“No,” Meechum interjected. “You can’t, ma’am. The reason we were trying to find you is that…well, normally this would be classified…” She glanced at Ted and Kyla.
Emily caught on immediately. “Whatever you can say to me, you can say to them. We’re way past classified and top secret, you know?”
Kyla stepped forward and held up a finger. “Wait! Are you saying the president can tell us if there are aliens at Area 51 and all that? If so, I’d really like to know.”
He flashed her a look of disapproval, though he gave Emily a sideways glance. It was an excellent question.
Emily appeared torn, and he wondered if Kyla had hit upon a hot topic. She leaned closer to Kyla and waved him and Meechum closer. “I did hear about an above top-secret memo about aliens. Do you want to know what it said?”
He leaned in harder than the girls. “Hell yeah, I do.”
She smiled. “So do I!”
Ted rolled his eyes as Emily and the others laughed. “There’s no such things as aliens. Not as far as I know,” she amended. “Now, Lance Corporal Meechum, please tell us what you know.”
“Of course,” the Marine replied. “The reason I came looking for you is that you have the codes for the nuclear briefcase. If we can get you to the missile base in Minot, North Dakota, we can deprogram the entire defense system.”
Emily absently rubbed the waistline of her dress. “Why would we need to do that?” She paused for a second and lit up. “It’s so they can’t use it!”
“Right,” Meechum replied. “It might already be too late, but we think there’s still a chance they haven’t figured out what needs to be done. It isn’t something commonly known to government agencies. If they had traitors on the inside, it’s still unlikely they knew how to re-program the whole system.”
“Do you know how to do it?” Kyla asked the Marine.
“No. I was hoping she did.”
All eyes went to Emily, even his.
Folsom, CA
As much as Dwight wanted to get on his motorcycle and disappear in the farmlands of the Central Valley, he had no choice but to stick with Bernard and the larger group of motorcyclists. They went east for another hour, traveling through the empty city of Sacramento along the way. The crowded buildings tempted him to make a run for it there, but he admitted he was too scared to risk it. The men around him were willing to kill innocent people by shooting them and then dropping them off bridges. What would they do to him? A guy who shouldn’t even be there…
When they reached the next city, the bikers began to peel off in blocks of five or six. He stayed close to Bernard, mainly because he didn’t know anyone else. When he saw Bernard turn down a side street along with a small group of his own, Dwight followed. Eventually, they turned down another street lined with single-story storefronts. It reminded him of an old-school mall without a roof.
Bernard pointed to each man, and the bikers drove toward stores where he motioned to them. When he got to Dwight, he did a doubletake, then pulled next to him so they could both put their feet down. “You aren’t part of my team. Did you get lost again?”
Poppy squawked from the gutter of a nearby building.
Yeah, I’ll be careful, he thought.
“I’ve been lost this whole time, Bernie. Can I ride with you until we get where we’re going?”
Bernard smiled. “We’re there, friend. And sure, why not? It will help me meet my target that much quicker. Then we can go to the designated hotel and relax until the big show tomorrow.”
That sounded good to him. If he could get himself alone in a room, maybe he’d get the opportunity to flee he’d been waiting for. Surely, they couldn’t watch him every second of the day. The first thing he was going to do was find a—
“Right here!” Bernard gestured toward one of the shops. “This is your place.” It was a sporting goods store he’d never heard of. Since he didn’t have to move, he shut off his motor. Bernard sped down the street about fifty yards before he stopped, too.
The other men walked around, holding the flamethrower poles that had been secured to the backs of their bikes. He took his off and tried to mimic what the nearest man was doing. He seemed to turn a crank, push a button, then hold the metallic pole a bit like a gun.
Poppy cackled from above the sporting goods store.
“No, I won’t shoot my eye out. Where do you get such crazy ideas?” He spoke low, so none of the men would hear him. “I don’t know what we’re doing, but I’m getting out of this as soon as I can. Keep your eyes sharp. Help me, Poppy.”
Before she could answer, one of the men down the line seemed to explode with fire…
“Good night!” he spit out. The man’s hose had a jet of fuel shooting from the end, and it turned into a long stream of fire. The splashing flames went through the glass store front, as well as soak the wooden façade on the front.
The next black-clad man in line did the same thing. He aimed his flamethrower at a building, unleashed the spray of liquid by itself for a second, then it ignited and sent flames in an arc to the wooden structure.
“Oh, crap.” It was his turn. He had to keep up appearances, so he tried his best to mimic them. He squeezed a trigger, which unleashed the flow, then he searched for a trigger or button for the spark. It took him a few extra seconds, but he found the red button on the side of the handle. Once he pressed that, an intense heat hit his face.
He was suddenly holding a cone of flames shooting directly through the front doors of the store thirty feet away. The pressure was strong enough to send the fire well into the store. When he let off the throttle, the flamethrower kicked off, and he saw his handiwork: fire quickly spread in there.
Bernard also had his flamethrower operating. The whole group sprayed, then lit, then shut off, then moved to an adjacent store.
