“The beds! Quick, stack the beds,” Ben ordered. Using two empty beds, they managed to stand high enough to reach the metal barrier over the roof. It was like a series of shallow arches, each about ten feet wide, that were placed one next to the other for the entire length. For all he knew, they were hundreds or thousands of pounds in weight. Ben tried to push one up, but it didn't budge at all. He got up there to help, but the result was the same.
“I think they're bolted together above us,” Ben said with a hint of defeatism.
They came off the bed, and Ben took a seat as Liam came down and stood on the floor. “Polar Bear, huh? I don't suppose you can call them, can you?” He was clearly joking, though Liam probably could call his mom. She was so far away the best he could hope to do was tell her goodbye. Maybe now was the time for that...
“If you're a Polar Bear, that officially makes us enemies of the domestic sort, but I'm going to let you off on a technicality. Currently, I have no idea who is running the country. The Polar Bears seem to be the only people rallying citizens around that Constitution I mentioned.”
“They're not involved in this,” he told Ben.
I'm pretty sure.
“Someone just downed a military chopper and assassinated a good man. No matter who they are, they've got the drop on us. And now we're trapped with all these dead people.”
Ben stood up.
“OK. I don't know what's happening here. If you're part of some elaborate ruse to get us here, I promise I'll make you pay before I'm taken alive. You get me?”
Liam got it. No matter who came down the steps, he might get shot for simply being there.
This time, Victoria pulled him in close.
4
“Liam, I saw Hayes get off a helicopter far up the river. I don't know how, or even why, he'd be here in Cairo.”
Liam and Victoria split off from Ben and his partner and kept their voices low enough Jane couldn't hear.
“That tracking system is pretty impressive. It told me you were in Cairo. I would never have left Forest Park if I wasn't sure you were here.”
“And I would have never left, either, but we were attacked by NIS. They almost killed me and Hayes. They did kill some of the Polar Bears in Hans' house.”
“I know! I found them. And your shirt,” he said with a smile. “I knew you were there.”
“Hayes left a bomb,” Victoria said with a start, though it was clear Liam survived.
“I found it. Poof,” he made a gesture with his hand of an explosion. “I ran out the back door and hid behind a tree. The whole place went up. And...I lost your shirt.”
She hugged him, laughing softly.
“One of the dying patriots helped set it up. Hayes was sure he'd kill this Elsa chick. They have some kind of relationship.”
“You mean like they're in love?” he said with wonder.
“I don't know. I don't think so. She included an invitation to her wedding when she killed the men in Hans' living room. Like she knew he was coming, and that he would be the one to read it. He said she was trying to get even for killing Duchesne, who was her fiancé.”
Liam looked out over the beds. Ben and his partner had flipped beds on opposite sides of the room and faced the distant staircase. He didn't think it was likely an enemy agent would just walk down those steps like there was no threat down here. If these guys were Secret Service, he imagined they were pretty much the best of the best.
Debbie and the drones remained on the floor, bathed in the daylight coming in from the opening above the steps.
“Why do you think Hayes is here? Why didn't he come with us?”
Liam faced her, but he couldn't say what he truly thought.
Hayes lied about everything.
“I don't know. If he's here, maybe this Elsa person is here? Maybe he hoped to surprise her,” he offered.
Liam called out to Ben. “You said Elsa was wanted for genocide. What exactly did she do?”
Ben set his gun on the side of the bed, which was facing up at the ceiling. He ducked down a little so he could address Liam. “Elsa Cantwell was part of the overthrow of the democratically elected government we had before the last election. We didn't see it as it happened, but once the infection spread across the world...let's just say cybersecurity became a thing of the past. Government secrets were hacked and released in torrents. Old debts were settled. Talented freelancers engaged in brute force attacks with no worry of being caught. None of it mattered because the government itself was fading.”
“Except for you guys.” He thought it was obvious.
“Yes, we have some very talented freelancers, too. And they were more than anxious to hunker down in a government safe house in exchange for the use of their talents. I'd call it World War III, though most people never saw it. What you see out there now is World War IV—the sticks and stones edition.”
“But why go after Elsa now?”
Ben looked at him with sadness. “Do you know what it's like to be the only ones fighting for everyone else? The Marines. Army. Air Force. They're all focused on killing the zombies. We're a relatively small organization. We recently lost a President. Maybe two. Our street cred is mighty low.”
“So you wanted to prove to the world who was responsible for besting you?” he said, finally understanding their motive. It was exactly like his own. Track down those responsible for ending the world—and pin them to the wall in his tell-all history book.
“No. We're aren't vindictive. We need to find Elsa because she's used government hackers—for a long time—to write herself into many of the FEMA and Homeland Security org charts. Without the President, and an unknown number of people in the Presidential chain of command gone, we have no way of knowing who is actually in charge of this nation. The line of succession works wonderfully, except when all the members are missing. In fact, whole families are missing. Not just the person in line for the Presidency.”
“Whole families? Like, someone went out and killed the family members of anyone close to the Presidency? Would that include Senators and Representatives?”
