Running back to the propped-up body, Nathan looked the rifle over, seeing it was an M-14. He took out the magazine and set the weapon beside the body. He grabbed the dead man’s hat and sat it on his head to cover up where Ares had grabbed the back of the neck.
Spinning around, Nathan ran up the hill, then crawled up beside John. “They are going to go around the back of the hill to our right and come up the little draw to the camp here. When they get out, I want you to shoot the driver in the face. I will take care of the passenger. Don’t shoot till both are out.”
John looked over at Nathan with awe and a little trepidation. “Are you a Jedi?”
“No I’ll explain later. If they don’t get out, shoot the driver when I shoot the passenger,” Nathan said as he lined up, pointing his body down the hill, looking at the camp and the base of the hill.
John slowly moved till he was facing the same way Nathan was. Now that he couldn’t see over the hill, John was getting worried in case they followed the road to the others. Seeing Nathan move, John watched him aim at the dead man, looking through the scope on his M-4.
“They just turned off the road,” Nathan said, moving his rifle away from the dead man.
Feeling like he was lying beside a Jedi, John nodded and brought his eye to the scope of the sniper rifle. It was only a few minutes before he saw the dune buggy come out of the draw a hundred yards away. It continued toward the dead man and stopped about thirty yards from the dead man and sixty yards from John and Nathan.
When the two got out, the driver’s face filled John’s scope. Taking a deep breath, John let out half his breath, and when he saw the passenger step out, he closed his left eye. When the crosshairs sat right under the driver’s nose, John slowly squeezed the trigger. The buckle and suppressed bark surprised him as the gun fired.
The driver’s head vanished in a pink mist as John heard Nathan’s M-4 cough three times. Seeing a blur pass his scope, John looked up to see Nathan barreling down the hillside. Seeing movement and hearing screaming beside the buggy, John lowered his head down to see the passenger holding his bloody knees.
When the screaming man looked up and noticed Nathan running at him, Nathan was less than ten yards away. The screamer reached to his holster as Nathan leapt in the air and came down on the screamer’s chest. With no air in his body and the blow to the chest, screamer was stunned.
Balling his fist, Nathan dropped down, hitting the dazed man in the temple, knocking him out cold. Working fast, Nathan stripped him down as John came running up behind him. “Get the other one stripped down naked and bring me his belt,” Nathan said, sitting the unconscious man up next to the dune buggy. Spreading the man’s arms out, Nathan tied him to the frame of the buggy.
When John came back over with the other man’s belt, he saw the naked man tied to the buggy and Nathan wrapping a belt above his left knee, making a tourniquet. Then Nathan took the belt out of John’s hand, making another on the right above the knee.
John looked at the man’s knees, seeing both had been blown out with Nathan’s shots. Neither was bleeding now with the tourniquets on. “John, go check on the others,” Nathan said.
“Nathan, I need to stay on watch,” John objected.
Nathan pointed over at the dead man. “Nothing is within two miles of us.”
“What?” John said, looking at the dead man with a computer tablet in his lap.
“Just check on them. Tell Jasmine to suture up Ares, and make the girls drink lots of fluid. I want you to check their pulse and blood pressure just like I taught you. Then come back here,” Nathan said slowly.
“Okay, Nathan,” John said, running back up the hill.
Watching John run over the hill, Nathan took out a small notebook and wrote down what he had learned so far from the box and the dead man’s code. Standing up, Nathan looked inside the buggy and noticed some gear in the back. Walking around the buggy, Nathan saw a box where the engine should be.
Looking at the rear of the vehicle, Nathan saw the box went from the back to just behind the seats. A third seat was over the box at a gun position on the roof. Nathan went to the driver’s side and saw a key. He turned it but didn’t hear an engine start, but the dashboard lights came on.
Climbing in, Nathan put the buggy in drive and tapped the gas. The buggy eased forward a few inches and Nathan hit the brake. Looking at the controls, Nathan saw several switches. One said “bat/eng,” with the switch flipped to bat. Nathan flipped the switch and the dashboard lights died.
