Knowing they were going to bolt for the door as soon as his presence became known, he waited until they were both on the opposite side of the room. He flipped the latch on the back door as he passed so that he could delay them as they tried to escape. Then Nathan lunged like a tiger into the living room roaring a loud growling sound that scared the two boys nearly out of their skins. In seconds he had one of them in an arm lock around the neck.
He picked up the boy as though he were a rag doll, throwing his lower body in a circle hitting the second boy in the chest with those heavy boots he was wearing like the Harley rider he pretended to be. The wind was completely knocked out of the second boy, and he gasped in pain and fear on the floor near the built-in sofa.
“Let me go, man,” pleaded the boy still held in his grasp. “I can't breathe.”
Using his knee, Nathan pushed at his back thrusting him forward into his buddy who was already standing there with his arms held up in surrender. Under the couch, just a few feet away, he grabbed for his hidden but unloaded gun. The boys did not know that, however. As the two of them bolted for the back door, Nathan cocked the gun with a loud click and yelled, “Stop or you're dead—at least one of you will be. Take your chances or stand still.”
He made the boys come into the living room and sat them down together as they waited for the others to arrive. The boys tried to make excuses, but Nathan silenced them. The one who had taken the hit in the chest began to cry. Then Mike and Jerry entered the RV with their guns drawn.
“Holy shit,” whined the first boy, “What are you guys? Cops or something?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Mike, “I am a Saint Louis police officer, and I've dealt with kids a lot worse than you on a daily basis. Meet my son, the Iraq war veteran. He's seen crap you'd never imagine in your worst nightmares. My son-in-law, well, he's just a very good shot. Did you pick the wrong house to rob, or what?”
“So what're you gonna do with us?” sobbed the smaller crying one.
Normally, Mike would play good cop/bad cop, only he didn't have his partner. He winked to his son, hoping he got the signal. Nathan just might make a perfect bad ass, he thought.
“I say we lock them up,” said Nathan. “Under martial law, we can do whatever we want to protect the public from criminals like this.”
“What about our parents?” asked the taller one with the sore neck. “Don't you need to tell them?”
“Let them wonder where you are,” snapped Nathan. “Maybe they'll learn to raise their other kids better. It's probably their fault you turned out to be such thieving scum. Maybe they're trash just like you two.”
“No, sir, please,” pleased the crier, “They're good people. And we lied to them about where we were going. They think we're hiking near the lake.”
Mike opened the pillow-case bag they had filled. Inside he found mostly food items. A wrapped package of sliced turkey, a container of mashed potatoes with another that held the gravy, and an apple pie which had not been cut.
“How long have you guys been on the road?” asked Mike.
“Several weeks,” answered the older boy who was still rubbing his neck. “We had about two months worth of food in the house. When that ran out, my dad and I would go out each day looking for something to bring home. There wasn't much we could find. So we got in the car and left everything… our house, all our clothes, the furniture. It's all gone now. Maybe you should just take us to jail. At least we'd get fed, and our parents wouldn't have to worry about us.”
“Let's take them home, Nathan,” said Mike. “And you can have this food you took. But we need to talk to your parents.”
Thomas and Jonathan Talbot revealed their names and directed the men to their tent. It was not the kind you go camping in, but a much larger and sturdier military-style structure. Inside were folding cots, an aluminum table and chairs, and metal trunks stacked sideways to act as make-shift kitchen cabinets. It was clean and tidy, but a far cry from what you would consider a home.
Mr. and Mrs. Talbot invited them to sit at the table, while the boys sat on the nearby cot. Their father eyed them with disappointment and a degree of temper, which the boys felt intently. Nathan and Mike placed the pillow case onto the table in front of them and explained what had happened. After introductions, they began the serious talk.
“It's my fault they did this,” said Jacob Talbot, “We've been stealing food for months now. They've gotten the idea it's okay. We can't teach them what's right, then turn around and do wrong, and not expect them to listen to what we say and not what we do. We might as well all go to jail.”
“Nobody's going to jail,” said Mike, “we need to do something to make things better here for everyone. We're all in the same boat, and we need to stick together. Those of us that were here first… we all lost our homes, our jobs, lives we loved. But we had prior knowledge of what was going to happen. I don't know why the government didn't warn the public. Maybe they didn't know for sure what was going to happen and didn't want to cause panic. That's giving them the benefit of the doubt. It's too horrible to think that they knew and did nothing, but it's almost as disturbing to think that they didn't know… that the enemy has completely outsmarted us.
