He tried to blow it off again. “I’ll drink some coffee. There’s a whole store of the stuff.”
“Nope,” Emily replied. “Are you going to argue, or am I going to have to pull rank? I’m your commander-in-chief. I can order you to rest.” Before he could think up a response, she grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the soup-can mockup of the air base. Meechum and Kyla stifled laughter on his way out.
“Come on, tough guy,” she said quietly. “I found some throw pillows you can use for your head.”
In his mind, he fought the noble battle to list the reasons why he needed to stay awake, but he couldn’t come up with good ones. Flying the plane and riding in the world’s most uncomfortable car had taken their tolls on him. The stress of getting close, but not too close, to the runway had added to the physical toll. By the time she had him on the floor, pillows as promised, he was ready to listen to her.
“You know, you’re pretty handy to have around, and not just because you’re the President of the United States…” He hung it out there, implication thick on the air, but he didn’t follow it up with the words his heart truly wanted to say. He’d been with her almost every waking minute for the past three days and he’d come to depend on her, but he couldn’t come out and say anything more personal. Not in the middle of a military operation.
“Oh?” she said with exaggerated doubt. “I assume you mean because I can fly a plane and drive a boat, right, Major MacInnis?”
Her brown eyes shimmered in the harsh white light of the grocery store, and he was tired beyond belief, but he knew she was yanking his chain. Still, as much as he wanted to pull her down and kiss her, he closed his eyes.
“No, it’s because you can drive a train…”
Emily stood there for ten or fifteen seconds as if building to a reply, but he heard her shoes turn on the tiles and take a few steps away. “Good night, Ted. You’re pretty handy to have around, too.”
His last thought about Emily was more practical.
This really is a comfy pillow.
Folsom, CA
Dwight managed to stay upright on the bike as he followed Bernard to the supply truck. They took turns filling up their flamethrower tanks, then they drove a few more miles to a rocky field where a large troupe of other bikers had bedded down for the night. He pulled out a light sleeping bag that had been in one of his bike’s saddlebags.
Bernard took him to the far end of the field, so they were in an area with less people. Poppy laughed the whole way, asking Dwight over and over how anyone could sleep with two motorcycles breaking the silence. He, in turn, shushed her several times. It would cause too many questions if a talkative bird woke people up.
When he finally laid down on the hard ground, he fell right asleep. However, hours later, his slumber was interrupted when Poppy pecked at his exposed head. He retreated down into his bag but left a small opening so he could talk to her.
“No, you stupid cow, I’m not going to get it out now.” He didn’t want anyone to know he’d taken an extra bottle from the liquor store. It was only flask-size, but he’d snagged it when he followed Bernard out the door. Why Poppy wanted him to get it out was beyond him, though he really wanted to drink it.
The bird cawed loudly, and he craned his neck a bit outside the bag to see if anyone had heard her. Bernard was about ten feet away, behind his parked motorcycle, but he didn’t stir, even when Poppy flapped a few feet above his head.
“Why don’t I leave?” he asked, repeating her question. “Do you see all these men in black? They aren’t here for a Johnny Cash convention!” He clumsily pointed left and right, speaking as quietly as possible. “They’re here to destroy everything in the cities.”
She laughed at his hypocrisy.
“I don’t want to see the big surprise. Why would you say that? All I want right now is a warm blanket and something warmer in my stomach.” Suddenly, he realized he did want to bring out the flask, no matter who was close by.
Poppy wouldn’t let it go, and he wouldn’t agree she was right, so he got into a spiral of arguments with her. At first, it was about the surprise, but the back-and-forth started to include the hidden flask, his shaky hands, and it came back around to a heated argument about how many cats were sleeping in his bed at that moment back in San Francisco. From there, their chatter descended into one of his “crazy scenes.”
He knew it was happening while it took place, but he was powerless to stop it. The voice coming out of his mouth seemed detached. He had plenty of room to roll around in his sealed sleeping bag too, as if it helped him make his point. By the time Bernard stopped him from rolling and shook him like a madman, he sensed that he’d been shouting at Poppy at the top of his lungs.
Dwight sprang up like he’d awakened from a nightmare.
“Did anyone see us?” he asked Poppy in a lowered voice.
Despite it being the middle of the night, dozens of men sat up in their sleeping bags. He saw them in the starlight.
“Someone did,” Bernard answered dryly.
Amarillo, TX
Brent’s plan had to be simple, given the composition of his ad hoc fighting unit. The petty criminals weren’t good at strategic planning, but they did know how to drive trucks and tell time. After getting a few hours of sleep, he had everyone ferry the trucks from their suburban oasis to two locations closer to the airport. He chose to park his group of trucks along a four-lane road about two miles from the paved runway. A small rise in the grass fields between there and the airport terminal blocked direct line-of-sight to the destination; he’d scouted the location earlier in the evening.
A second group of three men prepped their trucks a mile away. He’d spread them out so they wouldn’t all be caught if the enemy finally scouted the area. He also figured it doubled his chances of hitting the long airport runway. However, those men had rejoined him so they could hear his pep talk.
