Highway: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival

by John Q. Prepper

  She folded her legs and then pulled the bag onto her lap and examined the middle zippered pocket. This opened to several purposefully designed sleeves, with various survival items: a black mini-Maglite; a Leatherman folding multitool; a Gerber fire starter on a lanyard; fifty feet of camo-colored paracord—at least that’s what the label said; and a little packet with a roll of wire, three carabiners, two pulleys, and several paperclips. She sure wished she could have asked her father how all this stuff would be used. She put everything back and then closed it up. Then she felt something odd about the bottom of the bag.

  The very bottom of the bag was covered in a heavy-duty black leatherlike skin, she guessed to protect it against wear and tear. But as she scrunched the bag’s bottom inward, she noticed there was something inside, like a magazine. Double-checking the emptied main compartment by feeling first and then searching with the Maglite, she confirmed there was nothing inside. Inspecting the bottom carefully, she then noticed that one edge of the liner flapped open to reveal a zipper.

  It’s a secret compartment.

  A portion unzipped to reveal a small black flexible ledger, with papers tucked into its pages. When she pulled it out and held it up for examination, a seemingly random mess of notes, copied pages, and pictures slid out onto the bed.

  Lexi hadn’t noticed, but Travis had awakened and was watching her intently.

  The loose pages didn’t seem to have rhyme or reason: there were fuzzy pictures of men with guns and a fuzzier picture of a man in a car, taken from a great distance; pages in Arabic; and poor copies of emails and letters with thick black lines drawn through whole sentences. Each had hand-written notes and question marks. She recognized her father’s handwriting everywhere. The ledger was filled with lots of tight writing in different ink colors and pages that were muted from years of use and smudges made by dirty hands, most likely her father’s. She thumbed through the pages, until she reached the last few and read them quietly to herself.

  Lots of notes were about her father trying to find a terrorist named Abdul Raheem Farook, who ran several terrorist cells in the United States. She recognized the name, because on all the pictures, by a circle was written “Abdul?” in her father’s hand.

  Until two days ago, she’d assumed this whole time that her father was a loser who just couldn’t handle the heat of his wife dying and didn’t want his kids anymore. This loser, for the last decade plus, had been hunting down terrorists? And more specifically this one terrorist, Abdul. Then there was the Purple Heart medal that Travis now proudly wore, awarded to a soldier who was injured in battle. At first she had thought it was someone else’s and her father had just held onto it, and she didn’t want to sully her brother’s rosy view of him. Perhaps it was his medal. Then there was the bug-out bag, the cryptic instructions, the gun. All this evidence pointed to two clear conclusions: Stanley Broadmoor was so much more than she had ever given him credit for, and she had really never known her father.

  Mesmerized by her father’s notes, a doorway into understanding him in a way she would otherwise not have known, she read more about his pursuit. This Farook character, her father wrote, claimed in some video that he “will conduct the greatest attack America has ever seen.”

  She was thunderstruck.

  She knew then that her father had been right in the middle of tracking down the people responsible for the nuclear attack that killed him and brought down their country. It was Farook who had conducted the nuclear attack.

  She shuddered at this. Her mind wondered: why couldn’t her father catch him, before it all happened? And why would he take his children, who he hadn’t seen in years, on a vacation when all this was happening? Maybe he didn’t know the timing. She contemplated all of this.

  Her eyes then fell upon a separate note. It was written sideways in a little box.

  “I miss my kids! Feel horrible that they’ve had to live with their aunt and uncle and that I’ve never told them that it was Farook who killed their mother. That’s why I shipped them off, knowing they wouldn’t be safe until I found Farook.”

  From Lexi’s lips, the word “Mom” barely escaped, like a whisper.

  It wasn’t cancer.

  She was murdered.

  She looked at the last notation, dated July 2nd, four days ago.

  I’ve been caught. They now know that I’m an agent and will kill me. Worse, I realize that I can’t stop the attack that will come. So, I’m bugging out with my kids. At least we’ll be together.

