by Tim Washburn
Henry is puttering around with something on the workbench. He pauses to think. “We haven’t been to a pediatrician since the girls were small. But, I think old Dr. Stone is still around.”
“Where does he live?”
“Uh-uh, Gage. If you’re going, I’m going.”
“Load up.” Gage turns and heads for the pickup.
CHAPTER 104
Shawnee, Oklahoma
“We should be coming up on a highway that’ll take us back north,” Alyx says, peering out the windshield.
“Why do we want to go north?” Zane asks. “I thought you said I-40 ran right past Weatherford.”
“It does. But it also runs right by Tinker Air Force Base.”
“Damn.”
“I agree. We need to head north and pick up the turnpike, which feeds into I-35. From there, we can pick up I-40 again, bypassing the entire mess at Tinker.”
Zane shakes his head. “That’s miles out of the way.”
“We have no other choice. Right now, we’re about thirty miles east of the base. We’re not going to get much closer and Highway 177 feeds right into the turnpike. Otherwise we’ll be chasing our tail trying to navigate the back roads.”
Although not particularly happy with the decision, Zane takes the exit when they come to it. He navigates around a clump of cars at the exit before hitting open road. The area is mostly rolling farmland that’s interspersed with an occasional house. Most of the homes are postage-stamp size compared to the barns and farming equipment that surrounds them. Trucks of all shapes and sizes are parked haphazardly around the yards and there’s an assortment of tractors that range, sizewise, from a notch above a riding lawn mower to hulking behemoths that are taller than most of the home’s rooflines. Toss in an occasional combine here and there, along with all the tractor implements needed to run a farm, and Zane bets the final tally has to be in the millions of dollars.
“How do they afford those monster tractors?”
“It’s the great American way. They’re mortgaged to the hilt.”
“I guess they won’t have to worry about making payments for a while. Your dad have any tractors?”
“Of course. You can’t have a farm and not have a tractor. It’s tiny compared to most of these.”
Zane glances at Alyx and smiles. “Do you put on your Daisy Dukes and drive the tractor around the pasture?”
“Does that turn you on?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Alyx laughs. “During the summers when I was home from college, I’d help Dad bale the hay, but I sure as hell wasn’t wearing a pair of short shorts. The mosquitoes would eat you alive, and what they didn’t get, the wasps and bees would. Sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the time I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.”
Zane smiles. “That’s kind of sexy, too. Were you wearing a cowboy hat?”
Alyx bats her eyelashes. “Nope, a ball cap.”
They hit the turnpike at Wellston and follow it west, back toward Oklahoma City.
“So your dad designs wind farms?” Zane asks.
“Yep. Got his engineering degree from Texas A&M and went to work for an energy company that was just starting a wind division.”
“Your mom and dad meet in college?”
Alyx nods. “Their junior year, and married after both graduated. What about your parents?”
Zane grows silent. After several moments he says, “My parents died when I was eight years old.”
Alyx gasps. “I’m so sorry, Zane. What happened?”
“My father had a business meeting in Frankfurt. He did something in banking, but I don’t know exactly what. We were living in Brooklyn, and my sister and I were out of school for Christmas break. We were all, the entire family, going to spend the week of Christmas at my grandparents’ house out on Long Island. At the last minute, Mom decided to join my dad on the trip. A second honeymoon, they said, although it was supposed to be a relatively short trip—three or four days. They were supposed to be back home four days before Christmas. My grandparents drove into the city to pick us up and that was the last time we ever saw our parents.”
Alyx edges closer and puts a hand on his arm. “How did they die?”
Zane stares at the road ahead for a few minutes before turning to look at Alyx. “Ever hear of Pan Am Flight 103?”
“Oh my God. They were aboard that plane when it went down over Lockerbie, Scotland?”
“Yes. December 21, 1988. And it didn’t go down; it was blown up by two Libyan nationals. My parents were on their way back from Frankfurt.”