Seeing a button beside the key, Nathan pushed it and heard a very subdued engine behind him. The lights came on, along with a display reading voltage. With the buggy still in drive, Nathan tapped the pedal and the buggy eased forward, but the engine noise didn’t change. Hearing screaming from the passenger side, he drove over beside the first dead man. Nathan hit the brake and turned the key off, hearing the motor turn off.
Nathan climbed out and walked around to the man tied to the buggy. His legs were pointing to the back of the buggy where Nathan had dragged him around. “Damn, I forgot about you, boy,” Nathan said, walking over to the dead man with the tablet. Taking the tablet, Nathan kicked the corpse over and dug in his pockets. Finding what he was looking for, Nathan walked over to the moaning man.
Taking out his digital camera, Nathan hit video and record as he knelt down in front of the man tied to the buggy. Nathan held up a credential billfold with a badge and ID card. “Hi, Lonny,” Nathan said. “I have no idea what level nine is but it must mean some shit. Your friends are only level three.”
As Nathan set the camera down, aiming it at Lonny, he quit moaning and gritted his teeth. “I’m going to kill you and everyone you know.”
Seeing the look on Lonny’s face, Nathan fell back, laughing. As Nathan slowly came back to his knees, Lonny had a very frightened expression on his face. “Lonny, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re tied up and I’m not. Your buddies are dead and I have a sharp knife, lighter fluid, and time to kill.”
Lonny started panting as he stared at Nathan. “Just leave me then, I’ll call it even.”
“Oh, just a few seconds ago you wanted to kill everyone I know. No you are going to talk. It’s your choice how you do it. If I help, you won’t like it,” Nathan said.
“What do I get out of it if I talk?” Lonny asked.
“No excruciating pain, for starters,” Nathan said, pulling out his knife.
“Then you will just kill me,” Lonny said.
“Yes, but without the excruciating pain,” Nathan said, moving the knife down to Lonny’s shot knees.
Lonny sucked in breath, watching the tip of the knife slowly circle his shot knees. “If you leave me, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“I’ll leave you here,” Nathan said, smiling.
“Alive,” Lonny demanded.
Narrowing his eyes, Nathan glared at Lonny. “Alive. But if you don’t answer, I’m getting medieval on your ass.” Lonny sighed, closing his eyes, and nodded his head. “What the fuck is that thing called?” Nathan said, pointing at the box and tablet.
“E-M-F-T-U, second generation. Electro Magnetic Field Tracking Unit. We call it Mew,” Lonny told him. Nathan nodded and went over to the buggy. He pulled out a first aid kit and started bandaging Lonny’s knees.
Nathan pointed at the screen. “Why is your dot red and mine is red and white?”
“I don’t have an EMF from an electrical source on me. You do?” Lonny answered. Nathan started patting down, making sure his radio was off. Lonny shook his head. “No, you have a watch on and I see some kind of hearing aid in your ear.”
Nathan looked at Lonny, shocked. “Those fields are very small.”
“I doesn’t matter, we can see them,” Lonny said, grimacing as pain shot up his legs. Nathan reached in the kit, pulled out a bottle of pills, and tossed them in Lonny’s mouth. Then, pulling a bottle of water out of the buggy, Nathan let him have a drink.
“How the hell can you
pick up a human without an electromagnetic field?” Nathan asked.
“All humans have an EMF, we just figured out how to detect it,” Lonny answered.
“How far out?” Nathan asked.
“Electronic EMF we can pick up thirty-four hundred meters away. Human, eighteen hundred meters,” Lonny replied.
“What’s your code?” Nathan asked as he started writing.
“Code?” Lonny asked as Nathan stopped writing and picked his knife off the ground.
“Seven, seven, five, three,” Lonny snapped, and Nathan dropped the knife. “How did you know it had a code?”
“Your buddy over there told me,” Nathan lied. “Besides, what computer doesn’t have a code to get in it?”
“What all did he tell you?” Lonny asked as Nathan quit writing and picked up the knife again. “Okay, forget I asked.”
