Chapter 34
Outbreak - Day 15
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Cade gave the door two light raps, then waited a beat. Nothing. He knocked two more times, putting a little more muscle behind them. Still quiet.
He expected to find his family either at the mess or hunkered down here trying to keep cool, and he hadn’t seen them when he popped in to the former. Strange, he thought. A hundred degree day had a knack for driving people inside and keeping them there. Still, he wasn’t worried—Brook could take care of herself and Raven. She’d already proven that many times over. He just wanted to make sure when he opened the door he wasn’t greeted with the business end of his wife’s M4.
So he knocked one more time, waited a second longer, and then fished a hand into his cargo pocket. He rooted amongst the truck keys and the gilded basketball. Nothing. As he’d suspected, Brook had the only key to the hut.
Even though he was pretty certain the person or persons responsible for infecting the civilians and setting off the outbreak inside of Schriever had already fled, keeping the door to the Grayson billet locked at all times was their new SOP—Standard Operating Procedure.
He propped his rifle against the jamb, shrugged off his combat pack and rifled through the side pockets looking for his lock-gun—a highly effective lock-picking tool that could easily defeat most standard tumbler locks. In fact, he realized that since he had been running ops with the new Delta team, the soft spoken Maddox had dealt with every secured door they had encountered. To say the deceased operator had been a magician with a lock would be vastly understating the truth.
Finally his fingers brushed the plastic grip; somehow the thing had worked its way to the very bottom of his ruck and was mixed in with the unpalatable discards from the awful MREs that had kept him going at times. That the tool wasn’t immediately accessible would have earned him an ass-chewing from his mentor, the late Mike Desantos.
During the few seconds it took him to gain entry into his own quarters, he made a mental note to square away his ruck before setting course for Utah in the morning—and put the lock-gun where he could get to it at a moment’s notice. From here on out I need to be on my A-game, he thought to himself. Because tomorrow, there would be no team of shooters backing him up.
After hustling the shiny contraption through the open door, he found a bunk far away in the shadows and hoisted it on top, pushing it back far as he could and then spreading a thin sheet over the sharp angles.
He ventured back into the bright afternoon to collect the rest of his gear, set everything in a pile in the center of the dark room, and locked the door. Unbuttoning his ACUs on the move, he made a beeline for the toilets.
He’d been holding this one in for half an hour, and as he stood in front of the urinal with one arm propped on the cool tile and blasted away at the fragrant little pill, he detected subtle movement out of the corner of his eye. He dropped his Johnson and drew the compact Glock from his shoulder holster, swept it to the right and bracketed some kind of dog within the tritium sights.
“You gotta be kidding me,” he said aloud as he holstered his weapon. “And how did you get in here, pooch?” Though he was merely thinking aloud, the answer to his question hit him at once—the girls.
He finished his business at the urinal and put everything away in its proper place. Then he knelt in a submissive posture and clucked his tongue. “You a girl or a boy, you hairy rascal?”
Cade watched the dog regard him for a tick, then the seemingly fearless shepherd padded forward and sniffed at his upturned palm. While the dog was busy vetting him, he gently grasped its collar and glanced at the quarter-sized tag hanging there. “Your name is Max. That’s what it says on your dog tag,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Look... I’ve still got mine.” He tapped at his army issue dog tags through the fabric of his sweat-stained tee shirt. The dog went prone, eyes intently focused on him—one blue and one brown. The brindle shepherd received a thorough scratching behind the ears. “Where did the girls find you?”
Cade shrugged out of his shoulder holster and peeled away the damp, rank-smelling tee shirt and chucked it into one of the many sinks lining one wall of what used to be a communal lavatory.
“You must think I’m crazy talking to you like we’re long lost buddies.” In the event the girls had snuck in and happened to be watching, he looked over his shoulder before continuing the one-sided conversation. “I’ve been outnumbered two to one for the last twelve years. So I welcome you with open arms... you can be my wingman.”
