Checking for her wallet, Tara said, “Pull up to the office and let me out.”
Complying with the curt request, Riker rolled up the drive and hung a wide U-turn and parked under a portico a half-dozen feet from the office door. There was a sign reading VACANCY in the fogged-up front window. After slipping the ignition into Park, he said, “Sure this is the one? It’s just a few minutes past seven. We still have time to find a better deal.”
Again with a clipped response. “This’ll do.”
Something must really be eating at her, thought Riker. He said, “How are we paying for this?”
She held up a white card embossed with numbers and sporting the VISA logo.
“They can trace it if you use it. Then they’ll come a knocking in the dead of night,” he said, not so sure he was correct but still wanting to be a little more cautious than they’d been at the truck stop. “Do you want to wake up with a gun pointing in your face?”
“You’re overthinking this one, Lee.” She smiled. Second time in an hour. “I got this from the Speedway when we gassed up. It’s a hundred-dollar-denomination gift card. ‘Good anywhere,’ the clerk said.”
“You’re still going to have to show your driver’s license,” proffered Steve-O.
Riker nodded agreeably. “Steve-O’s right. What are you going to do if they insist on a credit card with your name on it?”
“If it’s a guy, flash him my tits and bat my eyes. If it’s a woman—” She paused for a second.
Steve-O said, “Show her your boobs,” and burst out laughing.
Tara tried real hard to not join in. Her resolve lasted a few seconds. Soon they were all laughing and the windows were steaming up.
Tara dabbed at her eyes with a sleeve. After looking at her face in the flip-down vanity mirror, she declared herself “Okay to face the world” and shouldered open her door.
Riker watched Tara disappear through the single door, then let his gaze roam the building and grounds. Save for its name and earth-tone paint scheme decorating the two-level affair, the King was no different than the dozens of motor inns he had had the displeasure of patronizing during his thirty-eight years on Planet Earth. The parking lot was a vast sea of rippled asphalt with dull yellow lines denoting parking spaces. From the entrance off the boulevard, the King wrapped around the lot clockwise and was capped off at the end by a tarpaulin-covered in-ground swimming pool. A half-dozen vehicles were nosed in to spots lining up with red doors bearing cheap looking NO SMOKING plaques and six-inch-tall room numbers made of stamped brass.
Riker tried the radio again and found much of the same. If something untoward was happening in Ohio or the bordering states, the disc jockeys either weren’t in the know, or were under strict order to keep quiet about it.
The rain ceased just as the door to the office swung open and Tara emerged. She wore a half-smile as she flashed a thumb up and displayed a plastic key tag for all to see.
Mission accomplished, thought Riker as his industrious sibling climbed into the SUV.
“How’d it go?” asked Riker as he pulled another U-turn and let the idling engine drag the SUV in the direction of the pool at a walking speed.
The dashboard clock read 7:09 when he slid the Suburban into the parking spot fronting the door to Unit 13. He left the engine run and turned to Tara. “So … how’d you pull it off?”
Steve-O interrupted. “Did you have to show him your—”
Cutting Steve-O’s comment short with a harsh look, she said, “I put the prepaid Visa on the counter and specifically asked the clerk for a room at the rear of the building. ‘So I don’t have to listen to freeway noise’ is what I told him. When he asked for a license and a different credit card with my name on it, I told him my abusive boyfriend is a pledge at the university and is looking for me. Told him his dad is a cop and has access to databases and such.” She smirked. “Then I showed him my knuckles and the split nail. That seemed to soften him up. When he persisted—.” Steve-O chuckled. “No, I didn’t do that. I let Andrew Jackson do the talking for me.”
Steve-O was having a hard time containing his laughter. His cheeks were red and he was clamping a hand over his mouth.
Throwing a quick glance over her shoulder, Tara said, “Let’s get one thing clear, gentlemen: I am not that kind of girl. So both of you, stifle it.” Regarding Riker, she added, “Take Mom and the gun inside with you. I’ve got some shopping to do.”
Riker looked a question at her.
She handed over the key. “The clerk was a young guy. Probably a student moonlighting here to make ends meet. We’re very lucky it wasn’t a bifocal-wearing oldster behind that counter.”
Riker shouldered the pack containing the urn. “What difference does it make?”
She held up the sheet containing the Wi-Fi login and password. “He urged me to get dirt on my ex to get even with him. Then he told me how to use this to get onto sites I didn’t know existed and where to go to get the dirt. But I have other plans for it. So don’t lose it.”
Riker glanced at the sheet. “Who’s going to forget Graceland in all caps as the login?” After dragging the sheet closer to his face to see the password which was scrawled much smaller below the login, he added, “You can’t remember Elvis123?”
“I got it,” replied Steve-O confidently.
She glanced at the clock. “I gotta go. Thirty minutes to get to the Chapel Hill part of town.” She began inputting the address into the navigation unit.
“What’s in Chapel Hill that you can’t get at a store nearby?”
“You tell me where we’re taking Mom and I’ll—”
Riker put a hand up to stop her. “I keep forgetting you’re a grown ass woman. Just keep your phone turned on. I’ll do the same.”
