by E S Richards
“Where’s the other guy?” The man with the shotgun growled once more, prodding the butt of the gun harder against Len’s chest. “Where’s your friend?”
“He left.” Len’s reply was matter-of-fact. He looked the aggressor straight in the eyes and said what they had planned for him to do. Harrison was well out of sight and prepared for all eventualities, but Len had to make this part believable first.
“You’re lying!” The man shouted in his face, drawing the attention of another from deeper in the shop. The second man didn’t carry a weapon of any kind, but from his towering height of what looked to be almost seven foot and the look on his face, Len could see he could do enough damage without one. He bit his lip slightly and continued to look straight ahead, refusing to let fear take control of his psyche.
“I’m not,” Len replied clearly, forcing a note of remorse into his tone of voice. “He wanted to refuel the truck and drive away, but he couldn’t do it without my help. I wouldn’t let him and so he took his bag and he left. He left us.”
The man with the shotgun turned to face the one who’d joined him by the door and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?” Len heard the man murmur, clearly deferring to the taller man for an order on what to do.
Len remained stationary and hoped that Aubrey was all right inside the shop. He hated having to send her back inside with those men but the three of them had agreed it was the right thing to do. After Aubrey had warmed to the two men, Len had found her to be a very intelligent little girl and incredibly determined to get out of her situation.
“Take me to the truck.” The taller man spoke loudly as he took a step out of the small shop, squinting slightly in the sunlight after being inside for so long. “Karl, take a look around the back for the other one. He might still be lurking nearby.”
Len watched as the man with the shotgun nodded to the tall man and started moving around the side of the building, his shotgun held firmly in his hands. Len fought the urge to smile slightly, their plan working out perfectly as the first man disappeared from view. Now focusing his attention on the giant in front of him, Len knew one wrong move could end very badly for him. He backed away from the man slightly, leading him in the direction of the pickup until the two of them stood behind the old vehicle.
“Very nice,” the giant mumbled under his breath as he surveyed the vehicle, including the bags of supplies in the back. “Got yourselves quite kitted out, haven’t you?”
Len remained quiet, uncertain of what to say in response to the man and unwilling to irritate him any more than he clearly already was. He forced himself not to look back over his shoulder to where he knew Harrison would be hiding and hoped the prepper would be able to find his mark.
“So no fuel?” The giant spoke up again after completing a lap around the truck. “That’s not what we want. Do you know how to fill her up again?”
Len nodded, biting his lip to stop him from saying anything he shouldn’t. The sight of the man in front of him angered him more than he thought it would. He’d been ready to march into the shop and kill them all himself after the story Aubrey had told them. It was only Harrison’s calm demeanor and necessary planning that had stopped him. He couldn’t let that all be a waste now.
“Not until you let one of the children go.”
Len spoke firmly, using the only bargaining chip he carried and hoping desperately it was the right time. The giant stared at him silently for a moment, sucking on his thin lips as he glared at Len. A month ago, Len wouldn’t have even considered standing up to a man like this. He towered over him and far surpassed him in the realm of muscle, even after the weight Len had lost since the EMP. But now there were two children’s lives in the balance, plus his own and his friends’ too. The cowardice Len had once carried so close to his heart was fading fast. Like many other things it had been lost to the world of power.
“Aubrey!”
Eventually the giant shouted, summoning the little girl back out of the still-open door of the shop. Len turned back to look at her as she approached, the determined and confident look still on her face. Despite her age, Len trusted her and fought the urge to let a smile creep onto his lips.
“Get in the truck.”
Aubrey obliged, following the giant’s orders and climbing up into the driver’s seat of the pickup.
“There. A child is safe.” The giant folded his arms in front of his chest and puffed out air, making his frame look even bigger than it already was. “Now help me with the fuel.”
Now it was Len’s turn to oblige, doing what he was told and following the man around the pickup to where the tubing lay on the ground. Justin had laid it all out ready to be pumped before Max had shouted from inside, the young boy running in to try and find the key for the pumps. Len was about to open his mouth to say they needed such a thing when the giant pulled it out of his pocket and held it out in front of Len.
“I assume you know what you’re doing?”
“I do,” Len replied, the crash-course Harrison had just given him on pumping fuel still fresh in his mind. “Do you want to pump or shall I?”
The giant let out a laugh and dropped the key on the ground by Len’s feet before walking back towards the Dodge and picking up the length of tubing. Len rolled his eyes and reached down for the key, unlocking the fuel pumps with relative ease. Looking back at the giant Len made sure he was holding the tube in position over the pickup’s fuel valve and then started playing his part. It was hard work, forcing the lever of the pump up and down to create suction within the tube and pull up the gasoline from the fuel tanks hidden deep below the asphalt. After several minutes Len was glistening with sweat from the physical exertion while the giant leaned casually against the side of the truck, half-heartedly holding the tube in position and watching Len with an arrogant grin on his face.
