“Dammit,” she exhaled. “Why did he leave his clothes?”
She hopped down, content there was no one there, but she froze in her borrowed sneakers as she made a connection.
Empty set of clothes?
What, exactly, had been going on back in that pavilion?
Where were the first responders? The rubber-neckers? The anyone?
She ran back to the car and got it going again. Tabby accelerated past the truck, giving the teens no chance to see inside.
“Well?” Donovan asked a short time later.
“Well, what?” she said as if distracted.
“Well, what did he say?”
She breathed in and out like she was running instead of driving. She’d been leaking mass quantities of adrenaline all day long, so she wasn’t sure how she had any left. However, the fear and anxiety were back like a bad rash.
Tabby itched it. “Nothing to worry about. I think the guy ran out of gas.”
She looked in the rearview mirror. “Audrey, honey, can you take me to your house? I’d like to, uh, get your medication.”
“That would be great, actually,” she replied. “I’d like to put on my real clothes. I look like a bum.”
“What town do you live in?”
Audrey replied, “Arnold.”
“Got it. We should be there, soon.” It was one of the larger towns south of St. Louis, Missouri, so she didn’t need a map to get there.
The next half-hour barely registered for Tabby. They passed more cars on and off the highway, but she didn’t get out to check them. It was easy to confirm from afar that nobody was inside any of them. She also tried the radio, but only did so for a brief time. None of the stations were there, save for one that was playing terrible rap songs. She left it on, hoping to hear some news, but she turned it way down.
At some point, Audrey sat up and tugged at Tabby’s hair from the back seat. “Your middle braid came undone. Can I fix it?”
She was glad to give at least one of the kids a distraction. “Sure. Thanks.”
By the time she pulled into Audrey’s driveway, Tabby’s heart pumped beyond its designed limit. She had to lean against the door as soon as she got out of the vehicle.
“You okay?” Peter said as he helped Audrey out of the car.
She put on a fake tour-guide smile. “Yes. I’m a little tired, and I could use some socks, but otherwise, I’m fine.”
“Weird that we never found the police, isn’t it? This evacuation must be huge.”
Tabby laughed politely. “We’ll get on the internet and check.” The phone in her pocket was waterlogged, so she hoped the girl had a connection inside.
Audrey strolled in the front door, with everyone trailing behind. “Mom’s car is here, so I know she’s inside with Sissy.”
“Make sure you get that medicine,” Tabby said to say something.
Audrey’s house was bigger than her parents’ but far from extravagant. Tabby walked through a modest-sized living room with two ill-matched sofas. A beautiful wall painting of a mountain scene had been centered behind them. A hallway went to bedrooms in one direction, and the kitchen in the other.
On a hunch, she went to the dining area.
“Oh, God,” she whimpered, despite her best effort to hold her nerves together.
A woman’s blouse hung on one of the wooden chairs near the table. Close by, a small highchair had been positioned to face the blouse. A baby’s onesie was down in the seat, as was a bib covered with spaghetti-os. The tray had a small dish with more of the child’s lunch.
“Mom? You here?” Audrey was back in the bedrooms. “I came to take my meds. Yes, I checked my numbers!”
Tabby held her ground as Audrey finished what she was doing.
The young girl walked back toward the front of the house. “Mom?”
“She’s in here,” Tabby said, voice cracking with emotion.
CHAPTER 26
Newport News, VA
Kyla’s powerful saw easily sliced into the rope. For a few seconds, the intense machine made it impossible to hear the gunfire of the battle raging up top. The instant she severed it, the high-tension rope shot away from the ship like a rubber band. She looked down to confirm it wasn’t anywhere close to the hull or the propeller blades below.
“One left,” she said to herself.
She lugged the saw along the railing, intending to cut the other mooring rope, but a “pling” sound on nearby metal made her crouch in reactive fear, then, after a few seconds of digesting what it was, she hit the deck for safety.
The gunshot had come from shore.
She turned off the saw, as if doing so would make her less of a target. The battle on the flight deck was at a crescendo, but she listened for those guns shooting at her. The ones coming from shore suddenly seemed the loudest.
She was in someone’s crosshairs.
“You can’t win, Kyla. Don’t even try. You’re young and stupid. Trust me.”
Ben wasn’t old, at least not by her estimation. The Greek man was probably in his late thirties or early forties. Hardly a sage in terms of life experience.
Kyla wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “If the ship makes it out to sea, we’ll at least take the war away from shore. People in the houses around here are going to get hurt by all these bullets flying wild.”
Ben winced with pain. “I wouldn’t worry about people in those houses. Do you know why?”
Kyla was flat on the deck, but at least she could talk. Basic geometry suggested the people on the pier couldn’t shoot at her as long as she remained out of their line of sight. “The bullets won’t travel that far?”
“No, that’s not it.”
She slid toward him. “Then what is it?” she hissed in frustration.
Ben pointed to the surrounding community. From their high vantage point on the back of the ship, they could see for miles up the dirty brown waterway. The James River Bridge was to the north, as were lots of shoreline homes. The busy town of Newport was partially visible beyond the shipyard.
