Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “What the heck?” Todd said.

  “The shotgun!” Heather said. “It’s Connor!” She scrambled to button her shirt again and fasten her jeans. The two of them climbed up the embankment and raced desperately toward the camp.

  * * *

  Connor squeezed the shotgun’s triggers, firing both barrels. The bang nearly deafened them.

  —but instead of turning Uma’s chest into a pulp, the shotgun itself blew up in a backfire. Shards of the gun barrel and the stock flew in all directions. Black smoke burst out in a cloud. Connor fell backward, screaming as the hot explosion shredded the left side of his face.

  With an animal howl Uma was upon him, ripping the twisted remains of the shotgun out of his hand and bringing it down like a club. Connor managed to roll and took the full force of the blow on his shoulder.

  Trying to think clearly through the pain in his head and the rage pulsing though him, Connor yanked out his hunting knife. He couldn’t see anything out of his eye, and blood blazed like fire across his cheeks and temple. He slashed blindly, hoping to slice Uma’s jugular or put out his eye. Instead, the tip of the knife ripped across the dark man’s shirt. Uma stumbled back just long enough for Connor to scramble to his knees and grip the knife handle with both hands.

  Uma swung again with the ruined shotgun, but Connor ducked low, then came up with all the strength in both of his arms and plunged the knife to the hilt in Uma’s abdomen.

  Connor yanked the knife away, and blood came with it. Uma didn’t even seem to notice. The big bald man dropped the shotgun and came in again with his bare hands. He locked his grip around Connor’s throat, and Connor slashed his forearm—but Uma didn’t care. He was a vengeful machine, his only thought to kill Connor.

  Connor’s larynx crumpled like an aluminum beer can. He stabbed Uma again, feeling the blade slip between his ribs and into his side. Foamy red blood came out of Uma’s mouth, but the Butthead continued to squeeze.

  Connor’s eyes bulged; he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. He stabbed again and again. Uma was drenched with his own blood.

  Connor began to pass out, when slowly Uma’s eyes froze ahead. He toppled like a great redwood trunk, falling to the dirt at the side of the wagon.

  Connor tore himself free, retching and gasping for air. He stepped back, staring down at the wide-eyed corpse of the tanker captain. “You fuck!” He coughed and slammed his hiking boot viciously into Butthead’s kidneys. He kicked Uma again and again, feeling ribs crack and his side cave in. Connor couldn’t release his grip on the big hunting knife, even though the blood made his hands slick.

  Suddenly, he remembered Henrietta Soo. She stood by the campfire still holding her flimsy wooden spoon and staring at him in horror.

  A slow grin twisted Connor’s mangled face and he set off after her with the knife.

  * * *

  Todd reached the clearing before Heather. He scrambled down the rocks as he spotted Connor sitting on the buckboard of the wagon, cracking the reins. Todd nearly tripped, but kept his balance and yelled, “Hey—Connor! Stop!”

  Connor twisted in his seat as if stunned to hear his name. He looked hideous—blood ran down the side of his face, a dark splotch where his eye had been. He was covered in dirt, soot and blood. Connor yelled at the horses. The wagon lurched forward in a cloud of dust and stones.

  Todd heard the horses whinny as he smelled an overpowering smell of burning meat. Reaching the bottom of the rocky slope, Todd clunked forward in his cowboy boots. He tried to get up as much speed as he had when he and Casey Jones had leapt across the space between the buildings.

  The wagon moved faster as Todd put on a final burst of speed. Reaching out, he grabbed onto the side of the wagon.

  Splinters from the rough siding scraped his hands. He stumbled and tried to grab on with his other hand, but the wagon hit a bump and jerked away from him. Todd crashed into the ground, rolling, trying to keep away from the rear wagon wheel.

  The wagon clattered past, and Todd heard a mish-mash of horse’s hoofs, snorting, and then the sound of Connor shouting something unintelligible as he charged away. Todd waited for a moment before pushing himself up.

