It brought back the memories of years of stopped traffic and being at the mercy of others. He was going to be trapped, precisely as he had been when those bikers wouldn’t let him reverse. The risk he had taken at Little America would be for nothing if he ended up in a huge jam anyway.
Buck surveyed the land, desperate for a way out.
Fourteen
Near Georgetown, Delaware
Garth and Lydia walked along the two-lane roadway with the gas can and his other supplies. He made sure they moved as fast as possible because he imagined criminals stripping the cab down to the frame while it was out of his sight.
However, no matter what their speed, he made sure Lydia got her candy bar.
“Take it slow, Lydia. You’re going to want to devour this. I always do.”
Garth showed her how to open the wrapper and break off one of the rectangles of chocolate. He tried to be mature about it, but he wasn’t one to talk about taking his time. He usually gobbled them down in seconds.
She broke off one of them, then put it in her mouth.
“Amazing!” she said as she chewed.
“I like to keep breaking them off,” he started to say.
Lydia ripped off all the paper wrapper and jammed half the bar in her mouth.
“It is so good!” she mumbled. “Thank you!”
They walked in silence as each chewed through what was left of their candy. Once he saw she wasn’t interested in portioning it out like his Dad might do, he followed her lead and shoved it in his mouth.
“We should have bought more of these,” Garth admitted.
The food experiment was over too soon. Using the sugar rush, he practically power-walked the final hundred yards when he recognized the hard-to-see driveway.
“That’s the place,” he whispered. “Let’s head through the trees so no one on the street sees where we go. I don’t want to get shot or followed, if you know what I mean.”
“Back on the wagon train, we had lookouts to keep watch on the cattle and other valuables. Sometimes Indians would raid us.”
They waited until there were no cars on the road, then jumped into the dense woods. They had to stop moving a few times and hide behind brushy undergrowth when cars went by. Nothing would get a driver’s attention faster than two teens sneaking through the trees.
He came out about halfway down the driveway and decided to walk in the middle. While he wanted to avoid being seen by the cars on the road, he didn’t want to surprise the owner of the house if they were hiding inside. His dad had often cautioned him about sneaking around on other people’s property, although Garth always thought it was to persuade him not to toilet-paper the neighbor’s houses.
Sam was the one interested in TP missions. He laughed to himself.
“Come on,” he insisted.
They fast-walked down the incline and made it to the car, but he never took his eyes off the house. Garth was convinced someone was in there watching them.
“Get in,” he said in a hurried voice.
They both opened the front doors, but he realized that was stupid because he still had the gas can in his hand.
“Oops. I have to fill us up first.” He laughed out loud, but internally his stomach was twisted in a hundred knots.
“Can I help?” Lydia asked in a similarly quiet voice, as if she shared his worry.
“This is a one-man job.” He tried to sound casual as he scanned the house, but seeing it made him think of a task for her to do. “Just tell me if you see anyone. You know, in the woods. On the drive. In the house.”
“Okay,” she answered.
It took him a couple of minutes to figure out there were two locks on the door for the gas tank. The first one was a release button below the dashboard. The second lock on the door itself required the use of a key on the cab’s keychain.
He dumped the two-and-a-half gallons into the tank, all the while casually studying the windows of the house for any sign they were being watched. Even after the can was empty, he stood there fighting the certainty someone was in there.
What would Dad do?
It was tempting to get in and drive away, but nothing besides his gut feeling suggested the house was occupied. If he could fight that for a few more minutes, this was a safe place to enact the next step in his master plan. He might not get a better chance for privacy than what he had there.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and his dad’s nyuck-nyuck ringtone blared.
“Shit!” He groaned. It was a terrible time to get a call. He fumbled with the gas can, spraying droplets down the front leg of his jeans. After putting the container on the pavement, he wiped his hands on his pants, making them smell even more like gasoline. Finally, he yanked out his phone.
The text said, What are you doing?
It still wasn’t the time to engage in a long discussion, so he replied with the single word Spraypainting.
He put the phone back in his pocket, then threw the empty gas container in the back seat. Finally, he pulled out the bag of spray cans, popped the cap off the first, and started shaking.
The spray paint rattle echoed loudly off the nearby garage door.
“What is that?” Lydia asked.
He stopped for a second and handed her his can, then prepared another.
“Shake this for a minute,” he said dryly. “We need to use it on the car.”
Lydia looked at the can like it had three eyes. “Like this?” To her credit, she shook it exactly as he wanted.
He and his dad had once spray-painted some old lawn furniture they kept on the back patio. Garth had taken away a couple of lessons from the experience. One, it took more spray paint than you thought. And two, your hand got tired pressing the spray button faster than you’d imagine.
“You got it.” He finished shaking his, then pointed it at the yellow taxi. Black paint shot out of the nozzle as he steered the jet onto the trunk.
“Oh, my,” she said with amazement. “I never imagined you could change the colors like this.”
