His mind was clear, but the newfound insight didn’t make him any smarter, or change his past. After his one tour overseas, he’d curled up into a ball as he’d done under the desk. For most of the previous ten years, he’d lived within a few city blocks of his cardboard spread back in San Francisco. It left him with little knowledge of the news at large or what was taking place in the world. It was as if he’d jumped into a time bubble and emerged a decade later with no additional wisdom. He could not dispute anything Jacob had said about the land he’d once fought to defend.
He tried to shift the conversation, as he often had to do for tourists when they wanted to engage with him, rather than simply give him his handout. “You really believe in your cause, don’t you? How’d you get started with David?”
Jacob was silent for a few moments. “Well…I met his people while working in a hotel in Thailand. They said they were looking for executives who could manage a lot of visitors. Inflow. Feeding. Uniforms. The whole lot. The only requirement was I had to attend David’s seminars. Back then, he went by the name Jayden Phillips. He sold all those self-help books, you know?”
“Sure,” Dwight lied.
“Anyway, I was going nowhere, and I didn’t have anything to lose, so I went. Needless to say, the seminar changed my life. I met others who thought like me. Others who believed the Earth needed to be fixed and it could be done by fixing ourselves in David’s perfect image. His methods seemed extreme, but, as you can see, it worked flawlessly, as he promised.”
Dwight leaned against the door to get a better look at Jacob. The guy still had faith in whatever he’d been brainwashed to think in those classes. If Poppy was there, she’d tell him he was dealing with a true believer. Someone who, even in the face of a painful death, thought his killers were acting correctly. Nothing Dwight could say would ever get him out of his mental prison.
He flexed his fingers. Instead of being stiff and painful after years of hard drinking and living six feet from his personal open-air latrine, his entire hand moved as designed. Without pain.
Still, being healed wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It came with the understanding of the trouble he was in. The punishment he was up against.
A guard came down the hall, looking right at him. “Breakfast is over. It’s time for your morning walk.” His laugh was menacing.
Dwight took a deep breath, desperate to not show how scared he’d become at being back in the real world.
CHAPTER 19
Eastern Colorado
Ted was a warfighter and knew it was a serious matter to take a man’s life. As he sat waiting for the enemy bikers to drive up to his truck and park, certain a fight was coming, he should have been reflecting on the violence he was about to inflict on them. However, his mind was bothered by an inane question.
Do I shoot through the door and break the glass, or shoot above the frame so I can roll my window up later?
Emily breathed fast, getting ready for the attack in her own way.
The lead biker parked about six feet from Ted’s spot. He took off his helmet, hopped off his ride, then came up next to his window.
The man waved. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Over or under?
He chose over. Ted raised his borrowed Beretta above the door’s frame, pointed it at the guy’s chest, then squeezed the trigger.
The man’s eyes grew to the size of baseballs.
Ted braced his wrist, but the boom never went off.
A split-second of problem solving revealed the pistol had failed to fire. He’d already primed the weapon, so it wasn’t a loading error. It must have been a dud cartridge.
The whole team of bad guys hadn’t grasped what was happening, since the first shot hadn’t alerted them. The man opened his mouth to yell as Ted reached for the slide to kick out the bad round and—
Emily’s rifle appeared in front of him, aimed at the man. The AR wasn’t shockingly loud, but it was two feet from his head, and he already had a headache from his fall in the kitchen. When it went off, he was the one who yelped in pain.
The man went down.
“Thanks,” he shouted, ignoring the power drill churning inside his skull, instead prepping his weapon while praying it worked.
Ted aimed at the nearest man. He was maybe ten feet away. The guy had been looking away from the truck, talking with his buddies, and wasn’t yet ducking like some of the others. His back presented a huge target.
He shot at the biker three times, hitting with each one.
“Four,” he said in an even tone, keeping track of his rounds fired. To Emily, he whispered, “Fire like hell. I’m getting out.”
“What?” she replied.
Despite the question, he trusted her absolutely to do as he asked. He kicked open the door, avoided stepping on the dead guy, aimed in the direction of the next target, and fired multiple times as he ran alongside the truck.
He counted another six rounds.
Emily banged out a steady flow of shots as he stayed low and hustled to the rear of the SUV. When he rounded the corner to get out of the men’s sight, he glanced back to see whether he’d hit anyone. Another guy flopped on the ground, out in the open, though he couldn’t say if it had been him or Emily who’d brought him down.
“At least three down,” he said, desperate to control his runaway heartrate and the pounding of blood through his eardrums.
The first return shot came in. Emily yelped as the sound of a metal plink tore into the truck somewhere up front.
He raised the liftgate. “You okay?” he asked her through the compartment.
She was low in the front seat. “I’m good. I’m getting out.”
He whispered, “Shoot from underneath.”
The next few seconds belonged to the bad guys. Both he and Emily were repositioning, giving the bikers a chance to get into the fight. He hated to do it, but he only had five shots left in his semi-automatic pistol and there was at least four men left to shoot. Those were terrible odds.
