“I did mine,” he replied. “I wanted to check if there were any defects in the mag. To my eye, it looked fine. I hope it was a one-time deal, but now you’ve got me rethinking which pistol I want to use, too.”
“Take whatever you need, including my personal one. You’re the front-line guy. I’m simply the backup.”
He laughed at her lack of politician’s ego. “You were the one who saved both of us back there. If you wouldn’t have fired, the man would have gotten his gun out faster, and it would have gone a whole lot different.” The realization made him feel even better about his choices.
Ted continued, settling more comfortably into his seat. “Looking ahead, we’re going to travel south some more. We’re so far east of NORAD, I don’t think they’d ever suspect where we’re going, even if they do tie those dead men to us. Once we get a few more miles behind us, we’ll head west again. Then we’ll be in a favorable position to sneak up on our target.”
The wind sheared against the right side of the truck, almost suggesting his target to the west was pushing back against his plans. Ted tried to ignore those thoughts, though he constantly returned to the reason he’d left Kyla behind. They were already hip-deep in killing and destruction, and they hadn’t even reached the enemy headquarters. When they got there and did what he intended to do, it was becoming clear their chances of escape were not going to be favorable.
Still, the only thing that mattered was fighting back, while there was still time.
Every nick into the skin of David’s invasion force took them one step closer to stopping him.
The Wrong Place
Deogee had spent a day and a night walking in the place with the strange light. After leaving the warehouse where she’d lost track of her new friend Tabby, she and Biscuit searched for their smells on the ground, but they weren’t there anymore. She didn’t understand how such a thing was possible, but it obviously was.
“Can we play with this fun thing?” Biscuit said, jutting her nose into a floating plastic bag. It was the same type of airy grocery holder often used by her friend Melissa, back before Melissa disappeared, leaving only her yellow sneakers.
The thought made her wonder if her new friends had disappeared in the same way. One second, they were there. The next, poof, gone. It wasn’t even the same as a game of hide-and-seek, because her human friends never reappeared.
She barked once. “Biscuit, tell me one more time if you can smell our friends.”
The black lab had her head completely inside the bag now. She whipped her head from side to side, trying to shake it off, but it was caught behind her ears. To Deogee, it seemed a simple problem to solve, but the other dog couldn’t see the big picture.
It took several more barks, and a quick pounce on top of Biscuit’s head, but the bag finally came loose. The other dog watched it blow away.
“Biscuit!” she barked.
“Yes?” her companion finally replied.
“Do you smell anything…familiar?”
The lab sampled the air. “Now that you mention it, nothing has smelled like home since we left our friends. None of the scents here are good. No trees. No grass. My pee doesn’t smell right, either.”
Even for a dog, it was too much information.
Deogee barked. “We have to go back to a familiar place. Maybe we’ll pick up their scent again.”
“Ooh! Where are we going?”
“Back to your home,” Deogee said grimly. “We’re both going back home.” She took off for the bridge, which was step one in retracing her path.
She’d left her friend Rose’s body back in those woods, then walked a long way and crossed a river before catching up to Tabby’s pack. It was a bit challenging to find the same path in return, since many of the black-wheeled little homes were overturned and flung off the roadways, and most of the buildings were damaged, like they’d been swatted repeatedly with a rolled-up newspaper.
The sun was well across the odd-colored sky by the time they found Rose’s big home. Her feet were sore from being on the hard ground the humans called roads, but as she trotted toward the bushes where she expected to find Melissa’s yellow shoes, she became agitated the instant she didn’t see them.
She whined.
“What did you find?” Biscuit said, fear in her voice.
Deogee ran over, sure it was the bush where they should be. “Melissa! Her skin coverings were here yesterday, but now they aren’t.” She idly thought it might be because of the odd color of the sky, and the lack of any familiar smells, but she wasn’t able to piece it all together.
However, as she hopped back and forth, desperate to catch sight of the shoes, she did finally catch the scent of a person she recognized. She froze in place, waiting to see if it came again.
“Would it be all right if I found another bag?” Biscuit asked, clearly not on the same page as her.
“No! Wait a second.” Deogee sniffed the air. “There!”
She broke into a run, but realized Biscuit wasn’t following. “Biscuit! Follow!” She barked twice.
When the lab chased her, muttering incoherently about too much running, she headed for the source of the scent. The wolf in her locked on and dialed in distance as the smell grew in strength. “We’re close,” she shouted.
“To what? A bag? I’d like a new bag!”
“It’s better than a bag,” she replied, sure the scent was getting stronger.
Minutes later, she turned onto a familiar little street. It wasn’t the same one where she’d met Biscuit, but it looked very much like it. To her, most of the human dwellings looked identical. The first one on the street had two of the humans’ cars in the back yard; one was flipped completely. However, she ignored the oddity. There was only one house that meant anything to her.
“It can’t be!”
Deogee barked over and over as she ran.
“This is the one!”
Biscuit followed but was a couple driveways behind her.
More barking.
