Dead Drop Series (Book 1): Dead Drop (Rise of the Elites)

by K. S. Black

  Cooper wasn’t sure if he should be offended by the question but decided to take it as a good natured jab.

  “Let me know if you’d like another cup of coffee, sir.”

  “You can stop calling me that.”

  The marine grinned. “That might take a little practice.”

  * * *

  After driving for two hours, they were west of Phoenix. Cooper radioed Jake to tell him he wanted to make a detour through Buckeye. He would catch up to them when they were done.

  “Need some backup? Over.”

  “Sure. I’m going to exit onto US 85 to get to the Lewis Prison Complex. Over.”

  One of the LAVs followed Cooper off the exit. A large stone sign shaped like the state of Arizona marked the entrance to the prison. They followed the road past a guard post and a large parking lot with a third of the spaces filled with private vehicles.

  On the far side of the parking lot, he spotted two black semi-trucks just like the ones he had seen on his way to Phoenix, plus six large buses that were probably used to transport civilians to the prison. In the dirt, behind the vehicles, were stacks of FEMA coffins, four high and four deep, about a hundred in total.

  Cooper parked near the semi-trucks. The LAV pulled in beside him. He told Hayley to stay in the Humvee with Okami and have her gun ready.

  He and Kevin were joined by three marines as they approached the semi-trucks. An unusual number of flies had gathered on the outside of the cargo containers. Everyone sputtered and gagged as the breeze blew the odor of decomposition in their direction and sent them back to their vehicles to retrieve their masks.

  “I don’t think I can get any closer. I can still smell it through the mask,” Kevin said.

  “Your mask isn’t going to seal properly with that beard,” one of the marines said.

  * * *

  The three marines followed Cooper, but two of them reconsidered and decided to join Kevin who stood several yards away.

  Cooper unlatched the back of the cargo container and pulled the door open. The heat assaulted him. He and the remaining marine staggered backward. The number of flies was astounding. Some feasted on the brown ooze that covered the floor. At least fifty dead men, most likely inmates, had been tossed inside. Each orange jumpsuit rippled with the activity of thousands of maggots feasting on decaying flesh.

  The marine barely had enough time to rip off his mask before he vomited. Kevin and the other two marines turned away. Cooper opened the other cargo container and found more bodies in the same condition. He closed and latched both doors.

  When he and Kevin returned to the Humvee, Hayley grabbed her mask. “You guys brought more of the stink in with you!” She started to gag and pushed the door open moments before she threw up. Okami trembled on the floor at her feet. When she closed the door, he handed her some antiseptic wipes for her hands. Kevin handed her a bottle of water.

  Cooper drove around the perimeter of the fence trying to find a way inside the complex. The driver of the LAV sped up and got in front of him. Driving across the dirt and onto an access road to the right of the parking lot, the LAV smashed through the main gate as if it wasn’t there.

  They followed the road to another gate in front of several buildings. The gate was open so they drove through and parked in front of the main building. Footprints of dried blood crisscrossed the parking lot and the sidewalk.

  “Hayley, you stay here. You know the drill.” He hated leaving her but thought it was safer for her locked in the Humvee.

  The men entered the building with their rifles ready. Doors were wide open. Office supplies were strewn across the blood smeared floor. Blood splatter and bullet holes marked the walls.

  At the end of the main hall, the metal door leading to the individual cells was also open. Most were empty. But in some, there was evidence of violence. They exited the building and walked out into the exercise yard. Over sixty bodies lay on the ground near the back wall. The men had been lined up and executed firing squad style.

  “They don’t look like prisoners. They’re not dressed in orange jumpsuits,” Kevin said.

