurized fire hoses, it was like spitting on a bonfire.

  The last seconds of the drive seemed like an eternity. If they lost the Stanley, the stranded tourists and townsfolk sheltered there would be homeless.

  Hundreds of people had gathered on the terrace out front. Smoke rolled across the scene, shifting in the afternoon wind and blowing into the white tents set up on the lawn behind the hedge maze, gardens and fountains. Colton had to get them away from the building.

  “Get back!” he shouted out the window.

  Jim Meyers, the manager of the hotel, was on his knees praying.

  How about trying to put the fire out? Colton thought. He opened the door before Matthew brought the vehicle to a stop and jumped out.

  Motion from the front entrance to the hotel caught his eye. An elderly couple staggered out of the front door, coughing. The man helped his wife across the front veranda, but fell as he reached the steps, barely catching himself on the railing. Four American flags hung over white pillars holding up the balcony above them. The symbols of freedom whipped in the smoky wind as the fires closed in.

  “Hines, help those people!” Colton shouted. “Matthew, get the crowd back.” He turned to look for Jim. He was standing now, running his hands through his thin hair.

  “Jim, is anyone else inside?” Colton yelled.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Well, find out!” Colton looked back to the volunteers who’d joined him. A few were helping direct people away from the burning building, but too many were standing and staring, mouths agape.

  “Somebody throw me a gas mask!” Colton shouted. Hines dug through a pack and tossed over a mask. Colton snatched it from the air and stuffed it into his pocket while running toward the left wing.

  “Chief, you forgot your helmet!” Hines shouted.

  Colton turned and caught the helmet like a football and then continued toward the building. There were at least twenty people in the bucket brigade, and at the front of the line stood Lindsey, the collar of her shirt pulled up over her nose. He approached with a hand shielding his face, the heat of the flames already tingling across his exposed skin.

  A window shattered on the second floor, flames exploding outward.

  “Watch out!” Colton shouted.

  Dale Jackson was standing under the window wearing his volunteer firefighter turncoat, helmet, and gloves. The retired veteran had made good on his promise to change his ways after Colton had caught him waving a gun at Nathan and Sandra the night of the EMP attack, and since then he’d been one of the first to help out when anyone needed it. Dale jumped away, but the showering glass sliced through his coat and cut into his tattooed bicep.

  “Ah, shit!” he shouted.

  “Get back!” Colton yelled.

  Colton worked his way up to Lindsey. Her face was filthy and flushed. The heat intensified as the fire spread over the building. It wouldn’t be long before the blaze would force the group to retreat.

  “We need more water!” she yelled. “Where’s the fire department?”

  “What fire department?” Colton shouted back.

  Lindsey grabbed a bucket and threw the water on the building. She handed it back to Colton, and he passed it down the line.

  “Where the hell is Don?” Colton asked.

  Lindsey coughed from the smoke. “Don’t know.”

  The fire had spread up to the third floor. Another window broke. Colton grabbed a bucket, tossed it on the side of the building, grabbed another, and kept going, hoping that maybe the rain clouds would change direction.

  Over the commotion came a frantic shout. “Where’s my husband? I can’t find my husband!”

  Colton looked over his shoulder at an older woman with gray hair struggling toward the building. Hines was trying to hold her back, but she pulled from his grip.

  “Colton!” Hines shouted.

  Wood splintered overhead with a deafening crack. The roof began to cave in on the left wing, flames belching out into the sky. The blaze stung his exposed skin, and sweat beaded beneath the heavy coat he wore.

  “Everyone back!” Colton shouted. He pulled Lindsey away as she went to grab another bucket.

  “No!” she snapped. “We have to—”

  Colton dragged her back just as a piece of burning wood hit the grass where she’d been standing. Sparks landed on her jeans. She fell on her knees, beating out the embers, but he quickly pulled her back to her feet.

  “Come on!” he shouted. The other people working to save the Stanley dropped their buckets and ran. The heat of the flames hit Colton’s neck like a slap. They had moved just in the nick of time.

  On the other side of the lawn, the tourists were huddled in a group; some of them crying, others looking upon their temporary home
in a state of shock. A man with a WWII veteran hat bowed his head, gripping the armrests of his wheelchair with arthritic fingers. The woman who had lost her husband screamed, pulling on Hines to let her go.

