He glanced over to her but seemed more interested in looking up and down the hallway. She expected him to reply…
“Sir?”
A moment later, she figured out he’d been badly beaten. His face was bruised and bloody; one of his eyes was swollen shut. A dried river of blood coated one side of his neck. Yet, the man wasn’t tending to his wounds. He was looking for someone.
“Who’d you lose? Maybe I can help you find him.”
“Well, duh!” the man snapped back. “You couldn’t help me find him. My bird is a her, you stupid normal. Not that you would know the difference if you saw her. No one ever sees her.”
“Oh,” she deadpanned. You’re a nut, she didn’t add, though she wanted to.
He looked at her again, then shook the bars of his cage door. “Poppy! I need you to come back! Get me out of here! Don’t let this bitchy woman hurt you.”
“Hey,” she cried out, not willing to take abuse from some idiot who didn’t know a thing about her. “Watch what you say to me. My name isn’t bitchy woman. It’s Tabitha.”
The man harrumphed. “I’m Dwight. If you’re the one who hurt Poppy, I’m coming through both these cell doors and I’m going to burn you where you stand. I did it to Bernard and the other Bernards. I can do it to you, too.”
Without another word, she took the tray off the shelf and went back to her cot. She could still hear Dwight calling for his avian friend, but he no longer seemed interested in her. It was a minor thing, but she chalked it up to being the first victory of the day.
An hour later, she looked up and saw David and his gleaming golden jumpsuit at the cage door.
Time to escape.
CHAPTER 2
Westby, MT
While Uncle Ted sat at the kitchen table and chatted with Emily and Meechum, Kyla excused herself under the pretense of gathering her few belongings for the ride south. Since it was going to take all day to get to Colorado, and they’d be in the truck the whole time, she figured it was the last chance she’d have to be alone.
She closed and locked the door to the bedroom where she’d spent the night. The things she owned amounted to one pistol, which she kept stuffed in her waistband, the stolen uniform, and one computer tablet. She pulled the tablet from where she’d stashed it under the bed.
If any of the others found it, she’d be raked over the coals for sure, since her uncle had instructed her to destroy it back at the swamp. However, she knew how close she’d been to accessing the entire defense mainframe with the valuable piece of tech, so instead of tossing it in the water, she yanked out the little battery, rendering it useless.
Kyla wasn’t a fool. It was a dangerous tool to be used only by a trained professional. But she was also more than aware they were in the middle of a world war. There were no professionals. Only her.
“I’ll just pop on and call for help.” Uncle Ted had gone on and on about how NORAD was the target of their day—it contained the leader of the enemy forces and controlled the nuclear arsenal of the regular United States military. He’d also talked a lot about how difficult it had been to find a way to communicate with US forces overseas. They were the only ones with the power to swoop in and take care of business.
She slid in the thin battery pack and the tablet showed a boot screen. The colorful logo displayed the Southern Cross emblem, which was a globe tilted toward the continent of Australia and a fancy X in the water to the west of it. Finally, it brought her to a screen showing the hacked admin level login. Once inside, she started a command prompt, which let her interface with the code directly. It was how she’d fool the enemy about her identity.
“Excellent. Here we go.” She checked the door out of habit, though it was closed. She couldn’t get caught at that second, or she might not have time to complete the shadow executable to scrub her location. It made her type fast and with reassurance she was doing the right thing. Only when the command prompt showed her success did she relax a bit. Anyone looking would see her node as being on the mainframe network, not outside it. It was how she could have worked from home while she did her programming for the Navy, though she never dared do anything so dangerous back in those days. If caught, it would have been instant termination, and possibly legal trouble. Today, the stakes were a lot higher.
Kyla intertwined all her fingers, cracking the knuckles of both hands, before typing some more. At first, she only wanted to explore the network traffic within the NORAD system, but it surprised her to learn someone on their end had a link with what was left of the civilian internet.
“You didn’t…” It seemed incredible someone would leave a major hole in their security, but then again no one in North Dakota seemed overly concerned with security. The base had been wide open until they’d arrived, and the server room wasn’t even guarded. If someone on their side wanted to check an auction on Ebay while they took over the world, who was she to point out their error?
Ten minutes later, she found what she was looking for. It was—
“Kyla, we’re leaving in five. You okay in there? You weren’t lying about your wound, were you?”
“Yeah, Unk, I’m fine,” she replied in a hurry. “Just doing, uh, girl stuff.” She cringed, hating to have to use such a lame excuse, but it would serve its purpose. Mom had used similar outs a lot of times over the years to get guys off her back, though for reasons she never really thought about until that moment.
“Sounds good,” he said, clearly flustered. “We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
“Thanks!” she replied, getting right back to the computer operation in front of her. She soon found her way to the homepage for Rammstein Air Base in Germany. If there was time to poke around, she might have tried to track down someone on their end who was online and talk back and forth. There wasn’t time, however. Uncle Ted might further question her about what was taking so long. If she tried to use the girl-stuff excuse again, she was positive he’d enlist Meechum or Emily to come in and confirm. The shortcut was in front of her…
She clicked the ‘Contact Us’ tab and followed it to a form to fill out. When prompted, she selected the option to send a note to the public affairs group, assuming more than one person would check their email, thus increasing her chances of finding someone who would help her.
