Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “Why are we running?” she asked Meechum on the sly.

  Most of Carthager’s squad was with them. Eight or nine Marines appeared loaded to the gills on their way to their flight. She was proud to be a part of the team going to bring back her uncle, but it didn’t feel right. It seemed rushed.

  The rotors above the dull gray machine were already spinning, speaking to the efficiency of the Marines. Meechum ran close to her. “It’s like I said, we can’t trust anyone on the ship. We’re going to borrow the Seahawk, you know?”

  She fell a step behind the other woman, recalling something that had happened to her mom not long before the end. A man called on the phone saying he was with the cable company and wanted to talk about her bill. After some back and forth, the man explained that Mom’s checks over the last six months had all bounced, and she would need to send a new one, for the full amount, to a PO Box. She was prepared to write a check, but she’d mentioned it to Uncle Ted before she got it to the mailbox. He immediately saw it for the scam it was.

  Was she missing the obvious here on the ship?

  What if the Marines were the bad guys? They could whisk her away and then use her as a bargaining chip to get to Uncle Ted and the VP. She replayed her time with Meechum, trying to explain how she could have gone through New York City if she was the enemy. None of it added up…

  Still, Kyla was wary when they reached the helicopter. She almost skidded to a halt when a familiar man appeared in the cargo door. Captain Van Nuys waved pleasantly.

  “Oh, shit,” she said with surprise, though under her breath.

  “Good morning, Marines. I’m glad you could make it. We’re going ashore.” The captain waved to four men already strapped into the compartment. “I could use your help, but there’s only room for two. I’ll take you and you.” He pointed to Meechum and Kyla.

  Carthager got up to the edge. “Sir! Respectfully, I’m the commanding—”

  “Thank you, son. I know. That’s why I need you here watching over my boat.”

  Meechum shared a look with Carthager. Her squad leader offered an almost imperceptible nod before stepping back.

  The door gunner was a new addition since the day before. The man hugged a giant machine gun at the edge of the cargo bay, presenting a threatening image. Kyla considered turning around and running from the sudden change in plans, but there was nowhere to go. The captain could order her onto the helicopter, even if she didn’t want to go. Therefore, it seemed logical to play along.

  As she got inside, Van Nuys pointed to her rifle. “You won’t need that in here. I’ll take it for you. Keep it safe.” His lips formed a smile, but his eyes only conveyed a dead-serious order.

  She handed it over without complaint. She’d only had it for about ten minutes—another assist from Meechum. The captain could do whatever he wanted with his team, including making them surrender weapons. However, Kyla carefully observed how he didn’t take the rifle from Meechum.

  “You’ll get this back when we land,” he shouted above the growing rotor wash.

  She wondered if that would be true.

  Is everyone a bad guy in hiding?

  Long Island, NY

  Ted and Emily treaded water as the buzz of a propeller got closer. The thick tree line made it hard to see until it was almost directly overhead. For a few tense seconds, he expected bombs to fall through the trees, but when the Predator was in the clear, he caught sight of both Hellfire missiles still secure under the wings.

  “It’s going for the lighthouse,” Emily said, using her finger to indicate the route.

  A few seconds after she’d said it, the drone drifted into a turn toward the lighthouse to the east of them. It went right, over the trees and out of view.

  “Shit,” Ted breathed out, “maybe it was a programmed turn. This is the end of the land mass. Maybe that one is searching between here and New York City. The lighthouse would be a convenient waypoint for a turn.”

  They slogged to shore, staying under the trees. The black yacht looked expensive and out of place parked on the glassy surface of the inland pond.

  “I didn’t even need a bath,” Emily said with surprisingly good spirits. She’d managed to keep her head above water, sparing her hair. Ted knew from experience how women hated to get their hair wet for no reason.

  “Me either,” he agreed, remembering the nice hot shower from last night.

  As they walked up the bank, he was pleased he’d managed to keep his prized AR-15 dry. Emily didn’t have the same upper body strength, so hers got a little wet. She looked at him sheepishly.

  “It’ll dry out,” he said, sensing the question on her face.

  “Phew. I’d hate to ruin one of your babies.”

  He laughed as he walked into the woods, tugging at the sopping wet straps of his pack.

  “Are we still going? Aren’t you worried about that plane?” she asked in quick order.

  He shrugged. “It didn’t circle around up there, so it probably didn’t see us, or the boat. If they see it now, no one can possibly know where we’re headed. Not based on the radio broadcast.”

  “Unless someone knows where Kyla went on her field trip.” She tore off her long-sleeve shirt and tossed it on the edge of the boat to dry out. It left her wearing the black tank top, which was as casual as he’d ever seen her. She also pulled out a stretchy headband to keep the hair out of her eyes.

  Ted shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I barely remembered where it was. Our secret is safe. Let’s hit it.”

  They walked in the woods for fifteen minutes. They still had an hour to reach the lighthouse and look over where they’d be meeting. It couldn’t hurt to check it out, on the off chance it was being used for some unknown reason by the enemy. It seemed unlikely, but his military training wouldn’t allow him to take anything for granted. His “uncle card” also needed punching. If he failed to look out for Kyla before and during their secret meeting, he’d never live it down.

