Fall of Houston Series | Book 2 | No Other Choice

by Payne, T. L.

  “I thought you had the list,” Will said.

  “I thought I did too. I think Kim played me. I think she held out, just in case I backed out of our deal.”

  “What deal?” He stood. “Were you two working together?”

  “No. Not like that. She was my informant. I’d promised her a green card and a new identity in exchange for providing proof of illegal theft of corporate secrets. She brought me something bigger. Bigger than even she knew. But when those men came after it, she knew she needed to hold out until she got her safety secured. She was very mistrusting.”

  “So she hid it somewhere?” Will said.

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Stephens that?”

  “I did. That got me locked up in here. They think I know something that I don’t. How am I supposed to prove that?”

  Will sighed. “You can’t.”

  Fifteen

  Cayden

  Day Six

  The soldier standing in the turret turned from left to right as the Humvee exited the apartment complex behind the two other military vehicles. Cayden didn’t quite understand what was happening. It was pretty clear to him that it was something significant. The soldiers had cuffed his dad and Isabella like they were criminals. He hadn’t been cuffed, but he’d been separated them. After being placed into the Humvee, he got distracted by the soldier standing in the Humvee’s turret.

  “I ain’t going to lie, this ride is sweet,” Cayden said. “How does it still work after the EMP?”

  “There aren’t any electronic engine controls, electronic braking, or circuitry that could fry with the electromagnetic pulse,” the soldier seated to his left said.

  “Awesome,” Cayden said. “Does the other stuff up there work too?” Cayden pointed to the screens and other high-tech equipment attached to the dash.

  “Nah. The EMP wiped those out,” the soldier said.

  Cayden thought about his computer and gaming console. It was hard for him to imagine a life without them. As they drove through the neighborhood, Cayden saw people pulling furniture and household items from their flooded homes and piling them at the curb as if everything was normal and someone would be around to pick them up soon. Did they not understand that life wasn’t returning to normal? He wondered if they even knew that the country had been attacked and the lights weren’t coming back on.

  When the Humvee pulled onto the road leading to the retailer outlets, Cayden got a real sense of the devastation. Other than the vehicles that had been shoved out of the roadway, nothing had been cleaned up. Electric lines and metal sheeting littered the sides of the road and nearby parking lots. Cayden gasped as they passed a body half-buried in the debris near the intersection.

  “You might want to cover your eyes, kid. It’s pretty bad out there,” the soldier to his left said.

  Cayden tried to imagine what their lives would be like now without modern technology. If they weren’t able to get the lights back on soon, it would look a lot worse because all the people who’d survived the storm would start starving to death.

  If the military weren’t able to fight back the insurgents, they might not live long enough to starve. Cayden wasn’t sure how they’d fight back without their modern equipment. The soldiers looked like they could handle themselves. The soldier to his left looked young, maybe only eighteen. A mere five years older than him. He wasn’t as muscular as the two soldiers in the front. Cayden couldn’t tell how old the soldier in the turret was, but the man had arms bigger than Cayden’s thighs.

  Cayden glanced at his own skinny arms, wondering how much he’d have to work out to have muscles like that. He’d gone to the gym a few times, back when his dad still cared what he looked like. He’d stopped going after Cayden’s mom died though, recently, he’d bought a stationary bike and some weights and started again. Although he still looked depressed most of the time, Cayden thought it was a good sign that his dad was exercising.

  The Humvee weaved back and forth through stranded vehicles as they approached the freeway. At the on-ramp, Cayden spotted the blackened shells of military vehicles. “Those are yours, right?” he asked.

  No one answered him.

  “What happened to them? Was it the insurgents?” Cayden asked.

  The soldier in the seat to his left glanced his way but said nothing. Cayden wasn’t sure if they just didn’t know or weren’t allowed to discuss it.

  “Is that what this is about? Is that why you came for us? Did Agent Betley send you?”

  No response.

  The Humvee turned south, and within minutes, they arrived at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. Cayden watched from the rear passenger seat as his dad and Isabella exited separate vehicles and were led inside.

  “Why can’t I go with my dad?” Cayden asked.

  “I can’t say,” the soldier said.

  The soldier from the front passenger seat climbed out of the Humvee and motioned for Cayden to exit the vehicle.

  “It’s going to be all right, Cayden,” his dad yelled as he was pushed through the door of the building.

  Cayden wasn’t afraid, but it concerned him that his dad was. It seemed like he didn’t trust the military. But they were the good guys, right?

  Inside, the soldiers took his dad one way and him another. He didn’t see where they took Isabella.

  Cayden followed the four soldiers through the building to a small coffee shop alcove. The soldier from the turret pointed to a small sofa. “Take a seat. You want something to eat or drink? We got sodas, chips, and cookies.”

  “I’ll take a Dr. Pepper and some Doritos,” Cayden said.

  The soldier went behind the small counter and opened the floor to ceiling cooler. That’s when it dawned on Cayden that the base had electricity. The cool air and overhead lights should have been a clue. They were such everyday things, but he’d totally missed the fact that they shouldn’t be on.

