Rescue: Book 3 in the After the Fall series

by David Nees

  Clayton finally spoke up. “You’re the military man. What’s the plan? We can’t just walk in there.”

  Jason pulled back from his scope. “I want to identify this Chairman. If he’s headquartered in the City-County building, we should be able to see him come and go from here.”

  “What if he lives in the building? He don’t have to come and go.”

  “Yeah. That would be a problem, but he’s got to go out sometime. He can’t just stay holed up in an office.”

  “We could be here a while. Hope our boys are okay.”

  “We can’t move until we know where the Chairman is.”

  “He that important?”

  “I figure if we can get to him, we can convince him to let our guys go.”

  “Just ‘cause we ask nice?”

  “I’m working on that. Something to convince him it’s in his best interests.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Jason didn’t answer. The problem had been plaguing him since they started on this rescue. He didn’t doubt they could infiltrate the Chairman’s compound. He didn’t doubt he could execute the Chairman with a well-placed shot. But the problem of finding Rodney and Billy and getting them out of town seemed impossible to solve. It would take something drastic.

  He turned to Clayton. “Why don’t you watch the street we came down? I can watch across the river. If anyone is going to come after us, best to know soon so we can get down to the main floor.”

  “More options then.”

  Jason nodded and turned back to the river.

  Around eight in the morning Jason announced, “Here he comes.”

  “The Chairman?”

  “Yep.”

  Clayton came over and aimed the spotting scope across the river. They saw a tall figure wearing a white navy bill cap. He got out of a Humvee that had pulled up near to the front door. There were two men with him that looked like bodyguards. The deference of the door sentries was obvious, even from a distance.

  “So, he doesn’t sleep in his office. Let’s watch through the day to see when he goes home, wherever that is,” Jason said.

  “How do we get to him?”

  “Maybe we can get into the building at night and wait in his office.”

  “Just need to know where his office is and how we’ll deal with the two guards.”

  Jason grunted in agreement.

  “Can see now we couldn’t do this with a large group,” Clayton continued. “We can move quiet enough but I’m trying to figure out how this ain’t a suicide mission, for us and Rodney and Billy.”

  “We’ll need a hostage,” Jason said.

  “Only hostage that will work is the Chairman.”

  “What I’m thinking.”

  Clayton stared at Jason for a long moment. “How we gonna get across the river?” He asked.

  Both men swept their eyes across the bridges. Many blocks to the east was a freeway bridge that had checkpoints on either side of it. The nearest bridge to their right was closed. The one on their left was open but also with checkpoints and guards. Beyond that bridge was a railroad bridge. It was unused since the EMP attack and looked unguarded since no vehicular or pedestrian traffic could traverse it.

  “Bet we could make our way across the railroad bridge,” Clayton said.

  Jason nodded in agreement. “Beats swimming across the river.”

  “Don’t want to do that.”

  The men spent the day alternating between watching and sleeping. They were going to be up most of the night. When it got dark, they packed up to make their way across the river.

  “Before we go, let’s talk about what we’re going to do,” Clayton said.

  Jason nodded. “We get across the river, we can work our way through the trees almost to the City-County building.” The landscaped areas of the city had long been neglected and were overgrown, providing good cover for an infiltrator. “We wait until the last watch change at night. Then we capture the guard and make him lead us inside to the Chairman’s office.”

  “He’ll be missed when the morning guard comes.”

  “Yeah. That’s around 8:00 in the morning. We’ll have four hours to set up. The guards won’t know what’s happened, only that someone deserted their post. The Chairman shows up between eight and nine so there’ll be little time to sort things out.”

  “We wait for the Chairman in his office?”

  Jason nodded. “We’ll have to neutralize the guards. We want to do that without shooting if we can. If we can’t, I have a .22 with a suppressor which makes hardly any noise.”

  “Then what?”

  “If we get control of this guy, we can make him bring Rodney and Billy to his office. Maybe under the guise of us checking them out before we negotiate a ransom payment.”

  “And how do we get out?”

  “I haven’t got that fully figured out yet, but I got a couple of ideas.”

  “You want to share? I’d like to know if we got more options than a shootout in the Chairman’s office.”

  “We take him hostage and walk out with him.”

  “They never gonna let us do that.”

  “I’m going to make it so they have to. Kind of like mutually assured destruction. Me and the Chairman.”

  Clayton gave Jason a sharp look.

  “I think I can set up a situation where if we’re attacked, or I’m shot, the Chairman dies—automatically.”

  “Like a grenade? We didn’t bring any.”

  “Kind of like that.”

  “The rest of us will die as well.”

  Jason sighed. “You’re probably right, but it’s our best chance to pull this off.”

  Clayton looked hard at Jason. “You always been honest with me. You fight well. I didn’t know if we’d come back from this alive but I agreed with you that paying the ransom would only bring trouble to Hillsboro and my people. We got to make them understand the people in Hillsboro are tough. If we gonna die, we want to make them think twice about attacking our people.”