  He heard Heather run up beside him as he inspected his splintered hands. “Oh, Todd—” He ignored her, ticked off that he had let Connor get away.

  A cloud of fading dust marked the horses’ progress. Todd turned to view the campsite.

  Heather brushed back the hair from her eyes. “What now?”

  Todd headed for the campsite. “Let’s check it out.”

  The campfire still burned, and Henrietta Soo lay sprawled face-first on the ground beside it. Her arm had fallen into the embers of the fire. Her shirt smoldered, and the skin of her forearm blistered a sickly black.

  Todd bent down on watery knees and rolled her over. Connor had slit her throat in a long ragged gash. It looked as if she had bled gallons into the dry dirt.

  The deepening dusk blurred all the sharp details and the bright colors, but it took Heather only a moment to find the body of Casey Jones. He was much worse. Connor had butchered him.

  Before Todd squeezed his eyes shut, he saw at least half a dozen stab wounds in Casey’s chest and abdomen.

  Todd staggered away and vomited into the scrub brush, then fell back. He sat on the rough dirt and stared at nothing. He had never experienced anything like this before. Connor Brooks couldn’t be a human being and do this!

  Heather squatted next to him and put her hand lightly on his shoulder. She squeezed it, but Todd barely felt the pressure of her fingers.

  “I know I warned you,” she said, “but even I didn’t think he was capable of this. I thought he might take our supplies and steal the wagon but… all the blood!” She shuddered violently, then gasped to herself in disbelief. “I slept with him! I was alone with him for a month. What if I had said the wrong thing? What if he had done that to me?”

  Todd’s voice was bitter. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Now he’s gone and we’re alone together.”

  Heather stiffened and drew away from him. “This is not what I wanted!” Then she staggered to be by herself. Any thought of a relationship between them would now be forever stained with murder and violence.

  After a few moments apart, Todd made his way to Heather. “We’ll never catch him. He’s got three horses. Where do you think he’ll go?”

  Heather took a while to respond. “Anywhere he thinks he can use the satellites to his advantage. But that won’t help us.”

  “We’ll bury these two,” Todd said, “and then you and I will make our way to White Sands. I’ve come this far, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn back, even if I don’t have the satellites.”

  * * *

  Riding high in his tethered hot-air balloon, Lieutenant Bobby Carron stared across the desert, dozing. The first day he had exhilarated in being up in the air, but this was vastly different from flying a fighter jet: standing in an aluminum basket while a blazing fire scorched his back, bobbing at the end of a thousand-foot-long rope coupled with a telegraph wire.

  For the past week Bobby had surveyed the surrounding area, staring at every rock and shrub. He checked the horizon with the metal spyglass Dr. Lockwood’s optics workshop had rigged up. He knew the area well enough now to spot anything unusual.

  Movement triggered his subconscious. Without thinking, he floated up one level of awareness, letting his mind integrate the area around him. He detected another movement, another… and then scores of them like an army of ants making its way across the valley—right where Rita had predicted it would come.

  He felt his pulse race as he made out a column of soldiers appearing in the shimmering heat mirage. By rough count, he guessed General Bayclock had brought a hundred troops, plus support personnel. A few rode horses, but the rest marched in ranks.

  Then, far in the west, he saw two other figures, two people alone walking across the flat dizzying desert, headed toward the White Sands fac
ility. Bobby turned his spy glass to them and could barely make out a man and a woman striding along.

  Bobby grabbed the portable telegraph unit. He tapped the international signal to drop everything!, attempting to get Juan Romero’s attention: “XVW, XVW, XVW…”

  Chapter 69

  In the west wing of the White House, the Situation Room had once been the showpiece of America’s military-industrial investment in high technology. At one time, media pundits forecasted with uncanny accuracy the level of U.S. response to an international incident by counting the number of pizzas delivered to the Situation Room on any particular night. In the most important city in the nation, at the most important residence, this was without a doubt the most important room.

