Apocalypse Austin

by David VanDyke

  “Make your depth fifty feet. Up periscope,” Absen ordered, taking position at the heavy cylinder.

  The Houston was on the outer edge of the fleet, typical for submarines when they operated with surface ships. He saw three frigates, but they looked off somehow. After a few seconds he realized they were all unmoving, adrift and wallowing.

  Why would they all be without power? he wondered as he glanced over at the communications officer, who was trying to get some kind of signal.

  “It wasn’t a lightning strike,” Absen said. “There’s been an electromagnetic pulse up there.”

  “Everything’s good here,” said the weapons officer, waving at the unaffected combat center around them.

  “The water protected us from the pulse. All except the shortwave antenna on the surface.”

  “Did the Texans nuke the battle group?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Absen. “Sonar would have picked up a sonic event that big. From what I can see, our ships are just drifting.” He stopped talking when he spotted the specks on the horizon, and his mouth went dry. “Rig for air attack. Down periscope. All ahead flank, max down bubble, dive, dive, dive.”

  The boat’s driver grimly gripped his controls, sending the boat into a crash dive. When loud explosions began to echo through the water, the men looked at him with worried faces.

  “Give me all hands,” Absen told the communications officer as he picked up the microphone near the periscope. “Now hear this. The battle group is under attack by air, most likely the Texas rebels. We should be all right; I doubt they have what it takes for a sub hunt, but there’s nothing we can do about aircraft. I have reason to believe they used an electromagnetic pulse device to disable our surface combatants’ electronics. When the attack ends, we will surface and rescue as many survivors as we can. All hands prepare to receive casualties. It might get very crowded in here real fast, so be ready. That is all.”

  Absen hung up the microphone.

  Strained faces looked at him. “How far to the nearest surface combatant?” he asked the navigator.

  “A little over a thousand yards.”

  Absen nodded. “Fair enough. All ahead dead slow. Make your depth fifty feet from the bottom. Sonar, go active for five seconds once per minute. I want to know who’s out there. And put the passive sonics on loudspeaker.”

  Absen waited nearly ten minutes for the crumps of explosions to come to a stop. Now, all they could hear on the sensitive sonic sensors were gurgles, snaps and pops…the sounds of ships sinking.

  “All ahead half. Make your depth fifty feet. Up periscope.”

  In the binocular eyepiece, waves splashed over the lens of the scope before it was high enough for Absen to see the surface of the ocean above them. When he rotated to find the battle group, the horror of it stunned him.

  The first thing he noticed was the billowing smoke all around them, the debris in the water. He saw a destroyer half-submerged, with the crew in the process of loading into lifeboats. A breeze lifted the smoke away for a second and Absen’s breath caught in his throat as the Washington came into view.

  The massive carrier burned, listing at a severe angle, with the lower edge of the flight deck nearly level with the water around it. Even from a distance, Absen could see sailors sliding off the edge of the tilted deck and into the water to avoid the growing flames.

  “Surface and begin rescue operations,” Absen ordered, stowing the handles of the periscope, and heading for the door.

  “How bad is it?” asked the navigator.

  “Bad as it gets. Navigator, you have the conn.”

  The lieutenant looked at him in near panic. “Where are you going, sir?”

  “I believe I need to go wake up the captain after all.”

  Chapter 14

  Reaper rode in the front seat of the lead suburban as Python drove, heading northeast on dusty dirt roads, occasionally stopping for gas and restroom breaks. The remainder of her team was spread out between the other five vehicles carrying their gear and Spooky’s cocaine.

  Python tried to make small talk from time to time. When that didn’t work, he sang loudly with the radio between bouts of talking to himself under his breath. Eventually, he turned to Reaper with an exaggerated sigh. “I see you haven’t yet learned the art of conversation.”

  Reaper stared out the window, not looking at him. “I make conversation just fine when I want to say something.”

  “Right. You’re saying plenty now. Typical woman.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m the least typical woman you ever met.” she said, her voice rising.

  “No, you’re not. You’re all mad about something but you don’t want to tell me because you think I ought to know already. You want me to figure it out, but I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve become a professional drug smuggler!”

  Python grinned and waggled the toothpick in his mouth. “You’re one to talk. Aren’t you helping to smuggle these drugs right now?”

  Reaper shifted, looking straight at Python for the first time. “Spooky dropped that on us. On my team, I mean. I don’t like it, but this mission is paramount. That’s different from choosing to do this as a career.”

  “I just don’t understand why you’re so upset about it. I make good money, set my own hours, and get to travel. What’s not to like?”

  “Maybe it’s all the lives these drugs ruin.”

  “Nobody else shoves this coke up their noses. They do it to themselves. Believe me, I’ve seen enough junkies to know these are weak, worthless people.”

  Reaper laid her head back against her headrest. “I joined an East L.A. street gang at thirteen, Python. Most of us were just kids. The leader was twenty-two, and we thought he was an old man. We did drugs – I did drugs – because I thought I had a dead-end life with no future. My father was a worthless bum who only came around for sex or money to buy drugs. Mama tried to keep me and my brothers and sisters on the straight and narrow, but the drugs were always there, trying to drag us under. We weren’t weak, worthless people.”

