Jonah kicked over a loose stump and sat down, staring after her as she meandered down the road.
He was actually mad at himself – he'd been stupid enough to let her drag him out into the middle of nowhere. He could be safe in his cabin right now – minus TV and Internet, he wouldn't be living demonstrably different than he had the last ten years.
And then to get THIS bullshit?
He was beginning to think he really didn't like Mrs. Naomi Kathryn Anderson-Walker all that damn much.
In fact, as he thought about it, his temper began to boil over.
Maybe it was just time to tell the queen about herself.
He found himself on his feet and moving after her.
The dumb bitch had wandered out of sight – which was stupid enough anyway – oh, but SHE could take care of herself.
Jonah followed the road around the first turn and saw her sitting down on a road-side log.
She had her dead phone out in her lap. Her head was in her hands and she was crying.
Jonah felt his temper fizzle.
A woman's tears, he thought – it was like a voodoo-hex.
And apparently because he really was just that stupid, he actually felt the momentary impulse to go and try and comfort her.
In other words, impose himself.
But he stopped, realizing that was clearly not what she wanted. So instead, he simply stood out of sight, watching the path until she was done.
Only then did he step loudly onto the road, calling over, “Hey! You got the firewood, yet?”
Naomi stood quickly, wiping her eyes. “Keep your shirt on,” she hollered back.
Jonah turned back, hearing her muttering under her breath – nothing complimentary.
Back at camp, Terry and Ariel had apparently already made-up – again, hooray for short-term memory – and they were digging a pit for the fire.
And even though he'd been stuck in the back of the van all day, Jonah crawled wearily back inside, like a tired badger into its hole.
With a deep sigh, he lay his head down on his pack.
Above him, the bird-cage dangled. Inside, Otto cackled down in Terry's voice.
“So, she's not yours? She's available?”
Jonah spared the little lizard a dire eye.
“I hate that little bastard,” he muttered.
Otto chittered.
Chapter 23
Lucas left his meeting with General Rhodes, ready for the fight.
He was a good soldier. He had his mission, and he knew as much as he needed, which was just enough to get it done.
Rudimentary communications had apparently been reestablished – with secrecy no longer a priority, basic contact was enough.
According to General Rhodes, some tower, somewhere, had kicked back on-line – perhaps through automation – and had reestablished contact with the EITS station, and with the back-up database in its computer system, the digital age had been reactivated – a half-life that had allowed direct communication with surviving overseas forces – holed up in bunkers in Europe, Russia, and China – and by extension, access to a world-wide nuclear arsenal that had never been released – because really, what use would it have been to nuke their own cities?
It was ironic – the cities failed, but the nuclear weapons designed to destroy them survived. The very last blurb of technology preserved, put back in human hands the power to make the destruction total.
Damn, he thought, that sounded like Doctor Holland.
Lucas had been quickly brought up to speed. They knew quite a bit more than when his plane had gone down just ten days before.
Most significantly, they knew about the Food of the Gods.
The EITS satellite had filled in a lot of the gaps – especially once Rhodes had provided his own clearance.
They knew about the 'blooms'.
The answer was going to be a tactical global nuclear assault.
It had to be burned away – otherwise the waves of destruction would keep on coming until there was nothing left.
Collateral damage was no longer a consideration.
Rhodes had also assured Lucas that would still be far from the end of it. Then there would be the guerrilla war waiting outside the cities.
The new Mother Nature taking over, as the song once said.
“We're making this up as we go,” Rhodes had told him. “It's not like we studied this shit at West Point.”
And once again, Lucas would be point man – the tip of the knife – the edge of the spear – death from above – that was HIS job. He was the one who could.
He had flown nuclear drills so many times before, he used to joke about just once he'd like to pull the trigger.
Funny how words come back to bite you.
Now he was going to get his chance – and at the end of his mission, an area approximately ten square miles would be utterly destroyed.
Doctor Holland – Rosa – had been right. He'd killed people. A lot of people. He knew it, for sure – he'd seen the buildings crumble.
When she had asked him about it, he had answered honestly enough – he was separate from it. It was a larger scale.
This time, however, there was one pesky little detail.
Rhodes had come to him personally and told him what his target would be.
The assault was to come from several venues. Wherever possible, remote silos would fire at long-range targets – they had even managed to access overseas facilities – they had accessed codes to European and even Russian nukes. Lucas was uncertain if these codes had been hacked, or simply turned over.
Then there would also be several squadrons carrying direct payloads – the remaining forces coordinated off of both coasts – the Pacific fleet would target sites within the continental United States, while the Atlantic faction covered Central America.
Lucas' own assigned target would be the infected region surrounding the demolished town of Eureka.
“Whatever hit that site,” Rhodes said, “it attracted a party. Because we've got a bloom growing there. A big one. The EITS confirmed it from satellite.”