Dropping the knife, Nathan started writing in his notebook. “How many teams out here?”
“Eight that I know of,” Lonny said.
“Where?”
“We are spread out from Laramie to I-25. My team is the most northern because I’m group leader,” Lonny replied.
“Mission?”
“Stop travel on major roadways and report defector troop movements,” Lonny said.
“You can’t use radios around the boxes,” Nathan said, picking up the knife.
“Wait!” Lonny shouted. “You’re right, the M-U can be damaged by a powerful radio up close, but if you turn it off you can use one.”
“How many M-Us were made?” Nathan asked, dropping the knife.
“I know of three thousand for Homeland, but if others were made I don’t know,” Lonny asked.
Stopping his writing, Nathan looked up and pointed at the M-U. “I caught a Homeland Regional Section chief. He never said Dark Titan involved anything like that.” The color drained out of Lonny’s face. “Yes, I know a lot, and just because I’m not reaching for knife doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re lying. It just means you are pissing me off.”
Lonny nodded. “Our mission also includes targeting insurgents that haven’t reported to FEMA camps.”
“Civilians?” Nathan asked.
“Insurgents,” Lonny said, and Nathan reached for the knife. “Okay, civilians.”
Nathan looked up. “How could you do this to your own countrymen?”
“If everyone had just let us fight crime and protect them I wouldn’t have gone along with this. But no, they demand all American terrorists have a right to trial. People think they have the right to stand up and tell the government no. Only the government needs weapons, not the population. If they had allowed us to do that this wouldn’t have been necessary,” Lonny said.
“You basically said the Bill of Rights and Constitution are crap, but yet you swore to uphold them,” Nathan said as he started writing.
“It’s two hundred years old,” Lonny said.
“It’s not working out too well for you, is it?” Nathan said, writing.
“A few bumps in the road,” Lonny admitted.
“No, canyons in the road. You never knew a CME could detonate satellites carrying plutonium. It detonated the satellite Homeland put up with warheads to launch EMPs across the continent,” Nathan said, still writing. “Now before I grab the knife, I’ve never heard of that.” He motioned his head toward the M-U.
“Unless they were in terrorist suppression division, no one would’ve known,” Lonny answered, happy Nathan didn’t reach for the knife.
“So you just drive around with these, finding people?” Nathan asked.
“No, it can’t be close to a large EMF. There are some mounted in vans but they aren’t turned on till the van is shut off. We couldn’t insulate the units enough,” Lonny said.
“The radios that were issued after the event, how do you disable the tracking feature when you turn it on?” Nathan asked. “I’ve gone over the circuitry and didn’t find a broadcaster,” Nathan lied.
Lonny just looked at Nathan in utter shock. “The tracking unit is in the battery pack, not the radio.”
“Why do you target kids before adults when you fire?”
“We found if we shoot to wound a kid, adults will attempt to do anything to get them to safety,” Lonny said. “You do realize, when they catch you, and they will, you are dead. With what I’ve told you and what you already know, they will kill your neighbors.”
“No one is going to catch me,” Nathan said. “The Homeland boy I let go in Arkansas said I wouldn’t make it out of the state, and here I am.”
“You let him go?” Lonny asked with relief.
“Yes, he answered my questions. So did the colonel who was with him.”
Lonny nodded. “Very well. What else?”
“What other bullshit do you have?” Nathan asked.
“The house we were staying at has my laptop. On it is a file of new developments and an overview of Dark Titan,” Lonny said.
“Ah, no, government laptops broadcast location,” Nathan said.
“No, they don’t, in case we get traitors inside the department. We don’t want them to be able to track us if we are in the field. Despite what you were told, the radios don’t broadcast location till they have been away from net for seventy hours. If you charge two of them side by side they won’t broadcast location when you turn them on,” Lonny said.
Impressed with that logic, Nathan stared at Lonny a long time without saying anything. Lonny was getting scared when Nathan spoke. “What the hell are you doing in the field? You’re not a field agent or operator.”
Lonny smiled. “Very good, you’re right. I’m deputy director of anti-terror division.”