“We need to survive this,” he continued. “because we will be the future world that will be left at the end of this war. I know they are building more homes. The foundations look almost ready. We watched the others go up, and it only took a day. They came in by truckloads and went up very quickly. If you guys can hold out a little longer, things will get better. We need to figure out how to improve conditions however we can. Food seems to be a problem.”
“We're getting government rations,” said Jacob Talbot, “and the dinners aren't bad. But we haven't had real food in a long, long time. It's been harder on the boys than I realized. They need to learn that desires are not as important as needs.”
“That lake is full of really great trout,” said Mike. “We could scrounge up some poles and go fishing. That's a forty-acre lake, and there are more ponds on the property. We have a garden up behind the lodge, but it needs to be bigger. Maybe with some added manpower we could enlarge it for next year,” he said, wondering if they'd even be there next year.
The boys watched as their circumstances seemed to change by the minute. Instead of going to jail, they were going to go fishing. And something inside them had changed as well. They no longer wanted to steal anything, and they felt ashamed. Too ashamed to eat the stolen booty on the table.
“We're really sorry,” said Thomas, the crier, “I promise never to steal again.”
“Please forgive us, sir,” said Jonathan, “and please take the food back. We've lost our appetite anyway.”
“Nonsense,” said Mike, “Please, we want you to have this. It's a gift. Do you have a way to heat up the turkey and mashed potatoes? And Ruthie makes the best apple pie in the world. We'll show you where the apple trees are. You boys can go pick a basketful, and she'll be happy to make some more for everybody. This place is big—over seven thousand acres. There's room for all of us.”
Jacob's wife, Anne Marie, asked if Ruthie was the one with the baby. She had seen them taking walks and really missed having a baby around. Offering to babysit, she said that she regretted having her tubes tied after the boys; especially now that the world population had been so diminished.
“It seemed like a good plan. Two boys, a house, a bank account. We had a future before us. But God had other plans. We really are the lucky ones. Think about all those people in the east. They're going to die, all of them, or wish they had. We are enduring a few minor inconveniences. But we have the necessities. Let me know how I can help… with the baby, or with anything. I am an RN, you know. So that might come in handy.”
Mike agreed that her help might be useful. Here they had started an Easter Sunday with terrible news about their world, then faced a home invasion, and it had all ended with new recruits on their team. Their numbers now approached nearly two thousan
d. Mike recognized the need for this diverse group to become a community. They should be pulling together in this crisis, not fighting among themselves. He decided to spend more time getting to know these people. This was the group that God had brought together and saved for the purpose of making a new world.
* * *
Chapter 7. The Plan
Cal worked nearly non-stop at the facility during the next few months. He felt desperate to learn details about the terrorist's plans for their tiny nation of survivors. Their strategies had worked well so far, and that needed to stop.
Sometimes he wondered if he was not caught between two enemies instead of just the terrorists alone. A massive military complex seemed to stand in the way of the future world he and the others hoped to build. Their secrecy enraged him. The lack of freedom of movement and the denial of his offers to engage in the decision making infuriated him even more. Perhaps he was wrong to think he was special, but the angel Ashriel had been clear. He and Abby were to lead a new humanity forward, becoming a new Adam and Eve. He did not feel confident that the military knew what they were doing. There had been too many mistakes.
He had been warned to stop snooping into files that did not relate to his job. In spite of the generous pay, he had never thought of himself as an employee of the government. And he definitely did not consider himself a soldier—except for being a warrior for God. The pay was meaningless in a world where you couldn't spend it. The bank which held his money, the cash he and Abigail had withdrawn in Saint Louis, his paycheck which was deposited into an account weekly. It was all for nothing. The people who ran the banks were dead; therefore the monetary system was already gone.
Cal's purpose became clear to him. He sensed he should gather every bit of information he could before they denied him access to the sensitive files in the system. He began sending these files to the computer at the cabin, to Abby's laptop. Then he created a Power Point presentation which could be played on the big screen in the McFarland's living room. He had a plan.
A meeting had been called for that evening at the McFarlands, and Anne Marie joined with the other women to keep the kids occupied at the Callahan cabin. They had movies and a new big screen television Cal had borrowed from the underground facility's recreation room. No one was living there yet, but he felt the time would come soon when everyone would be together there. He was surprised to see young Stephen in attendance with his father, Nathan.
“I'm too big for those kid movies,” he explained. “And I want to know what's happening. I can help.”
“I think maybe he can,” said Nathan, “He's a very smart boy. It seems right to include him.”
Cal agreed. The room filled with newly forming community leaders, including Jacob Talbot, who had been recruited by Mike during their fishing trips. Several other men from among the newcomers had joined, through Mike's efforts at community organization. Abigail and Uma were the only women present, as the others felt they needed to stay with the children. Cal addressed the group, explaining everything he had learned about their situation. Abigail had helped him create a power point presentation which illustrated their situation with maps and graphics so that everyone could see what Cal had envisioned in his head.