“There’s no one out there. Everything you see right now. People are gone. America has been erased.”
“What are you talking about? The attack on the ship affected the upper decks, yes, but we survived. There will be others.”
He chuckled. “Not too many people living at the bottom of aircraft carriers, you know? Unless they were in lead-lined bunkers, they’re gone.”
“You are part of this?” Kyla said like it was the revelation of the ages. “You said your wife and kids are out there!”
“Meh. My kids are gone. She took them. A better deal came along, you know?”
Kyla was already down on the deck, so she knocked her forehead on the hard surface. She wanted her brain clear, so it could fully absorb the crazy bull Ben fed to her.
“Let me get this straight—” Kyla was cut off by movement nearby. While she’d been distracted, her fellow programmer had gotten off the floor and limped halfway to the edge of the railing.
“No, you can’t jump!" She struggled to sit up and then fumbled the pistol out of her belt.
Ben was already at the railing by the time she had it ready. Kyla really hoped there wasn’t a reload process, since she’d fired it once already. Her lack of gun knowledge was a big deficiency in war.
“Ha! You and that stupid gun. Still doing the work of the last Marines alive. It really is suicide, you know. We’re everywhere. We knew where to be to survive the attack. We’re ready to take what was yours. It’s all over for your way of life.”
The gun wavered in Kyla’s hands, like it kept getting heavier. She raised one leg ahead of her and put an elbow on her knee to steady the pistol.
“What are you talking about, Ben? You’re just a programmer, like me.”
The man threw his good leg over the railing to straddle it, though he cringed with pain once he was there. “I’m not like you. You’ll learn that soon enough. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to rejoin
my friends on shore.”
“Stop, or I’ll—” She hesitated, not knowing if she could make good on her promise. “I’ll shoot.”
Ben guffawed. He’d finally shed his cordial persona and now sneered at her like the devil had possessed him. “I know you too well. You won’t—”
She pulled the trigger, recoiling at the explosive blast by her face and the shock against the bones of her hand, but she’d had it balanced on her knee and pointed at the bad guy, so the bullet went to its target. The shot impacted in Ben’s shoulder and sent him tumbling over the side.
After holding her pose for a few extra seconds, she set the gun on deck and fell back onto her butt. Her hands shook from fright and stung a little from the concussion. There was no chance of her going over to the edge to check if he survived. It didn’t matter.
“I shot him…”
He was obviously a criminal who had been part of an unspeakable terrorist attack. It was okay to shoot those guys, she reasoned. But it was also Ben, the guy from the next cubicle. The guy always interested in her weekends.
“You had to do it, dudette,” she reassured herself.
Kyla slithered across the deck and made her way to the power saw. She still wasn’t sure shooting Ben was the right thing to do, but cutting the rope was a necessity, and she wasn’t going to let the captain down. The second she touched it, a man’s voice startled her from the doorway.
“Halt!”
Kyla was already dazed, but the rifle-toting Marine added more layers of confusion. Was she in trouble? Would she be shot for murder?
She put her hands up. “Don’t shoot! I work for Captain Van Nuys!”
The guy wasn’t from Carthager’s squad.
“Was that your weapon I heard?” he asked.
“Yes, it was,” she said dryly.
“Did you shoot the enemy?”
She thought about it. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
The guy emerged from the doorway. There was nothing remarkable about him. He wore the common Marine camouflage like all the others Kyla had seen today. Helmet. Ammo pouches. Heavy black boots.
“There are shooters down below!” Kyla cried out, suddenly remembering why she was on the ground.
As soon as she said the words, the Marine’s wary crouch-walk became a belly crawl.
A round ricocheted off the hull, very close to the door.
“Damn, lady, thanks for the heads up. I came down here to clear the way for an evac route if we need one. It’s hell up top.”
Kyla smiled, knowing she had a task to finish. “I’m here to get this ship free of the shore. I need to cut this line.” Since she was next to the rope, she reached out and patted it. “That will help, right?”
“Hell yeah, it will, but let me do it.” The man made like he was going to crawl over.
“No! Please. I’ve got this.” She didn’t wait for his approval. Kyla reached back, pulled the saw to her, then yanked on the cord to start it.
“I’ll cover you, miss,” the Marine shouted over the whining motor.
She didn’t get any higher than a low crouch. It was all the height she needed to lift the saw and put it on the vulnerable section of rope. The blade sunk into the material with satisfying speed, throwing fibers onto the gray deck around her.
“This is it!” she cried out.
The saw blade had only gone about halfway through when the taut line snapped. The captain already had the props spinning, so the ship tugged against the last link with shore. The severed rope shot off through the eyelet of the back railing like the first one had. This time, she didn’t trouble herself with where it fell in the water.
The boat jerked like it had been set free.
They finally moved forward.
Dulles International Airport, VA
Ted checked his watch as he sped along the Dulles tollway. He had to get to the airport before Air Force Two was supposed to come down. During his meeting with the VP and General Charleston, he’d told them the rendezvous would be at 4:30. He also said the same to Ramirez.