“Gentlemen, and lady,” he said, looking at Trish, “I want to explain what we’re trying to accomplish, because once we do this, I think we’re going to be on their shit list. If anyone wants to back out, be my guest. I’ll give you a head start on your escape from them.” He chuckled, confident no one was going to abandon him. They’d all seen the attack firsthand and on the replay tapes back at the prison.
Brent’s team gathered in a half-circle around him as he stood on the sidestep of a brand-new tanker truck. “The bastards over there are so confident we’re dead, they aren’t even out here looking for us. We’ll only get one chance to do this right, so that’s why I’ve had you all bring as many trucks as you could get your hands on.”
They’d used the early evening hours to prepare the basics on each vehicle. That included attaching the five-gallon buckets of bolts and rebar, rigging up the copper wiring into the cabins, and preparing the heavy cinderblocks for each gas pedal. The last piece of the puzzle was in his hand.
“We’ve got to be careful with these babies, okay?” The orange road flare was about eight inches long and an inch wide, with a removable cap on one end. “Once we open the spigots, you can’t get sloppy with these.” He waved it in his hand, making sure everyone saw it.
“Does anyone have any questions?” He hadn’t yet given them the final plan, so he expected some confusion, given that it was three in the morning. His intention was to execute his plan at the time of day when the enemy was most tired, but his men were tired, too.
Trish raised her hand. “Are we going back to the same house where we parked the trucks earlier?”
At first, that was the plan, but over the last few hours, he’d begun to worry more and more about being discovered. If there were satellites watching from space, they might be curious about why all those trucks had parked there and then moved. If they went back, they might find themselves in more trouble. Instead, he’d come to a different conclusion.
“After the attack, I want you to drive that way.” He pointed west on the four-lane highway. It would go through the town of Amarillo
and from there, they would get closer to the prison. He didn’t want them going straight there, though, lest they bring the bad guys with them. “Not back to our home, but to the Cadillac Ranch.”
The ranch was a local tourist trap where someone had buried ten old Cadillacs in a field, face down, so their back halves stuck out of the soil. The graffiti-laced cars were right off the highway on the far side of the city. Once they linked back up, he would return to the prison using a longer route.
Silent nods all around.
“All right. Let’s do this. Check your watches. It’s now coming up on three-oh-five.” They used the new watches from Walmart to synchronize with the three men at the other job site, so they all launched the attack at the same time. “We start in ten minutes, at three-fifteen precisely.”
He watched and waited as the three men drove away, but ten minutes passed in what felt like seconds. “All right, open the valves and start your engines,” he said to Trish, Cliff, and Kevin. “It’s time to kick the tires and light the fires.”
He hopped into the cabin of the tanker truck and started her up. The lights had all been punched out with a hammer, so there was no chance of exposing them to the enemy. He drove it about twenty yards off the highway, facing the airport. It was easy to do since the grassy ground was almost perfectly flat. While the motor idled, he climbed down and opened several valves under the tanker, so fuel spilled into the soil. The two others did the same for their tractor-trailers. Kevin stayed in his cabin, since he drove a dump truck.
After completing their tasks, everyone returned to their cabs.
“This is it,” he said to himself, putting it in gear.
Cliff had his truck moving, as did Trish. Kevin was a bit slower getting his trash truck rolling, but soon the four of them slowly drove their big rigs toward the airport.
He picked up the flare, wondering if he was about to blow himself, and everyone else, to Kingdom Come.
If this is how it ends, I pray it goes fast.
Brent removed the cap, touched off the flare to start it, and tossed it onto the floorboard of the passenger seat. By the time it got to the airport, he expected the whole interior of the cab would be up in flames, spiking the chances it would touch off the rest of the tanker when the truck hit a plane or anything else at the target site.
He gave the rig more gas, working through the gears until he was in third and the truck was moving at about fifteen miles-per-hour. It took a bit of effort to move the cinderblock where he needed it, but once it was on the gas pedal, it wasn’t going anywhere. He patted the five-gallon bucket of buckshot seat-belted into the passenger seat. The last thing he did was link a carabiner onto the steering wheel. It was linked to the copper wire, which was bound to the far door. It would keep the truck pointed in the right direction.
“Give ‘em hell,” he said to the big rig.
Brent opened the door and easily jumped off, though his arthritic knees screamed at his insensitivity toward them. As he struggled to his feet, a driverless dump truck rolled by about ten yards to his left. A second tanker went by on his right, spilling fuel by the gallon since its spigot, like his truck’s, was wide open. He could barely see the orange glow of the flare in the other cabin.
“Don’t stop now!” he yelled to his friends as loud as he dared. He’d planned it so each person would launch four trucks. He figured they could do one per minute, easily, but more than that would increase their risk of getting caught or having something go wrong. He liked to have a wide margin of safety for his people.
Three minutes later, sixteen giant trucks lumbered across the pre-dawn expanse of Amarillo soil toward bright “hit me!” lights on the horizon. As they stood there watching the shapes move away, he likened them to deadly torpedoes dropped in the water, heading for the enemy aircraft carrier.
“Let’s hope the others got their trucks launched,” Trish remarked.
“I didn’t hear a premature explosion, so I guess Carter didn’t screw it up,” Cliff laughed.