  “Get back!” Matthew shouted. Hands out wide, he corralled the crowd back across the lawn.

  “Damn it, Dale,” Lindsey shouted. Colton turned to see Dale still standing in front of the flames, holding two buckets of water, veins bulging in his neck. He tossed both buckets and then scrambled for more. Colton started toward him, determined to drag the man away before he got himself killed, when a hand grabbed his sleeve.

  “Chief,” said the gray-haired woman. “Please, my husband is still in there!”

  “All right, ma’am,” Colton huffed. “Where did you last see him?”

  She pointed to the second floor, just above the veranda. Flames danced behind the classic colonial windows.

  “Shit,” Colton muttered.

  Lindsey joined them, wiping soot from her forehead and then coughing into her sleeve. Dale finally retreated from the fire and jogged over, blood drenching his arm.

  “Someone still inside, Chief?” Dale asked. He coughed into his sleeve and then cupped his lacerated bicep with a glove.

  “Her husband,” Colton said.

  Dale jerked his chin at the building. “I’ll go find the old guy. I’ve been in worse than that back in Iraq. Once saved a kid—”

  “No, it’s too dangerous, and you need to get your arm looked at,” Colton said. “I’ll go.”

  “Like hell. Not without me.” This time it was Lindsey talking. She looked like she could barely stand, but there was a determined set to her jaw.

  Colton didn’t have time to argue. He took off for the porch before they could protest. A figure wearing a cowboy hat came running through the smoke around the east wing. For a moment, Colton thought it was Jake’s ghost, but then saw it wasn’t his old friend—or a friend at all—it was Don.

  “Where you going, Chief?” Don shouted.

  Colton pointed at the balcony on the second floor. “Got a man trapped inside.”

  “The building is a total loss. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go in there, it’s far too dangerous.”

  Don put his hand on Colton’s shoulder, pushing him back from the hotel.

  “Get your hand off me, Sergeant,” Colton growled.

  Someone rushed by Colton and Don. It was Dale, and before anyone could stop him, the veteran loped up the stairs and ran through the open doors into the lobby, spearing the smoke with his helmet.

  Colton pulled out his gas mask and secured it over his face as he ran after Dale. The mask wouldn’t do much to protect him from the heat or carbon monoxide, but at least it would block the smoke particles as long as there was at least twenty percent oxygen. He had to make this quick. Without much thermal protection or an oxygen tank, he wouldn’t last long inside the building—and Dale didn’t have a mask at all.

  Keeping low, Colton moved through the smoke-choked porch and stepped into the lobby. Visibility was shit, but at least this part of the building wasn’t on fire. He took in raspy breaths, struggling for air as he moved.

  He hadn’t been inside the Stanley for a long time, not since he’d taken Kelly to the historic bar and restaurant for an anniversary celebration years ago. If he remembered correctly, the stairs were straight ahead.

  Colton walked as low and as quickly as possible, hands waving in front of him to stop from running into anything. The smoke was heavy here and he couldn’t see the staircase, but he could make out the reception desk to his left, and the golden elevator on his right. He crouched down and moved forward until he saw the bottom of the carpeted stairs.

  A cracking sounded like the earth splitting in two. Colton stood and then jumped back just as the ceiling gave way, dumping burning wood, plaster, and furniture onto the floor in front of the stairs.

  He shielded his face from the fire with an arm and looked up through the gaping hole to the second floor. A chair tumbled out of the opening, shattering at his feet. Colton frantically brushed off the sparks that stuck to his clothing.

  “Dale!” he shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. He couldn’t see much of anything through the plastic, and he knew he didn’t have long before it started to melt. Even worse, he could hardly breathe.

  Unable to stand it anymore, Colton tore off the gas mask and pulled his collar up over his nose. He coughed into the material and desperately searched for a way around the spreading flames to the stairs. His vision burned and blurred from the smoke and intense heat, but he managed to see a gap around the fire. Maybe if he could get around it…

  “Over here!” someone shouted. He whirled to look for the voice, but the curtain of smoke was too thick. Even with the sunlight coming through the front doors, he couldn’t see much. The walkie-talkie crackled on his hip, but he was afraid of dropping it if he tried to answer now.

  “Help me with him!” yelled the same strangled voice.

  A large, misshapen figure emerged on the other side of the fire at the bottom of the staircase. Two men, Colton realized, one of them leaning on the other as a crutch.