  She closed the book and couldn’t hold back her tears any more. So many things she’d thought … so many assumptions … all of them wrong. Her father was a hero, who was trying to find their mother’s murderer and protect his kids. And when he realized he couldn’t stop the attack, he had their aunt and uncle send them to Texas to be with him.

  She jumped a little when Travis wrapped his arms around her middle. He was standing beside her and must have been watching her the whole time. She hugged him back. That’s what she should have done before when he needed her, but she didn’t have anything to give him.

  She did now.

  “I’m so sorry, Travis.” She squeezed him harder and kissed him on his head. “I love you, Travis,” her words coming in between sobbing convulsions. “You were right about Daddy. He was a hero. He saved us and tried to save the world. And he…”

  She let go, but he was still holding tight to her. A thought burned bright inside—could it be? She leaned over the pile of stuff from the BOB and rifled thru it for the navigation page that went to some place off the coast of Florida. But it was missing. It had their route to this place from another that she thought must have been where they would vacation. But he had said, “So, I’m bugging out with my kids.”

  This place wasn’t a vacation spot; he’d planned for them to live there together. They were going to live there while the world around them ended.

  A knock on the door, and both their heads shot up.

  Leo, the young man who had cleaned their wounds and led them to their room stepped in with apologies and asked if they were hungry and would they like breakfast.

  Lexi was hungrier for the backstory about her family.

  Chapter 26

  Abby Broadmoor

  Eight Years Earlier

  They all wore false faces, pretending to be people they weren't.

  Abigail Broadmoor's expression was a mask of mock surprise, her arms posed as if she were flailing in an attempt to save herself from falling from the Space Needle. Lexi beside her, attempted no similar theatrics, instead clutching her two-year-old brother's hand, grimacing her distaste at the whole exercise. Travis was simply in pain from his sister’s death grip. Both displayed similar scowls for the camera. Stanley snapped their pictures, but he wasn't really there either. Otherwise, he would have demanded smiles from both his children, and he certainly would have appreciated his wife's dramatic performance too. But how could a husband and father play games when he feared for their lives?

  It was supposed to have been a simple operation: pretend to be on a family vacation while observing Yusuf Habib meet with another terrorist. He chided himself for accepting their narrative, as if observing the infamous hit man for the number one terrorist on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Abdul Farook, while exposing his family to this threat could be anything simple. Yes, he stupidly bought into it, because of his feverish desire to get Farook.

  Their intel said that one of Farook's people was meeting an arms dealer at the Space Needle. The FBI was giddy with excitement over this for several reasons. They were getting closer to Farook; they were getting closer to a large Seattle cell that had remained out of their reach since they realized it existed over a year ago; they might have finally found Shulli “The Bomb-Maker” Salaam, who had been making echoes in the black markets that he possessed Soviet-era nuclear weapons and was making them available for sale. When the Seattle office found out that it might be Yusuf doing the meet for Farook, they asked the only man in the B
ureau who had ever seen Yusuf, and that was Agent Stanley Broadmoor.

  For Stanley, this was an easy decision; in fact, he jumped at it. That was, until the FBI told him their plan to use his family so that he would blend in plain sight. Because of the narrow confines of the Space Needle, it would be too hard to sneak in agents to observe without being seen. So, this was their plan. And in spite of everything in him telling him to say “No!”, he relented and agreed to put his family at risk. It was the biggest mistake he'd ever made and one he would regret up until the day he died in front of his daughter and son, eight years later.

  They were too much in the open, playing this game of pretend. Stanley kept his right eye on Yusuf and his left eye at the camera’s lens, at his family.

  “Honey, how long are we supposed to stand here?” his wife protested loudly.

  He ignored her as his focus was on Yusuf—it was definitely him. He could tell by his prominent Lebanese nose. He looked like an evil Sergeant Klinger from the TV show “M*A*S*H.”