  But now there were no pizzas, no media watchdogs, no technological wizardry. High-definition computer workstations gave way to blackboards, messages scrawled on scraps of paper, and flickering electric light powered by steam-engine generators on the Mall.

  Staffers hurried about, but their focus had shifted from world events to the demands upon the national government made by several unofficial domestic “city-states,” which were the new centers of power scattered around the crumbling country.

  President Jeffrey Mayeaux sat in a highbacked chair, digging his fingernails into the leather. He tried to digest the information being fed to him in contradictory scraps with confusing lack of detail. What the hell was going on out there? The lack of verified information appalled him—it was like trying to make sense out of a TV show on a channel filled with multicolored static.

  At his right, along a long wooden table, sat his military advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The five men looked weary—as they damn well should, since he hadn’t let them leave the White House Complex in over a week! Their uniforms were wrinkled, stained, but they held themselves up with caffeine-fed dignity. Mayeaux scowled at them then looked back to the note papers. Those guys didn’t know what pressure was!

  At Mayeaux’s left sat representatives from his cabinet, the National Security Agency, and his private staff. Three Secret Service agents stood quietly in the background; the agents were usually absent from such closed discussions, and their presence now did not go unnoticed. Mayeaux had started taking such precautions when his military advisers began grumbling more and more loudly about Mayeaux’s way of coping with the petroplague situation.

  Well, fuck them! No other president had to deal with the whole country falling apart—not even Lincoln! The Civil War had been rational and understandable, a disagreement in politics.

  Mayeaux pushed Appendix J 7, the latest list of petroplague-destroyed items, across the desk. He was getting sick of seeing addenda to the original memo. Didn’t the compilers get tired of jotting things down? Toothpaste caps? Disposable diapers and condoms? For God’s sake, who cared?

  Mayeaux scowled and closely watched the reactions of the Joint Chiefs. “The list is not getting smaller, gentlemen. I understand the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has also broken off communication with the central government, and they strung up three of our agents trying to enforce martial law. I’ve got conflicting reports of some severe problems in San Diego. Are we going to be able to get the country back on its feet? What do we have to offer people as far as restoring the old way of life? How about making some progress for a change!”

  Mayeaux’s science advisor said, “We still hope to someday use methane and propane, but that’s impossible until we can develop reliable seals for airtight containers. Eventually, we could extract and refine oil in a closed, sterile environment, but of course that would enormously increase the cost of petroleum products. There may even be certain additives to plastics that will discourage decomposition by the microorganism. The scientists at NIST and the CDC are working around the clock—”

  “Dammit, I’m not interested in ‘eventually!’ Our house is in flames and you’re talking about inventing a telephone to call the fire department!” Mayeaux slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. “We’ve got to get the situation under control, and then ease back so we can introduce improvements and gradual solutions.”

  He studied the Joint Chiefs. “Mais, let me tell you somethin’. Since we can’t tap anything other than firewood or maybe coal for energy, we are in for one hell of a winter. We don’t have any industry left. States and big cities are declaring their independence right and left, and the national government is nothing more than a figurehead.

  “We cannot back up our authority or make orders stick—not to mention martial laws, executive decrees, and everything else! What are we going to do about the larger cities defying my emergency orders? Do I just ignore Dallas and Los Angeles and Miami and San Diego? See how they fend for themselves as independent countries? Screw that! Give me an effective strategy I can use right now in this situation.” Mayeaux turned to General Wacom, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a thin, grey-haired Air Force man in an unassuming blue uniform.

  Wacom stared back. “You’ve said it all yourself, sir. The military is disjointed and relegated to the status of either observers or local police forces maintaining order under the authority of local governments. It may be our most effective tactic to let the country calm down and keep order on a local level until we get the infrastructure back in place. I don’t think these states really intend to become permanently independent—once the populace starts to see regular news from Washington again, once they hear the President address them directly, they’ll come around. I don’t suggest we do anything drastic.”