She frowned, then nodded.
Riker hauled his left leg out and planted the boot on his prosthetic directly into an inches-deep puddle. Not going to feel that, he thought, smiling to himself at one of the few advantages the lack of a lower leg afforded.
Clambering out with a bag of snacks and the iPod trailing white buds, Steve-O called to Tara, telling her to be careful out there.
She was climbing over the center console and paused to say: “I will, Sir Galahad. I have my phone and will use it if I have to.”
He smiled and tapped the side of the SUV before turning and following Riker through the door to room 13.
Chapter 56
Riker let Steve-O pass him, then closed them both inside the dimly lit room. He breathed deeply, detecting the faint nose of bleach with some kind of fragrance added to it. Fresh Spring, Ocean Surf, maybe Mountain Dew? It was something with a catchy name, though not the latter he decided after laughing inwardly. Mountain Dew was that neon-green soda whose maker sponsored the X-Games.
Riker flicked on the overhead.
No roaches scurried under the bed.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Steve-O plopped down on the bed nearest the open bathroom door. He examined the nightstand wedged between the pair of queen beds. Ran a hand over the pressed-wood headboard. Finally, face conveying a measure of disappointment, he replied, “No tickler fingers.”
“We’ll live. They do have HBO, though.”
“Game of Thrones is over until forever,” said Steve-O soberly.
“I picked up one of the books overseas. Couldn’t get into it,” admitted Riker. He squeezed past the dresser at the foot of the bed nearest the door and grabbed the remote from the desk at the foot of Steve-O’s bed. Aiming it at the flat panel atop the dresser, he thumbed the power button and watched while the screen flared to life.
The television was already tuned to a local channel. A female anchor sat behind a polished glass desk, her shapely legs crossed casually under the see-through knee-well. Who needs a miniskirt and four-inch heels to relay facts? thought Riker as he sat on the corner of the bed opposite Steve-O.
“You make a better door than a window.”
Catching th
e hint, Riker pushed off the bed and relocated to the one nearest the door, compressing the mattress and box springs as he settled back down on the corner facing the television.
Behind the blonde anchor on the television was a wall comprised of interconnected displays. The one to her right was showing a handful of static military vehicles with men and women milling around them. The tag at the bottom of that screen read STAGING GROUNDS FOR AS YET TO BE NAMED JOINT SERVICES OPERATION. Basing his assumption on the backdrop comprised of dozens of recreational vehicles, he figured he was looking at the same staging area they had passed earlier in the day. However, due to artificial lighting and the limited focal length of the camera lens, he was left with the impression he was looking at only a small contingent of National Guard troops. Maybe it was by design, he mused. Keep the public in the dark.
Suddenly the image on the flat panel was split down the middle. The left half was filled up by a reporter dispatched from Cleveland. He wore light-gray raingear and a navy ball cap sporting a FOX 8 logo.
The female anchor loomed large now on the right side of the screen. She displayed a wan smile, greeted the at-large reporter, then promptly launched into a series of probing questions.
After the barrage ceased, the at-large reporter greeted and thanked the anchor then delved right into the questions, answering them in the order posed.
“In light of the unprecedented dual calamities in Middletown and Daleville, both small Indiana towns, the Indiana and Ohio National Guard are using the biological and nuclear accidents as a reason to conduct a hastily thrown-together joint training operation I overheard being called—.” He paused and began to search his pockets for something.
Waxing poetic, the blonde anchor interjected, saying, “You know, Kyle, it takes a special kind of commitment to answer the call on such short notice.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. Looking straight into the camera, she added, “All of you at home should applaud these troops for their dedication to flag and country. These men and women are your neighbors. They might own the store down the block. And they all dropped what they were doing and put the uniform on to proudly represent Ohio.”
“You’ve got that right, Susan,” replied the reporter. “And from what I’ve overheard, they’re all being tested fully tonight.”
“Can you elaborate, Kyle? Maybe tell us what you’re seeing. What’s the mood among the troops on the ground?”
Kyle opened his mouth, then closed it and looked to his left. Focused intently on something off screen, he pressed a hand to the flesh-colored bud in his right ear.
Susan’s brow furrowed. It looked to Riker as if the anchor thought the feed’s audio was dropping off.
“Susan. Are you there?” said the reporter just as the bass-heavy rumble of an engine made him wince and turn a one-eighty.
The anchor responded with a simple “Yes, Kyle,” then repeated her questions concerning what he was seeing and the morale of the soldiers.
“Well, Susan,” said Kyle. “It appears that the RMT … Real Military Training joint exercise I overheard being called”—he paused to consult a square of paper palmed in his off-hand—“Romeo Victor is growing larger as we speak. A contingent representing the Illinois National Guard just rolled by on my left. I see Humvees and armored vehicles … a Bradley or two, I think. And from what I’ve heard the soldiers saying, Susan, they’re all about to be mobilized to begin a march south.”
The blonde anchor asked a couple of inane questions that caused Riker to change the channel to CNN where he found the young President just wrapping up an address to the nation.
