STRYKER - OMNIBUS: BOOKS 3-5: A Post Apocalyptic Tale

by Bobby Andrews

  “Do you honestly think I’ve never faced the same thing before? It happens almost every time someone gets to know me well. My first wife figured it out after a few months. Edwards knows it too. So did Sarge. It gets to everyone, sooner or later. People want to believe in a mythical character that is indestructible and always wins, but I know there’s no such thing.” Stryker looked away. “I just try to live up to the oath I took and the creed I adopted when I entered Force Recon, and sometimes I fall short. But, I don’t know how else to lead a life I can live with.”

  Erin looked away, again confused at how he seemed to know everything she was thinking. She pondered the situation, decided no good could come from pursuing the conversation and again looked at a fading sunset. “The water here looks muddy. I always thought of it being a light blue color.”

  “We’re on the Pacific side of the Baja. There’s a lot of open water to the west and it keeps things churned up pretty well. There are a few bays and inlets around where you can find good diving, but it’s not like the Caribbean side or the Sea of Cortez at all.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Erin asked.

  “When I was stationed at Pendleton, I used to come down here and do the whole beach thing. It was a lot cheaper than taking a vacation in the states, so I spent some time in this part of Mexico. It was close, and you could drive here, so I did several long weekends in this part of the world.”

  “Was that with your first wife?” Erin gave him a sidelong glance.

  “No, it was before I got married.”

  They both fell silent, and Erin moved to his side and took his hand. Stryker squeezed it gently and then fixed her with his lopsided grin. She stared back at him for a moment and then tugged him toward the bedroom behind the balcony.

  When they finished, Erin rolled over on her back and lifted her legs into the air above her. The sheets lay in a tangled mess around them, and they both were perspiring heavily.

  “What are you doing?” Stryker asked.

  “Trying to get pregnant.”

  “And that helps?”

  “Not sure, but it can’t hurt.”

  “You look like a puppy wanting its belly scratched,” Stryker said after examining her for a long moment.

  “That couldn’t hurt either.”

  Stryker lowered a hand to her belly and rubbed it gently.

  “Are we safe here?” Erin lowered her legs and asked the question in a sleepy voice.

  “Yes. Those guys are on foot and probably headed south. We went north, so I’m pretty sure they are not an issue.”

  “What’s south of here?”

  “Ensenada. It has both an army and navy base and I have to think that’s where they came from.”

  “So we can sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Stryker watched Erin as her facial muscles relaxed and her breathing grew normal. She started snoring softly. He smiled, got out of bed, and went back to the balcony and stared at the waves lapping against the beach. The air was dense and humid, the night still.

  Stryker padded back to the bed, quietly picked up his M-4 and left the bedroom after closing the door softly. He used a flashlight to look around the house, found bottles of booze in a cabinet and poured himself two fingers of bourbon into a glass he found in another cupboard. Then he walked out the front door and sat on the porch steps.

  Stryker was used to living in a more silent world, but the night air carried faint whispers of noise. He could hear the flapping of an owl’s wings, the faint sound of the ocean lapping against the shore line, and what sounded like the yipping of a coyote far in the distance.

  He sipped his bourbon and continued to listen to what the world around him wanted him to know.

  A breeze came up and caressed his face for a moment and then died.

  Stryker thought about being a father, of finally salvaging something from the mess of a world he inhabited, and wondered if he would be the kind of father he was with his first wife and child.

  He gulped the bourbon down and went to bed.

  Those were thoughts for later.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The morning before, Stryker, Erin, and Captain Thomas sat in the conference room drinking coffee.

  “So, we think we have nineteen sailors stranded somewhere around Cabo San Lucas,” Thomas said with a note of conclusion in his voice.

  “When was the last time you heard from them?” Stryker asked.

  “It’s been ten days. We talked by sat phone once and then they went dark. The last time we spoke they were in Cabo, staying at the La Posada Resort Hotel, and they were trying to get vehicles running. We haven’t heard anything since.”

  “How did they last so long? If they were on a Burke Class Destroyer, they should have run out of fuel a long time ago.” Stryker wore a doubtful expression.

  “They sailed up and down the coast, dropping off sailors that wanted to get to their families, and they refueled at each base.”

  Stryker just stared at him with a curious expression. A long pause ensued as the two men gazed at each other.

  “I ordered them to Ensenada to refuel,” Thomas finally said. “We were running out of fuel, and I thought they would find more there.”

  “And they basically ran out of gas?” Stryker asked the question with a tone of disbelief.

  “Well, yes. They had to put in at Cabo after they found nothing there either. We thought they could find fuel at the cruise ship pier there, but it wasn’t the high season, and apparently they didn’t hold fuel stocks.”

  Stryker glanced at Erin, back at Thomas, and then back to Erin. “What do you think?”

  She grimaced. “Well, I wish we knew more, and I would like to know why these guys are so important. It could end up being a shitstorm.”