The door of the target house opened. Her keen eyesight recognized the human face, the long, shaggy fur they kept only on their heads, and the yellow running shoes that tasted so good.
“Melissa!” she barked.
The woman didn’t leave her doorway. She waved her over. “Deogee? How did you get out? Come inside!”
“Melissa!” she repeated over and over. Though she knew nothing of God and miracles, the sense of overwhelming surprise and relief at seeing her lost friend would have made a believer out of her.
She ran up a few steps at the front porch and jumped toward Melissa with the vigor of a puppy.
“I’m home!”
Melissa wrapped her arms around her for a moment before speaking. “Who’s your friend following you? Where have you been? How did you get out?”
Not wanting to stop licking Melissa’s face, she did pause for a second, intending to introduce Biscuit to the pack leader. However, when she turned around to watch Biscuit arrive, she heard herself bark, but, oddly, her voice came from another part of the room.
“What the hell?” Melissa exclaimed, looking behind her. “There are two of you?”
A dog stood across the room who looked exactly as she did. Gray fur. Big wolf-like build. Same collar. It was the same canine she remembered when sitting next to her human’s mirror. It was another Deogee. It was exciting, and scary, and confusing. She and her twin barked hello at precisely the same time.
“It is me,” she thought.
Melissa grabbed her by the collar and pulled her inside.
“What about Biscuit?” she whined, not forgetting her traveling companion.
The other dog was coming off the street and onto the grass, trotting along without a care in the world. However, once she reached the door and saw there were two dogs named Deogee, one of which was being held by a strange human, she stopped to sniff things over.
Deogee expected her to make a comment about the unusual situation, but she remembered he
r pal lived only in the moment.
After a short pause, Biscuit barked several times. “You’re right. This is better than a bag. Now I have two friends to play with!”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
After a few moments of shock at meeting the president, Tabby became more practical. “Sir, why are you here at the bottom of this hole? Did they stick you down here to put you in prison?”
He dipped his head. “I’m afraid I am. Come inside and we can talk about it.”
She followed him away from the windows and toward a tunnel off the main loop. It emerged in a utilitarian living area, with several plastic chairs and one plastic table. Other small rooms connected to the first, including a bathroom and a bedroom. Tanager stood next to one of the chairs, gesturing for her to sit.
“Thanks,” she said, flattered to be shown some courtesy for a change.
He sat at the table across from her. “The attack took us all by surprise. I was in the White House with my chief of staff when I got word something was funky on the West Coast. I only had enough time to make it to the situation room before the wave of energy hit us. The last act of my security detail was to shove me in what I always called the ‘survival ball.’ It’s an indestructible safety device which gets dropped into a deep well under the White House, with me inside. It was designed to save a president if a nuclear bomb was about to fall on Washington D.C., and there was no time to escape.”
“Like a panic room.”
He chuckled. “The president doesn’t panic. That’s why I called it a survival ball.”
They both laughed a bit.
“Anyway, did you know people only survived if they were underground?”
She smiled. “I did know it, actually. Me and my friends were inside an old lead mine when the attack happened…” She paused, desperate not to get emotional thinking of all the people she’d lost, parents included. “When we came up for air, everyone was gone.”
“Bingo,” he replied. “The same thing happened to me. When I came up into the White House again, I was confused as hell because the building was intact, but all the people were gone. There were lots of clothes, of course, and I was sure it was a prank put on by the opposing party.”
“It wasn’t,” she interrupted, getting into his story.
“No, it wasn’t. I’d been up top for about ten minutes when David’s people showed up and said the whole nation was gone. They made me strip off all my clothes and leave them in the situation room. I have no idea to what end. They blindfolded me, put me on a plane, and I made my way across the country to this place. I’ve been told I’m at NORAD. Is it true?”
Tabby bobbled her head. “Oh yeah. This is their headquarters. They took over the old NORAD bunker. David told me why this pit was built, but I don’t remember all the details. I only know it’s their main weapon. The thing which erased all of your people, sir.”
“I figured as much. David has bragged about it many a time. So, tell me, young lady, why did you come down here by yourself? You wouldn’t by chance be leading an escape?”
CHAPTER 21
Lamar, CO
An hour after being shot at, Ted was over his misgivings about shooting first and asking questions never. Not only was firing at the seven men a necessity, it had kept them in the larger fight. Emily reminded him several times how they needed to get to David before he made good on his threat to hurt any nation who harbored American citizens. They were positive some staunch allies would refuse the order.
“England won’t kick us out,” he said with hope in his voice. “Will they?”
Emily was the politician. “It depends on what they and the rest of the world know about the origin of the attack. Does David have the ability to carry out his threat using his superweapon on them? Is there a way to defend against it? We already know Kyla survived at the bottom of the carrier. If they could get people into bunkers…”
“My ex-wife is in England, that’s why I asked.” He’d shared bits of his past with Emily, but he didn’t like talking about his past mistakes.
“How long were you two together?” Emily spoke as if talking about the color of the grass outside.