  Colton flattened his body and moved around the flames to help. Fire licked at his pant legs. He took a step back and then leapt over the burning floorboards.

  “Help me carry him,” Dale said. He coughed violently and hoisted the man up with Colton’s help. The fire raged over the debris where the ceiling had caved in. Static crackled from the radio again, and then there was a voice that sounded like Margaret, but Colton couldn’t make out the words.

  “Let’s make a run for it,” Dale choked. They barreled around the section of burning floor. Moving as one, they carried the moaning elderly man through the lobby, out the front doors, across the porch, and down the stairs.

  As soon as they were outside, they dropped to the ground. Lindsey, Hines, and Matthew ran over with buckets of water. They tossed them onto Colton, Dale, and the unconscious man, dousing the embers that smoldered on their clothes.

  “You’re a crazy son of a bitch, Dale,” Colton said. He pushed himself up, shivering from the combination of the cold water and the wind.

  “Found this guy on the stairs,” Dale managed to say.

  Lindsey was on her knees next to the unconscious man. Air wheezed from his lungs. His wife came running over and dropped down by his other side.

  “Chief!” someone shouted.

  Colton looked over his shoulder at Detective Tim Ryburn. He bent down to put his hands on his knees, gut hanging over his duty belt.

  “Chief,” he said. “I… I ran here as fast as I could. Margaret’s been trying to get you on the radio.”

  “I’ve been a little bit busy,” Colton said.

  The flames had reached the right wing of the Stanley now. Another section of roof collapsed into the heart of the building, burying over a hundred years’ worth of memories, artwork, and history.

  The walkie-talkie on Colton’s belt buzzed again just as Ryburn finally caught his breath. “Chief, there’s been a jailbreak.”

  Colton coughed and shook his head. “What are you talking about? Who broke out?”

  “That thug, Theo,” Ryburn said, wheezing. “A group of armed men took him from the jail. They showed up right after we got word the hotel was on fire.”

  Colton looked at his other officers. He had ordered his entire department away from their posts, including the jail, in an effort to save the Stanley. He looked back at the inferno. This wasn’t some accident. This was arson—a distraction to get them away from their critical facilities. He felt the realization like a fist to the gut.

  They’d been played.

  He plucked the radio off his belt. “Margaret, do you copy?”

  “I’m here, Chief,” she replied.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but…” Margaret said. “Those men didn’t just take Theo. They took all our supplies, too.”

  — 14 —

  The rain had
subdued the forest fires along the highway, but the flames had done plenty of damage to the terrain, burning all the way up to the treeline around the jagged mountains to the south.

  Nathan held up the Geiger counter to check for radiation. The reading came back minimal again. The rain had not only stopped the fires—it had also cleared a lot of the radiation. No one would be able to plant crops around here anytime soon, but at least the ground wasn’t completely toxic.

  He pulled out the analog radio from his bag, hoping that he would finally be able to reach his sister. He turned to the channel and said, “Major Sardetti calling Lieutenant Marco or Secretary Montgomery. Does anyone copy? Over.”

  No one answered.

  After a few attempts, Nathan put the radio back in his rucksack. “Haven’t been able to raise anyone for over nine hours. I don’t understand.”

  “You sure you’re on the right channel?” Raven asked.

  Nathan shifted his rifle from one hand to the other. His broken arm was killing him, but he didn’t want Raven to see it. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “This feels a lot like the night of attack, when we were completely cut off,” Nathan said. “I’m worried something else has happened.”

  Raven kept his gaze on the road, eyes shifting left to right. The man was on constant alert. Four hours of driving on Interstate 70 and searching the side roads hadn’t turned up anything but corpses. Nathan had lost count of the bodies. Most had died from radiation poisoning, but they’d found a few clusters of people who’d been shot. The Sons of Liberty must have moved through here, but it was impossible to say how long ago or even which direction they’d been heading in.

  “We need a new plan,” Raven said. “Following the bodies isn’t working.”

  “Maybe it’s time to let me come up with a plan,” Nathan said. “I say we set a trap and ambush these fuckers like they did the soldiers back on the bridge.”

  Raven wagged his finger back and forth. “I think I figured you out, Major. You want me to die, so you can have Lindsey. But she’s mine, man. Feel free to date my sister when I’m gone, though. As long as you treat her right.”