  Stanley was completely focused on reading Yusuf's lips—that was the other reason for his being there. They were too high to mic Yusuf with the parabolic. But if Stanley was close enough, he might overhear or even read Yusuf's lips.

  Stanley froze when he saw him say, “The money has been … We will be waiting for delivery … at Port of Seattle tomorrow.”

  “Hello, Stanley? are you even here?” Abby was protesting so loud that all heads turned to see the commotion, even Yusuf’s.

  Stanley returned his full attention to his wife, but didn't move the camera, “Ah, sorry, hon. I was just trying to get the perfect shot.” He snapped the picture and then lowered the camera from his face, offering a large conciliatory grin to his wife.

  “That picture left a while ago, with your daughter and son,” she said.

  They both glared at Lexi and Travis who had long since turned their backs to their father. Lexi was showing her baby brother the Seattle skyline.

  Stanley chanced a glance at Yusuf and felt an electric jolt when the realization hit him; he'd been made.

  Yusuf was staring directly at him, unyielding when Stanley matched his gaze. The two men were locked into each other for a moment that was much too long for happenstance.

  “Come on.” Stanley tossed the imperative at her, while snatching his camera bag from the ground and headed for the exit. “Let's go get something to eat.” He walked away feigning disinterest, hoping his family would follow close behind, praying that what had just happened really hadn’t.

  ~~~

  Yusuf pressed and held the 2 on his phone and it speed-dialed the saved number. He held his phone to his ear, while he gazed at the family nibbling on seafood at an outdoor cafe. Except for his phone hand and lips, he remained unmoving in the midday shadows of the Space Needle.

  He listened first before answering, straightening his shoulders when he heard the voice on the other end.

  “Why are you calling? Are we secure?” demanded the voice.

  “Yes, sir. The meet went well and we are on schedule for delivery.” Yusuf watched the man pay and usher his family out of the restaurant. Yusuf started moving as well.

  “So, why are you calling?”

  “I picked up a tail. He may be a Fed, but he's with his family. I wanted your orders before I did anything.”

  “Do they know about me?”

  “Sir, I don't know what they know, only that it was a man who was too interested in me and our business.”

  “Do what you feel is necessary, but make sure the Feds know not to mess with us. And don't call again, unless it is an emergency.” The line disconnected.

  Yusuf glanced at the phone to make sure Farook was done. He was pretty hands off, but on something like killing a Fed, he wanted the okay in case it went wrong.

  He had just received authorization.

  They walked hand-in-hand: the man held the small boy, the teenager between them, weaving through the crowds. Yusuf was very careful. He wanted to be sure that he was correct before he did what he was going to do, which he wasn't yet sure of. They seemed to be a normal family, enjoying a rare Seattle sunny day in August. Yusuf watched them over the corner of his Seattle Times, pretending to eat up the city's news. He waited for confirmation that this man was not who he presented himself to be. He knew the look of an agent, the mannerisms that belied their true purpose, and he was watching for that tell-tale sign.

  The man let go of his daughter's hand, set his son down and pretended to tie what was a slip-on shoe. Then he looked up. The glance told Yusuf everything. His eyes were careful and practiced. He was an agent. When he stood up, Yusuf jumped, leaving his paper behind.

  At a stop light, less than a block from where Stanley had lowered himself to his shoe, they waited for the light to change. The agent had a little bit of a smile etched into his face as the woman, obviously his wife, told him something funny. Yusuf glanced at the kids, a disinterested girl and her younger brother, now holding each other’s hands. It wouldn't be them. He looked at the man and woman again, as he worked his way directly behind them, and the agent bellowed with laughter. Yusuf knew the play and struck like lightning. He withdrew an extra-long US-flag stick pin from his lapel, its point withdrawn from a special sheath mounted inside his coat, and stuck the woman before replacing it in an instant. His other hand withdrew a silenced pistol, shielding it with his body then his other hand, he lodged it into the agent’s neck.

  The agent’s laughter trailed off.