  Cooper walked over to the body of an elderly man—the red plaid shirt rolled up past the elbows looked familiar. He knelt down. He had spoken to the old man five days ago when he had stopped at the Burger King parking lot south of the exit for the prison. “Why didn’t you listen?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He pointed to the direction of the parking lot. “Let’s go. I don’t think we’re going to find much here. This place has been abandoned, too.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long to catch up with the rest of the convoy. Abandoned cars lined both sides of the highway near Phoenix for miles. Thick columns of black smoke from burning cars rose in the distance. The larger vehicles were trying to clear a path, but it wasn’t easy work. Cooper wanted to check out the Perryville Prison Complex to see what had happened there and asked Jake to come with them.

  The Perryville complex looked much like Lewis, but Perryville was being prepped to hold a larger number of people. Twenty semi-trucks were lined up in the parking lot, but the smell of decomp was missing.

  “Hayley put your mask on just in case. I’m not going to make you stay by yourself this time. The prison looks deserted, and we need all hands.” Cooper handed her the shotgun.

  “Okami stays in the Humvee. You need to stay close to me.”

  Most of the cargo carriers were unlocked. They found food, water, and other supplies. Tents had been set up in grassy areas and were enclosed inside a fence topped with concertina wire.

  “They turned this prison into another FEMA camp. Everything looks ready to go. Where do you suppose everyone went?” Jake asked.

  “I have no clue, but I doubt they’re coming back any time soon. We should grab as much food, water, and other supplies that we can carry.”

  Jake agreed and radioed for the 6x6s to help collect supplies. Kevin and Hayley began unloading cases of food and water and stacked them on the ground. During the commotion of the past couple of days, Kevin hadn't complained about his leg at all; however, Cooper noticed that the limp had returned. But what was a little discomfort when the alternative was death?

  Cooper spotted a lock on one of the cargo containers farthest from them. Prepared for almost everything, he went back for the bolt cutters in the Humvee. When he returned, he cut off the lock and signaled for Jake to join him. The front end of the cargo container was loaded from top to bottom with ammo boxes. All by itself and butted up to the side of the container was a large metal crate with D.A.R.P.A. EXACTO 100 CARTRIDGES .50 CAL stenciled on the side. He opened two sturdy metal latches and opened the lid. Without hesitating, he lifted one of the individually wrapped rounds out of the container and took off the protective wrap. "Damn." Cooper inspected the bullet closely.

  "What'd ya find?"

  He held out the .50 caliber round with its odd gray jacket.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “This is a laser guided EXACTO bullet made by D.A.R.P.A. You point a laser at your target and fire. It’s a homing bullet. The bullet will land where the laser is pointing even if the wind shifts. I wrote an article about these things about a year ago. They’re mine.” Cooper worked hard to contain his excitement.

  Jake shrugged his shoulders. They pushed the container forward and continued to look around. Using a crowbar that was already there, Cooper pried open a crate filled with machine guns. He picked one up. Even after turning it over a couple of times, he couldn’t identify it and handed it down to Jake. “Do you know what this is? It’s so light.”

  "It's an M240L," Jake said without hesitation. It's made mostly out of Titanium and has a shorter barrel than the M240B so it's a lot lighter for combat and easier to maneuver."

  Cooper wrapped up two M240Ls and set them next to his Humvee along with several crates of 7.62 ammo for his new machine guns.

  Jake was already examining another machine gun.
"I have no idea what this is, but it's .50 caliber. There's twelve of ‘em."

  Cooper made some mental calculations as he stared at the machine gun. It was bigger than the M240L. "I'll take one, but I’ll need to shift everything around to make room."

  With Kevin and Hayley's help, Cooper took everything out of the Humvee and the trailer and tied down most of the boxed food supplies on top of the vehicle. The ammo, including all of the EXACTO bullets, guns, and radios went into the trailer. Everything else went back into the vehicle.

  Cooper was excited about finding the ammo, especially the EXACTOs. At least now, they would have a chance to defend themselves if it came down to that. He suspected that it might. He would have taken more supplies, but both the Humvee and the trailer were already overloaded.

  * * *

  The vehicles that were sent out ahead to clear the road were waiting at the Perryville exit. Phoenix was a no-go. I-10 was choked with too many abandoned cars. Everyone agreed it was best to head back towards Buckeye and go through Casa Grande in order to get to Tucson.