Dwight figured he had no choice. He sparked it up again and threw the flames all over the front of the store, then, like the others, he aimed for the neighboring buildings. He was out of juice less than a minute later; he was the last one to finish.
He slung the business end into the holster and was finally free to see the damage they’d done. The entire street reminded him of a valley, with walls of fire on the outsides, and him and the bikes on the pavement in the middle.
Poppy screamed at him from up above.
“No, I didn’t mean to burn your feathers. Come down from there!” In seconds, they’d laid waste to a quarter of a mile of storefront, and the fire would certainly spread to the untouched buildings close by, and probably the homes and businesses behind them.
Why are they doing this?
CHAPTER 15
In the air over Lake Huron
Ted eventually chose the P.180 Avanti as their ride. It was a distinctive twin-engine turboprop aircraft with large wings in the back and two small wings near the nose, making it look like it had whiskers. Other than the looks, he’d selected it for its ability to make the flight from Massachusetts to North Dakota in one hop. Some of the other planes were nicer and could go faster, but the Avanti also had the most fuel, so that won the day.
Once they took off, he’d gone directly north to avoid New York City and the chaos at Newark. He kept as low to the ground as possible on the way out, but once he was two states away, he figured he’d be outside the radar range of any airport in the New York area, so he leveled out at a more comfortable, and less dangerous, cruising altitude.
Emily sat in the co-pilot’s chair, though she wasn’t familiar with the cockpit. On the way up, he’d shown her what he knew, though he had only seen the avionics in the model one other time. They took turns working the controls to give her more experience; it paid to be prepared.
“You haven’t said much since I came back,” Emily said from behind her fashionable sunglasses. “Anything you want to talk about?”
At first, he was going to tell her she was way off the mark, but he begrudgingly admitted she was right, to a degree. Finding and saving Kyla was a
huge burden off his shoulders, but now he was directly responsible for her safety. To make it all worse, the pragmatic Marine told him he had to take her toward danger, not away.
“I like your beach bag. It looks like you’re on spring break.” The colorful bag sat behind her seat. She’d showed him it was where she kept her pistol.
“Ted?” she sassed, knowing that wasn’t what was bothering him.
He sighed, beaten. “Do you think I could convince Kyla to wear a parachute, so I could toss her out over Canada?” The direct route to North Dakota had them going over Canadian territory. If he threw her out, he’d get her away from the possible danger of going to the missile base, though traveling north of the border was no picnic, either. The intel he’d heard while on Air Force Two suggested most of Canada had been taken out.
“Hell no,” Emily said right away. “She’s definitely not going to back away from any fight. She didn’t flinch when she had to kill those traitors, Ted. I think she wants to impress you, and her Marine drill sergeant.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Meechum is one serious badass. Normally, I’d have some concerns about my daughter hanging out with a Marine, but in this case, I think it has done wonders for her. Boy, I tell you, my sister would have hated to see her carrying guns and…” A bubble of sadness welled up, knowing he’d never see Rebecca again. However, he fought it back down. “And carrying on like a Marine.”
Emily reached over and touched his arm.
“How do you always know?” he said, appreciating the human contact.
“A president just senses these things,” she said in a dead serious tone, before giggling. “You’re a tough guy on the outside, but I’ve been with you long enough, and through enough crappy situations, to know a little about what makes you tick.”
He straightened, not willing to dwell on his own weaknesses. “I think you and Kyla have been talking about me. It’s not fair, you know?”
She pulled back, still laughing a little. “I’m sure you think all we did was sit around saying how great you are.”
Ted turned on the charm, to be as funny as her. “Did you?”
They shared a moment, and he thought she was going to say yes to prove him right, but she flicked on the radio and set it to the 100.0 frequency for Southern One Hundred. “Speaking of talking, it seems S-O-H is back to playing music.”
The high-flying solar aircraft broadcasting music to America were sixty thousand feet above them. If he wanted to listen to music on the flight, they were the only station left on the air. However, it was owned by Jayden Phillips, the guy who said he was responsible for attacking America. Ted wondered if there were signals or hidden messages in the songs, akin to how allied forces sent information to French resistance fighters in World War II. At that moment, the station played a violent rap song. He couldn’t imagine what message could be hidden inside.
“I’d shoot down all those flying transmitters if it would shut off this music.”
“What about free speech and all that?” she replied with a laugh. “I’m supposed to protect it.”
He had some opinions on the subject, but a blip appeared on his central avionics screen. The TCAS, traffic collision avoidance system, showed another aircraft nearby. The reliable limit of detection was about thirty nautical miles.
“We have company,” he said, all trace of humor gone.
He watched intently as the unidentified craft hovered at the extreme edge of his system’s range, almost directly behind them. It went on for several minutes, and nothing changed, leading him to wonder if it was a malfunction.
“I’m going to change heading a little to see if he matches.” He conducted a gradual turn toward the north and watched as the other plane shadowed his maneuver. When he turned back to his original course, the other guy hung with him. “Uh oh. I think we have a problem.”