  Mayeaux worked his jaw, feeling helpless as he watched the authority of the Presidency crumble beneath him.

  “That’s just great, General. So what you’re saying is that I should just sit here and let everything take care of itself? History would really love me for that. I’m sure they’d erect a Mayeaux Monument right there on the Mall, with the three monkeys of Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil! What the hell are you trying to pull on me? Because I talk with an accent do you think I’m an idiot?”

  His military advisors stared blandly back, not offering any solution. As he simmered, Mayeaux got the distinct feeling that they were waiting for him to slip up, to make a wrong move, and then they would crawfish in to accomplish their own agenda.

  Were they going to initiate impeachment hearings? He drew in a breath, suddenly panicked. Or would it be a military coup?

  He glanced at the Secret Service agents standing at the corner of the room for reassurance; it was getting hard to trust anyone nowadays, and he couldn’t feel secure in his dealings even with his own staff. Where the hell was Weathersee?

  Mayeaux pushed his chair back from the table and strode from the room, accompanied by his Secret Service entourage. Not one person in the Situation Room stood as the Chief Executive exited.

  Chapter 70

  From his lookout position in the rugged Organ Mountains, General Bayclock searched the sprawling White Sands valley. Behind him on a volcanic outcrop, his two colonels and Sergeant Catilyn Morris waited for him to decide their next move.

  At the base of the mountain, he had directed his troops to rest and inspect their weapons for the final march across the valley. Five miles to the north, they had left the group of noncombatants, cooks, water carriers, supply haulers, food handlers, tent carriers. Bayclock had needed the additional personnel to get this far, but now that he was within sight of the enemy, he insisted on having only the front-line troops present.

  Sergeant Morris scrambled up the rocky slope. “See anything, sir?” The two colonels huffed after her, pulling at lone clumps of grass for support.

  “Let me have the binoculars,” Bayclock said.

  Sergeant Morris rummaged in her pack and pulled out a reconditioned olive-green pair of binoculars. She pointed to a thin line running up the tallest peak on the other side of the valley. “That’s the electromagnetic satellite launcher, sir. Five miles south is the microwave antenna farm. Lockwood’s group has holed up in those few support buildings there. No major d
efenses, no perimeter fortifications.”

  Not listening, Bayclock adjusted the binocular sights; the knob squeaked. “I’ll be damned!”

  “What is it, sir?” Colonel David inched up on his hands and knees. Colonel Nachimya, commander of the Base Personnel group, joined him. Neither man was a true soldier in Bayclock’s opinion—neither were flyers, and neither had ever held a real command, but had merely worked in labs or administrative offices all their careers. Bayclock didn’t have many choices.

  He wished he had paid more attention to the lectures at the National War College. He had blown off theoretical discussions on ground attacks, interested only in the methodology of air superiority. In his blood Bayclock was a fighter pilot. But right now he’d trade almost anything for a copy of von Clausewitz.

  “Sir?” said Sergeant Morris. “Is anything the matter?”

  Bayclock handed the binoculars to Colonel David. “A balloon—can you believe it? What the hell are they doing with a hot-air balloon?”

  The colonel searched the sky. “Dr. Nedermyer insists that Lockwood’s people are completely focused on that solar-power project. At the Phillips Lab I’ve worked around scientists like that for years. My bet is they’re using the balloon to gather information about the weather.”

  Bayclock turned to the other colonel. “And what do you think, Tony?”

  Colonel Nachimya stared across the valley, but he made no move to take the binoculars. “Observation post maybe? You could see our troops approaching from a long way off, sir.”

  “That was my own thought. If that’s so, they already know we’re here.” Bayclock studied the area around the distant, glittering antenna farm, unable to see people from this range.

  He struggled to his feet and handed the binoculars back to Sergeant Morris. “Assemble the troops. We’ll get this over with in a hurry, attack under cover of darkness. I don’t trust any of those bastards we’re up against.”