“Yeah, maybe he didn’t burn down his dad’s place, after all,” Kevin agreed.
“You were all innocent, the way I heard it,” Trish joked, coming out of her shell a little.
“We’re all guilty tonight,” Brent cautioned. “Let’s get the hell out of here, guys. Cliff, you take Kevin with you. I’ll drive with Trish.” He wanted to watch the explosion to see if they’d succeeded, but the fire would soon follow the spilled fuel back across the field. It would effectively create an arrow pointing to where the attack had come from. “Move out!”
Once he and Trish were on the road, he looked in his rearview mirror almost constantly for the next five minutes. If the trucks kept pace and stayed on course, they should have crossed the two miles in less than ten minutes. As they sped into the empty city, he began to wonder if all the torpedoes had missed.
Trish watched her side mirror constantly. “Will we even see it?” she wondered aloud.
“I would think—”
The horizon behind them glowed for an instant, like a single burst of lightning had struck. A few seconds later, when it didn’t show up again, he was convinced the attack had fizzled. Maybe the flares didn’t touch off the big tanks of gasoline, or the buckets of shrapnel didn’t fly through the air and blow apart neighboring planes, or the trucks blew up before they reached the target…
Before he could voice his misgivings, a second light made a more substantial impression in his mirror. A plume of fire rose up like a miniature nuclear bomb had gone off. It kept growing bigger in his mirror, causing him to wonder if they were in any danger. Despite the threat of being chased, or getting hit with flying debris from miles away, he had to stop the car.
“What are you doing?” Trish asked with surprise.
“We just hit them back. I’m going to take a minute to enjoy it.” He kept the car running but opened his door and stepped outside.
Secondary explosions ripped through the airport, each sending up new plumes of fire that joined the big one towering above the others. The shockwave of each new blast pushed against his face, and he heard and felt the rumble of the deadly explosions. An experience he found strangely comforting.
He gave the airport the finger. “That’s what you get when you mess with Texas.”
CHAPTER 22
Minot, ND
Ted woke up to the sound of motorcycles on the road outside. Emily was asleep next to him on one of the throw pillows and she stirred at his movement.
“Someone’s here!” he whispered.
The roar of the bikes went on for almost a minute. He ran to the front window of the store, rifle in hand, and found Meechum and Kyla already looking outside. He had to shield his eyes from the sunshine, rising low in the southeast. The last few bikes went by on the rural, two-lane road. The flat terrain let him see there were at least a hundred bikers riding on heavily-modified machines. They carried a strange tank behind the driver’s seats. They looked a little like giant vacuum cleaners.
He tapped Meechum on the shoulder. “Were these the first ones to go out?”
“Yes,” she replied. “There hasn’t been a single vehicle all night.”
He looked to the left, toward the air base, and noticed a smaller group of riders approaching. They slowed as they got close, giving him pause. “These guys are stopping.”
Emily had come up behind him. “What’s happening?”
There were seven guys in two rows behind the leader. They were dressed in black uniforms, though he saw no flags or other designation as to what nation they worked for. The leader waved to his followers, and Ted was sure they were coming into the food store parking lot.
“No,” he whispered, clutching the rifle.
As they reached the turnoff to the store, the leader gave his bike a little gas and turned into a lot across the street. A fast-food burger joint sat diagonally to the food store on the other side of the two-lane roadway.
“Phew,” Kyla exhaled.
“We have to
assume they’ll come in here. We’ve got to hide,” he insisted.
“We can fight,” Kyla said with determination in her voice.
It warmed his heart to hear her say it, but the time wasn’t right. If they killed someone so close to the base, it wouldn’t be hard to find who did it. Plus, there were at least a hundred motorcyclists available to hunt them down. The smart play was to hide.
Ted tried to be diplomatic. “And we will, Kyla, but right now, we have to lay low. Our mission is to get into the air base, not protect some little mom and pop shop.”
Meechum looked outside while hiding behind a shelf full of two-liter Mountain Dew bottles. She tapped on one to get his attention. “They’re off their bikes. What are they doing with that equipment?”
The men had parked their bikes in a semi-circle around the burger shack, leaving about fifty feet between the bikes and the structure—enough room they’d have to shout if they wanted to talk to someone inside. For a few seconds, Ted thought they were the police and had come to collect a criminal, but then one of the men used his vacuum cleaner hose to spray a clear liquid on the colorful red siding. The others kicked on their sprays an instant later, and then the streams all erupted in flames, which followed the spray until it engulfed the building.
“Oh, hell no!” Emily growled. “We’re not going out like that.”
Ted couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. He could almost feel the heat of those weapons from across the street. Fear reached up from the tiled floor and paralyzed him for a short time. Dying by fire was practically the worst fate he could imagine.
The president touched his arm, which pulled him immediately out of his paralysis. “Ted, what do you want to do?”
He gave her a curt thank-you nod. “We stay here, for now, but I don’t think we can afford to let those guys get close. Those flamethrowers have insane range. We’d be on fire before we knew they were here.” He had a sudden nightmare about other bikers parked behind the country store. Even at that moment, they could be dialing up their hardware to splash liquid fire through the back door.
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 60