  “How do you guys have electricity?” he asked.

  “Generators,” one of the soldiers said, plopping into a chair opposite Cayden.

  “Don’t get too comfortable. Sergeant Rawls said our replacement will be here in a few minutes,” the soldier from the turret said.

  He handed Cayden his drink and snacks before dropping into a chair to the right of Cayden.

  “So, what now?” Cayden asked.

  The stocky soldier shrugged. It was clear that they were just his babysitters and weren’t going to tell him anything. Cayden observed them as he sipped his drink. He tried to drink his soda slowly, knowing that it might well be the last cold one he had for a very long time.

  The soldiers seated next to Cayden looked relaxed and as though they were relishing the downtime in air conditioning as much as he was. Each of them was dressed in a military uniform loaded down with gear. He didn’t know how in the world they could stand to have all that on in the heat.

  The third soldier, a skinny guy with a scar on his cheek, paced in front of the counter. Either he knew something the others didn’t, or he was more anxious to get on with something else. Minutes passed and the soldiers grew bored. They were throwing half-full water bottles at one another when their replacement arrived.

  She was just a little taller than Cayden and dressed in a different patterned uniform than the other soldiers. Cayden thought she must be someone important since the soldiers all stood and saluted her.

  “Cayden Fontenot?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Lieutenant McKinney. Would you come with me, please?”

  She wore her blonde hair in a tight bun. Cayden guessed she was older than the soldiers but younger than his dad. She was pretty. He couldn’t see her figure much under the baggy uniform, but she appeared fit.

  “This way,” she said, pointing down the dimly lit corridor.

  “When can I see my dad and Isabella?” Cayden asked.

  “In a little while. I just need to ask you a few questions first,” Lieutenant McKinney sa
id.

  She led him into an office and gestured for him to take a seat. The room was small and contained no windows. The furnishing was sparse. A small desk and two chairs sat in one corner. Two more chairs lined the opposite wall. Nothing hung on the walls, and there were no framed photos or certificates. Cayden selected a chair in the corner with a view of the door. Lieutenant McKinney sat opposite him on the other side of the desk, pulled a notepad and pen from a pocket in her pants, and leaned back.

  “Okay, Cayden. I need to ask you about the day that you and your dad met a woman named Kim Yang. Do you know who that is?”

  He nodded.

  “Can you tell me where exactly you were when you first saw her?”

  Cayden described the scene at the gas station and how he’d first come in contact with Kim. He walked Lieutenant McKinney through the carjacking and their time at Fahima’s. Cayden didn’t understand why she wanted to know Kim’s every movement before they got to Betley’s storage unit. He did his best to recall, but she didn’t seem to believe him as she repeated the same question over and over.

  “When your dad and Isabella were in the bar, you said that you and Kim were outside waiting for them. Did she step away from you at any time?”

  “No. Not that I can recall. I wasn’t all that focused on her, though. I was watching for fire in the skyrises. A lot of the buildings were on fire, and I was concerned that—”

  “So you can’t be sure that Kim didn’t, say, get into one of the vehicles or step into an alcove of a nearby shop?” McKinney asked, interrupting him.

  “If she did, it would have only been for a few seconds. She mostly stood right beside me. I think she thought she was responsible for me or something.”

  “And what happened after that?”

  Cayden told her about hearing gunshots and rushing toward the bar. “Kim wouldn’t let me go in.”

  “Did she go inside?”

  “Yes.”

  Cayden told her everything that he remembered until they were picked up by the soldier on the bridge. By the third time of being asked the same questions, he was bored and frustrated and wanted out of the tiny room. He needed to see his dad and know that he and Isabella were all right. Cayden yawned. He couldn’t help himself. They hadn’t been able to sleep much in the last few days. His dad had been up and down all night after the explosions started.

  “Would you like something to drink? Maybe something with caffeine?” McKinney asked.

  Although Cayden did want something to drink, her offering one with caffeine made him nervous. That meant that they weren’t finishing up anytime soon. He was tired of repeating the same answers over and over. If she had nothing new to ask, he wasn’t in the mood to cooperate any further.

  “Nah. I don’t need caffeine. I’d like to see my dad now.”

  “Just a few more questions—”

  “No. I think I’m done answering your questions until I see my dad.”

  Her eyes narrowed and then softened. She slowly pushed her chair back and walked toward the door. “I’ll see about getting you that caffeine.”

  Sixteen

  Isabella

  Day Six

  Between the heat and the pain in her arm, Isabella was quite irritable as she sat across from Stephens. She couldn’t help but notice her nails were neat and trimmed, nothing like the mess hers had become. The woman’s hair was clean, and there weren’t dark circles and bags under her eyes. Isabella hadn’t bothered to look in a mirror in days. Her vision was a little blurry due to her swollen eyelids. It seemed that once she’d allowed the tears to begin to flow, the pain and grief over everything that had occurred during the last few days had all come rushing out at once.