  Jason put his hand on Clayton’s shoulder. He looked into his eyes which were clear and unwavering. The man had said more than usual for him, but he was direct and unflinching in his honesty.

  “We got a chance to make this work. If this Chairman is sane and has some sane people working with him, we’ll get out alive.”

  They made their way down the stairwell of the building and out into the dirt yard. The road to the west of them continued over the river and was one of the manned entry points. They had to retrace their path back away from the river, staying in the cover of buildings until they were far enough to not be seen or heard. The night vision goggles gave them an advantage but they couldn’t assume those at the checkpoints weren’t similarly equipped.

  They picked a spot where there were buildings close to the road on either side, minimizing their exposure in the open roadway.

  “When we get across the road and reach the railroad tracks. They’ll be a lot of cover on each side to shield us.”

  “Let’s hope for no more dogs.”

  “Amen to that.”

  After crossing the road, they got into a large patch of woods and moved west. The woods continued until they reached the tracks. Jason breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Should be a bit easier from here.”

  They walked in the ditch down beside the tracks which were built up on a gravel bed. It was quieter going and they were more shielded. Thankfully the growth on either side of the right of way was thick.

  They reached a street crossing just before the train bridge. The tracks went over with the street running underneath in a single lane passage. They stopped at the edge of the clearing and scanned to their right, towards the working bridge. They could see the barriers set up to slalom any vehicles through, slowing them before the checkpoint.

  Without a word, Jason moved back and, using the cover of the trees, crossed the tracks to the far side. Clayton followed and the two men crouched low and began to move for
ward. When they reached the bridge, they took off their packs and began to crawl on their hands and knees, keeping below the railing.

  After three minutes of crawling, they reached the cover of the trees on the far side.

  “River bridge is next. We’ll be in good cover until we get there,” Jason said.

  They could see the train bridge two hundred yards ahead.

  “Then more crawling. A lot more.”

  Jason nodded.

  The bridge had little in the way of sides to shield them. Its virtue was that it was unguarded and, hopefully, unwatched.

  “Figure it take about an hour if we crawling,” Clayton said.

  “About that,” Jason said.

  It was an iron truss structure built on concrete piers about thirty feet off of the water with the trusses set below the rails. It was rusted and heading into serious decay to the point where it might not hold the weight of a loaded freight train. Near the downtown shore the trusses went up above the tracks, giving a greater clearance for commercial river traffic below.

  The two men started out moving in a crouch and when their muscles grew cramped, they went on hands and knees. It was a bit disorienting to see the water below, through the cross ties. They carefully placed hands and knees on each tie which were about eighteen inches apart with nothing but water showing in between.

  Part of the way, Jason stretched himself out on the ties. Clayton was behind him and did the same.

  “Not very comfortable,” Clayton said.

  “We just have to be patient.” After a minute of stretching, Jason rolled over and began to crawl again, hands and knees fashion.

  “This easier than trying to walk in a crouch,” Clayton said.

  “Hard on the knees though.”

  “We survive it.”

  When they neared the side of the river, they stopped and scanned the bank with their night vision goggles. As they had hoped, there was no one on this side either. The guards seemed to be assigned to the checkpoints only.

  Ten minutes more of crawling and they slipped down the embankment from the tracks and into the trees. To the east, the manned bridge was elevated higher than the train bridge and the checkpoint was set up further back into the local streets.

  “We should be able to make our way underneath without coming into view of the checkpoint,” Jason said.

  “Hopefully we can get close to the City-County building without going further into the city,” Clayton said.

  “Yeah. Moving further in increases the odds of someone seeing us.”

  Jason checked his watch. “We have an hour and a half. We want to be in position before 4:00 am when the guard changes over.”

  They started moving east, keeping the trees between them and the apartment buildings facing the river. They couldn’t be seen from anyone across the river since they were up against the tree cover. If they didn’t make any sounds, no guard at any of the apartments would know they were passing by.

  Going under the road bridge proved easy but on the east side, the tree cover ended. There were just overgrown fields that had once been mowed grass bordering the road.

  “Crawling time again,” Clayton whispered.

  “We’re doing well on time, so let’s not rush this part.”

  They crawled through the grass, pushing their packs ahead of them. Jason stopped to listen every twenty yards. It took an hour to move the two blocks. Finally, a massive concrete and glass building loomed ahead, just off to their left, beyond an intersection.

  “We need to get behind this building. Time to move in a block,” Jason whispered.

  “Lead the way,” Clayton said.

  They moved up the street, keeping close to the overgrown vegetation. At the next block a street ran off to their right between the City-County building and the large building facing the river. Without a sound they moved through the once attractive grounds surrounding the building, now filled with tall grass and brush. Even in the inhabited parts of the city no effort was expended to keep the grounds from reverting to their natural habitat. It created an odd mix of civilization and apocalypse in one setting.