“To start with reviewing the first wave of the attacks,” he began, “we see that the nuclear power plant explosions were an important first step in a precisely planned strategy.”
He showed a map of the United States with blue dots at each location that resulted in a hit. A concentric paler blue circle around each dot represented the areas where destruction and radioactive fallout had resulted in destruction.
Abigail clicked, and an overlay of red dots represented the military bases all over the United States. The nuclear plants had been chosen along the coastlines and throughout the east for their proximity to military installations. Twenty of the twenty-five targets had successfully destroyed the defense capabilities of those bases.
“The second wave was the nuclear bombs delivered by mini-submarines through our waterways. It's the ones around New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana that were key, but notice that all of the ones hit were along major waterways that all connect to the Mississippi River,” said Cal. “This river is over two-thousand miles long, not including the tributaries and the places where it branches off to other major rivers throughout the Mid-Atlantic states. It was the fatal blow to a region already devastated by the chaos that resulted from the first wave attacks.”
“They used both the Cuban Delfin model mini-submarines and the North Korean Yugos to deliver suitcase nukes supplied by Russia,” he said, realizing it sounded even worse now that he had said it aloud to an entire group of people. The enemy is much bigger than ever imagined.
“Although the explosive destruction of these devices is limited, only a one-kiloton capacity, the nuclear fallout is vast. Five of them hit New York City, and five hit Washington D.C. Ultimately, this was the death blow for the whole eastern half of our country. The President, the cabinet, the Congress… all are underground, safe and making decisions—most of which I don't agree with. But no one is listening to what I think. And although they can live comfortably in their underground haven for up to a year or more, they can't come out. Not now. Eventually they will. But they will face nothing but death and destruction all around them. Was this the end planned for our governing bodies… either death in an underground tomb or death above ground amidst decay and destruction? I don't think so. And you'll see why.
“Bringing us up to the present,” he continued. “The few remaining people from the middle western states are gradually moving farther west seeking food, basically. They are scavenging, living off the land, and finding refuge at major military installations. However, there are only three like ours. None of the rest have underground facilities, much less the infrastructure that connects all the intelligence networks, and much more. The military has control of everything—money, food, utilities, and security.
“Every system you can imagine is patched into the super-computers here in Wyoming, in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado, and at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana which has facilities and an underground system that have been kept secret for years. Every security camera, every database imaginable, even your kids' computers are accessible to the government's eyes and ears. They can read all of your emails, watch what you do on Facebook, and listen to your conversations through your smartphones.
“That's the reason for the enormous number of military personnel stationed here. They aren't prepared so much to fight as to perform intelligence operations and keep the surviving population alive and in check. I’ve checked through the backgrounds of enough of the personnel to see that none of them have had any combat training or experience. They are all desk jockies.
“They don't anticipate any real war here, safely situated between the buffers on the north and south—Montana and Colorado, as well as the whole continuous line of bases from North Dakota all the way down to Texas on our east. They think we're safe as can be. And with ample supply routes through Canada. The truckloads keep coming, even bringing entire houses on flatbeds. We are supplied with as much of everything we need.”
“I'm getting the impression,” said Nathan, “that there's a big but coming.”
“An enormous one,” replied Cal. “They aren't even preparing for a war at all. We're getting all the information about what's happening to the rest of the country. But I sense a real complacency amid all the personnel I've met, including Agent Foley. I get the feeling we're just here to wait it out. They are engineers, office workers, medical men, and the like. Most of them haven't seen or held a gun since their basic training days. They assume other bases are going to do the fighting while they preserve society. But we are not so safe. I think we're in for a major attack right here.
“First of all, I think the enemy is going to attack again, this time with jet fighters, maybe with nuclear warheads. They may be planning to destroy us then wait for the radiation to fade
away and take over this region as their new homeland. Or they are going to attack us with conventional weapons to avoid contaminating our soil. Perhaps they'll do both, but they definitely have plans for us. We've been too carefully preserved.
“If I were a terrorist,” he said, clicking as another overlay appeared. “I'd consider using tanks and armed personnel carriers to enter through Mexico. Their final blow would come through the southern border's tunnels. The ones built by drug smugglers and illegal aliens. Depending on conditions down there, they may be able to just drive through with no resistance. They could travel through all the dead and deserted land leading up to Los Angeles, then follow Interstate 15 and its intersections all the way through the west capturing the cities along the way toward us.
The Last Stand (Book 3) (The Repentant Demon Trilogy) Page 13