Max sprang to all fours, turned a circle and let out a single muted yap.
“OK—let’s get out of the bathroom. Or else someone’s going to think we’re light in the loafers,” Cade said as a wave of fatigue suddenly welled up within him. A full day’s worth of adrenaline highs and the inevitable valleys on the back side of those peaks was finally catching up. He made his way to a bunk and plopped down with his boots still laced, feet planted firmly on the floor, and the rest of his torso stretched across the thin mattress—and that was exactly how Brook and Raven found him when they came back from visiting with Wilson, Sasha, and Taryn.
Chapter 35
Outbreak - Day 15
Winters’s Compound
Eden, Utah
The blindfold peeled off with a dull pop, and like something alive, the man’s greasy dreadlocks splayed out over his shoulders. Duncan chucked the burlap strip to the floor, and placed himself between the prisoner and the single hundred-watt bulb they had strung up for this occasion. He figured he’d look all the more imposing if they played it that way.
Twirling his waxed handlebar moustache, Logan had struck a somewhat sympathetic pose, arms at his side and slouched in the folding metal chair. He had one leg propped across the other and his black bowler hat concealed his eyes.
This room would do, Duncan thought to himself. It wasn’t a jail cell or an interrogation room, but neither was it the Embassy Suites. Row upon row of food stuffs jammed the room from the plywood-covered floor to its low metal ceiling. Shiny cans tilted sideways, their contents and a date scribbled in the hand of either Logan or Lev, lined one wall. A wall of rice and pinto beans stored in plastic five-gallon buckets loomed behind the seated prisoner. The latter not so good in an underground bunker, Duncan mused. Aside from the booze-tinged sweat oozing from the young man’s pores, the room had a certain unique odor about it. A mild metallic nose with an underlying dampness. The more he thought about it, the more the smell reminded him of an unfinished basement.
Duncan noted the man’s wild eyes darting about the room. He allowed him a moment to stew in his situation and then removed the gag. “What’s your name?” he demanded. Then he stepped closer, hovered over the young man, invading his personal space.
“Since when is it illegal to watch somebody?”
Duncan reared back and threw the yellow notepad. It hit the watcher squarely in the chest and ended up on the floor near his scuffed boots.
“Take it easy on the guy,” Logan said. He got up from his chair, pushed the bowler to its proper place, and glared at his older brother.
“Says the peacenik in the family,” Duncan said, emitting a sad-sounding chuckle.
Logan took one step closer. “He’s all of what... seventeen? You don’t need to hurt him.”
“Eighteen... and my name’s Chance,” the prisoner said, twisting his head in Logan’s direction.
“Old enough to go to war. Old enough to vote... but not old enough to drink. Why do you smell like a brewery, kid? Is that all you’re doing now that the end of the world is upon us?” Duncan asked.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Logan spat. “Give him a break... you’ve been out there. You’ve seen how hellish it is.”
“Quit sticking up for the kid!” Duncan bellowed. He regained his composure, and in his syrupy southern drawl addressed the kid. “Now, Chance.” He paused for effect. “I’
m only going to give you one chance to tell me the truth. Then I’m going to ask Mister Gives a Shit here to leave us alone so we can get better acquainted.”
Chance swallowed hard. His eyes flicked to Logan looking for any sort of help. Received none. Logan had the bowler hat once again pulled down low, keeping the stark white light of the single exposed bulb at bay.
Duncan cracked his knuckles. Sat on his haunches so that he was seeing eye to eye with Chance. “I’m going to make this easy for you to remember. I have three questions that start with a W. Why were you watching us? Where are you staying when you’re not taking notes about our comings and goings? Who else is there with you when you aren’t watching us? I may have follow up questions if I don’t like your answers.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Chance said. He motioned with his eyes, rolling them in Logan’s direction.
“You’ll tell him everything?” asked Duncan.
“You’ll really let me go?” the kid asked tentatively.
