“Wait a minute, the Scraps, you lead those people?” Lori asked, now suspicious.
“Yes, they’re good people who want their country back like you and I do,” the magistrate said.
“They attacked me and my colleagues and killed one of them.”
“Martin is better suited to talk about the Scraps. He’s one of their leaders,” the magistrate said.
“Lori, we don’t kill people unless we have to. We’d rather convert people to our cause.”
“Why attack us?” she declared.
“You only just arrived and you’re judging us. Have we hanged people? Yes, but we don’t want to. We have a system that people have chosen to live by. You don’t like it, leave, we say to anyone who comes, otherwise live by the covenant. It has restored order for us. The Scraps are good people; that name was given to those fighters by the chancellor. Like the magistrate said, they are men and women like you who want to stop what’s happening to them and restore what they had,” Martin said.
Lori stewed on what he said.
“I understand having allegiances with groups or people that aren’t the best in order to achieve what you want,” Travis added.
“You’re wrong. This isn’t a compromise; these are good people,” Martin challenged.
“They killed an innocent and defenseless woman. I saw it,” Lori countered.
“What was her name?” the magistrate asked.
“Margaret, I believe, but she went by Maggie. She was in her fifties—”
“And from California, right?” the magistrate said, cutting her off.
“How…?”
“Once again with the how. She lives with us now. In fact, she helped design and work on some of our greenhouses. You see, Lori, we didn’t kill her, we liberated her,” the magistrate said. He had stopped pacing and placed his hands on the table and leaned in.
“When do you want to start this operation?” Travis asked.
“Two weeks ago, that’s how far behind I think we are,” Martin answered.
“He’s right. We need to move fast,” the magistrate added.
Having moved past her concerns about the Scraps, she decided to get details on her participation. “Can I handle this stuff?” she asked, referencing the polonium-210.
“Yes, it’s harmless like it is, but if ingested, you’ve got a problem.”
She picked up the small vial but fumbled it. Her eyes widened when she heard it hit the table. Nervous, she leaned away from it. After a moment she leaned back in to examine it and saw the vial was intact and not cracked or broken.
“Be careful with that stuff. I meant it when I said it was hard to come by. I had a team of people extract it from Fort Carson Nuclear Power Plant. It’s very rare. That’s all I have.”
“When do I leave?” Lori asked.
“Right after this meeting,” the magistrate said, then looked at Martin and nodded.
Martin stood and left.
“He’s getting you a vehicle, a map, and a weapon, and we’ll provide a chase car till just outside the first checkpoint. From there you’ll go by yourself. Your cover story should be easy; you’re coming back for your baby. You will plead, beg, cry, do whatever you need to do to get back in his good graces.”
“Why are you so sure he’ll take me back?” Lori asked.
“Trust me. He’s put a lot on the line to have you and find you. He wants you back.”
“What assurances do you have for her safety?” Travis asked.
“Little, this could be a suicide mission, but if it goes like I think it will, we’ll extract her.”
“Who’s the source on the inside?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you,” the magistrate answered.
“Why not?” she asked.
“If I’m wrong and he suspects something, he’s liable to torture you. I can’t give you my people’s names; it puts them in harm’s way.”
She nodded; that made sense to her. “Where should I hide this?” she asked.
The magistrate cocked his head, raised his eyebrow, and said, “They’re probably going to strip-search you. Where do you think you should hide it?”
“Say no more,” she replied.
They finished with some minor details and left the silo. On the surface, they were welcomed by a picture-perfect vanilla sky to the west.
So often in her life before, Lori had taken for granted the natural beauty of the Earth. She, like others now, was starting to notice the small but precious things that life and the world had to offer. She took an extra few seconds to mentally capture the moment before walking to the white sedan they had acquired for her long journey.
The magistrate walked up and said, “I can’t thank you enough for your willingness to do this on such a short time frame. I have to admit I thought it would take days to convince you. I was wrong about you.”
“Most people are.”
He put his hand out and she took it.
“Be safe. I hope to see you again.”
“Me too,” she said.
He walked away and Travis came forward. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I have to admit, I wouldn’t have been on board with this crazy idea, but when he said something about another virus, I knew he wasn’t lying. Chancellor Horton is a maniac and will do anything. He has to be stopped.”
“I just wish there was another way.”
She touched his arm and asked, “How bad is it?”
“My stock answer usually is, ‘I’ve been through worse.’ This time that doesn’t work.”
“You’re a good man, Captain Travis Priddy, you really are. You’re strong, sweet and funny. I mean, look at you, making a joke about your amputated hand. Who does that?”
“Come here,” he said and drew her in close with a strong embrace.
“I was so scared for you. I wanted to say something. I’m sorry I didn’t,” she whispered as tears formed in her eyes.
He caressed her hair and whispered back, “You got my message not to say anything.”