  Ted used his rifle butt to punch through a thick bundle of vines. “This is like being in the jungle.”

  She huffed while clearing some small branches with her arm. “I wouldn’t know. The closest I’ve been to the tropics is Florida.”

  “Well, that’s close. I spent some time there myself. The jungle is a lot like Florida, only hotter, wetter, and deadlier.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” she said sarcastically.

  He almost fell through some brush onto a two-lane blacktop road. Once he straightened up, he saw their destination. “We’re here.”

  The lighthouse didn’t seem as tall as he expected. It was made of brick, about fifty feet high, and all white except a thick line around its middle, which was painted maroon. The black walkway and windows sat at the top, though the light wasn’t switched on in daytime.

  “We’ve got about an hour to get in there and search for trouble.” There were a few cars in the parking lot, but they were most likely from before the attack. All the spots at the front were empty, suggesting no one was inside. If the assholes in charge had come, he expected they would park in the handicapped and first row spots.

  “I’ll follow you, Major,” Emily replied. “Don’t forget where we came from. If we need to escape, we’ve got to get back to the Happy Hooker.”

  He stopped. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the name…”

  It made her smile. “It means happy fisherman, not what you’re thinking.”

  Ted smiled with her. “Oh, no, I had no other ideas in my head.”

  The moment of mirth felt good, but with the sight of the lighthouse ahead, he was already plotting his course back to the boat. Kyla’s life could depend on his ability to get her there.

  Nothing was funny about the danger they might face…

  Amarillo, TX

  Brent had never spent such a sleepless night. Even during his missions in the rice fields of Vietnam he’d managed to catch a little shuteye. Now, with a new purpose in his life, he’d spent t
he night going over the prison’s defenses, planning for where attacks might come from and drawing up lists about where he needed to go the next day. In the light of a new morning, he yawned his jaw sore.

  He’d drawn up a duty roster and called everyone together to let them know how the day would go. After sharing it, he waited for the inevitable complaints from the ex-convicts. Surprisingly, none came. They all got in their vehicles and followed him out of the prison.

  They were exes because he’d preemptively commuted all their sentences. They were smalltime criminals, at best, so he was confident he could talk to a judge in the far future and make it legal. His immediate concern was that they continued to stick with him, and not run for the hills. After rescuing Trish, he thought they’d go their own way, but they didn’t. A little extra incentive couldn’t hurt.

  Trish rode with him. The other five men spread out in three different pickup trucks, giving his convoy a total of four vehicles. As they drove toward the city, she seemed anxious to not let the conversation lapse. After talking for several minutes about the incident in her trailer the day before, she looked ahead.

  “You know where you’re going?” she asked. The young woman now carried a shotgun and a regulation Glock 22, like the other men. She told him she wasn’t going to get caught flatfooted and unarmed ever again.

  “I always know where I’m going,” he bragged. “Thataway!” He pointed out the front window, making her laugh.

  He couldn’t spare anyone to stay back at the prison to guard it. If someone came to take it, one or two men wouldn’t matter. Brent needed those extra guns out on the road. He planned on taking a tour of Amarillo to see if any of the invaders from the radio broadcast were already there. If not, maybe they could set up some booby-traps, like his days overseas. Even if there were only seven of them, he wasn’t going to give up Amarillo without a fight.

  “Last night, you said we were starting a rebellion,” she stated. “Do you think we have a chance of defending this land with what few people we have?”

  They were inside the city limits of Amarillo, away from the corn fields and prairie around the prison complex. It gave him a new perspective on how empty the world had become. “Only a small percentage of colonists took arms against the British government. It doesn’t take much to win a war if one side wants it a lot more than the other. We learned that in Vietnam back in my day, and in Afghanistan more recently.”

  “Yeah, well, I—”

  Brent caught sight of motion out the front window. “There!” he interrupted. “A plane.”

  It was a big military transport. Essentially the same beast that carried him around while he did his time in the service fifty years ago. He’d recognize the configuration anywhere.

  “It’s coming down,” Trish added, seeing it herself.

  Brent waved for the other vehicles to follow, and he led them on a winding route eastward across the city. Most roads were wide and flat, leaving plenty of room for the abandoned cars to roll and stop, which kept the routes clear in the aftermath. He used that luck to get them close enough to the airport to see more planes landing. They parked out of sight and had to walk a short way along a tree-lined road before he found the perfect vantage point.

  Trish kept close to him. “Those aren’t our boys, are they?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He wished he’d gone to Walmart as he’d suggested the day before. He desperately needed a set of binoculars for reconnaissance. “That guy on the radio said they were taking over; I think we’re seeing the first wave.”

  “There has to be at least a thousand soldiers over there,” she whispered.

  “More than that,” he deadpanned. Even with his bad eyes, he observed lots of movement from groups of soldiers in dark uniforms. Each of those transports could carry about three hundred soldiers, and there had to be more than twenty planes on the ground with a few in the air. Assuming they were bringing men, rather than equipment, the number of invaders could be in the thousands. And they might have made multiple trips.