Emily had made a good decision abandoning the interior of the truck. Once the element of surprise was lost, she’d gotten out of there before everyone shot through the window.
Bullets hit the truck in several places. The men screamed orders to each other. All the while, he calmly reached in and pulled out a Benelli M4 shotgun from his stash of stolen firearms. Up until this moment, Ted hadn’t needed a close-combat gun, but he was glad he’d taken it. Thanks to Meechum, it was already loaded with five rounds of buckshot, with an extra already in the chamber.
He waited until he thought Emily was in position, which took three or four seconds. His heart was about to burst from his chest. The familiar sensation of tunnel vision crept up on him. It was deadly business he was about to do.
Ted leaned around the back of the truck.
One of the shooters already had him lined up from a kneeling position behind the frame of his motorbike. They fired at the same time.
The thump of the heavy combat shotgun kicked against his shoulder, and probably blew out his overtaxed eardrums, but the man took grape shot in the face and chest. His bike seat exploded, too, sending white stuffing into the air.
He lined up the next man, but he fell almost as he watched. Emily had taken her shot from under the truck. It caught the man in the knee, causing him to collapse onto the gravel. She dealt a few kills shots once his side was exposed.
There were two men left, both toward the back of the line of bikes.
Ted fired all five of his remaining cartridges, peppering them over and over with buckshot. His intention was to put the fear of god into them as he abandoned the shotgun and switched again to an AR.
Emily never let up on her rifle, either. He wished he could tell her to shoot and scoot, but there wasn’t time, plus if they didn’t know already, he didn’t want to give the bikers a clue as to where she was.
“I’m out!” she screamed.
He would have to teach her not to give such tactical details a
way, too.
Ted didn’t need much time. He pulled out the rifle, primed the first round, and aimed it at the men. At the same time, one of the guys had popped up.
“I surr—”
Ted shot him out of instinct, directly through his throat.
“Oh, shit,” he blurted.
The guy stood there for two seconds, then fell over backward.
There wasn’t a sound on the parking lot, save for the wind.
He retreated behind the truck, pulled out one of the extra ARs, and went over to Emily. She’d hunkered down behind the rear tire, which was smart. “Here. Cover me.”
“Where are you going?” she asked with surprise.
“I thought there were two left. I have to make sure they’re all dead.” He assumed he’d hit the second-to-last guy when he unleashed the volley of shotgun shells.
She nodded grimly. “Be careful.”
He kept his rifle trained on the chaotic pile of bodies and bikes, but he didn’t leave the safety of the corner of the truck. None of the men moved, suggesting they were all dead. It was a tribute to how close they’d all been in the battle. A hit at point-blank was a death sentence.
Ted was thinking how lucky they’d been until he noticed the nearest man, the guy who’d come up to the truck in the first place, looking at him with living eyes. He was unarmed and reached out with one hand, as if he was trying to talk.
“What?” Ted asked, still shielding himself with the truck’s back corner.
“Our map blew away in the wind. We only wanted to know how to get back to base from here. Why…”
The man expired mid-sentence.
Ted leaned against the truck, battle tension draining out.
The battle for Nowheresville, Colorado, was over.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
When the elevator opened, Tabby expected a fight. She was ready for it. Almost savored it. Anything to feel like she was in charge of her own fate, no matter how futile. However, she was instead met with absolute blackness.
“What the?”
A second later, ceiling lights flickered on, as if they were triggered by motion. It revealed a long, thin chamber made of bare metal paneling that wasn’t much wider than a one-car garage. It smelled like an oil-change business, as if lots of machinery was working in the background.
She slowly walked out, wary of an ambush.
The space was barely long enough to fit four elevators along the same wall. Those closest to her were labeled Transfer 1. The others were labeled Transfer 2. There was also a large diagram between the two sets, as well as computer equipment inset in the same wall.
“This keeps going down,” she said to herself, pointing to the map illustrating how the elevator system worked. There were four more landings between her and the bottom of the ten-mile pit David was so proud of showing off.
She briefly thought about staying on the platform where she was. There were no guards, of course, and it was off the beaten path if the motion-activated lights were any indication. But Tabby didn’t want to sit in a dark room with nothing else in it. Plus, there was nowhere to hide if an elevator car did show up.
She pushed the button next to Transfer 2 to go to the next station. The door opened, revealing a car identical to the last one. On the ride, she built up her righteous anger, again ready to fight anyone when the doors opened. However, the new transfer station was the same empty box as before.
“This is going to get old real quick…”
She’d entered a loop. Each time she got in the elevator, it took about ten minutes to reach the bottom of the segment. She exited, saw the same thing, and wondered if the sensation of motion was designed to throw her off. If the feeling persisted, she was going to drop crumbs on the floor, like the nursery rhyme.
“No, I’m moving,” she whispered, looking at the map on the wall of the new station. A little ‘You Are Here’ star showed her in the next lowest landing from the one she’d left. Eventually, after entering the car for Transfer 6, she knew the final stop was coming. When those doors opened, she was absolutely convinced the fight she’d been seeking was about to take place.