  “I think you hang out with too many sailors,” Stryker replied. “That’s pretty salty language.”

  “Gramps used to say it all the time.”

  “I know.”

  “So, what’s the problem with me saying it?”

  Stryker ignored the question and turned back to Thomas, looking into his eyes. “So, what makes them so important?”

  “Well, they have two engineers and a physician’s assistant and they are the closest group to us, so I thought we would start with them.”

  “If they have two engineers, why can’t they get a vehicle running?” Stryker asked.

  “Because engineers aren’t mechanics,” Thomas replied.

  Stryker took a breath. “So, you think it’s worth us taking the risk to get them back here?”

  “I have another group heading to Washington State to try to recover another group of sailors from the USS Kidd. They made landfall a few months ago and are staying at Naval Station Everett. They are trying to get vehicles running too, but haven’t had any luck so far.”

  “You still have comms with them?” Erin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But not with the group in Cabo?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “So, it’s possible that they ran into a problem?”

  “That’s why I want to send you two,” Thomas replied pointedly. “The mechanics have checked the vehicle over and you have spare diesel cans in the back. It has food and water for six days as well.”

  “I still have to load some weapons, and then we can leave.” Stryker glanced at Erin. Her face was relaxed.

  “Can you check in daily?” Thomas asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Is six days enough to get you down to Cabo and back?”

  “It is if Mr. Murphy doesn’t show up. We plan on driving to the hotel and checking it out. If we don’t find them we will look for them on the way back. There really is only one highway they can travel on, so if they’re alive, we’ll find them.”

  “All right. Good luck.” Thomas extended his hand and the two men shook.

  CHAPTER THREE

  An hour later, they sat in a parking lot on the American side of t
he border. A long flatbed trailer was hitched to the back of the Humvee, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

  The south side of the lot was covered by a barbed wire fence to prevent anyone slipping across the border across the back of the customs building.

  Piles of concrete blocks sat in front of the fence, together with bags of cement and metal posts that were to serve as uprights between the long runs of block wall that was to be built across the entire southern border of the U.S. and Mexico.

  “Stupidest damn thing I ever heard of,” Stryker muttered to himself.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The border wall.”

  “Why was that stupid?”

  “Well, we were going to spend billions of dollars to build a ten-foot wall along the border from California to Texas.”

  “I’m not following,” Erin replied.

  “You know what a twelve foot ladder costs?”

  “No.”

  “About forty dollars.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “That we were so screwed up that everyone lost their minds. People actually believed that building the wall would stop illegal immigration. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Well, it might have slowed it down.”

  “They would have bought the ladders, dug tunnels, used the ocean to get here, and we already knew that. They did all those things here in San Diego. We had a fence that was just as good as a wall, but it didn’t work. The whole thing was just a political farce to get politicians elected. They needed a group of angry people that were so gullible as to believe it was actually a solution to the problem. ”

  “That’s pretty jaded. I bet a lot of those people had reason to believe it would help.”

  “They might have. But letting anger and frustration guide your decision-making is not a good approach. Hell, I felt the same way. It’s not right to just let anyone come into our country that wants to, and it sucks for the people who actually went through the process of immigration and did everything the right way. But spending billions of dollars to make yourself feel good when it doesn’t solve the problem is not the right answer.”

  “So, you think it wasn’t a problem that we had to deal with. I find that hard to believe.” Erin looked doubtful.

  “There are three kinds of problems in the world: Those that can be solved, those that can be managed so you make the problem less severe, and those that are impossible.”

  “And which one was the illegal immigration issue?”

  “Impossible.” Stryker looked at her and then away again.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the problem wasn’t illegals crossing the border. That’s just what we understood based upon what the politicians fed us. The real problem was how to manage a situation where a desperately poor country sits right next to one of the wealthiest countries in the world. How do you tell those people, even though they know they can have a better life for their families and will be able to find work, to not cross the border? They are going to find a way because the option is for their families to starve and die. Anyone would make the same choice.”

  “Still doesn’t make it right,” Erin replied.

  “I don’t disagree with that. I’m just saying that you need to place the problem in the right category and, if you can’t fix it, don’t spend billions of dollars just to appease the population so they will re-elect you for two more years. That is not just wrong, it’s almost evil.”

  “Do you really believe people were able to understand all that, or that they even thought about it that much?”

  “I used to watch interviews with ranchers who had land that bordered Mexico, and they would all complain about the drug mules and illegals that crossed their land to get here. But, they never said the one thing I know was also true.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They probably hired some of them to work their ranches.”

  “How could you know that?” Erin looked confused.

  “Because my grandpa sat in the diner every morning complaining about illegal immigration, and spent every afternoon working with them in our pastures. It’s the great dichotomy of life in the southwest. It was a stunningly hypocritical thing to do, yet everyone did it, because they couldn’t find Caucasian workers who were willing to do the backbreaking jobs in the height of the summer heat. And, it got worse with each generation. The kids that lived right before the die-off rarely even went outdoors; they were too busy with their cellphones and computers. Their idea of work was sending more than ten text messages a day.”

