The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set)

by Taylor Michaels

  "Chung said he saw you coming in just before George went out."

  "Actually, I was telephoning in my report for the day. Then, I went to my cabin to put on a sweater as a cover. I wouldn't hurt George."

  "Why do you really need George? What about all the old power plants?"

  "We believe those are all damaged. Maybe they can be repaired, but it would take years. The maintenance people are all dead. It will take years to train more. Parts must be made. The natural gas system has to be repaired first. Many electrical lines are down from storms and fires. Those gasifier generators are the key to the future. Wood is available now. Anything else will take time. Too much time."

  Hans' arrogance and what he knew about the group was beginning to irritate John. Perhaps Hans was a better spy than John. Perhaps he was better at manipulating people. He was definitely good at manipulating John. The only two things John was sure of were that he didn't trust Hans and that he could never trust Hans. Chung was right.

  John's finger began to tighten on the trigger. He could see the cylinder start to rotate. His finger continued to tighten. It was hard to hold the gun steady with one hand so he brought up his left hand to steady his right.

  Hans saw the change and, with his voice quaking, said, "Hey John. Take it easy. If your hand is tired, just put the gun down. I won't do anything. You took my gun. I'm harmless. We can work something out. No need for violence."

  The cylinder continued to turn, slowly. The gun had an internal hammer. The only outward sign of what was happening was the cylinder moving, degree by degree, millimeter by millimeter.

  Finally, Hans leaned forward and said, "I'll give you the satellite phone. I'm sure you could find a use for it. I can find the other one. We had two. You could certainly use two. You'd always be in contact with the others. What do you say?"

  John had to keep swallowing to keep the acid out of his throat and down in his stomach where it belonged. His head ached and he could feel pain in his teeth. He tried to unclench his jaw, but he couldn't. It was like a vise. His teeth began to scream for him to stop the pain. His throat was screaming as well. He knew he had no reason to hate this man, but he knew that he did. The government wanted their guns, their ammo, their food, their house and now George. They would probably ship Marceau, Pierre and Masako off to some internment camp in the desert where they would starve. John could not let any of that happen.

  But, Hans would say that it was not personal. He was only doing his job, for his country. John's country. John knew that he despised this man. More than any man he had ever hated. Hans was the government and John had to protect his people from everything, even his own government. The government he had worked for over the last three years. The government which had trained him for the last fifteen years. His brain ordered his finger to tighten a little more and a little more and a little more. A thunderous explosion filled the air, hurt John's ears and destroyed the quiet.

  John liked the gun for several reasons. He hated it because of the noise and being compact and made from titanium, it carried little weight. The kick was punishing. Like the gun was being hit on the end of the barrel with a sledge hammer. His hand stung from the impact.

  After the shot, Hans' eyes grew large, as if he couldn't believe this could happen. John squeezed the trigger once more. The cylinder turned again. And again, a horrendous explosion accelerated a small piece of lead to a high velocity and thundered across the landscape. But nobody else heard the horrendous noise because they were all dead. John shook his hand to shake off the pain of the kick. After a second in time, which was as long as a second could be, Hans fell over. Funny how time moves so slowly in bad times. Good times fly by like a fighter jet on full afterburner and bad times hang around like the stench of a skunk, seeming to never go away. Not fair at all.

  John hurried to the man and quickly went through his pockets. He found a wallet, a handkerchief and a set of keys. He wondered what the keys were for. They were certainly a sign that Hans had another life to go back to. The wallet had a driver's license, two credit cards, a membership card for a prescription drug service and a dozen hundred-dollar bills. Souvenirs of a bygone time. Neither the driver's license nor any other form of identification showed Hans' name, unless he was Adam Benson. Maybe all government agents had the same name. That would save printing costs.