“So I wasn’t seeing things.”
“Nope,” he replied, embracing her tighter. Her body felt good to him, and for one of the first times he had a strong urge to kiss her.
As if sensing where his intentions might be going, she pulled away, but not before kissing him on the cheek. She jumped into the car and started it.
He didn’t move, he just watched. He wanted to stop her and tell her something deeper, more profound, but he just didn’t know what to say.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly, put the car into gear and drove away.
Day 226
May 14, 2021
Ten Miles North of Denver International Airport
Lori didn’t feel alone or scared until the chase car left. Having them just behind her gave her a comfort that, while she knew was temporary, was there nonetheless. She got out of the car and watched them leave; they quickly disappeared as the darkness swallowed them.
She leaned back against the cold door of the car and looked up into the brilliant star-studded sky. Her mind quickly raced to that night with Travis a couple weeks ago when they were gazing up at these same stars. She smiled when she thought about how he had traced out the constellations with her finger to better show her where they were. The touch of his strong hand was so gentle. Compared to hers, his was like a giant to a child’s. She liked his strong build and solid frame; it was one thing that attracted her to him, but she couldn’t deny that his ability to make her feel safe because of his abilities was an attractive trait. However, this was not the look or man she had gone for in the past. David was not that type, nor was the man she had the affair with. Before she went for a man who was, as she put in her own words, ‘cerebral’; she ignorantly imagined that men like Travis were too into themselves or ignorant. She sometimes found herself at cocktail or dinner parties ridiculing men such as Travis, specifically demeaning his service to the country as shallow. She now regretted those feelings and didn�
�t recognize the woman she had become. The events that had befallen her over the past seven and half months were so inconceivable that if she could warn herself of the impending doom, she would have laughed herself out of the room or tried to commit herself.
Lori then realized that she was nothing more than a survivor and had been her entire life. It was natural before for her to want a man who could discuss the finer points of string theory or debate the consequences the Compromise of 1850 had on eventually igniting the Civil War. Then she didn’t need a man who could physically protect her or had the skills to fight. She had lived in a world and a society where everyone for the most part lived by under and by the rule of law. She had taken for granted the men who were protecting her then, but somehow didn’t really understand what they were doing or who they were protecting society from. She had become blinded by the safety net given her, so therefore her innate survival instincts told her it was fine to be with a man for his intellect and his income. Money had replaced muscle, glamour had replaced grit. She was nothing more than surviving in the modern world. She, like many before, had never seen hardship, war, poverty, or crime, so when she would criticize and critique the system, it was from a basis of ignorance. When she really started to process her past life, she came to realize she and many others had a normalcy bias, but the hardest thing for her to accept was that she was the ignorant one.
This epiphany brought David and Eric to the forefront of her mind. She cared for them both, and part of her journey back was to also save them if she could. However, she now could say that she didn’t love David anymore. This was tough for her to admit. She did love him but not in a passionate way. She had known this for a long time but fought it to keep her family together.
A meteor suddenly streaked across the sky. She closed her eyes and made a wish that her mission would go exactly as planned, that she’d bring David and Eric to safety, and upon her return she’d tell Travis that she had fallen in love with him.
Large swaths of light splashed across her little car as she crept towards the first checkpoint a few miles outside of the DIA.
Lori could feel her body tense as she made her way into the single-lane channel. The floodlights were glaring and made it difficult for her to see. Her hands began to hurt from how tight her grip was on the steering wheel. She kept repeating, “Please God,” like a mantra until she reached the guard shack and was stopped by a uniformed man.
The guard walked over to her window and tapped.
She rolled it down.
He turned on a flashlight and shined it on her face and inside the vehicle. “Where are you going?”
“I’m Lori Roberts; I’m here to turn myself in. I’m a fugitive,” she blurted out.
The guard flashed his light in her face and stepped back. “Wait one minute,” he said and walked away.
Moments later three other men came. One of them approached her and asked, “You’re who you say?”
She looked at this young man and said, “I’m Lori Roberts. I’m a fugitive. I’m here to turn myself in.”
The man took out a square device that had an eye portal at the end and said, “Put your right eye against here.”
She leaned over and put her eye on the soft rubber and looked at a small screen inside the device.
He hit a button; a quick flash was emitted towards her eye. He pulled the device back and tapped on an exterior screen. He must have seen something that validated her statements because he handed the device to the man next to him and ordered, “Get out of the car. Hands where I can see them.”
“How do I open the door?” she asked.
One of the other guards opened the door.
With her hands up and palms facing them, she stepped out of the car and knelt down immediately.
The first man took her hands in one hand and with the other took out a set of handcuffs. He pulled her arms back and placed the handcuffs on, then stood her up and laid her over the hood of the car. He patted her down thoroughly and professionally. “She’s clean. Check the car,” he ordered.