He exhaled for about a quarter of a mile before deciding to answer. “Me and Priscilla met during one of the European outbreaks about ten years ago. We were both flying supplies into and out of the Balkans. My plane crapped out and had to be left in Bucharest, and I hopped on the one she was flying. I got called into the cockpit when her co-pilot got sick. Had the fish, as I always joked about.”
Ted paused, knowing Emily wouldn’t understand.
“It’s from a movie. Anyway,” he went on, “one thing led to another and we got married. Made it about five years before our marriage ran out of runway. It crashed in the forest of long distance and secret affairs…”
Emily became very interested. “You?”
He chuckled. “No, cheating isn’t my style. It was fine, though. It gave us the necessary reason to end it. We haven’t so much as talked since the papers were signed. Not until I got a text from her the other day, worried I went down with Air Force Two.” He’d had plenty of opportunities to try texting her back, but he saw little reason to make it a priority.
“I hope she’s all right,” Emily said, settling back into her seat as if the excitement was over.
“Me too.” Despite all the time and distance, not to mention the betrayal, he didn’t wish her or anyone would be killed like the rest of America.
They drove in silence for another few minutes before a dark shadow overtook them on the highway.
“What the hell?”
The sun had been blotted out by a monster aircraft to his left. It wasn’t more than two-hundred feet above, but it appeared wildly out of proportion to the ground since it was so large.
“My God, what kind of a plane is that?”
“They’re called SACAs.” He’d seen them a few times while in the air. It was a Southern Solar S-1 Autonomous Communications Array. A solar-powered plane designed to fly at sixty-thousand feet, above all other air traffic, and remain in the air for months at a time. As such, the airframe was mostly a flat 300-foot wing, covered in solar panels, and with a minimal fuselage. Its six propeller-driven engines seemed too small for such a large plane, but it was made of light materials, and had almost no payload, so they could afford to be smaller.
“I mentioned one of these back in New York. We were talking about Southern Solar’s digital TV service. These big planes fly above cities and broadcast the signal. It’s much cheaper than owning a space-based satellite, and the picture is clearer, too.”
She leaned under the windshield to get a better look. “Is that why it has the big dish on the bottom?”
It reminded him a little of the Airborne Warning and Control System dish on an E-3 Sentry. While E-3 was a Boeing 767 with the dish on top, the S-1 kept the flat dish on the bottom. Its stubby landing pylons barely seemed tall enough to provide enough clearance for the dish.
Pylons?
“Its landing gear is down. This pig is going to land!” As a pilot, he found the situation exciting. Seeing a craft of such size touch down would be amazing, especially in high winds. Drawing a straight line to where it might land, he realized there was a town coming up. If the plane was landing there…
“Shit. We’ve got company.” He drove the truck over a highpoint in the grasslands, revealing a distant town. A roadblock had been set up about a mile ahead, likely in support of the town and whatever airstrip the descending aircraft was heading for. It only took a second for him to figure out there was no turning back or avoiding being seen.
Emily raised her mask again and rapidly gathered her hair with both hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked, squinting to get as much intel about the men ahead as possible.
“I’m putting my hair up. Maybe it will throw them off the scent.”
His face burned with the pressure. Whatever he did next would decide if they survived in the
fight for a little longer. Everything depended on whether these men were on the lookout for his truck. On the lookout for Emily.
“Take off the mask, Em. It was distinctive and set you apart in Fort Collins. Out here, we’re just two bored soldiers heading back to base. That’s our play. We can’t kill these guys. It’s too close to town, and they’re probably in contact with someone in there.”
When close to the roadblock, he counted five men on foot. Unknown number sitting in the three black Humvees bracketing the road. They carried rifles, Chinese models, if he remembered his weapons, and they were alert.
The plane flew ahead, descending toward a landing strip beyond the small high plains town.
He slowed the truck, rolled down his window, and prayed. Of all the encounters where they’d depended on tricking the enemy with their captured uniforms, he was the least certain about this one. Any army worth its salt would pass along information to all units how guys like him were sneaking in and causing havoc. Off the top of his head, he counted three separate times when he’d pushed his luck with the uniform trick. He wasn’t a gambler but even he understood there came a point when your luck ran out.
Please don’t let this be the time.
Wheatland, CO
Colonel Avery went silent. He studied Meechum with a hard glare before switching to Kyla. Rays of sunshine came in through the trees, catching the man’s blue eyes, so they sparkled with apparent wonder at what she’d said. “Is this true? It can’t be true, can it?”
She did her best to meet his gaze. “Colonel, we started out on the USS John F. Kennedy. If you check with them, I’m sure they’ll confirm who we are and most of where we’ve been. Though the captain was…one of them.”
Avery took a step back. “The captain of an aircraft carrier? Are you sure?” The once-confident officer seemed lost.
It was Meechum’s cue. “Sir, you’ve got to stop asking so many questions and take a little on trust. We’re dressed like them because it’s the only way to stay alive out here. If we’d been in sundresses and bonnets, we would have likely been shot on sight a dozen times by now.”
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 84