Alyx sits in silence, processing the news. After several moments, she asks, “And your grandparents raised you and your sister?”
“They did, even though it was hard for them to feed themselves much less two extra mouths.”
“I thought Gaddafi paid some type of compensation.”
“Not until 2008. My father had a life insurance policy that my grandparents put away for our education. They were both gone by the time the Libyans ponied up any money. The families were supposed to receive eight million dollars, but by the time the attorneys were through, we received a little over two million dollars. I’d trade every cent if it would bring my parents back.” Zane pauses to stare out the windshield for a few moments. “Anyway, my sister and I divided the money equally. I donated my portion to the 9/11 memorial.”
“And your sister?”
“Jennifer. Her name’s Jennifer. She donated some and kept some.”
“Younger or older?”
“Younger by three years. She’s thirty-three now and lives in Monterey with her husband and two kids.”
Alyx pauses to wonder what it would be like to lose both parents at eight years old, and can’t even fathom the idea. “And that’s why you went into intelligence?”
“Yes. After college I joined the army after assurances they would place me with an intelligence unit. I served five years of active duty, most of it overseas in the Middle East, and punched out and went to work for the government.”
“How long before you ended up at the National Security Agency?”
Zane glances at Alyx. “Not long. I’m good at what I do.”
Alyx scoots across the seat until their bodies are touching. “What was your degree in?”
“Undergrad in computer engineering and a master’s in computer architecture, both from Columbia.”
“Wow. That’s impressive, and here you had me fooled, playing dumb all along.”
Zane smiles. “I had to see if you had the chops. What about you?”
Alyx playfully punches him in the arm. “Undergrad in computer engineering and a master’s with a primary focus on distributed and networked systems, both from Vanderbilt.”
“Very impressive. How did you end up at the NSA?”
“I spent a year working toward a Ph.D., and said screw it. With my résumé, it wasn’t hard to get a job. Hell, they were begging people with computer science degrees to come to work for them.” Alyx tucks a flyaway of hair behind her ear. “I thought about going out to Silicon Valley and striking it rich, but I’ve never been motivated by money.”
Zane slows to veer around a collection of cars. “What does motivate you?”
“Catching the bad guys. I want to be the smartest person on any network I’m operating on.”
“So what do we do now? We may never have a working computer network during our lifetime.”
Alyx sighs. “I’ll—no we’ll—help my dad rebuild the wind farm.”
“Do you think he has a turbine up and running by now?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Plus, he has my brother-in-law, Gage, to help him. They’re both very resourceful.”
“We can hope.” Zane’s eyes dart to the gas gauge. “We’ll need to get gas soon.”
“We’re almost to I-35. There’s a big amusement park there and I’m sure the lot is full of abandoned cars.”
Zane glances at the gas gauge again. “We could stop
anywhere along here to siphon some gasoline.”
“Let’s wait if we can. I feel like we have some momentum for the first time in days. And I’d like to stretch my legs for a few minutes. The place is somewhat secluded and I’d feel safer.”
“How far?”
“From here, maybe five miles. It’s the first exit off I-35 once we leave the turnpike.”
“We can make that.”
A few minutes later he takes the exit for I-35 south and Alyx points out the exit to the amusement park. Zane threads the truck through three lanes of dead cars and pulls off the highway.
“Next left,” Alyx says scanning the surroundings. “Oh shit. Stop, Zane.”
Zane brakes to a stop. “What?”
Alyx points. “The truck stop.”
“Damn it. It’s not our fight, Alyx.”
“They’re kids, Zane. And a bunch of them.”
Zane groans but relents, and they spend a moment studying the layout. There’s a flatbed truck parked next to a tanker, which is wedged in by another semi that looks as if it had been in a demolition derby. The most distressing matter are the two large men standing at the edge of the group, their pistols up and ready to fire. An older gentleman is leaning against the flatbed, his shirt covered by what appears to be blood. Zane counts sixteen younger people, probably teenagers, and two women who look to be older, but not old enough to be parents to any of the kids.