“I want to kill you,” Duncan said matter-of-factly. “You were watching us. Taking notes for some reason. Furthermore... you had a gosh dang AK-47—”
Logan cut in. “I will escort you to your ride personally.” He held the young man’s car keys aloft. “But only if you promise you won’t come back.”
Duncan snorted. Shook his head and stared at the floor. “You’re making a big mistake,” he murmured. “But it’s your call.”
“Yes it is. And it’s a fair trade by my estimation,” Logan added. Then he revealed his eyes. Looked squarely at Chance. “You have my word... I’ll let you go. How’d you get here?”
“He has to leave,” said Chance. “Then can you cut me loose?”
Duncan spoke up. “Yes to one. No to two.” He walked past Logan, and on his way out the door added a parting shot, “If you don’t tell him everything... and I mean every little detail. Then I will be back. Before I leave I have to ask you one more thing…”
Chance wormed around and looked towards Duncan. “What?”
“You seen the movie Pulp Fiction?” asked Duncan.
“Who hasn’t?” the kid quipped.
“Good. Then you remember what Marsellus Wallace said to the hillbilly rapist.”
It was silent inside the storeroom.
“Let me refresh your memory. Marsellus had just suffered some unspeakable shit at the hands of the hillbilly and the gimp. So Butch saves Marsellus’s ass and Marsellus says... I’m paraphrasing now, so bear with me... he says to the hillbilly rapist, ‘I’m gonna have one of my friends get medieval on your ass.’ You following, Chance?”
“I’m the hillbilly,” Chance said resignedly.
“Bingo. I’ll be back if you don’t answer every one of this man’s questions to the best of your ability.” Judging by the beaded sweat on the kid’s lip and brow, and the size his eyes had gone, Duncan didn’t need to repeat the medieval line. He rose to his full height and flashed a covert wink at his baby brother, stepped over the raised threshold and clanged the door shut behind him.
***
Ten minutes later
Logan emerged from the store room, shut the door and leaned backwards, pressing his hundred and fifty pound frame against it. After a beat, a broad smile formed on his face.
Duncan pushed off of the wall that had been supporting his weight. Eyebrows inching up, he gave his brother a look that said, ‘spill yer guts.’
Holding up an imaginary statue, Logan began to recite a made up acceptance speech. “I’d like to thank the Motion Picture Academy first and foremost—” A chorus of raucous laughter from the brothers filled the confined space.
“He told you everything?” Duncan asked.
“Everything he wanted us to think,” Logan answered under his breath.
“You think anything he said was truthful?”
The low murmur of someone talking in one of the other subterranean rooms floated past them. Logan crossed his arms, and swiveled his head back and forth. “No way. First off... I don’t think it’s just him and a few relatives camping thirty miles east of here like he says. And secondly, I don’t buy his bullshit story that he didn’t know anything about the cut barbed wire, the two infected dudes and the rotters that followed them in. He was all jittery and diverted his eyes more than a few times. He was lying,” Logan said confidently.
“Doesn’t matter, when you go back in there take this with you and ask him to sign it. Furthers the illusion... know what I mean?”
Logan studied the single sheet of paper. “Effin peace treaty. Good call. Makes it look all o-fish-ul. So, Bad Cop... you really are going to let him go?”
“Keep him locked up until about an hour before nightfall and then blindfold him. Drive around the airfield for about five minutes. Doesn’t matter which way you turn or how many times. Just confuse the kid. Make him think the compound is farther in than it really is,” Duncan said, flashing a shit-eating grin at Logan. “It’s what I did when I brought him in here. Shoulda seen the look on Lev’s face when I kept doing laps and figure eights. Then after you get his head spinning, you take him to his vehicle.” Duncan handed over the dented and scratched AK-47.
“Where the hell is his vehicle?
“Black Toyota about a quarter mile north of the clearing. The ladies saw a fella come looking for the boy. They tried to get to him but he knew how to move quiet and fast.”
Logan flashed him a bewildered look. “And then what?”