Lucas had taken a look at the report himself. In point of fact, it was a bit different than the other blooms.
It was actually more of an exodus – the report detailed large numbers of big Carcharodonts and carnosaurs moving up from the southern California cities.
He recognized what it was. He had seen them.
It wasn't a 'bloom' so much as an incursion – because north was T. rex territory.
Based on what he saw now, Lucas had the feeling there was going to be a BIG fight to decide all that.
With ground-zero seeming to be right where he'd sent his wife.
And now he was supposed to drop a nuke on it.
Lucas pulled out his picture of Mrs. Naomi Walker.
Rosa had commented that he'd never called her by name – always 'my wife'.
Yeah, he'd responded. He liked saying that.
He knew she would have made her way to the base if she could.
Or she could have stayed in the mountains where it was safe.
She could have.
Never mind that he'd told her a hundred times where he would meet her. He'd move Heaven and Earth, he'd said.
That's assuming she'd survived at all.
“You're holding out hope for your lady, son,” Rhodes had said. “You can stop. There's dead silence in that whole region. Wherever those beasts go, nothing stays alive. If your wife survived, she's nowhere near there. If not...”
Rhodes had stopped, looking Lucas directly in the eye.
“There's a reason I gave you this mission,” he said. “I thought you might want a little payback.
“And,” he said, “because this is a fresh bloom. We need this done, and you're the best we've got.”
Then he had straightened his shoulders.
“But I'll reassign you, if you want. No shame.”
But Lucas was a good soldier. He had accepted his mission.
Not for payback, however.
If it was going to be done, he would not have it done by someone else.
And when the time came, maybe he'd just make up his own mind.
“We need you on this one, son,” Rhodes said, before he had choppered out.
“Yes sir,” Lucas replied, with a formal salute.
Now he stood on the edge of the carrier, looking back to shore.
He wondered about his little band of refugees. They would have been ferreted off to some barracks by now. He wondered what the conditions were like. He'd left without even asking.
And why should he? His responsibility was finished. He'd saved their lives. It wasn't like he was supposed to babysit them forever.
Lucas found himself wondering about Rosa – she'd despised him almost from the start – although, he had seemed to have won her over right there near the end – right before he'd left her behind as well.
He wondered what she'd say about his mission today. He actually wished he could ask her.
He was not, however, being given time.
His plane was being prepped at that very moment, its lethal cargo loaded.
Death from above.
Chapter 24
Sergeant Farrell drove Rosa to meet the others at the infirmary. She identified herself as a doctor to the on-staff medics – offering her services.
The head nurse, a young woman – younger than Jamie – had smiled indulgently.
“Let's just get you checked out first, ma'am.”
Beyond a few bruises and a little dehydration, most of the group checked out remarkably fine – a point of wonder the young nurse emphasized repeatedly – evidently, not quite able to believe it, especially after hearing their story.
“I'll want to meet this Lieutenant Walker,” the young nurse said.
Now Rosa and her fellow refugee/survivors found themselves sequestered in their own tent – likely a hastily re-purposed storage shelter with cots – in the rear with the gear, not a hundred yards from the back gate where they'd first come in.
“You got in just under the wire,” the nurse explained. “They're gearing up for a big operation.”
“There haven't been any other survivors?” Rosa asked.
The nurse shook her head slowly. “It's been bad, ma'am,” she said.
Behind her, the small group of them stared at each other with new awareness.
They were a lot closer to the last people on Earth than they had even thought.
“Where's Lieutenant Walker?” Jamie asked.
Rosa shrugged. “He's gone back to work,” she said.
“So,” Jeremy said, “what are we supposed to do?”
Rosa shook her head. “I don't think they've given that much thought yet. For the moment, I think they'd rather we just stay out of the way.”
“Well,” Daryl said, hovering at the back, “I'm fine with that.”
Bud was more interested in what 'operations' the military had planned.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
“Nothing except that they were going to 'start fighting back.'”
Rosa sighed.
“That,” she said, “and that the town where Lieutenant Walker was looking to find his wife apparently has been hit. Up in Eureka.”
As one, the group of them fell silent.
“Lieutenant Walker,” Julie said, “is he...? Is he alright?”
Rosa thought for a second how to answer truthfully.
“Lieutenant Walker,” she said, “is Lieutenant Walker.”
Somber eyes looked back at her, uncomforted.
Rosa was feeling rather uncomforted herself.
She turned, pushing back the flap of their tent to find two armed soldiers standing guard.
The first, a young man whose badge identified him as Private Jones, stepped to meet her.
“Sorry ma'am,” he said. “We've got operations going on. Civilians are going to have to lay low, for the time being.”
Rosa frowned. “Are we prisoners?”
Private Jones shook his head. “No, ma'am. It's for your safety.”
Julie pushed her way out of the tent beside her. “What's going on?”