She watched him while he went back and forth over the top of the trunk, then a little onto the sides. He ran out of paint even faster than he had anticipated.
Lydia had stopped shaking her paint.
“Do you have the next one ready?” he asked.
She glanced at the can in her hand. At first, she shook it vigorously, but then she stopped and looked back to him. “May I spray this one?”
There wasn’t time to teach her, but he had to admit his experience wasn’t much either. Dad had done most of the painting back on the patio because he said it was important to have an even hand so the chairs looked professional. However, after looking at the mess he’d made of the trunk, he didn’t think she could do any worse.
“Knock yourself out,” he deadpanned.
“How would I do that? Should I hit myself?”
He rolled his eyes and laughed.
“No, please don’t. It means you should do the thing you asked. I won’t stop you.”
She struggled to get the lid off the second paint can, and once she had it off, it took a lot of time for her to line it up where she wanted. However, when she hit the spray button, the paint went on in smooth, even streaks on the driver’s side doors.
“You paint better than I do,” he admitted. “You’re hired.”
“I never get the chance to paint back home. This is boy’s work, to be sure.”
“Hmm, I never thought of it that way. The chore should go to whoever can do it better. In this case, your painting wins.”
“Yay!” She giggled. “I really enjoy this!”
Garth was proud of himself for letting her paint the taxi. It was an adult thing to do. While she did that, he climbed up on the hood so he could reach the boxy-looking taxi sign affixed to the roof. It required a Philips screwdriver to get it off the car, which he didn’t have, so he did the next best thing...
He kicked the plastic box as hard as he could. The taxi sign shattered on conta
ct, sending pieces all over the driveway, including on Lydia.
“Ouch!” she yelped.
“Holy shit!” he blurted at the same moment. “That hurt!”
Lydia laughed a second later. “And my head.” She picked out a large piece of plastic wedged in her blonde hair.
“I am so sorry. I guess I didn’t think that through.” He could tell she was more surprised than hurt, because the piece was small. The taxi sign was gone, which was what he wanted, but he downplayed the painful way he had done it. “Now I can paint up here.”
“You have a strange manner of doing things, Garth. You destroyed that marquee. Won’t you require it again in the future?”
He laughed but didn’t respond.
Behind her, the garage door of the house slowly opened.
He stood on top of the car like a deer caught in headlights.
I-80, Wyoming
Buck knew better than to get his hopes up, but when Garth sent a text saying that he was spraypainting, he immediately texted back. He waited for about a minute, watching more and more vehicles stack up in the line behind them.
“We can’t stay here,” he said aloud, hoping the right people would hear.
“Well,” he said to himself, still looking at his reflection in the chrome around his exhaust, “it’s time for more bold action.”
He made his way over to Connie and Mac, who were standing at the side of the highway.
Connie saw him holding his phone. “Hear anything from Garth?”
“Yeah, but I think our texts are out of order. After he said he ran out of gas I asked him what he was doing to get more, then I told him about this buffalo situation. His reply just now told me he is spray-painting. I’m not sure what to make of that.”
She laughed. “You are talking to a teen boy, Buck. I’m sure you already know they seldom make any sense.”
He let her laughter infect him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If he was unable to gas up his taxi, I’m sure he would have texted to ask for help.”
She didn’t look his way. “Unless he wants to prove he can do it all on his own.”
After she said it, she spun around. “I’m not suggesting he can’t.”
“I know. You’re right. He can figure out how to get gas. I mean every dummy driving on the road today can figure it out. My boy is smarter than the average bear.” He played the past over in his head, and couldn’t recall a single time he had explained point by point how to get gasoline at a filling station. He’d showed him how to turn on the pump and stick the nozzle in the tank, but he always did the credit card, closed things up, and, if necessary, went in to pay the cashier.
The buffalo showed no sign of finishing their crossing. The dust rose higher than before, and the direction of the wind made the debris seem to float alongside the giant animals. It was like watching an endless freight train at a railroad crossing.
He thought for a minute, then typed, Call me ASAP. He couldn’t spend his whole day wondering about missed texts. It was time to hear his son’s voice.
Once his phone was pocketed, he got Connie’s attention. “Hey, if we can hurry up and get through this mess, what do you think about meeting my son somewhere out here on the road?”
Her blue eyes studied him intently, and he saw the inner workings of her mind behind them. “You’re worried about the nuclear threat. You know, I think that’s overblown. I believe, deep down, that you do, too.”
“Three Mile Island was a mess that turned out to be a mistake, but this doesn’t feel the same. If there was nothing to worry about, the President wouldn’t have gone on national news to say everything was fine. He’s the President, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t need an open channel to broadcast his message around the world.”
Connie didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe he’s lost communication with other countries.”
He expressed his doubt. “He’s the President. I’m sure his comms are better than mine, and despite the mixed messages, I’ve mostly been able to communicate with Garth on the other side of the country. I think there is something more going on.”