The elevator car rattled and came to a stop. After a pause, the doors slid open with a squeal. She was hit in the face with warm, humid air, which smelled a little like the woods after a rain. Compared to the sterile environment of the ride down, it seemed as if she’d gone back outside.
The lights were already on. A rounded rock-carved tunnel went left and right. Going right would take her by the second elevator, so she chose to go that way.
Tabby followed the curvature for a few yards before a long set of windows appeared on the left. No one was around, so she took a peek, interested at what could be inside a window ten miles underground.
“Ah ha,” she said, recognizing the deep circular pit containing the superweapon.
A voice caught her by surprise. “David, is that you?”
An older man came around the corner, eating from a soup can. When he saw her, he froze. “Who are you? No one is supposed to be down here.”
“David sent me,” she fibbed.
“Why?” he asked, eying her attire.
“Um, because I’m doing a safety inspection tour for him.” She winced at how lame it sounded, but she went with what she knew. Every so often, the city of Bonne Terre would send down an inspector to check out her parents’ mine. They claimed it was to check on safety issues and ensure the tourists weren’t exposed to dangerous materials, but Dad always claimed it was the city’s way of shaking them down for a few bucks.
“Why are you dressed like a homesteader?” The man was in his fifties or sixties, she guessed, though he had perfectly black hair in a professional cut. His face looked extremely familiar to her, though she couldn’t place him. He was tall and stood up straight, despite his age. While he’d been surprised, at first, he’d quickly recovered. He spooned out more of his canned food after asking his question.
“Inspecting is what I did before I joined David’s troupe.” She hesitated, not sure if troupe was insulting or not. She had to remember to be impressed by David and his outfit, not disgusted by it. “I worked for a small town in Missouri.”
“The Show-Me State, huh? Are you going to show me your credentials? I don’t see where you could put them in an outfit like yours.”
She blushed. The guy wasn’t creeping on her, but she would never get used to being dressed as she was.
He kept speaking. “I didn’t mean anything bad. I’ll show you around if you want. No ID required. It gets lonely down here. I’m President Kirby Tanager, by the way, though I’m certain you knew that.”
Tabby gulped, suddenly recognizing him from the news. Despite encountering him at the bottom of a ten-mile deep destructive weapon, she went into fangirl mode at meeting someone who was legit famous.
“Oh, sure. I knew it. I’m Tabitha Breeze. Pleased to meet you.”
CHAPTER 20
Eastern Colorado
Ted stood there in disbelief at what they’d done. Wind buffeted against his face and chest, but he barely noticed it. The choice to attack was the right one at the time, but something in the dying man’s plea about being lost hit him in the gut. Looking at them closer, they weren’t much older than kids.
Emily reloaded her rifle while standing at the open liftgate. “We should move them, don’t you think?”
He reoriented on her, glad to look away from the corpses. “Yeah, but let’s hurry. If they have tracking on their bikes, like Kyla suggested, it won’t be long before they figure out the group isn’t moving. They’ll likely send someone to check it out. When they find them…”
She caught on. “They’ll suspect it was the same famous couple from Fort Collins.”
He touched his nose. “You got it.”
It took them less than ten minutes to move the bodies and bikes behind the nearest house. It was ugly business, especially the bodies, though the blood-covered bikes weren’t any fun, either.
Once in the SUV and on the road, he looked back at the lonely town, drawing in a breath of the fresh, hay-scented air. “We got lucky back there. My gun jammed at the worst time.”
“Ain’t that always the case? It’s why Special Agent Melvin Jones, my instructor, always recommended I carry a revolver. Less chance for errors.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, well, your revolver is in the back, actually. I don’t carry it because it only has six rounds. The pistols we took from the gun collector hold fifteen. I wanted quantity, you know?”
She patted the same model pistol she kept holstered at her side. “I like the numbers, too, but after what I saw, I might trade this in for my old reliable.”
He looked ahead, out to the horizon. Once again, it was flat and devoid of all signs of humanity, save for the road. It gave him a chance to think back on the ambush. The feeling of having done wrong faded with each mile. He knew they were in enemy territory and it was either them or him. The smart play was killing them without a fancy declaration of war. Grim, brutal business.
While moving the dead, they’d talked about ditching the distinctive silver SUV. He’d already proven it was possible to ride the motorbikes into enemy-held strongholds, which might come in handy at NORAD, but they still had a long way to go. Riding bikes in the strong winds would be dangerous and keep them from going as fast as he could go in the truck. Finally, if they traded down to the cycles, they wouldn’t be able to carry all the food and firepower now bouncing around in the back. They’d already spent enough time in Nowheresville; he didn’t want to risk searching for other cars and trucks to steal.
Ted studied the rearview mirror for a moment. Wind whistled through the bullet hole in the long side window behind them. The bullet had been meant for his head…
He tried to refocus on what they needed to do. “You reloaded everything?”
“Shotgun, my AR-15, and yours. I didn’t get your pistol.”
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 83