“What are you doing out here?” Nathan repeated.
“I wanted to see how the war was going,” Lonny said. “What was the name of the regional officer you caught?”
“I’m not telling you, I gave my word just as he gave his,” Nathan said as he looked down and started writing. “What is the death toll here in the states, the real one?” Nathan asked.
“I haven’t been updated in two days, but it was seventy-three million then,” Lonny said as Nathan grabbed the knife. “Hey, you asked.”
“I know I did; this is for the next question. When do you report in?”
“Day after tomorrow, oh-eight-hundred hours. Helicopter transport will be here to pick me up,” Lonny said quickly.
Nathan motioned to the first man he killed. “He told me this afternoon at sixteen hundred.”
“He’s full of shit,” Lonny proclaimed.
“If he is, that means they will start to look for you,” Nathan said, flipping the knife around in his hand. “I shoved this very knife in his arm to get him to answer. He never got the choice you did because he shot one of the kids I was with.”
“Look, whoever you are, he’s just a contractor or shooter. First, no one calls in during the afternoon; that’s when all the missions are running. Second, all air assets are tied up by the afternoon, so you have to wait. If you call in the morning, you have clear air and assets on call,” Lonny said.
“How many contractors do you have?” Nathan asked.
Lonny shook his head. “You really don’t like life.” Nathan flipped the knife in the air, catching the handle. “We hired over a two hundred thousand security contractors last year and had them in place. They’ve all been issued Homeland ID. We have another three hundred thousand on the ground as contractors.”
Nathan dropped the knife and started writing. “Password to your computer?”
“TGJK45781,” Lonny said, looking at the blood-soaked knife on the ground.
“Password to Homeland database?” Nathan asked.
“The same,” Lonny said, looking away from the knife.
They talked for another hour till John came over the hilltop. John froze, seeing Nathan had bandaged the man’s wounds. Nathan looked up and waved John over. John stared at the man with hate-filled eyes. “Jasmine wants you.”
Nathan s
tood up. “John, I’m letting him go like the last ones if he continues to cooperate.”
“Nathan, he’s one—” John stopped as Nathan held up his hand.
“John, if he continues, he goes free. Now help me pack up this stuff,” Nathan said.
Lonny leaned his head back on the buggy, smiling despite the pain, knowing he was going free. He was very thankful for the pain medicine he was given. He would go free and find this group if it was the last thing he did. Even with the man recording him, Lonny wouldn’t get in trouble, it was obtained under duress. He would find out the name of the regional chief that was released and have him crucified.
Nathan stepped over Lonny, blocking the sun from his eyes. “I’m putting you on the hood. No, you aren’t getting inside, in case there is a distress button inside. Play nice or the deal is off. I’m taking you to the rest of my group.”
“Just be careful with my legs,” Lonny begged. Nathan walked away and came back, carrying several sticks. Not gently, he made splints for Lonny’s legs. Lonny smiled. “Thank you. And you’re right, the distress box is under the passenger seat.”
“Where is the tracker?” Nathan asked.
“These aren’t Lo-jacked. We don’t want people to find us,” Lonny said. Nathan untied Lonny and picked him up, laying him across the hood of the dune buggy.
Nathan tied Lonny’s hands to the frame again. “I’m finding that part hard to believe. If I get out my bug detector and it goes off, deal’s off.”
“I know. You seem like a smart man, except for wanting to know too much. Do you really think we want something transmitting our location? The military units that are still loyal to the president learned that the hard way. They left their vehicle ID transmitters on and three Apache gunships knocked out a Stryker brigade. The German regiment that attacked the Texans, same thing, they had NATO Lo-Jack, vehicle ID. Wiped out almost to the man,” Lonny said.
Nathan nodded, then helped John carry the M-U over and set it in the passenger seat. John climbed in the gunner’s seat as Nathan drove over the hill. Lonny sucked a breath when they went over the hill and he slid down the hood. His tied wrist stopped him from sliding off. Lonny grimaced and reminded himself to not provoke them so he could go free.
Dark Titan Journey: Finally Home Page 28