Len hated the man more than ever. He gritted his teeth and pumped harder, letting his anger out through the motion and filling the truck at a faster rate. The sooner the vehicle was full the sooner they could get away from these people. With one final pump Len detached the mechanism and prayed that Harrison had managed to carry out the rest of their plan.
“Thank you,” the giant teased as Len deposited the pump and length of tubing back into the bed of the pickup. “Much appreciated.”
Len felt his hands ball into fists by his sides and forced himself to resist the urge to hit the man. Instead he took in a deep breath and looked first to Aubrey, who remained seated in the driver’s seat, and then back to the giant. “You can thank me,” Len’s voice was punctuated and raspy as he struggled to maintain his cool in front of the criminal, “by letting the boy go as well.”
“A deal’s a deal,” the giant grinned as he held his hands up in front of his chest in a mock surrender, before shouting back in the direction of the shop. “Daveed!”
Silence greeted his call.
“Daveed!” The giant shouted once more, his face morphing into a look of annoyance. “Daveed, bring the boy out here. We’ve got the truck going.”
Again, nothing but silence replied to his call and the giant turned to look at Len, his face turning slightly red in color.
“What have you done?”
“Me? Nothing!” Len shuffled backwards away from the man, acting innocent and afraid—only one of which he truly was. “I’ve been out here the whole time!”
The giant let out a low growl and yanked open the driver’s door of the pickup truck, pulling Aubrey out roughly by the wrist.
“Hey!” Len shouted behind him, stepping forward to try and grab Aubrey’s other arm. “You’ll hurt her!”
“I’ll kill her if I have to,” the giant snarled back at Len with a look of murderous intent in his eyes before he started marching back toward the shop, dragging Aubrey alongside him.
Len’s stomach somersaulted inside him and for the first time since he and Harrison had devised the plan, he wondered if they’d made a huge mistake. He walked behind the giant and Aubre
y, the young girl spinning around in his grip to look at Len and locking eyes with him for a second. Len thought she still looked confident, but that sensation was quickly fading out of him. He couldn’t let anything happen to the girl; he couldn’t put anyone else in any more danger.
“Daveed!” The giant stopped a few feet in front of the shop door, shouting into the darkness. “Daveed! Karl! Where the hell are you both?”
Len didn’t know how to feel. The lack of response from the other two men meant all other parts of their plan had to have fallen into place. Harrison’s job had been to hide on the roof of the gas station around the back, poised to jump down on Karl as the man scouted the perimeter and put an end to his mission. Len had to assume Harrison had been successful, which meant he should now be waiting inside the shop with Justin and Max. The three of them would be perfectly able to subdue to the one remaining criminal also inside. Aubrey’s part had simply been to instruct Justin and Max on what was to come, make them alert and effective when the time came. If all of that had happened, then this was now the final step.
“Daveed! Karl!”
The giant shouted one more time and finally, his cries received a response. From inside the shop a muffled shouting noise came, like the sound of someone trying to speak with a gag tied around their mouth. The giant’s ears immediately picked up on the sound and he twisted around to glare at Len, not once letting go of Aubrey’s wrist.
“She’s dead if anything’s happened to my men in there,” he growled, tightening his grip so much it forced Aubrey to let out a small cry.
Len remained stoic, staring at the man in total silence and refusing to budge. He could only place his hope in the hands of Harrison, Justin, and Max waiting inside the gas station shop and pray they didn’t fall at the final hurdle. Three seconds later the giant walked forward, entering the dark room where he stood for a moment before a loud, ear-splitting shot rang out and his body crumpled to the floor.
Chapter 17
“Sir!” Dixon called after Mr. Wilson as he jogged down the corridor behind him, relieved of his duties to General Shepherd just seconds earlier. “Sir! Wait!”
Eventually Mr. Wilson stopped striding away from the office they had just inhabited, slowed his pace and turned to face Dixon. The man was breathing heavily from his interaction with the general; Dixon was well aware the men didn’t always get along and Mr. Wilson was known within the White House for having a short temper. Especially when he didn’t get his way.
“Are you with me?” Wilson asked after a moment, running his gaze over Dixon’s body as he waited for a response.
“Yes sir,” Dixon replied immediately, offering Wilson a firm nod paired with a serious expression. “What’s the plan?”
Falling into step beside Wilson, Dixon listened as the man began talking about getting their communications system back online somehow. They made a beeline for the control room, which housed the engineers who had managed to store emergency power. Dixon was dubious about whether they would be able to achieve anything. The emergency lighting was constantly flickering and switching off, the wires fried by whatever had caused everything—Dixon was still very uncertain about what that had been.