“Possibly. The Speaker of the House is number two. The president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate can assume the presidency if the first two are dead. There are seventeen people who can assume the presidency, starting at the Vice President, and ending with the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
“Homeland Security,” Liam said with realization. “You said Elsa wrote herself into the org charts there. She wouldn't by chance be in charge of the whole shebang, would she?”
Ben studied him. “You catch on fast. Who did you say you were again?” He smiled, but it was guarded. “But she isn't the head of the organization, as far as we know. At this moment, in this boat, I really can't say.”
He laughed while he turned back toward the stairwell.
“My family was on a kill list, like you just mentioned. Everyone up and down my family tree was on that list.” He couldn't reveal it was Hayes that canceled the hit.
“Do you have any family members in government? Maybe a Secretary of Energy or Transportation perhaps? There are a lot of Secretaries in the line.”
“My Grandma was a member of the House of Representatives, from Colorado.”
“Rose Peters?”
The fact that he knew the name before he'd said it was greatly troubling.
5
The look on his face probably spoke for him.
“I have to know all the tier one officials. She happens to be very special, though. She disappeared a few months ago, at the height of that Snowball business. She was wanted for treason. Did you know that?”
He shook his head.
“It was all a sham, of course. We know that now. But back then, boy howdy, the FBI was on the hunt for her.”
They both looked to the front, where the drones began to hover once again.
“I guess they hacked our hack,” he said with a determined grin. “I've got to pay attention.” He turned back, using the
bed as concealment.
But not cover, as Dad would have pointed out. Bullets could come right through the bed sheets and flimsy mattress. The hold had a distinct deficiency of anything solid to hide behind.
The drones hovered for a few moments once they were fully operational, then went up through the gap in the roof above the stairs, like balloons escaping a party. When they cleared the area, only the beeping of the patients' electronic monitoring devices and the soft gurgle of the water flowing beneath them remained.
He was about to make a comment when another drone fell through the opening. A small drone he recognized right away as matching the style of the one he'd seen back in Forest Park. The one that talked to him in Grubmeyer's bathroom. He'd finally been caught, but he could hardly believe how much had to come together for her to find him a second time.
“Are we having fun down here?” The tinny voice was Elsa's.
“Hello Elsa,” Jane yelled.
The boxy little drone zeroed in on them and floated right between Ben's men to be near him and Victoria. Evidently, Jane wasn't of interest to the operator.
“Liam. I'm so glad we've run into each other again. I've finally got you where I can talk to you in peace.”
The distant echoes of gunfire called out that lie for him.
“Sorry for shooting your man, Ben,” said the drone as it turned toward the Secret Service leader. “But I can't chance anyone getting away. I've got some of the most dangerous people in America right there with you. Did you know?”
Ben looked at him, then at Victoria and Jane. He saw that the man was being tested.
“I know what it says on my computer, but I have reason to suspect my system's been hacked. These two kids don't look like they could rip open a teddy bear, much less threaten the U-S-of-A.”
“That's their secret. They look like a couple of clueless teenagers, even act like it most of the time. But put them in a corner and they fight like the freakish badger on his shirt. Watch out,” she said with a laugh. “We tracked Mr. Liam across several miles of hostile territory in downtown St. Louis. He evaded everything—and I mean everything—to get to his girly friend in the park.”
Victoria squeezed his hand.
“And the girl is just as bad. She escaped from several, uh, situations I've been monitoring from my mobile headquarters. Assisted by primo enemy numeral uno. A man I think you all know, and some of you love, Mr. Douglas Hayes.”
Some commotion rang through the speaker before she continued.
“I tracked you all coming down here. It was a nice effort for Douggie to try to get himself clear of you all, but I found him. I found all of you. The boy who weaseled himself into our little secret. The girl who can't keep herself from poking into places she doesn't belong. The brave Secret Service dopes who have been on a months-long wild goose chase. The renegade doctor and his wife, who just can't get it through their head that this is a killing operation, not a life saving one. Who else is down there?”
They all looked around.
“What about all these people in the beds?” Liam called out.
“Oh, they're part of another of our experiments. Did you know that the oldest people in our trials were able to channel zombies using their minds? Why do you think so many found their way to Cairo? I wish Jasper were here—I had him convinced it was mere chance that all of them came ambling down along the shores of the rivers. That it was bad luck.” Her laughter was not friendly.
“These zombies you see out there are from Chicago and Indianapolis, but I'll let you in on a little secret of mine because it excites me so much. The zombies from St. Louis are coming down the shore of the Mississippi, too. They're the ones this is all about. They have a very special skill. Did you know?”
While the discussion was ongoing, Ben had moved a lot closer to the front steps. Elsa either let him go or didn't know he'd gone. Whatever it was, she finally called him out.
“Don't bother, Ben. My drones are up top, safe from your hackers now at the bottom of the river. If anyone so much as sticks their head up top, my drone buddies will take it off. Oh yeah,” she started. Someone interrupted her on her end, and the line stopped broadcasting for a moment.