  “God, did you take your optimism pill this morning?” Erin asked sarcastically.

  “It doesn’t take perfect vision to see the world for what it is. People are going to do what is in their best interest and nothing is going to change that, including a border wall.”

  Erin fell into a troubled silence.

  Stryker slowly glassed the buildings surrounding the border and finally put the binoculars down. He hadn’t detected any movement around the border crossing area, but hesitated, and then again glassed the entire area, stopping at the check point.

  “Somebody left the lift arms up on both sides of the barrier.” He pointed to the customs building.

  “Or, somebody came before us and raised them.”

  “Either way, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so let’s get this thing going.”

  Erin settled in the passenger’s seat as he started the engine and drove toward the crossing with his eyes scanning the buildings around them. Erin did the same. They passed to the Mexican side without incident, and Stryker increased speed. A “Welcome to Tijuana” sign stood between two metal posts, and was peeling and faded in places.

  They drove down narrow streets surrounded by run down restaurants, liquor stores that had broken-down displays of tequila bottles in front of the buildings, and what seemed to be hundreds of souvenir shops that had sold t-shirts, baseball hats, sombreros and every other form of trinket known to man.

  Stryker turned a corner, and headed toward the freeway that would take them south. They passed entire medical plazas filled with dentist offices, pharmacies, and eyeglass shops.

  “What’s with that?” Erin pointed to one of the plazas.

  “Americans came here to get cheap dental work and glasses. It cost less than half of what it did in the States, so they did a brisk business. Same with prescription drugs, and they weren’t too particular about having a prescription.”

  “How did the American get the drugs through customs?”

  “The only things customs cared about were opiates and other pain killers. They let anything else go. And the Americans knew that so they never tried to buy that stuff here.”

  “That’s pretty lax enforcement. There are a lot of other pills that can have serious side effects or other consequences.” She looked troubled by the thought.

  They drove by another complex of dentist offices that featured a billboard of a giant smiling tooth in front of the building.

  “A dentist in Mexico? Not my idea of fun,” Erin said a few moments later.

  “Why not. Most of them were trained in the states and, if you didn’t have insurance, what choice would you have?”

  Erin shrugged.

  They passed through an area of town that featured tin and plywood shacks perched precariously on hillsides. Several of the homes had already given in to gravity and lay in heaps of tangled metal and wood to the side of the road. Large sections of the hillside had shifted during the rainy season and much of the dirt and loam now lay next to the roadbed, baked hard by the summer sun.

  A pack of feral dogs crossed the road in front of them, obviously spooked by the rumble of the diesel engine. The animals continued running until they disappeared into the disorderly neighborhood that sat to the right side of the road.

  “Lord, what a crappy place to live,” Erin whispered.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Stryker replied. “This is
nothing compared to what we saw in the sandbox, and large parts of the world lived in conditions like there. Every time I saw it, I would give thanks that I had the good fortune to born in the States.”

  “I can see why.”

  They both continued to scan their surroundings and Stryker was relieved when they passed a large sign that said “Autopista 1,” entered the freeway and started south. Being surrounded by tall buildings was not where he liked to be.

  “I take it ‘autopista’ means ‘freeway’?”

  “Yes, but they were usually toll roads. Mexico never really had a government-funded interstate freeway system the way we did, so most of them were privately owned and you had to pay.”

  “I bet we don’t have to.” Erin smirked.

  They approached the first toll booth. The barricade arm that blocked the freeway was gone. Someone had driven through it without bothering to lift it up and out of the way.

  After passing the booth, Stryker increased the vehicle’s speed for a while before they noticed an increasing number of heaps of skeletal remains that dotted the ditches and shoulder of the road. The number and frequency of remains increased as they grew closer to what appeared to be a parking lot on the freeway. They came to a stop in front of a giant traffic jam of dead cars that spanned the entire southbound side of the freeway. Stryker considered the situation and then carefully crossed to the northbound lane and continued heading south.

  A few vehicles were abandoned on the roadway on that side, but it was nothing like the southbound lane.

  They passed every of means of transportation. There were busses, sedans, mini-vans, trucks and pickups, and even a few motorcycles.

  “What happened here?” Erin asked.

  “I think I know, but let’s wait until we get to the front of this mess so I know for sure.”

  After a few minutes went by, and the traffic jam continued, Erin said, “This goes on for miles.”

  Stryker nodded and continued driving in silence.

  Erin studied the cars as they passed. “A lot of those are California plates.”

  Stryker stopped the Humvee when they reached the front of the mass of vehicles and pointed to a line of Humvees with Ma Deuces that stretched across the southbound lane pointing north toward the stalled cars.