The President’s closing words seemed off the cuff and sincere. It was basically a plea for all Americans to come together and remain vigilant in the wake of the worst act of homegrown terror the nation had ever seen.
Riker tried to recall how many died at the hands of McVeigh when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. Somewhere around three hundred was what he came up with off the top of his head. This tower fire must have taken a turn for the worse from where it was at when he saw it on the television in the Iron Pan bar.
Without warning, Steve-O stood up and high-tailed it to the bathroom—covering all five feet to the door in three purposeful strides.
Exhausted, Riker pulled his pant’s leg up, removed his prosthesis, and stowed it beside the bed. Seeing a commercial touting the benefits of gold ownership come on the television, he laid down diagonally across the bed he’d been sitting on. He parked his gaze on a grapefruit-sized water mark marring the popcorn ceiling and began to work over a problem that had been troubling him since he heard the words Romeo Victor spoken by the FOX 8 reporter.
While the Department of Defense did have a penchant for naming every action it took in a military capacity with randomly generated monikers, Romeo Victor struck him as odd—especially for an impromptu call-up and deployment of men and women who, when not on overseas deployment, usually only donned the uniform for one weekend a month and a couple of weeks during the year for extended in-the-field training. Sure, it was feasible the words overheard by the anchor, words that just so happened to be designators for the letters R and V in the NATO phonetic alphabet, could have been chosen at random. However, as Riker thought about it, he started to believe Romeo Victor to be an acronym for something else. Maybe something sinister, considering that he’d recently witnessed soldiers in black shooting civilians in cold blood.
“Romeo Victor,” he said under his breath. Rings nothing like Operation Iraqi Freedom, the action in which he’d lost his lower left leg and, for a long while after, a great deal of his sanity.
He continued to stare at the ceiling and mulled over in his head the names of other operations he could remember from past history: Operation Desert Storm, the first war in the desert. Operation Just Cause was what Reagan called his invasion of Panama during which four Navy SEALs died tightening the noose on the despotic President of Panama, General Manuel Noriega. There was Enduring Freedom, the name bestowed upon America’s invasion of Afghanistan and ongoing combat action against the Taliban—all in direct response to the 9/11 attacks. Operation Red Wing was the infamous Lone Survivor rescue operation that unfolded in the mountains of Afghanistan and cost eight Navy SEALs and eight Night Stalker pilots of the famed Special Operations Aviation Regiment their lives. Finally there was Operation Jade Helm 15, the most recent and by far pertinent RMT (Real Military Training) exercise Riker could remember. Conducted in the Southwest in 2015, Jade Helm succeeded in getting a lot of conspiracy theorists riled up. Some speculated it was conducted to condition civilians to the sight of armed troops in American cities, thus rendering the population lax when the actual roundup of Americans’ guns commenced.
If Romeo Victor was indeed an RMT, why the nonsense name? And why hadn’t any of the previous operations’ names contained a single word from the NATO alphabet?
The longer Riker thought about it, the more convinced he became of his acronym theory.
Drawing a blank as to what R and V might correspond with, Riker sat up and stared at the television.
When the latest string of panic commercials selling gold, food dehydrators, and “Same as those used by Navy SEALs” high-intensity flashlights finished playing on the television, two things happened back to back, First, the bathroom door swung open, releasing an invisible cloud of stench that to Riker smelled like beef jerky dipped in dog shit. Then, on the heels of Steve-O exiting the tiny bathroom amidst his eye-watering handiwork, the wash of blue-white light rippled across the threadbare burgundy curtains and a vehicle pulled into the unit’s parking space.
Chapter 57
As quickly as the vehicle had pulled up in front of the window to room 13, the engine cut out and the headlights were extinguished.
With spots still dancing before his eyes, Riker fixed Steve-O with a look borne of equal parts wonder and incredulity. “What the eff crawled up inside you and died?” He covered his nose and mouth with one hand. With
the other he pointed at the door—universal semaphore for You gonna get that?
Steve-O said nothing. Nor did he acknowledge the engine rumble or intrusive glare from the Suburban’s Zenon bulbs as they swept the picture window. He was standing rigid in front of the television and staring down at the pale nub protruding over the end of the bed. He seemed especially interested in the pink scarring where skin overlapped bone.
Riker said, “The pretty lady is back.”
No effect.
Steve-O walked his gaze up Riker’s leg, locked eyes with him, then asked, “What happened?”
“A roadside bomb happened,” replied Riker nonchalantly.
Steve-O was rubbing the red stubble on his chin absentmindedly. He asked, “When did it happen?” He flicked his eyes back to the stump. “And where did it happen?”
There was a pair of bass-heavy thumps on the door. Down low near the floor. As if Tara was kicking at it instead of knocking to get their attention.
“Lost it in 2005 on Route Irish outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq.”
A second barrage of urgent-sounding thumps rattled the hollow-core door against its hinges. Voice muffled, Tara called, “Open the damn door. My hands are full.”
Still studying Riker’s stump, Steve-O called, “Coming.” Hesitantly, he tore his eyes away, walked over and opened the door.
Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise Page 28