Finally, she returned. “Sorry about that. I'll let you keep guessing about the St. Louis zombies. Maybe you'll figure it out when we start loading them onto all the barges so helpfully gathered by the city of Cairo,” she laughed. “Meanwhile, I have good news to share. I have a surprise package about to head your way. You'll never guess what it is.”
He was pretty sure it wasn't anything he'd like.
“Have any of you heard of the Broken Angel delivery system?”
No one responded.
“Ben, I'm surprised. Oh, well. You see, when you get into the weeds of what the government really does, you find some pretty cool stuff. It turns out there are ICBM's sitting in North Dakota which have been stripped of their nukes. The eggheads thought it would be neat to slap on a conventional warhead, tighten up the guidance package, and roll it out as some kind of special delivery system when they wanted to decapitate a foreign government. Can you imagine?”
Liam looked at Ben, as the resident agent of the government. He merely shrugged.
“All that money! Pissed away on a weapon that could never get off the ground without alerting the world to a possible nuclear missile strike in progress. How do you reassure anyone you aren't launching a nuke? Only one thing could result.”
“Nu-cue-lar war,” he said with awe.
He'd finally found his use for the annoying word.
“That's right,” said the voice in the drone. “But now, with the whole world offline. Well, no one will care that a missile took off from ass-end-city N-D and was on a trajectory to armpit-lane I-L.”
“You're ICBM'ing us?” Ben shouted.
“That's right, suckers. If I don't use these weapons now, I may never get the chance again. This is the end of the world people. Everything left is single-use.”
The tinny speaker laughed.
“But before I get the satisfaction of watching your little boat sink with the world's biggest bullet, I'm coming aboard to collect something of mine. I'll be along in a jiff,” she added with good cheer. “I need the two kids—without guns—on the top deck in sixty seconds. No SS. No old timers. No one named Hayes. You all can stay down there. And Liam?”
“Uh huh.”
“Bring the unconscious girl.”
He turned to Victoria, sensing that they'd really, truly, for real, reached the end of their adventures.
“Well, partner...” he sighed.
She looked at him with watery eyes, but she didn't have the look of defeat. Far from it.
“Death by nuclear missile. I think we've graduated to the big leagues,” she said with a smile and a wink.
ICBM or not, the Secret Service guys had a look about them. He'd seen it before. Elsa had said it herself.
The honey badgers were up against the wall.
Chapter 22: Simple Solution
Liam and Victoria managed to get the groggy girl to the top deck. It felt good to be in the sunlight of the day but tilting his head upward only reminded him something was heading his way from above the sprinkle of clouds.
“You think a missile is already on its way?”
“I don't know. What do your books say about this?” Victoria laughed and then grunted as the girl's feet got caught on the top step.
“They all say we should be running...”
“But?”
“Well, you and I could jump in the water. Probably escape. But what about those people in the beds downstairs? They're going to die if this boat is destroyed.”
Before she could answer, a fifty-foot fast-moving orange racing boat ripped through the water as it approached from the north. When it neared the edge of the barge, the pilot decelerated and reversed the tuned engines expertly, so the long, thin wedge of a boat slid right up next to bulky freight-hauler. As it settled in the water, a lithe
blonde woman in a tight-fitting black outfit climbed from the open-topped driver's area near the back onto the deck of her boat and then hopped to the barge. A menacing-looking drone detached from a metal frame attached to the back of the boat. It floated up with two guns that hung out from its lower frame. Unlike the other drones, this had been painted dark gray and was marked as U.S. Air Force property.
“Greetings, sports fans,” the woman shouted as she approached. The gray drone was loud. The four large fan blades cut the air next to its master. The noise and wind it generated made it hard to hear. The other drones—the ones that had been down in the hold—also floated above them, but they were smaller and quieter than her new guard dog.
“Hello?” he replied.
She tapped something on her hip, and the monster drone backed off.
“Ah, better? We can at least talk for a few moments without that thing bothering us. My name is Elsa.”
“We know! You're nuking us. What could we possibly say to you?” Victoria yelled, ignoring the fact it had gotten quiet.
Liam used the time to look her over. Her outfit was similar to a wetsuit but seemed much more flexible. He was almost embarrassed at the level of detail it revealed of the woman's figure, but he saw it for what it was: protection against zombies. She wore gloves and simple boots. There was no skin showing below her head. The skin went up to her chin—
“Ah, young man. I see you're admiring my...assets, huh?” She smiled, but her tone made it sound like he was ogling her.
“It's a zombie-proof skin, isn't it?”
“Yes. DARPA has the coolest toys. Somehow, a senator on some appropriations committee got funding for this getup. He was convinced a zombie shit-storm was coming, and he wanted his very own suit of armor so he could survive it. I think he'd watched too many movies.”
She walked absently on the wide decking at the front of the barge, and Liam couldn't help but notice she was showing herself off as she moved about.
“He got them to make the damned things! Imagine my surprise when my team found them. It was part of a whole kit. Some zombie author made a list of what you'd need to survive, and Senator Doofy used that list to prepare, right down to a weird pickax he was going to carry. Naturally, I ensured I got one of the female versions so I wouldn't look like I had a diaper on under a man's version.”
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 171