  Cooper pulled several business cards from his backpack. He wrote his ham radio frequencies on the back of a few. “Here.” He handed the cards to Jake. “Pass these out. My ham radio frequencies are only on some, so you’ll need to make sure everyone has them. If you need a place to stay or if you don’t find your families, come find me.”

  He also gave Jake six flash drives uploaded with information he had gathered so far, along with radio frequencies to monitor, and the locations of the dead drops. “Take these and pass them around, too.”

  The marines gathered around Jake as he passed out the cards and the flash drives and read off the radio frequencies.

  “Be careful with those cards,” Cooper said. “Don’t give them out to anyone else. You and your families are welcome to come find me. I’ll help you with what I can. I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get back to Tucson, but I have a few things set up for emergencies.”

  Cooper, Kevin and Hayley were swallowed in a sea of handshakes and hugs. Jake waited until the others were done before he came over to say his goodbyes. Cooper grabbed his hand and shook it. Then he reached around with his free arm and hugged him.

  “I hate to think what would have happened if you jarheads hadn’t come to our rescue. Be safe, and don’t take any unnecessary risks on your way to Texas.”

  “Right time. Right place. Thanks for this.” Jake held up the card. He turned to shake hands with Kevin and tipped his utility cap at Hayley. “Take care ya’ll. Oorah!”

  CHAPTER 24

  May 11 – Tucson

  Taking the Grant Road exit off of I-10, they waved goodbye to the convoy as it continued along the interstate. Cooper’s house was still almost twenty miles away in east Tucson so he ran the Humvee with mufflers to make it less noticeable. The sun was beginning to set, but there was enough daylight left to see that this was not the same Tucson he had left a week earlier.

  He maneuvered the vehicle around piles of debris and burned out cars. Shops and businesses without broken windows were a rarity. More buildings than not, showed evidence of fire. Some still smoldered while others were razed to the ground. He expected this, but it was a bitter pill to swallow.

  Here and there the odd shoe or a piece of clothing lay abandoned on the sidewalk or street. But no piles of dead bodies. The only evidence of violence was the disturbing amount of dried blood. How many of the dead remained behind locked doors, and where did the rest go?

  He couldn’t shake the creepy sensation of eyes following him as they drove through town. Every so often he caught a shadow as it leapt from one building to another or moved across a window.

  “What are the odds that those shadows that I keep seeing are actually people?” Kevin asked.

  “I’d say the odds are pretty high. And the odds are probably pretty high all of them are infected.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Kevin continued scanning the buildings along the road.

  * * *

  At first glance, the neighborhoods on the east edge of Tucson, outside the city limits, seemed untouched by the events of the past week, except for some broken windows and a smattering of dried blood on the ground. When Cooper turned onto his street, the lack of activity wasn’t unusual.

  He parked well away from the house. After grabbing three cans of disinfectant spray, he tossed them into a small bag. “I’m going to take a look around. If you see anyone, get down and lean on the horn.”

  Cooper began the recon with his Tavor in hand and his mask on. Nothing looked out of the ordinary until he reached his two-acre property. A four-foot adobe wall marked the perimeter and a twelve foot wrought iron gate stood at the entrance to the driveway. From the looks of the damage, the gate had been rammed by a large vehicle. But with a little work, he and Kevin would be able to get it to shut again.

  He made his way onto the gravel driveway, careful to set his feet down with as little noise as possible against the small rocks. The front door was open. Whoever wanted in used a battering ram against the reinforced steel. When that didn’t work, he’d have bet money that they went to the windows. Stopped by the reinforced, bulletproof glass, they drilled out the door locks. If they had been ordinary looters, they probably would’ve given up.

  This wasn’t a run of the mill burglary. Maybe the NSA had been keeping tabs on him because of the nature of his business. But he was one of many and hadn’t broken any laws, not that it mattered.