One of the men holding a pistol steps forward and grabs one of the female teenagers by the hair and begins dragging her toward the cab of the battered semi.
“Bastard,” Zane mutters as he crosses the intersection and pulls in behind a ransacked McDonald’s. He kills the engine, crams his pockets full of ammo, grabs the shotgun, and slips out the door. “You stay here, Alyx.”
“I can—”
Zane cuts her off with the wave of his hand. He leans through the window and lowers his voice. “I know you want to help, but let me clear the area first. I can’t be worried about you.”
Alyx scowls for a moment, then nods.
Using the building as cover, Zane works his way forward and peeks around the corner. There’s a cluster of vehicles in front of him that will allow him to move freely. He races up a short incline and ducks in behind a truck. After quickly working through the jam, he sidles up next to an older sedan and kneels down for a look. A large grouping of feet is visible beneath the adjacent tanker, meaning the bad guys are positioned at three o’clock. Not knowing how much time he has left, he slips around the back of the sedan and sidles up next to the tanker. Zane kneels down for a closer look. The kids, and the two older women, are just in front of him. One of the men is standing to the right, his pistol covering the group. The other man is still trying to get the young girl into the cab of their truck. Yanking on her hair, he turns the girl around and slaps her in the face. The girl sags to her knees.
“Get your ass in the truck,” the man shouts.
Zane has seen all he needs to see. He tamps down the rage that’s building in his gut like a roaring fire and steps carefully to the front of the big rig, easing around the nose. Now he has a clear field of fire—except for the man with his hands on the girl. Zane calculates the firing order in his brain. Shoot the closest man and hope the other turns around and steps clear of the girl? Or will the man have the presence of mind to grab the girl to use as a hostage? All unanswerable questions, but Zane can feel the time ticking down.
Suddenly the unexpected happens. The girl fighting to stay out of the truck switches tactics. Instead of fighting, she lets her body go slack and she slips from the man’s grasp. Zane fires the right barrel and the man drops to the ground as if a sinkhole had opened up beneath him. Zane swings the barrel to the closest man and fires before the man can even turn, shredding the man’s upper body with the double-aught buckshot. The man turns a quarter turn and face-plants on the asphalt. Zane cracks the breech and reloads as he moves out from behind the truck, his hand up. “Don’t move yet,” he shouts.
He steps over the closest man and doesn’t even pause before moving on to the second. The young girl, still on the ground, is weeping and trembling. “It’s okay,” Zane says in a soft voice. “It’s all over.” With the shotgun still aimed at the second man, he steps in for a closer look. The man is facedown, but the rapidly spreading pool of blood tells Zane all he needs to know. He removes his finger from the trigger and helps the young woman up. “What’s your name?”
“A . . . Amanda,” she says between sobs.
Zane puts his arm around her. “It’s all over, Amanda. That was a very brave thing you did.”
Amanda nods and wipes at her tears. “Only . . . thing . . . I . . . could think . . . of.”
“It was perfect, Amanda.”
Zane leads Amanda back and retrieves the pistols before rejoining the group. Alyx makes an appearance and starts working on the injured man. Zane takes a moment to study the crowd and shakes his head. He turns to the stouter of the two women. “You want to fill me in?”
“It’s a long story but thank you for saving us.” She reaches a hand out. “I’m Melissa.”
Zane takes it. “Zane, and my friend over there is Alyx. How did you end up with a group of teenagers?”
“We were on an international flight when everything hit. Apparently we were far enough to the north to avoid the EMPs. We finally found a place to land at Minneapolis–Saint—”
Alyx shrieks and Zane is instantly on high alert. Then he hears her laugh, and he relaxes a little. “Hold that story for a sec, Melissa,” he says before making his way over to Alyx and the older gentleman.