The P.180 Avanti was built for small, private companies, and tiny airlines away from major hubs. The dual-prop design was great for fuel savings versus a jet, but it sacrificed speed. If the craft behind him was with the enemy, they were almost certainly traveling by jet. The Avanti wouldn’t be able to outrun or outfly them. Even a marginally-trained pilot only needed to keep them in range, so other units could pursue.
He looked outside. They were almost at Michigan. Lake Michigan was spread on the horizon ahead. Not nearly close enough to North Dakota to give up.
“You know how I mentioned parachutes?” he said with worry steeped in his voice.
“Yeah,” she responded.
“If that’s what I think it is, we might all need them.”
She leaned toward him. “You know that’s impossible, right?”
The door to the outside would never open while they were in flight. There was no way to jump out, even if they had four parachutes ready to go. He nodded. “Just trying to keep morale above room temperature.”
The transponder signal on the screen still hadn’t moved.
“Well, before we frighten the first-class passengers, let’s wait a little while and see what this thing does. Maybe it will assume we’re a friendly and let us go.”
She took the controls and jinked a bit to the left. They watched as the other plane took a second to re-orient, then it moved to the spot directly behind them again.
“Or,” she began in a hushed voice, “maybe this thing knows exactly who we are, and where we’re going. It’s tagging along because there’s no need to grab us until we land at our destination.”
“How could anyone possibly know all that?”
Emily looked over her shoulder and whispered, “Are you positive that Van Nuys character didn’t know about what the Marines were doing on his ship?”
Ted trusted that Meechum was on his side, but he couldn’t vouch for anyone else back on the JFK.
“We’ll just have to wing it,” he snarked.
Highway in Illinois
The dog flew out of the cornstalks, which forced Tabby to brace her arm against the inevitable attack. She’d recently tangled with those lost dogs back in Chicago, so her reaction time was heightened. However, when the gray dog switched from attack mode to rain-of-kisses mode, she was completely shocked.
“Deogee?”
The excited pup looked up at her with anticipation and a lolling tongue, then it barked once as if she’d gotten the answer correct.
“It is you! Guys, look who found us!”
A black dog came out of the corn, panting hard as if it had been trying to keep up with its friend. Once it saw Deogee getting lovin’ from Tabby, its tail spun into high gear and she came up to get some attention, too.
Audrey and Peter crawled over and joined in the reunion, but as soon as Audrey put her hand on the big wolf, she recoiled. “She’s been burned.”
Tabby had been so wrapped up in the shock, she’d failed to notice patches of fur along one side had been burned down to the skin. It wasn’t totally debilitating, since the dog was playful and alert, but it couldn’t have been pleasant. She immediately wondered where she’d gotten the burns from. “Where’s Sister Rose?” she asked the dog, as if it would answer.
“And who’s your friend?” Peter asked, petting the black lab. He settled the pup long enough to get a look at the dog tag hanging below its neck. “This one’s named Biscuit.”
“Biscuit and Deogee,” Tabby declared. “How did you find us?” It was a small miracle to be sure, though she wondered if it was due to the fact there weren’t many people left in the area. If the dogs had somehow tracked her and the kids, it was probably because they were the only ones making tracks. She and the teens had come up the same highway earlier on their way to Chicago. The dogs were simply moving slower.
The joyful reunion was a small consolation prize for losing their car. She wondered if the dogs would have gone all the way to Lake Michigan before they realized she’d turned around and gone back toward home. Were they that smart? Could they be useful to them, since they were all on foot?
The three of them sp
ent the next half-hour clearing what they could from the broken car. The shotguns were scratched but otherwise undamaged. That was her main concern. If those plows came back, she wanted to be ready.
Eventually, a vehicle passed on the highway, heading toward St. Louis. It was an average-looking four-door car, a lot like the Subaru in the corn. A few minutes later, a big truck passed on the northbound lane, heading for Chicago.
“It looks like the route is now open again,” she said cautiously.
Audrey held Biscuit by the collar. “We should stay away from the interstate. Whoever those people are, they aren’t our friends.”
Tabby sighed, wondering if there was a right answer for what to do next. They could cut across country and probably find a car soon enough, but she had no map. If they left the interstate, she wasn’t sure how to get home.
“I want to get this trip over with,” she said. “The plows went north. We’re heading south. There are still lots of cars in the ditch alongside the highway. I’m sure we can find a working one and get the heck out of here. It doesn’t look like they’re driving special cars or anything, now that the road is open. We’ll blend in.”
Peter laughed. “You don’t think they’re going to check our IDs?”
She tried to think logically, for all their sakes. Hundreds of millions of her fellow Americans were dead and gone. Other than the convoy, she’d seen no living souls between the big cities. If these new people were taking over, they couldn’t be everywhere at the same time. They’d probably only be watching where the interstate met other highways, or over the Mississippi River.
“I vote we get a car and head for St. Louis. We’ll drive slowly, in case they have roadblocks or whatever. When we get to the river by the Arch, we’ll spy on the bridge to be sure there’s no one there, then we’ll cross. If we see anything along the way, we can pull over and hide, like we did here. All we have to do is stay vigilant.”
Audrey and Peter shared a look before the girl replied, “We trust you.”
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 55