  John dragged the body into the weeds, peering first one way and then the other, but he knew no one was around. If other people were around, they were only concerned with their own survival, not the murder of a stranger. For a moment, he considered cutting out the man's thyroid. He had watched Pierre and was confident he could remove the organ along with some surrounding flesh without wasting anything. He imagined himself sawing away with his pocket knife. Not a pretty picture. But Masako was dying. It would definitely be worth the effort and the mess. Masako was worth it. Finally, he decided against the impromptu surgery. He didn't know what to tell the people back at the lodge, but holding Han's thyroid in his hand would restrict his choice of a good story and, to some, would make him appear to be a heartless monster. He felt like a heartless monster, but he also felt he had no choice. How many times did he believe he had no other choice? How many more times must he feel so horrible? Was there any hope for him or for the others? Perhaps Charles could have handled this better, but Charles was gone. So sad.

  * * *

  The next question was what to do now. Go back to the lodge or go on? He decided he would have to go back, at least to the warehouse. Then, he would take the White Warrior to the first pig farm. The only problem would be whether he could drag a pig back to the car. Then he remembered his virus-induced greater strength and decided that dragging the pig would be no problem. Catching a pig was always the problem. More so, with only one person.

  He returned the Dart train to the warehouse and left on the White Warrior. He found the pig farm and looked around for three hours, but found and heard nothing. So, the problem of catching a pig was not a problem. That made him depressed because it meant one less chance to save Masako. One more day ruined. One more day burned, gone, lost. A day which could never be brought back. Not many more of those left. The small pigs would have small thyroids and would only last a few weeks if that was the best he could do. Another boar was necessary, and possibly a few more, to keep Masako alive long enough for the group to begin raising pigs.

  That night at dinner, he told the others of his conversation with Hans and he confessed his inability to find another pig. He decided to tell the truth about Hans and about his ambivalence about removing Hans' thyroid. Everyone but Chung was in awe. Chung smiled. John congratulated him for detecting the truth. Even Binky was surprised. Apparently, Binky had little experience with Germans. Everyone seemed to accept the events without concern, but John could not. He needed a large boar and he doubted that finding one would be easy.

  He hated spending the next twenty days looking for a boar or other animal every day, but if it had to be done then, he would do it. These people were his responsibility. He invited them here. He had to do what had to be done. That's what surviving was all about. That's what saving Masako's life required.

  Early the next morning, while Fred was helping John prepare for the trip, John told him all the details of what had happened with Hans. Fred felt vindicated in feeling something was wrong and vindicated for worrying about their security. However, since Hans really did work for the government, they were certain to have another visit from the government. Especially if they were the biggest settlement for hundreds of miles, as Hans said. John's concern that the government would take many of their supplies, guns, ammo, and also George, worried Fred. What could he do? Should they improve their fortifications, try to find more weapons, or what? Perhaps, he could ask George to look into making a bigger gun. A super shotgun capable of shooting many projectiles at once over a long distance. He decided to talk it over with George after John and Chung were gone. Obviously, something had to change. Their current situation was not
good enough. Fred had traded his worries about Hans for greater worries about the government.

  John left in White Warrior Number One with Chung and arrived at the warehouse twenty minutes later. John piled the wood into the gasifier burner and started the fire while Chung stacked cordwood onto the small flatbed car.

  "You sure this is enough wood, Big Guy? Wouldn't want to be lost out in the woods. Long walk back."

  "If it isn't enough, we have an ax in the second car. We can't run out of fuel in the woods. Even in a town, we just chop up the first house we find. That's one of the things I like about this technology. I also brought nets and ropes and guns. Some more corn and camping supplies for four days. If all else fails, we can detach the front car and pedal back to the lodge. During the last trip, I reset all the switches in the rail line to allow us to pass through. This trip shouldn't require leaving the Dark Dart except to refill the burner. And to stretch our legs. For the first hour, I'll watch through the binoculars. Even though George and Fred upgraded the brakes, it still doesn't stop quickly. I suppose, no train does."

  They arrived at the rail siding near the hunting lodge a few hours before dusk. John filled his backpack with camping gear and carried the nets and rifle. Chung carried the rest. They had walked a quarter of a mile toward the hunting lodge when Chung stopped.