Alyx looks up, grinning from ear to ear. “Zane, I’d like you to meet Stan McDowell, an old college friend of my father’s.”
Zane glances around, searching for the cameras, then turns back and cocks his head to the side. “Do what?”
The man, his face now free of blood, looks up and smiles. “It’s a small world.”
“You’re telling me,” Zane mutters.
CHAPTER 105
6 miles offshore from Cape Lookout, North Carolina
Slowly, the USS New York is working closer to the two Chinese destroyers who are back in their hideout in the waters of Lookout Bight. Positioned five miles off the coast, the submarine is submerged in 400 feet of water, traveling along a deep depression in the sea floor. Thompson steps over to the sonar station. “Mr. Adams, where are they?”
“According to my chart, Skipper, it appears they’re tucked in behind the point of Cape Lookout. I’m not detecting any prop wash, but I am picking up three distinct engine noises.”
“Probably running their gen—wait, did you say three different engines?”
“I did, Skipper. By my reckoning, there are three ships out there, not two.”
“Damn it,” Thompson mumbles. He steps over to the chart table, and Garcia walks over to join him.
“Three ships, Carlos? Another destroyer?”
“Could be, but I’d lean toward a supply ship or a fuel tanker. They’re a long way from home with zero resources available to draw on. And those destroyers are refueling somewhere.”
“A tanker, huh? Makes sense and it doesn’t change our plan of attack. We sink the two Chinese destroyers and the tanker will be easy pickings.” Thompson clicks on the computer mouse and brings up a depth chart for the Cape Lookout area. “The bottom begins to rise fairly significantly about a mile and a half out from shore. We won’t be able to get as close as I’d like.”
“If they’re anchored, our torpedoes will hit before they have time to respond, even if we shoot from three miles out,” Garcia says.
“But would they be anchored so close to the shoreline of a hostile country? I wouldn’t. It could be the tanker is anchored and the other ships are tied up. Hell of a lot easier to slip some ropes than waiting for the anchor to be hoisted aboard.”
“That makes sense, but there’s a hell of a lot we don’t know, Bull.”
Thompson glances
at the digital clock. “It’ll be dark before we’re in position. We’ll ascend to periscope depth for a quick look.”
Garcia points at the monitor. “I spot one more possible issue.”
“What’s that?”
“Look at the depths. If they’re positioned where we think they are, they’ll only sink about twenty feet, leaving a good portion of the superstructure above the waterline. Any survivors will be able to swim to shore.”
“That is not our problem. Good luck to ’em.” Thompson steps over to the attack center. “Mr. White, locked and loaded?”
“Almost, Skipper,” White replies. “The target picture is somewhat muddy, sir. We would prefer visual confirmation of their positions.”
“You’ll have your visual as soon as it’s dark. Flood all tubes. I want your crew ready for a rapid reload.”
“Four fish are loaded, Skipper.” He triggers the radio handset draped around his neck. “Attack center to torpedo room. Flood all tubes. Repeat, flood all tubes.” White looks up from his control board. “We’ll be ready for a quick reload, Skipper.”
Thompson gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Notify when you have final firing solution after visual confirmation.” Thompson turns and walks back to his place on the bridge “Mr. Patterson, where are we?”
“We’re three miles from the targets, Skipper. Should be at your specified location in a little over three minutes,” Patterson, the navigator, says.
“Thank you. Q, take us up to two hundred.”
The nose of the sub tilts upward as Thompson walks sideways toward his chair. He sits and removes his cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Conn, slow to one-third.”
His order is repeated and those inside can feel the sub slow. The crew on the bridge is tense, yet focused. Chatter is nonexistent and the only audible sounds are the nervous breaths from the crew. The sub levels off and, after a few moments of maneuvering, Patterson announces they are ten seconds from the specified position. A clock starts ticking in Thompson’s head. The moment they fire, they give away their position. His plan is to target the two warships with two torpedoes each, and haul ass, coming back later for the tanker.