  “You were just a kid.”

  “Kids are getting this stuff from you.”

  “Hey, I’m just the delivery guy.”

  “I can’t even talk to you about this,” Reaper said, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms.

  “Oh, don’t tune out again. Keep talking. Maybe you’ll convince me.”

  Reaper was silent for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was softer. “I thought you were dead and it was my fault. Then, after a year, I find out you’re alive. I knew from the beginning you weren’t some sort of saint, but I just never thought you’d end up trafficking.”

  “And I never thought you’d end up as a mercenary,” he said.

  “I’m not a mercenary,” she yelled, punching him in the shoulder hard enough to make the vehicle swerve.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  “I’m still a Marine where it counts. I’m fighting evil people doing evil things. I’m fighting for something I believe in. I’m fighting to get the real America back.”

  “You might not believe me, but so am I.”

  Reaper snorted. “Please, tell yourself whatever you need to in order to sleep at night, but don’t try and feed it to me. It still smells and tastes like bullshit, so you eat it.”

  “As ladylike as ever, I see.”

  “You had no problem with my mouth when it was doing something you liked.”

  Python shrugged. “I wasn’t going to piss you off back then. You were the boss. I was the flunky. I liked you. But we’re not together anymore. Are we?”

  Reaper looked out the window at the Mexican barrier desert landscape, a landscape she’d grown to hate after fleeing the United States what seemed like so long ago. It was an escape she wouldn’t have lived to make without the help of the man beside her.

  “No,” she finally said. “We’re not together, but we might have been. If you m
ade it to Mexico, you could have made it to Colombia to join me.”

  “I had no idea where you were! I got here with nothing at all. Beat the shit out of three banditos that tried to rob me – not that I had anything to steal – and then made them take me to their boss. Good thing he saw the value in hiring a gringo who could blend in up north. Been working my way up the ladder every since, but I never forgot you. Here.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a picture, handing it to her.

  “Wow. My mug shot from the Security Service ‘Wanted’ web site. How romantic.”

  “It’s all I could find.”

  Reaper sat looking at the cheap color printout for long moments. “I’m no better,” she sighed. “I didn’t try very hard to find out what happened to you. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It’s a fucked-up world.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “It’s a –”

  Reaper punched his shoulder again and laughed. “Shut up!”

  The ensuing silence now seemed more comradely than uncomfortable, until Python spoke. “This may look like drug smuggling, but it’s really just asymmetric warfare. That means –”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Jill, the drugs help save lives. I help save lives.”

  Reaper shook her head. “Who sold you that line of crap?”

  Python looked at her in surprise. “You really don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  He started laughing. “No wonder you’re so angry.”

  “Know what?” she said slowly through gritted teeth.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you. He’s one manipulative son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Who?”

  Python chuckled. “The guy who controls the cocaine distro. Spooky. Our boss.”

  “He’s not my boss. We just happen to be working together right now.”

  “Okay. Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night. But you still don’t have a clue.”

  “What don’t I have a clue about?”

  “The cocaine,” said Python hooking his thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the SUV. “It’s infected with low doses of Eden Plague.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Python shook his head. “Nope. Every time someone snorts a line, smokes a rock or shoots a speedball, they have maybe a two percent chance of getting infected, I was told. That’s to try to hide where the infection is coming from. See, I’m not making junkies, I’m curing them. Curing them of a hell of a lot more than drug addiction, too.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “One shipment three months ago had a few random bags infected, as a test case. The SS didn’t seem to connect the outbreaks to the drugs. This is the second round, with half the bags infected. It’s pure genius.”

  Reaper stared at Python with awe. “It is. So Spooky told you this?”

  “Yep.”

  “When and where?”

  “On vacation.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Python rubbed his mouth, and then opened the cooler that sat on the seat between them, pulling out a bottle of water to take a long drink. “It means I didn’t like what I was doing, and I wanted to find you. I heard the Free Communities were looking for good people in Colombia, so I took all the cash I had and headed south. When I found a recruiter in Tunja, she said I was expected, and sent me to Spooky. He told me why it was important I come back to my job here.”

  “Damn, Python. Sorry I busted your balls. I was just so mad at what I thought you’d turned into. You could have told me.”

  Python shrugged. “More fun to see you twist yourself all up.”

  “You didn’t used to be such a dick.”

  “Sure I was. That’s why when we first met you slugged me and had the bulls beat the shit out of me. But who cares? The Plague was the best thing that ever happened to me. Once I escaped from detention, I tried to spread it to others, offered it, tried to convince people to take it and got beat up for it. Almost got arrested and sent back. This way, though...it’s perfect.”

  Reaper had to ask herself why it meant so much what Python did for a living. What were her feelings for him? Was he someone she could love, or simply a comrade-in-arms and part-time lay? They’d shared a bond based on enduring hardships together. He was a friend, a brother, someone she wanted the best for. Reaper was glad he was alive.