  They came to an elevated walkway that connected the two buildings together. Passing under it they went to the left and slowly approached the stairs leading to the main doors. The guard stood at the base of the stairs.

  Chapter 17

  ___________________________________

  T hey stopped outside of earshot of the guard.

  “I’ll work my way to the bushes at the side of the stairs. You leave your backpack and weapon here and just walk up. Act like you’re drunk or confused. Get the guard’s attention. When he passes by me, I’ll take him down.”

  Jason set out crawling towards the guard. He had to move slow. He was close enough the guard would be able to hear any scraping sounds.

  Clayton watched his progress. When Jason got to the bushes, Clayton stepped out and staggered forward.

  “Who’s there?” the guard shouted.

  “I need help,” mumbled Clayton. He kept going forward.

  “Stop where you are. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Can you help me?”

  As the guard approached, he passed Jason’s hiding place. Jason stepped out and threw his left arm around his chest and, with his right arm, pressed his knife to his throat.

  “No sound or you’re dead,” he whispered into the man’s ear.

  The guard froze.

  “You’ll live if you follow my directions. Understand?”

  The man nodded slightly with the knife still at his throat. “What do—”

  He stopped as he felt the knife blade push against his neck, starting to cut into his flesh.

  “No talking,” Jason whispered.

  Clayton came up, bringing their backpacks and they marched the guard up the stairs to the main entrance.

  “Unlock the door,” Jason said.

  “I don’t have a key,” the guard responded.

  Jason put his face close to the guard’s so the man could clearly see him in the dark. “Don’t lie to me. It will get you killed. Yesterday I watched you hand a set of keys to the guard who relieved you. Now pull out those keys and use them.”

  The guard was a young man. He looked to be barely out of his teens. He was shorter than Jason and Clayton and not built as solid. He was now very afraid. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a ring with numerous keys on it.

  “Open the door,” Jason said.

  He unlocked the door and Clayton pushed him inside, locking the door behind them.

  “Now you’re going to take us to the Chairman’s office. Don’t bother to tell me you don’t know where it is. You’ll only piss me off.”

  They trudged up the stairs. The building was built in the shape of a triangle with two straight sides and the third side flowing in a graceful curve from one leg to the other. They went up two flights of stairs and walked back along one of the legs. It was pitch black inside. Jason used his flashlight with his hand covering most of the lens to allow only the most meager light to escape.

  It wasn’t the tallest building in the center-city compound but Jason could understand why the Chairman had picked it. It was like a fortress with few windows. When they stopped at the Chairman’s office the man took out another key and opened the door. Inside was a receptionist area with chairs for those waiting to see the man in the inner office. The inner office had windows but only on one side. They faced a block-long building across a street. When things got hot, that would be where the snipers would be set up.

  Jason closed the blinds. He told the guard to sit on the floor. Clayton watched him while Jason took some zip ties from his backpack and tied the man’s wrists behind his back. With the man secured he asked Clayton to go into the adjacent offices and pull down any blinds to layer over the ones in the office.

  “We need to make sure no one can see inside. If they can’t see us, they can’t shoot.”

  “What about infrared? Or so
mething like those night vision goggles?” Clayton asked.

  “If they have infrared, it will only show the heat signature from bodies. They won’t be able to tell who is who.”

  Jason squatted down in front of the guard whose eyes were wide with fear. “You’ll be okay through what’s going to happen as long as you don’t try to interfere with our plans. Now I need to ask you some questions. Is there a receptionist?”

  The man nodded.

  “Good. Are there guards stationed on this floor during the day?”

  The man nodded again.

  “How many?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Be careful. Remember what I said. Don’t lie and don’t tell me you don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t know for sure. There’s probably six men. It’s a plumb job but it only goes to those closest to the Chairman.”

  “That’s better. Now who’s the second in charge? Who backs up the Chairman?”

  “There’s a militia general. That what you mean?”

  “No. Who’s the next man in line to give orders for the Chairman? Someone the general would have to listen to.”

  “That would be Phillip Cordell.”

  “His office in the building?”

  The man nodded. “Next office down the hall. But he spends most of his time outside. I think he’s the eyes and ears for the Chairman.”

  Just then Clayton came back with an arm full of drapes. He set about hooking them to the existing ones. When he was done, there were three layers of cloth covering the windows.

  Jason turned back to the young guard. “Now the two men who come with the Chairman, they the same ones each day?”

  The kid nodded.

  “They come up to the office with him?”

  “I don’t know,” he said fearfully. “I swear I’m not lying. I don’t go in with them. They’re part of the Chairman’s guards so I guess they come up here. I’m told the guards have their own room here in the building. Sort of on call for the Chairman, or Mr. Cordell.”

  Jason allowed a slight grin to escape. “You’re doing okay…so far.”

  “What are you gonna do? When everyone finds out you’re here, you’ll never get out. If you want to join up, or talk to the Chairman about a problem, there’s better ways of doing it than this.”