“Damn,” he said through gritted teeth. He realized it wasn’t Air Force Two coming for him. The old president was dead. Emily Williams was the new President of the US of A, so she was currently in Air Force One. He had to let her know.
He pushed the SUV to the breaking point. As a pilot, he was used to going fast, but never this close to the ground and in a truck with the aerodynamics of a shoebox.
His progress slowed as he got closer to the airport, due to an increasing number of stopped cars. The early rush to fly out must have been pretty bad for a Monday morning.
With time running out, he slowed down only enough to safely cross the median. There was less traffic on that side, plus he’d been through there earlier in the day. A clear path would take him all the way to his destination. If a convoy saw him, he wouldn’t be able to hide, but he gambled no convoys were out and about. If anything, they were already waiting inside the airport.
He passed the street to the rock quarry where he’d started, then he ran over a fence at the boundary of the airport. The crashed plane at the end of the runway still belched out black puffs of smoke, but it wasn’t as thick as it had been earlier.
As soon as he was on the tarmac, he mashed the gas pedal to the floor and kept it there.
His watch said four o’clock.
On reflection, he wondered if he should have done a better job playing stealth with the vice president. When he’d told her and the general he wanted them to pick him up at 4:30, he held his wrist under the conference table and adjusted his watch so it showed 4:00. Then, when the general wasn’t looking, he’d showed the time to Emily.
I want to be picked up at this time, not what I just said.
If there was a spy listening in, they would never know he’d requested the early pickup. Unless Ms. Williams betrayed herself, there was no way anyone could know he’d changed the time. However, someone on the radio out there knew about the 4:30 landing. That was why he left the lieutenant behind.
But on the drive over, he’d begun to think like the enemy. No self-respecting commander would have his troops show up within minutes of an attack. They’d be at the airport runway already, setting up, preparing angles, checking security. Listening for approaching aircraft. Ted had made a mistake; he should have made the fake pickup hours after he planned to be gone.
It was no longer about getting on the plane; it was about preventing it from landing.
“There you are!” he shouted to the wind as he drove the damaged truck down the main taxiway.
Air Force Two descended toward the same airstrip it had used before. If he’d thought about it, he would have changed that up too, but it was far too late.
He did some mental calculations as he compared his speed with that of the descending plane. His plan was to physically block the runway to get them to veer off, but it was going to be close, at best.
“Come on, come on!” The truck hit a limiter at 115 miles per hour. It would accelerate until it hit that number, then the engine would cut out. “Dammit!”
He fumbled his phone out of his pocket, hoping for a miracle that would put him in touch with Emily, but even with everything shaking around, he knew the network wasn’t operational.
“Dammit!” he repeated, tempted to throw his phone out the window.
Ahead and to his left, the jumbo jet came over the trees at the edge of the property. He reached the end of the taxiway for one airstrip but had to turn right to get onto the runway where the plane was about to land. The tires yelped as he took the turn at a speed well beyond the safety limits of the rubber tires.
“No!” he shouted, knowing no one would hear him. “Don’t land!”
The plane went over his head as he straightened out in the middle of the runway.
A small cylindrical object erupted from the woodlands on the left side of the strip, about from the same place where he and ER had run when they’d gotten dropped off earlier.
A ro
und section of the plane’s fuselage opened near the tail and a jet of bullets blew the missile out of the sky. The plane also became surrounded with foil chaff and flares, which were designed to confuse radar and infrared sensors.
Ted maintained his speed despite the danger, hopeful the landing software would detect his presence and force an abort code.
The plane’s four engines went to full thrust, though he realized it wasn’t him but the missile that got them to wave off.
“Yes! Go!”
A second missile came out of the woods, a short distance from the first. Then a third launched from the trees up ahead. In the space of two seconds, the anti-missile Gatling gun on the back of the plane took out the first, but it only damaged the second. That one sank into the side of the plane, disappearing from sight.
Then the world turned white.
Poor Sisters Convent, Oakville, MO
Sister Rose picked up the leash and gave Deogee an incriminating look.
“Please don’t run out like that again,” she thought.
Whether the dog knew what she’d done or not, she yanked on the leash to get her human to follow her away from the convent. Rose wished the dog wasn’t so unruly, and unpredictable, but she followed.
She had no idea where the dog could possibly take her. At first, she thought it was a ploy to get her to play, because she dragged Rose through the front yard toward the roadway, but then the wolf-dog pulled her along the sidewalk next to the road.
By then, she was committed.
“Please don’t eat me,” she thought, a second before laughing at her own paranoia. Here she was being led around by the only living creature left in the city, and her first thought was becoming its dinner. The gray wolf could have bitten her any number of times before.
The canine warily approached a set of sporty women’s clothing and Rose had a premonition what this was all about. She let go of the leash out of shock.
The lost dog trotted over to the woman’s clothing spread out on the concrete walkway, then laid down next to them. Her snout and front paw were on the woman’s bright yellow jogging shoes as if explaining her prior life. Deogee’s mournful whine was heartbreaking.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 20