Now he was scaring himself. More cars and trucks came in behind them, adding to the pressure.
“Do you have any idea what it might be?” she asked.
“The Marine in me says we better be prepared to be crapped on. If the worst happens, we don’t want to be anywhere near big cities. If we can meet Garth in the middle of Nebraska or Iowa, we might be far enough away.”
“Far enough from what?”
He thought about it for a second, unsure if he should say it, but with her, he wasn’t going to lie, or even water down the truth. She deserved to know what he was worried about.
“The real-life end of the world.”
Basel, Switzerland
“Speak English?” Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Knight asked the Swiss guard at the border checkpoint.
“Yes,” the guard replied.
Ethan handed the other man a packet of orders. “This has the authorization of your government. We are to proceed across the border and check on the status of an international operation in Geneva. Specifically, at CERN.
“I’ll check on this and be back. One moment, please.” The guard walked into a small building. Three additional guards stood nearby, carefully studying Phil and Task Force Blue 7. They had to get out of the German Fox and stand behind it.
“Are they going to let us through?” Phil whispered to Ethan.
It was a little after 10pm.
“They have to. The OpOrd laid all this out. We’re good.”
Phil could tell by his tone of voice Ethan was full of doubt. They were dependent on bureaucratic paperwork during a time when the chain of command was inconsistent at best. NATO. CENTCOM. JSOC—all just letters, now.
But he was hopeful that one last order had managed to get through.
“Here we go.” Ethan stood a bit stiffer as the Swiss border guard came out of his shack.
“Your orders have been confirmed. The Swiss Army recognizes your right of passage. Good luck.”
Ethan glanced at Phil as if to say, “That was easy.” Before he got back in the German armored personnel carrier, he looked at the guard again.
“Can you tell us if you know of any trouble up in Geneva? We’re heading there, as I said, and it would help to know if your security services have reported anything unusual.”
The guard had been serious for the whole encounter, but now he seemed to relax. “Who is to say what is unusual? I’ve met six Jews fleeing Nazi Germany today. We also picked up a family fleeing from Franco’s Spanish Civil War. Those are unusual.”
“But nothing in Geneva? No big explosions reported? Maybe a missing super collider?”
The guard shook his head. “I’ve heard of nothing. It is quiet.”
“Thank you,” Ethan replied.
As they got back in the Fox, Ethan pulled him aside and whispered, “Be on the lookout, now that we’re in Switzerland. I believe what the man told me, but there’s a reason we’re being sent on this mission. Let’s assume there are terrorists inside our target, so we don’t let ourselves walk into a trap simply because some guard says we have nothing to worry about.”
Phil nodded. “I’ve been on high alert since I almost died on the metal highway back in Bagram.”
They sealed the back door, and Ethan spoke to them all.
“My route shows two hours, thirty minutes, people. Get some rest. After we reach the target, who knows when you’ll next get a chance to sleep?”
Fifteen
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
Faith invited the leadership team to look at her data in the comfort of one of the conference rooms. Despite his protests, she brought Donald in a wheelchair because she needed all the sharpest minds to review the information. She wanted their support. In that regard, she realized she wasn’t much different from General Smith. He relied on his own scientists to back up his plan
too.
Unfortunately, as soon as they were all together, they wanted to talk about the President’s speech.
“Do you think we’re going to war?” one of the computer guys asked the group.
“He didn’t exactly exude confidence,” a woman in the back added. “I thought he was certain another country was going to launch, and he was begging them not to.”
Bob replied to his team members. “No one would launch now. There’s no point to it. We’ve seen the effects of what our experiment did, and it’s clear how time and magnetic fields are bending all over the planet. They might launch the missiles and end up hitting themselves in the face. It’s a huge risk.”
If they were going to talk about the speech, Faith had to admit something about the past that troubled her. “What if Hiroshima’s nuclear bomb comes through time and appears over Denver?”
The twelve people seated around the table looked at her, dumbfounded.
Bob seemed to consider that for a moment, then made it about him. “Or what if a nuke dropped directly on us? The people out there have no love for this place or the scientists within.”
She chuckled, desperate to keep things from becoming only about ego-driven Bob. “There’s a huge leap from rock-throwing to nuking, okay guys? I didn’t call you together to talk about what might happen out there. We have to deal with what we know in here. We’ve been working down in the tunnels doing what analysis we could, and I think we have a lead on an answer.”
Faith tapped her laptop, and the screen displayed on a whiteboard on the front wall. The same graph she’d shown Bob and Sunetra now displayed for the larger teams of computer modelers and physicists.
“This is what we believe is happening between the two super colliders. The four links between them are the controls. We know they guided the feed of energy when the experiment started, and even when the first one went offline, we don’t think it changed the appearance.” She tapped the keys to show the shape generated by the experiment.
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 58