My name is Kyla Justice. My uncle is Major Ted MacInnis, USAF. I am on mainland USA, currently on the run from enemy forces. I cannot say where, as they could track me down using said information. I have learned the enemy headquarters is in NORAD mountain.
Something about that wasn’t right. Kyla couldn’t remember the exact place where the headquarters was located, and she couldn’t go ask her uncle or the others. Uncle Ted had said the name last night, but it wasn’t on the tip of her mind. NORAD was definitely at a mountain, though.
If you get this message, send a satellite over it or whatever you need to do. I was already able to take the nuclear briefcase offline, to protect this country, but they still have control over the arsenal from NORAD. You MUST destroy their headquarters as soon as possible. If you don’t, I’ll have to go there and do it myself.
Kyla remembered about OPSEC, operational security, as her uncle once taught her. In situations like this, where everything was on the line, she had to reveal places and names to establish she wasn’t some crackpot from crack town, but she didn’t want to give away her exact location, any routes they planned to take, the alive-or-dead status of her uncle or Ms. Williams, and so forth.
After a simple closing, Cordially, Kyla Justice, she hit send.
She ripped out the battery a second later, content there was no way anyone could have tracked her intrusion. Kyla packed both components into her ill-fitting black jumpsuit, patted her pistol to be certain it was with her, then unlocked the door.
All she had to do now was be patient. With a little luck, the US Air Force would get the message and blow NORAD sky high before they ever got close to danger.
Westby, MT
Ted wasn’t g
oing to wait around for Kyla. He’d learned the hard way over the years you couldn’t flush out a woman from behind a closed door. Since they weren’t in an urgent rush, he gave her the space she needed to prep for the day. However, he went out into the front yard, craning his neck to see both ends of the short street of the tiny town.
Emily had followed him. “What are you looking for? Can I help?”
“Don’t hate me, but I’m going to stereotype residents of this town. If I find the right vehicle, I think maybe I’ll also find some more firepower.” He looked over his shoulder back toward the house. “Don’t let Kyla hear me say this, but I miss my rifles. They were built exactly the way I wanted them. Now some jerk from the other side is going to find them back at that grocery store.”
“You need a moment? I think there’s some tissues inside.” Her eyes sparkled with the mirth in her voice. She was right of course. It wasn’t worth worrying about personal items. He’d lost his Jeep, too, and he didn’t complain about it. They could always find new ones.
The best he could do was flash her a bah-humbug wave.
“So what are you looking for, exactly?” she continued, more seriously.
“We’re in Montana. Your parents live here.” He didn’t say lived, though that was more accurate. “Do they own rifles or some sort of guns?”
“My dad had a collection. I can’t tell you what they were, or what they were used for, but he was proud of it. He kept a big safe full of them.”
It warmed his heart to hear such good news. People in the state would have given David and his band of merry assholes a helluva fight if it had been a fair war. Still, the people were gone, but not the guns. “It’s not necessary to know all that. What matters is I bet every other house on this street has guns inside. We only have to find the one with the most.” He stressed the word most.
“Which one will have the most?” She scanned the street, though he hadn’t told her how to identify a potential target.
Several houses had pickups and four-wheel-drive SUVs parked in front, but he looked for a certain one. A few houses down, across the street, a bright red Ford pickup called out to him. It was lifted, with tires bigger than the ones he had on his Jeep Wrangler. The back window was littered with American flag stickers, an Iraqi campaign service ribbon, and an oversized Gadsden flag with its angry don’t-tread-on-me snake. The truck was parked on the man’s lawn, he was sure it was a guy, and not on his driveway.
“That’s the one.” He glanced over to her, held out his hand, then asked, “You want to go for a walk?”
She held out her hand in return. “Lovely morning for it.”
As soon as they touched the pavement and were out of earshot from the house, Emily casually switched gears in the substance of their conversation. “So, you haven’t said much since last night.”
“What do you mean? I’ve talked you all to death.” It was true. He tried to include the three women in as many decisions as he could. They were all able-bodied ladies, with good heads on their shoulders. He’d wanted their input on almost all the critical choices he’d made during the escape from Minot.
“I think you know what I mean.” She squeezed his hand, confirming what she meant had nothing to do with the others. Emily went on before he needed to answer. “You clammed up after Kyla caught us kissing like a couple of seventh graders. Are you embarrassed by me?” She chuckled in her typical way, but he interpreted the subtext as her being a little hurt.
“You may have just said the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say. What man would be embarrassed to have the eye of the first female president of the US of freaking A?”
“Then what’s the deal? I know you feel the same way I do. I could tell by the way you kissed me.” She leaned against his arm and bumped his hip. It was charming coming from an attractive woman like her, but it also cut to the bone of what had him bothered. He could have pushed on and pretended like it was no big deal, but he also wanted to work through it.