  But what about more? She really didn’t know…but at least she saw possibilities. He wasn’t a scumbag after all.

  As the small convoy drove farther north, they encountered more and more Mexican military. Python told her it was part of the deal Mexico had made with the Unionists to seal off Texas, which was why they were angling toward Arizona. Twice they were stopped by police, but Python was able to get them through by passing along thick envelopes from beneath his seat. Reaper looked and saw there was a pile of them.

  “Bribes?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he answered. “It’s how things are done down here.”

  Reaper frowned. “I’m a cop. Was a cop, I guess. I hate dirty cops.”

  “Except for you, I don’t like cops period, but don’t be too hard on them. It’s not all greed; some of it’s necessity.”

  “How so?”

  “The police are paid almost nothing. It’s expected that they make up the money through ‘fees’ or ‘tolls.’ They have families to feed. In the cities, they take cash to provide extra security for certain businesses or neighborhoods. Out here, they pull over people in nice cars for traffic violations, and then take bribes to rip up the tickets. Sure, some end up completely corrupt, but most start out just trying to make ends meet.”

  “Sounds like an unreliable police force.”

  “It’s the way things are when you don’t pay the cops enough. Ironic for a hard case like me to say, huh?”

  “That was before you were an Eden,” Reaper said. “You’re not a hard case any more.”

  “I think that was some sort of compliment or something. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Two days later, they drove down a long, winding road to a small mobile home beside a large warehouse, which rested on a low hill covered in scrub.

  “Here we are,” said Python cheerfully.

  “Where is here?”

  Python pointed to their front, across the desert. “See that fence line in the distance? That’s the Arizona border. Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation. Not heavily patrolled. The terrain’s bad, and the Indians catch most smugglers and coyotes, and then turn them over to INS. In return, the feds leave them alone. Saves on manpower.”

  When one big door slid open, Python drove the SUV into the warehouse, and the other vehicles followed into the blessedly cool interior. Rough-looking armed Mexicans shut the portal, and then spread out alertly.

  “What is this place?” asked Shortfuse, climbing out of the back of a van and stretching.

  Python pointed at a half-dismantled semi tractor on a jack along one wall. “Truck repair depot, but that’s just a front. Come on and let me show you. Don’t worry about the cargo or your gear; my men will handle it.”

  Reaper’s team watched Python walk down into one of the maintenance pits, where he pushed a small button beneath the lift. A pneumatic whining sounded, and then a section of the wall opened a crack. Python pushed it aside, revealing a set of stairs.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  They found several rooms comfortably furnished with bunk beds. There was also a bathroom and shower area, a kitchen, and even a dayroom, with sofas, a pool table, a television and a bar.

  Python walked around behind the bar, pulling a cold case of Mexican beer from a chest fridge and opening one for himself. “I recommend you stay here a few hours until nightfall and then make your crossing. Who wants a drink?”

  “Got any scotch?” asked Flyboy.

  “Tequila and rum.” Python lifted two bottles
from beneath the bar, setting highball glasses beside them. “Ice in the freezer there.”

  Flyboy grabbed the rum and a glass, heading toward the ice. The rest of the team picked up beer bottles and distributed themselves around the room to relax.

  “Tell me about the crossing,” said Reaper.

  “C’mere.” Python led her to a door in the back of the room. When he opened it, he pointed down a long hallway leading away into the darkness. “That leads north for almost a mile and a half. At the other end is another set of stairs that comes up inside a mobile home. Outside you’ll find an extended-size van. The keys should be in a magnetic holder in the front right wheel well. It will be crowded, but I think you all can squeeze in.”

  “Just like the last time I came across the border as a boy,” said Hawkeye, coming over to look.

  “I thought you were from Peru,” said Bunny.

  “I am, but in case you didn’t notice, America don’t share no border with Peru.”

  “So why’d you leave?”

  “My family didn’t like the U.S. Too many Mexicans,” he chortled.

  “That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Tarzan, now bare-chested as usual, his t-shirt tucked into a pocket.

  “Not as dumb as your outfit,” answered Hawkeye. “Just because they call you Tarzan doesn’t mean you have to dress like him. Put some freaking clothes on, man.”

  “Weren’t you laying out with a Speedo on the boat earlier? Only fruits wear Speedos.”

  “And Olympic swimmers.”

  “You ain’t no Olympic swimmer, dude.”

  “I tried out.”

  “Yeah, Peru’s a swimming powerhouse at the Games.”

  “Your breath is the powerhouse, hermano.”

  The banter continued in the background as Reaper asked Python, “You’re not coming with us?”

  “Sorry, Reap. I’ll be here when you come back this way, though. Maybe when you’re not so busy, we can hang out. Be like old times.”

  “We’ll see.” Reaper looked around pointedly. “How can you keep something this big secret?”

  Python shut the door. “We can’t, really. That’s why a significant amount of the budget goes to paying the right people off. We look at it as profit sharing, which has a way of making people mentally invest.”