“The primary objective has to be getting a message out to the public,” Mr. Wilson continued to speak as the two of them moved. “It doesn’t even really matter what the message says. Just the mere act of getting it out there and proving to people that we still have power and can get things back under control will work wonders to calm people down.”
“Can we, sir?” Dixon interrupted Wilson’s monologue for a second. He wanted to trust his superior, but he also wanted to make sure that Wilson was telling the truth.
Wilson raised an eyebrow at the soldier before him and continued walking, not once slowing his pace. “If we start with the little things,” he replied, “like the emergency power and this emergency broadcast, then gradually we should be able to scale those things up. Everything will work on the same premise. If we can get a radio working, then why can’t we get a car radio working? And if we can get a car radio working, why can’t we get a car working? Luckily for us, this building holds some of the country’s best engineers and scientists. If they can’t put something back together, well, then you can start to worry.”
Dixon took in the words he was being told but didn’t say anything in response. What Wilson was saying certainly made sense, but Dixon knew the scaling up of things would be much more difficult than what the older man was suggesting. He tried to focus on the task at hand and feel confident about this side mission he was now involved in, but his mind kept swinging back to Mary.
He had visited her a few times in the past at the campus library. It was only about four blocks from the White House and so, as a result, Dixon found himself spending the night in Mary’s dorm room more often than not. It was much more homey than the government housing he’d been supplied with upon taking his post at the White House. Plus, if it meant he could see Mary more often, it was worth the added minutes onto his commute.
As Mr. Wilson pulled open the door to the communications control room, Dixon thought again about telling him about the relationship he shared with Wilson’s daughter. If there was even the slightest possibility that Wilson knew something about Mary’s wellbeing, Dixon wanted to know too.
“Status report!” Wilson barked as soon as he was in the room, every pair of eyes turning to look at him. He wasn’t really known throughout the White House for handing out orders, but people knew when he did they were meant to be followed.
“All communications are still down, sir,” a young man in trousers and an open collar white shirt walked towards Mr. Wilson, the tie he had previously been wearing long discarded amid the heat and chaos. “We have an emergency broadcast written up, if you’d like to review it? We’re just unable to get it sent out so far, sir.”
“Yes, please,” Wilson replied, following the man towards a desk in the corner of the room, which was covered in balled-up paper from attempts at handwriting the broadcast message.
“What a mess,” Wilson muttered under this breath upon seeing it, taking the piece of paper from the man’s hand and starting to review the message.
Dixon remained by his side throughout, unsure what his role in this task would be. When he was out in the field he knew how to act and what to do. That was more his natural environment; standing around in an office didn’t feel right to him. But he had been given his orders. General Shepherd had told him to accompany Mr. Wilson and even though that meant he had technically been relieved from the general’s detail, Dixon knew that was still where his loyalties lay.
He wasn’t privy to the information Wilson was reading from the sheet, but watched the man lean down and pick up a pencil from the desk to start making amendments. By the time Wilson was finished the sheet looked to be covered in more changes than original print. Wilson handed it back to the man with an open collar and ran through the changes with him, making sure the young man understood.
Just as Wilson was talking through the final few sentences, a large shudder ran through the room and all the emergency lighting failed once more.
“What was that?” Wilson immediately spoke up through the darkness, the room now only lit through a few small windows dotted along the wall.
“Power failure?” Someone’s voice questioned through the room.
“System failure?” Another one echoed, neither voice sounding confident in their assessment.
Dixon rested his hand on the pistol safely fastened in his holster. Something didn’t feel right. Another shudder ran through the room, larger than the last one as it caused several pictures to fall from the walls.
“Where is that coming from?”
Wilson spoke again, this time directing his attention toward Dixon and a couple of the other soldiers in the room. As it was the communications center, there were far fewer men in uniform than there were in other parts of the White House. Most had been deployed out into the city, but a
large faction still remained to protect the people and other assets inside the government building.
Suddenly the sound of gunfire started peppering the hallways outside the control room and everyone inside started to panic. A few women screamed and ducked behind tables while the older members of staff sank back against the walls. Dixon squinted into the darkness of the room and quickly tried to assess the situation. He was one of four armed men inside the control room, with thirteen other members of staff. Aside from him and the three others, he doubted any of them had received training for this, their jobs in engineering and communication keeping them well away from the line of fire on any normal day.
But this wasn’t a normal day. Dixon had faced armed civilians in the city when the Osprey had crash-landed and they’d been forced to return to the White House on foot. He could only assume that the gunfire in the halls was a result of more civilians. No one already within the White House would open fire on one of their own; a group must have broken in.