“Step into my office,” he said quietly as they strode by the big red truck and to the side entrance of the prospective house. The door was unlocked, so he went inside, Emily trailing. “Honey, I’m home!”
No one answered.
He went into the living room and had a good look at the bedrooms and kitchen from where he was, but he stopped and faced Emily as she joined him. “I’m having a hard time processing you being my boss—the boss of the whole nation. I wouldn’t date a female superior in the Air Force for the same reason it feels wrong to show feelings toward you.”
She stepped closer. “You’re saying it’s you, not me.”
He was taken aback. “Yeah, I guess.”
“But if you were interested in me, would you let me step closer, like this?” She closed the distance to within inches and looked into his eyes. She was a bit shorter, so she had to look up.
“Yeah, this is fine.”
“And if you were interested in me, despite being your boss, would you want me to do something like this?” She leaned in to kiss him, and he willingly went to meet her, but before their lips touched, Emily halted.
“You were right! Look at that!” She pointed into an adjacent room.
He was disappointed to miss the kiss, but she’d found the jackpot. A black gun safe hung wide open. The large number of rifles inside seemed to beckon him like a cornucopia of goodies at Thanksgiving. The owner of the giant truck had proved him right.
“Thank you, Montana,” he said dryly. Ted moved to go look at the treasure, but Emily caught his arm.
“This is to be continued. I’m going to seriously think about firing you from the Air Force to get you out of my chain of command, you hear me? Anything to get you to stop thinking this is weird between us.”
In the moment, that sparkle in her eyes was meant for him alone. It was infectious and irresistible. Despite his misgivings, he knew the weirdness was already melting away. It was always nice to be wanted.
At the same time, they had work to do.
“To be continued,” he agreed.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
Dwight had spent a considerable portion of his later years with bruises and cuts all over his body. Life on the streets was brutal and a relentless struggle. Other homeless folk pushed and shoved when the demons in their head told them to. Drug addicts would come down an alley kicking and screaming looking for their next score. Police would sweep through every so often, oddly enough also kicking and screaming. All of them eventually inflicted some degree of pain.
However, nothing compared to the beating he vaguely remembered getting the night before. He did recall the fire; it had been branded into his eyes. Bernard had gone up in flames, along with the rest of his fire team in the city of Folsom. His memory got fuzzy after that…
There was the escape.
A liquor store.
Lots of drinking.
A bunch of Bernards appeared and beat him until both his feet were in the grave. They could have put the rest of him in the ditch, but he blacked out. It was caused by all the pain, but he’d also put away something close to his bodyweight in alcohol.
When he woke up, he was in an office prison. The door to the outside was lined with bars. A pretty young girl stood across the hall, wearing a blue costume of some sort. It was hard to see since one of his eyes was swollen shut.
“Poppy? Where did we end up?”
The bird was silent.
He tried to scoot off the cot, but the droopy thing wrapped around him like a taco shell. Or, more likely, he simply lacked the strength to free himself.
“Poppy, I need help,” he slurred.
Perhaps minutes or an hour later, he woke up on the gray industrial carpeting of the floor. From there, it was a lot easier to get to his feet, though he used the metal bars to steady himself as he searched for his friend.
“Poppy, where did they take you? Come back! I’m sorry!” Whenever she disappeared, it was usually because he’d done wrong.
The pretty girl was back at her door. “Excuse me, mister, are you all right?”
His green-and-red bird wasn’t on her shoulder, which was a good sign. If Poppy had abandoned him for some stranger, he was going to be boiling mad. Yet, his bird friend wasn’t up or down the hallway either.
“Sir?” the girl pressed. “Who did you lose? Maybe I can help you find him.”
“Well, duh!” he barked, pissed she would imply he’d lost anyone but also wrecked to learn she didn’t even know the sex of his bird. “You couldn’t help me find him. My bird is a her, you stupid normal. Not that you would know the difference if you saw her. No one ever sees her.” He remembered that much. Anyone he asked about seeing his bird always gave him the same look. Often, they ran the other way.
“Oh,” the girl replied unhappily.
He dared not let go of the bars or he’d fall to the ground. For the first time, he noticed the ugly white-and-orange outfit he wore. He held on even tighter. “Poppy! I need you to come back! Get me out of here! Don’t let this bitchy woman hurt you.”
“Hey, watch what you say to me. My name isn’t bitchy woman. It’s Tabitha.”
Tabitha? What kind of name is that, he wondered. If he found Poppy, he intended to ask her if it was even a legit name. “I’m Dwight. If you’re the one who hurt Poppy, I’m coming through both these cell doors and I’m going to burn you where you stand. I did it to Bernard and the other Bernards. I can do it to you, too.”
The girl scoffed at him, then pulled a food tray into her room, out of his sight. Her disappearance suited him fine, as it gave him time to study every possible hiding spot where Poppy might have gone. He yelled for her. He paced, hoping she would appear. He closed his eyes, wishing her to reveal herself.
Eventually, he opened his eyes and saw the girl in blue, along with a golden man with white hair. They stood in the hallway, outside his door. “You two! Have you seen Poppy?”
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 69