  “Are you positive they ain’t ours?” another man asked.

  If those were friendly forces, led by American service members, they’d have patrols roaming the city, helicopters on overwatch, and a protective cordon set up around the airfield itself. The force arriving as he watched showed absolutely no fear about being attacked from outside the airport. Why should they? Everyone in Amarillo was supposed to be dead, and they were the ones who caused it.

  “Boss, what do you want us to do?” one of the men called out from some trees a hundred feet down the roadway.

  Brent scanned the area, sure there had to be a way to fight back against them. Those four-engine jets weren’t cheap. Taking out even one might severely wreck their timetable. However, his decision didn’t come easy. He was about to get them into a war at much worse odds than those colonials ever faced. Whatever the number of colonists who went off to fight, it was more than seven people.

  On the flipside, those early Americans had nothing comparable to the weapons of modern day. As long as there were no fighter jets, one tank could wipe out that entire airfield without getting a scratch on it. Not that he knew where to get a tank.

  However, there were other ways to fight.

  “Retreat, for now. We’re going to come back with the right tools.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Montauk Lighthouse, NY

  Ted and Emily watched out the windows of the lighthouse visitor’s center at the base of the tall spire, but he kept looking over his shoulder due to the creepy vibe inside. The place was filled with the fallen clothing of twenty or thirty tourists who happened to be in there when America was attacked. It made him think back to a similar situation on day one: Andrews Air Force Base had been filled with the same bundles of clothing. He shuddered before looking out at the beach again.

  “You think she’ll bring a helicopter back for us? After getting dirty in the ocean water, it sure would be nice to get a shower on an aircraft carrier.” Emily stood at a nearby window, checking out a different stretch of beach. Because the lighthouse stood at the end of a peninsula, they had a great view of the shoreline in three directions.

  “Yeah, that’s my guess. If she’s coming, it will be the helo.” He patted his AR-15 out of habit.

  “Do you think she’ll show?” she asked.

  As Kyla’s uncle, and the brother responsible for promising her safety, he thought about whether it was right to bring Kyla to shore, even using code words. She was safe where she was, or at least safer than being on the mainland. However, he had to balance her safety with the need to get Emily in the opposite direction. If he got her to the aircraft carrier, it might free him up to concentrate on protecting his niece going forward. Assuming, of course, Emily didn’t tap him for a bigger job now that the nation was at war.

  While he’d been chewing on an answer, a small dot appeared on the horizon to the south. “I think I see something.” He stared, afraid to lose track of it. After half a minute, he was positive what it was. “It’s a transport helicopter, and it’s heading this way.”

  Emily spoke with grave seriousness. “So, do you think she’ll show?”

  He cracked up right away, letting out a deep gulp of tension he’d been saving. “Yeah, that’s probably her. However, I’m not sure I want it to be. The more I think about it, the more I believe it is dangerous to be around us. I should have had them send an empty helicopter to pick us up.” He cocked his head toward her and spoke with dry wit. “Why did you let me agree to this meeting, Madame President?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Stop second-guessing everything. Your instincts are good. Yeah, it’s risky for Kyla, but based on what I saw of her hanging onto that helicopter as it hauled ass out of New York, your niece can take care of herself.”

  He still could hardly believe that was his sister’s daughter. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It looks like the helo is going to touch down about a mile away on the beach.”

  Emily came to h
is window to get the most direct view. “Yep, they must be worried about an ambush, same as us. Still, it looks like we’ll be getting out of here pretty soon.”

  The dull gray helicopter hovered over a flat expanse of beach, and then descended into a swirling tornado of sand kicked up by the rotor wash. He observed figures climbing from the aircraft and then running into the woods at the edge of the beach. He counted at least six people, maybe up to ten. “Damn, it’s like they planned it that way. I couldn’t see the crew unload, so I don’t know how many we’re dealing with.”

  “What’s that?” she asked as she tapped his shoulder and pointed into the air.

  “Shit, a drone!” he snapped.

  There wasn’t anything he could do but watch out the window. The pilot of the helicopter never stopped spinning the blades, so he was quick to dust off as soon as his people were out. Ted assumed the pilot knew he’d been spotted when he banked hard to the right and flew a few yards above the water. The Predator drone veered off its predetermined course to pursue.

  “Go!” Ted shouted.

  The pilot went out to sea for a short time before he banked and headed for shore. As Ted watched the two aircraft close distance with each other, he lost sight of the helicopter behind some trees. The drone swooped in and descended below the tree line after it. For the next few seconds, he watched with the expectation there’d be an explosion.

  After half a minute of not seeing anything, he realized Emily’s hand was still on his shoulder. Her fingernails dug into his skin as they watched. However, he didn’t want to ask her to remove it; the human contact reassured him he wasn’t alone against the entire world.

  Eventually, she seemed to notice what she’d done. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know my own strength.” She slapped him on the shoulder, laughing gently.