  She’d been numb for the first few days. It was too much to process, all the death and the fear for her safety. Isabella had just started accepting the fact that things may take time to get back to normal but certainly hadn’t yet reached the point that she could begin looking toward the future. She’d seemed stuck in a moment-by-moment survival mode. Witnessing the brutality that had taken Kevin’s life had been her wake-up call. If she was to survive, she had to snap out of her fog and do something. She refused to be a victim. She refused to let anything like that happen to anyone else she cared about either.

  Isabella studied the CIA analyst as she shuffled papers from one folder to another. She imagined she’d had a rough time in the male-dominated CIA. She must be fairly important to be working on such a crucial investigation. Thwarting a foreign insurgency and invasion couldn’t be easy. They’d want their best on the job, right?

  After several hours of answering the woman’s questions, Isabella started getting pissed. She understood that Stephens was just trying to understand the incident with Kim, but how was answering the same questions twenty times remotely helpful? Isabella could smell the woman’s fear. That is what had her so freaked out. She was with the government. She was here, surrounded by sexy soldiers carrying guns. Yet Stephens was more afraid than Isabella had been out there on the streets. Stephens had to know something awful to have her so rattled.

  “You can ask me a hundred times and I’ll still have the same answer. I never saw Kim hide anything. She didn’t tell me anything. I know nothing that can help you. I never for a moment suspected her and Betley of working together. I want to help you, Ms. Stephens. I do. But I can’t.”

  “Let’s retrace your steps one more time,” Stephens said.

  “No!” Isabella spat. “No. I’ve told you all I remember.”

  “I keep asking to jog your memory. You could recall something new.”

  She didn’t want to recall any more details about their time out there. She tried to forget the look in the crazy woman’s eyes as she lunged for her and sank her hands into Isabella’s hair. She needed to forget about the girl and her brother from the bar and the man they’d left dying in the middle of the street. It was all so damn senseless. If they’d just been able to call an ambulance, those three lives might have been saved. Trying to recall their every move was too painful. Isabella’s brain wanted to shut down. It was too much.

  As Stephens stood and paced the floor, she chewed her thumbnail. It only served to make Isabella more nervous and drove home the seriousness of the situation. If this calm, cool, and collected CIA analyst was on the verge of losing her shit, what hope did Houston’s residents have?

  “Why don’t you just go out there and look in the places I told you?” Isabella asked.

  “That’s a great idea. You’ll just have to come with me.”

  “Excuse me?” Isabella asked, not believing her ears. She didn’t know what the woman was smoking, but she must be crazy if she thought Isabella was going back downtown. That would be the epicenter of chaos for hundreds of thousands of refugees who’d become stranded on the freeways when the EMP took out the electronics in their cars.

  “You and Will need to come with me to retrace your steps. Maybe something out there will jog your memories.”

  Isabella was just about to protest when a loud boom reverberated outside. Stephens spun and dropped to the floor, pulling Isabella down with her. “What’s happening? Are we under attack? Is this the invasion?” Isabella cried.

  “Just be calm,” Stephens said. She straightened, then sat up. “I don’t think it was that close.”

  “That close? Any explosion is too close for me.”

  “Do you want to get out of here?” Stephens asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Then help me, Isabella. Help me stop these people. I need that list.”

  “It’s too dangerous. It’s bad out there, and not just the insurgents. People are desperate, and people are doing stupid things. I saw one of my neighbors chased down by a gang this morning. Will saw someone get shot.”

  “I know, but that is only going to get worse until we can restore law and order and get people the help they need. We can’t do that if we are dealing with attacks like that.” Stephens pointed over her shoulder toward the ex
plosion.

  “I can’t,” Isabella said.

  “If you won’t do it for your country, do it for Will and Cayden. You care about them, don’t you?”

  That was a low blow. Of course she cared about her country. And Will and Cayden. She’d help if she could.

  “How does me going out there with you help Will and Cayden?”

  “If you and Will help us locate what we’re looking for, I will have them escorted to his sister’s in Louisiana away from all this. You too if you want to go with them. Otherwise, we can take you somewhere else.”

  Isabella thought of her family. The thought of them struggling to survive as she had hurt her heart. “My family is in Oklahoma.” Somehow she imagined a nine-hour trip was out of the question.

  “We can get you to the shelter in Huntsville. From there…”

  Isabella interrupted her. “No. I’m not going to a shelter.”

  “Well, you decide where you’d like to go, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Isabella lowered her head. The thought of going back to her apartment, knowing the danger everyone in the city was in, scared her to death. She had no other choice. She had to help this woman. And then she’d decide where to go from there. The last week had shown her that she was tougher than she thought. She would come up with something. At least Will and Cayden would be safe. That would make it worth the risk.

  She looked Stephens in the eyes. “Tell me there’s help on the way. Tell me that the Army, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, and even the Space Force is coming to rescue us.”

  Stephens’ gaze fell to the floor. “I can’t. The EMP disrupted communications. We’re doing our best to get them reestablished in order to communicate with the Pentagon, but it takes time.”

  “But they’re coming, right?”

  “The forces that were pre-positioned to provide aid following the hurricane are on their way. We have sent for them. They’ll be in position soon.”