The second guard – Private Barnes – stepped forward. “Please, ma'am. Just stay inside the tent.”
Rosa looked down at the guns, but remained where she was, exchanging direct eye-contact with both young soldiers before turning her attention out onto the docks. Their position, stashed unobtrusively at the back entrance of the compound, just where the land started to slope back up towards the highway, gave them a slightly elevated vantage – and she could definitely see activity – choppers were circling the carriers – and even from the distance, she could see the squadrons firing up.
Lucas was in one of them, she knew – and undoubtedly would be in the lead.
The last fight had nearly killed him. He had crashed and burned.
In point of fact, that was the one time Rosa had saved him.
She wondered what he had waiting for him out there now.
Beside her, Julie was watching the buzzing choppers – preparation for war.
All-out last-ditch war, Rosa realized.
Even after the last three weeks, that was still dawning on her.
Julie had started crying.
“He's out there, isn't he?”
Rosa looked at the young nurse, with very little to say in the way of comfort.
As a doctor, she realized she was sadly lacking in that regard. It wasn't what she did – she fixed people – and did so emotionlessly and mechanically. She had to. Just like Lucas said. It was the nature of the job. And you do choose the job.
She put her hand on Julie's shoulder – a young woman who had left her family behind to come to the University and learn her field – a corn-fed Kansas-girl, granted academic scholarship. She had left a high-school sweetheart – an on-again/off-again distance romance that was now off-again forever.
Lucas hadn't just been their rescuer – he'd played surrogate for all that.
Rosa was just beginning to realize the weight he had carried just getting them here.
“We're never going to see him again, are we?” Julie said.
Rosa shut her eyes, pushing the thought away – denying the possibility.
She'd learned that much from him at least.
“He looked out for all eight of us at once,” Rosa said. “Now all he's got to do is look after himself.”
She nodded, believing it.
“And now he's going to go fight. That's his job.”
Rosa turned and looked at Julie seriously – and it was as much for herself.
“Don't lose heart,” she said.
Over the dull roar of the surf, came the sound of jet-engines coming alive.
Whatever was happening, Rosa thought, was happening soon.
“Don't lose heart,” she whispered.
Chapter 25
The human race took its first counter-strike against the Apocalypse at 1800 hours, Pacific-time – two hours short of twenty days after the first bloom hit New York City.
Major Tom was the first to realize that it was not going to go as planned.
Tom was only just beginning to absorb certain realities he had known for weeks, but it had taken his first contact to make it real.
General Rhodes had offered the cold comfort of duty – he had put him right to work – locking in satellites – networking silos. Tom had found he could pick up on the accelerated energy signature of the infected giants, and thus track them – especially when they moved en-masse.
But in the nearly forty-eight hours since first regaining contact, a lot also got swept aside.
It turned out for example, that Rhodes had, in fact, been broadcasting all along – out to space and everywhere – and while Tom had been analyzing radio feeds from Kansas, he had somehow missed apparently twenty-four-hour-a-day efforts to specifically raise him.
It was as if the EITS had been frequency-blind
across the entire military band.
There was also no good explanation as for why communication had kicked in again now.
Notwithstanding those particularly nagging concerns, there was also one consideration he had actually been avoiding bringing up – primarily because he already knew the only possible answer.
And when Tom, in the midst of brisk exchange of orders and information, had finally asked about the possibility of getting him down out of orbit, Rhodes had given it to him right between the eyes.
“We're going to have to worry about that later,” the General said. “At the moment, we're damn lucky we got you there. Once we've saved the goddamned planet, we'll do whatever we can for you.”
Tom had wondered if Rhodes would leave it at that, and not say out-loud what they both already knew.
But General Nathan Rhodes was nothing if not a realist – and he made sure you were a realist too.
“Having said that, you realize that dying for your country is in the job description, right?”
“Yes sir,” Tom had replied.
“We're in this for the species, Major. I'm not going to lie to you. And I can't kick your ass from here. So instead, I'll simply ask. Are you ready to do your job? Whatever it takes?”
“Yes sir,” Tom said again.
He didn't say the next thing – that it was one thing to die, but it was another to be left up here alone, forever.
But the General was right. That was for later. For now, they had to save the world.
Still, there was one more thing.
The last signal from Kristi in Alaska had come in just that morning. Her first direct address to the camera in days.
She was running low on ammo and was debating whether she should just hole up, or try to make it cross-country while she still had bullets.
Tom had pinpointed where she lived. Now with contact – if there was anyone who was in the area...
“Sir?” he said, “I've been picking up distress signals from all over, sir. I've got people trapped. Is it possible we could get someone to them?”
There had been a long silence from Rhodes.
“You understand how thinly we're stretched, don't you, son?”
Tom shut his eyes, not looking at Kristi's blank screen.
“I understand, sir.”
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