  "Check this out, Big Guy," Chung said, pointing at a big pile of manure on the ground. "Looks fresh."

  "It's green."

  "That's really fresh. Maybe a few hours old. Should be a cow close by. No way we could take a cow back on that little flat car George built. Any cow would flatten it. They weigh over a thousand pounds, some two or three times that."

  "We'd have to gut the cow."

  Chung turned, walked a few paces, then turned back around. He put his hands over his face for a moment and said, "Ever done that before? Doesn't sound pleasant. Stinks worse than crap, I bet."

  "Life is no longer pleasant, Chung. We gutted a boar the last time I was here. Shouldn't be much different. Heavier and more cumbersome. Wish I had a chainsaw." John stopped talking and smiled, remembering a movie he had seen years ago where a horse died inside a building and the janitor took a chainsaw to the corpse. Not much made him smile these days. Life had become one calamity after another, one battle after another, one crisis after another. No Chung, he thought, this world is not pleasant.

  They listened for any animal sounds and heard little. A few tweets up in the trees. Some insects in the distance. Chung shook himself and stood up straight as if bringing himself back from some unpleasant thought. "I can handle this, Big Guy. Give me a minute. I've done some tracking." He bent over and walked around the pile of manure. Shortly, he said, "Over here. It's going that way." He pointed ahead and to the right. "This could take some time. The ground is hard. No rain for a while."

  They followed the cow tracks, a slow process. The cow was going downhill. They continued on and at the edge of a river, they found the cow, grazing on the grass by the river. The river ran near the railroad tracks beyond the point where they parked the dart train.

  "That's it, Big Guy? We hit the jackpot. That thing has a thyroid three or four times as big as a pig. We shoot it, gut it and then head home. Right?"

  "Right, Chung, but not that soon. We spent a day and two hundred pounds of wood to come here. It took me two days to cut that wood. Why not stay around and check out the place? If we look, maybe we'll find something else. Besides, it's too late to go back today. We'll tie the cow to a tree for now, wake up early and gut it tomorrow."

  "We'd be lucky to get all the meat from that cow home."

  "Along with the head."

  Chung screwed up his face again. "You know how to do that, right?"

  "I brought a hacksaw and a couple big knives."

  Chung ran to the closest large tree and threw up behind it. A few minutes later, he threw up again. After another few minutes, he returned, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  "For a spy, you're a bit skittish, Chung," John said, laughing.

  "Spying never required cutting anybody's or anything's head off. No blood gushing out and all over the place. No guts falling to the ground and stinking to high heaven. Mostly paper work. A few paper cuts. No worse."

  "We haven't even started yet and you are puking out your guts." John tied the last knot, making sure the cow was tethered to the sturdiest tree with no chance of escape.

  "Yes, but the reason I was spying was to avoid the blood and guts. And I did that, quite well, I believe."

  They scoured the area for two hours and finally heard a pig or something which sounded like a pig. They followed the noise until they saw the animal, a small one.

  "Do we shoot it?"

  "I have a hunch. Let's watch it. See where it goes. What it does. We're downwind. Maybe it won't notice us. It's only an hour before dark."

  An hour later, the pig had found two others and all three were netted. The pigs squealed loudly and one squirmed and escaped, but with John's super ability, he managed to recapture it.

  "A good day, Big Guy?"

  "A great day, Chung." John had to smile to himself. "This will guarantee Masako's life. A life I didn't worry about a month ago. Now I've spent many days and much effort and solved a problem I didn't know about a month ago." To himself, he said, not really worth smiling, was it? I'm back to where I was a month ago. No matter. Masako will live. I don't think I would have made it, if she had died. I don't want to lose someone else I love.

  They arose with the sun and drove the dart train to the track beside where they left the cow and flipped it around. Before noon, the cow had been gutted and plastic bags of meat were loaded onto the flatbed and tied down. They made their way back to their original spot, loaded the three little pigs onto the flatbed and left for home.