  Yusuf leaned into the agent’s ear and said, “Don't turn around or I will kill your whole family here on the street. You and your agents must back away from this or I will hunt down and kill your kids one at a time.”

  The throng of people around them pushed them forward, ushered by the green beacon that flashed across the street.

  Stanley walked a couple of steps with everyone else and spun around quickly, partially withdrawing his 10mm Glock, but Yusuf was no longer there.

  He scanned everywhere, close by and in the distance, but couldn't see him anywhere.

  When he looked forward his wife was rubbing her shoulder, having stopped herself, as the crowd worked their way around them.

  “What's wrong?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I think someone in line accidentally poked me.”

  The day after the pinprick, the agency broke up the Seattle cell and captured a nuclear weapon that was smuggled into the Port of Seattle, just as Yusuf had said. Stanley was the Bureau hero.

  Six weeks later, Abby Broadmoor, mother of two, loving wife to Special Agent Stanley Broadmoor, the man who saved Seattle, was dead. The doctors said it was uranium poisoning; they didn't know how it entered her bloodstream. But Stan knew it was Yusuf who had pricked his wife at that stop light on a warm summer day, all because he allowed his family to be included in an operation. And because Yusuf warned him, saying “I will hunt down and kill your kids one at a time,” Stanley wouldn't allow them to be put into harm’s way any longer. He officially resigned from the agency; he dumped his kids on his sister Sara's household; and he went deep undercover for an offshoot of the FBI, using a new name, disappearing from sight.

  The cover story was that Abby had died of cancer and that Stanley couldn't deal with it and he needed time away from the family. His brother, Abe, knew there was a lot more to this story. He reached out several times to find out how Stanley was faring but Stanley never responded.

  Stanley dedicated every waking moment of his life to getting Yusuf and Farook, the man who had given the orders to kill his wife and tear apart his family.

  Chapter 27

  Leo

  Leo led them out the door of their cabin into the bright outdoors, to an open area with several picnic benches. Men clustered around one of the tables, eating and conversing. Another table was crowded with women. All seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and each other.

  It felt safe.

  When Lexi had arrived here yesterday with Travis, she didn't
even really notice the beauty of this place. Willows clung to the bank of the river, delicately swaying in the breeze. Laughter and chatter filled the air.

  She had no doubt been too worried about getting away from Clyde and his people or being shot at to have noticed this earlier. The stress of running and hiding and then trying to cope with people dying carried an emotional toll. Perhaps it was that her whole perspective had changed after discovering her father was a good man, someone she could no longer hate. And he had sent them here to this safe place, with people that cared about their well-being.

  “Are you coming?” Leo asked softly, a smile on his face, a glint in his eye.

  Lexi was fixed in her place, gazing with amazement at open space and the people, as if she had never seen any of this before. But her life was different now. Of course, so were the lives of everyone else in America. In only two days she had gone from being a self-absorbed, angry girl who hated life and everyone around her, to one who appreciated every moment, who appreciated her father, who appreciated her brother. Maybe I’m not even a bitch anymore.

  “Come on, Lexi. We can sit out here with our breakfast if you'd like.”

  “Can we?” Travis asked, but he seemed detached, damaged.

  “Yes, we can,” she answered and flashed a warm smile.

  Leo waited for them to catch up and he walked them by two other similar buildings, albeit larger than the cabin they had slept in. They found themselves in front of a large structure with multiple doorways. Out of the second one popped out a man holding a tray of food. He held the door open for them and waited patiently.

  “This is our cafeteria,” Leo said, beckoning them inside with his arm. A clatter of dishes and the delicious food aromas wafted outside, further drawing them in. Travis led, now dragging Lexi. She was pleased that at least his appetite wasn’t affected by his emotional wreckage.

  “Thanks, Sye,” Leo said as he closed the door behind him.