The two other men, with flashlights in hand, began to rip the car apart. “Nothing here, sir.”
“I’m going to take her back myself,” the first guard said and escorted her to a white SUV. He put her in the back and got in the driver’s seat.
Everything happened so fast that it almost seemed like a blur.
Just before they were coming to the main gate of the DIA, he slowed down, adjusted the rearview mirror and said, “Lori, you okay?”
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’ll be fine. We’ve got your back,” he said.
His comment surprised her; according to the magistrate, she wouldn’t know any of the sources or her allies once there. Apparently, she thought, this man had just broken protocol. However, she didn’t play along for fear she’d give something away. “Thank you.”
They drove up to the main gate but were waved through.
Once inside the main area on the tarmac, she looked around. It all looked like it had when she had arrived before. Men, women and machines were coming and going; it was always nonstop there.
He took her to the security headquarters, where he transferred custody to another man. This man was wearing the black uniform of the DIA agents, but missing were the flags and patches she had seen before; they were replaced with the strange logo Travis had mentioned.
They sat her in a corner while they discussed what to do with her. Suddenly the phone rang. The agent answered it and quickly hung up. “You two, take her topside.”
Two agents grabbed her and took her through the underbelly of the airport until they reached the elevators. They got in and went to the main floor. When the door opened a young, handsome man was standing there, his arms crossed. “I’ll take her from here, and please remove the handcuffs,” he said.
The two guards followed his instructions and released her to him.
The young man turned around and began to walk away. “Follow me,” he ordered.
She did.
As they made turns through the hallways, she began to recognize where she was. Confirmation of where she was going came after the last turn. At the end of the hall stood a single door and two guards.
The man stopped and held his arm out, pointing towards the door farther down. “Please go.”
She looked at him sheepishly, yearning to see if he was someone on her side. However, he gave no indication of that.
“Go,” he ordered.
She slowly made her way down the hall. The last time she was there she had just murdered a man and was making her escape. Now here she was, voluntarily stepping back into the viper’s nest. She prayed that she could fulfill her plan and kill him. She prayed that she’d be able to see Travis again. She reached the door, the guards opened it without question, and she stepped across the threshold into the vestibule.
The guards closed the door behind her.
She wished just then that she could turn and run away again. Her body was shaking uncontrollably. The determination the magistrate had given her was now gone. Horton did more than scare her, he terrified her to a point that no other had ever done before. Resting in him was pure evil, she thought. She knew she had been in the presence of bad people before, but this man was the embodiment of all that was wrong in mankind.
The dead bolt clicked, causing her heart to skip. The doorknob turned, and instinctually she took a half step back. The door began to open but at a torturously slow pace until she saw him.
“Hello, Lori, nice to see you. Would you please come in? We have a lot of catching up to do.”
Outside Charleston, South Carolina
After Devin had brought it to her attention that the ship had to come into port now and then, she went to go visit their captive in the garage. As before, he offered up all the information he claimed he knew and promised upon his life that it was true. When he told them Charleston was the port where the
y were making landfall, she calculated the travel time and set to packing the Humvee so all they had to do was get up and leave.
Tess was an optimist, but she had a streak of reality that coursed through her, and it showed in what she unloaded from the Humvee and how much she did take.
Devin had questioned her about the packing, but she grumbled and he didn’t want to waste time or energy arguing with her, especially after her display of anger earlier. Gone was most of the food; she only packed a case of MREs and a variety of different canned foods. She left most of their weapons and ammunition but kept the .50 caliber and all the rounds for it. She hoped that again would be the weapon that could help turn the tide.
The man appeared to be forthright with his information and told them the specific port in Charleston they routinely pulled into. He described in detail the refueling procedures and how many men they could expect to engage. It was the information about manpower that gave Devin a scare. According to their captive, there were fifty men on board the ship, but that number grew when they hit port.
Renfield, while going insane, was still a rational man. The one place he kept a formidable-size group of armed men was at the port.
Their captive told them that the port had over twenty-five men guarding it.
For Devin the mission was starting to sound impossible, but for Tess, any ability to gain access to the ship without sailing out to it was better than that type of plan. She wasn’t a foolish person and knew they had a huge disadvantage. However, she had no choice; she had to go get those kids.
Their departure from Topsail Beach was a sad affair. Alex had begged to go, but she refused to allow that. She told him a half-dozen times that his place was there with Brianna protecting the other smaller children.
Melody, who had been suffering from tetanus, had almost recovered to a hundred percent. Her successful recovery gave Tess hope that things were turning in their favor. Tess still remembered little Meagan coming out calling her name. Had she not done that, most or all of these kids would be dead or, worse, in captivity with Renfield.
The Death Trilogy (Book 2): The Death: Eradicate Page 15