  After he was satisfied that no one was hiding outside, he checked the inside for intruders. The bastards had ransacked every room. Each of his twelve flat paneled televisions looked as if someone had taken a baseball bat and smashed in each screen.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, all of Cooper’s computers were missing. Even with its extra security, his supply room was emptied. A roll of half used duct tape mocked him from the empty shelves. He wanted to put his fist through a wall when he saw the empty gun safes.

  After clearing every room, he unleashed his anger on the living room wall before walking back to the road. In the back of his mind, he had entertained the possibility of this happening while he was gone but didn’t actually think it would. He waved Hayley and Kevin in like nothing had happened. Before they reached the house, he had already gotten started with disinfectant.

  * * *

  "Looks like the maid forgot to clean." Kevin picked a lamp off the living room floor and set it back on the end table next to the sofa. “Do you think they’re coming back?”

  “They got what they wanted. I doubt they’d come back for me. I’m nobody in the grand scheme of things. They probably think I’m dead anyway. But we should probably sweep the house for any surveillance just in case.”

  "My room better not be trashed."

  He grabbed Hayley’s arm before she could make a mad dash for her room and handed her a can of disinfectant. “Keep your mask on and spray everything.”

  She huffed at him before she raced to her room with Okami on her heels. She wasn’t going to be a happy camper.

  When they were done inside, Cooper parked the Humvee in the garage. He thought about asking Kevin to help him unload the trailer but noticed him rubbing his leg and figured it was bothering him. With two boxes from the garage under each arm, he came back inside the house.

  After several trips, he finished unloading all the guns and ammo they had found into the supply room. The food rations were last. Everything else could wait until the next morning after they all got some rest. He secured the front door with the additional sliding deadbolts on the inside of the door and made sure that the rest of the house was secured.

  He stuck his head in Hayley’s room. She was inside her closet, putting her belongings back on their proper shelves. Everything from pictures on the wall to clothes, shoes and old toys and games inside her closet, as well as every item inside her dresser, had been tossed haphazardly on the floor along with all the drawers. Her shelves that had been filled with
hundreds of books were knocked over. Even the sheets and blankets were ripped off her bed. Thankfully, they left the mattress unscathed.

  As he walked back to the living room, he heard her angry shrieks.

  Moving slowly and deliberately, Kevin had found a broom and swept the glass from the Saltillo tile in the living room. Cooper had paid a small fortune for the custom tile work, but it didn't matter anymore.

  “Why don’t you sit down and rest your leg? I want to take a look at it after I turn the generator on.”

  “I need to keep moving so I don’t have to think about what’s going on. The world’s gone freakin’ crazy. I’ve done shit that I never thought I’d do, ever. And I’ve done some crazy shit, but not like this. I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “Life’s going to get a lot worse before it starts to get better. Do what you need to do, but when I’m done, you should let me look at your leg. We have to be careful about infection. If I was thinking, we should’ve had one of the corpsmen in Jake’s group take a look.”

  “It’s just sore. I’m fine. Go turn on the generator. I don’t want to make dinner in the dark.”

  CHAPTER 25

  May 11 – I-10 East

  After spending the night on the interstate outside Benson, Arizona, the convoy headed out at first light. Cars littered the highway. Jake couldn’t believe they had made it as far as Benson the night before. The LAVs took turns clearing cars out of the way until the road opened up.

  Four hours later, they stopped in Deming, New Mexico for much needed fuel. A few hours and a lot of resourcefulness later, they located enough diesel to fill each vehicle. When they finished, six vehicles split off from the convoy—two towards Albuquerque, one to Santa Fe, one to Colorado, and two to Nebraska.

  These marines had become like family. But most of them had a tendency to act first and think later. They ended up doing some fucking, stupid shit when he wasn’t around to tell them what to do. He didn’t want to see them go. As they drove away, he got on the radio. “Hope ya’ll make it back to your families. Stay safe. Semper Fi!” Although he’d never let on, he was worried.