“Then you make a show of it... tell him we won’t be as forgiving if he comes back around. Then give him back his rifle.”
After checking the magazine and seeing his reflection staring back at him in the shiny brass casings, Logan shook his head doggedly. “I can’t do it. Not this way. What’s going to keep the shitbird from putting a couple of rounds into my back when I’m not looking?”
“Go with Lev or Gus. Give the kid the rifle after you reach his vehicle.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. When you were in there playing Good Cop I ruined the firing pin.” Duncan smiled, removed his aviator glasses and buffed each lens with a deliberate circular motion. Fogged them with his breath and repeated the process.
“You’re a wily bastard, Dunc. Playing him like that. And then that Ving Rhames shtick— ‘medieval on yo ass’—effin priceless, brother.”
“Sometimes a flash of brilliance shines through all of my bullshit,” Duncan drawled.
“Don’t sell yourself short, bro. You’ve always been the brains of the family. After Dad, of course. You know, if there’s one thing I’m grateful for it’s that Mom and Dad didn’t have to see this shit happen to the world.”
“Dad woulda been OK,” Duncan said. “Mom— she wouldn’t have gotten on very well, what with only a rolling pin and her acid tongue against the dead.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “I promise you. This is going to work out just fine. Best case scenario is ol’ Chance stays away. Better case, he brings his family back and we’re ready for them. Take care of them once and for all.” He embraced Logan in one of his trademark bear hugs. Whispered in his ear. “I kinda hope they do bring it... cause there’s a couple more tricks up this old dog’s sleeve.”
He fleshed out the rest of the plan for Logan, and when he had finished, Good Cop reentered the storeroom to cross the T’s and dot the I’s.
Whistling a few notes of Skynyrd’s Free Bird, Duncan walked down the connecting corridor. “Phillip,” he bellowed. “I’ve got a job for you.”
Chapter 36
Outbreak - Day 15
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
The sun was making its downward slide over the Rockies as Brook worked the key in the lock. The hottest part of the day was behind her, and now she was looking forward to a little family time. Time to clear up a few things. Time to cleanse her palate for a steaming plate of crow.
She took another look at the sky going red, pushed the door in and stood back. “Cade... you in there?�
�
Nothing.
She turned back to Raven. “I want you to stay right here while I check things out.” Raven nodded. Mouthed a silent OK.
Brook entered the dim room holding the M4 at low ready, with the barrel at a forty-five degree angle between horizontal and the floor, just like Cade had taught her the first time they’d hunted pheasant together. Before Raven was born and well before brandishing a weapon against danger, real or perceived, had become a part of her normal routine. Just like eating or breathing—two things necessary to sustain life—toting around seven pounds of forged titanium and machined metal had become nearly as important for her survival.
She had one boot in the door when Max confronted her, muzzle against her leg and his stubby tail wagging a manic hello. Ignoring the dog, she pushed in further. And once her eyes had adjusted she saw her shirtless husband, chest rising and falling, splayed out on the bunk opposite the two they had pushed together to serve as a sort of mini-queen bed. She noticed his M4 amongst his gear near her feet, but she didn’t see the ever-present pair of Glock pistols.
“Cade—” she said in a low voice. She watched him for a tick. He stirred, but didn’t respond. She called out to Raven. “Come on in sweetie... but be quiet, your dad’s asleep.”
***
Cade finally stirred after a couple of minutes. He opened one eye to recon the room. Except for a trickle of light coming in around the covered windows, it was gloomy and he appeared to be alone. He propped his head up on one elbow and shifted his gaze behind him.
“Hi Dad.”
“Hi sweetie,” he said to Raven, who was sitting on the adjacent bunk. “I was wiped.” He ran his hands through his dark hair. Rubbed his eyes, squinting against the fading light.
“Time for a haircut, Dad,” Raven said. “Maybe a shave too? Sure looks itchy.”
“No, it’s not so bad sweetie. I think I’m going to let it grow out a little.”
Allegiance Page 21