  Chapter 71 - The Maps

  John was sitting in his office adjacent to the living room in the lodge, with maps strewn all over the desk when Fred walked in.

  "What's up, John?"

  "Remember those maps that Hans brought us? These are them. Or they. Whatever. I've been overlaying the night maps onto the day maps and trying to locate the closest major settlement."

  "Where is it?"

  "None are within range of the electric cars. One is within a mile of a railway line, about a hundred fifty miles south. The maps are infrared and that settlement shows up more than we do. I assume that means they are bigger than we are."

  "We used to be bigger than we are now. Actually, the brighter image might only mean they are less efficient than we are. Your father had insulated the ceiling of the lodge. And, we don't know when those maps were made. I worry about our military capabilities. Charles was a big loss. Tom was a loss. George is still not himself. Harry was coming along. And, I hate to say this, but Cho was a real asset. Tough as any man, tougher than most. We used to be a force to be reckoned with. I was even sorry to see Hans go. He could fight and he could shoot. I don't believe Binky will be an asset. Masako is right. He's a total nut case. So, it's Pierre, Chung, you and me. And I don't know what to expect from Chung. Have you ever seen him under fire? Will he stick to his position or run when he hears the first shot?"

  "I really don't know. I feel that I can trust him, but I haven't seen him under fire. He was squeamish when I was cutting up that cow." John laughed as he made sawing motions with his hand.

  "We can't afford to leave less than two good shooters here. I know Iris is not bad and Masako is not bad, but neither has much experience, because we don't have enough bullets for practice. From a security point of view, we're in a hole and I don't know how to pull us out."

  "I read a book about a hurricane at a chemical plant and one of the managers said that when you take over an existing management position, you can't fire everybody and fill all the positions with perfect people. You might move a few out, but mostly, you work with what you have. That means we have to train Iris and Masako and Marceau. And Binky. And Chung, if necessary."

  "But,
like I said, there's no spare ammo, John. We can't do any training. We're in a box. Problems on all sides. I don't know what to do."

  "From what you said, lack of qualified people is not our problem. Our problem isn't that we don't have enough good shooters. Our problem is that we don't have the ammo to train our personnel to be good shooters."

  "You aren't making this problem any easier, John. Is this a purely philosophical discussion or do you have a concrete proposal? I'm tired of philosophical discussions. I've had enough of those with Masako."

  "Remember when we wanted some pigs? What did George say? He said to go where the pigs used to be and look around. So, we bring out all our phone books, find the addresses of all gun stores and police stations and go search them."

  "That's been done. They've all been looted over and over."

  "Billions of bullets are out there, somewhere. We just have to figure out where. They all weren't shot in the weeks between the panic and the virus. Remember when the government bought three billion bullets? They are out there. It's up to us to find them."

  "So what's your proposal?"

  "Tonight, we take the Dark Defender to all the local police stations and gun stores. Make a list. We ride at midnight."

  * * *

  John and Fred met in the kitchen at midnight. Fred had a list of three police stations and six gun stores with street addresses for each. He had marked a map to show the shortest route to check out each one.

  "You really believe this is going to work, John?"

  "I didn't believe we'd find a pig, but we found quite a few. Sometimes, you just have to take the shot and hope it works out. If it doesn't work out, you take another shot. You keep shooting until you succeed."

  "Did they teach you that in spy school?"

  "Nope. Hard Knocks University. The only place where you can receive a real education. Actually, you'll never believe where I heard that. In that same novel about a chemical plant. This guy was the local womanizer and another guy asked him how he was so successful with women. The first guy said it was because he always took the shot. He always asked the girl out. He said that a good fisherman wasn't known by how many times he struck out, but by how many fish he caught. Same principle. If we strike out tonight, then we go out further tomorrow. If bullets are the secret to our survival, then bullets are our main objective. And we take every shot we can. We look everywhere we can imagine."