“The news hasn’t told me one useful thing since all this started,” Buck stated. “I’ve learned the most from truckers on the CB, other drivers I met in person, and my own eyes. Now we hear police lying to our faces when we ask them where they’re going. Hell, it’s just like it’s always been. We can only really depend on ourselves.”
“We still going to that SNAKE place?” Sparky glanced at Eve before looking directly at Buck. “Yesterday, you said the convoy of military gear was heading there. Maybe these police units are going there too?”
Denver was hundreds of miles away. It was highly unlikely all these police and fire units had gotten the same memo to pass by other cities designated as safe zones so they could go to one far away.
None of his past experiences suggested law enforcement would pass people in need to go somewhere safe themselves. They were usually the guys running into danger, not unlike him and his fellow Marines.
What am I missing?
“I guess the honest answer is that I’m not sure what we’re going to do. Let me get my son first, then we’ll all decide as a group where we’re going to go. That will be a good time for Monsignor to make his decision, although I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to petition him hard to stick with us.”
He hadn’t heard from Garth since his son was in Louisville, so it was hard to know how long he’d have to wait for him to arrive. He held his phone in his left hand so he wouldn’t miss a call if Garth tried to dial him again with a stranger’s phone, but it had been silent since Christian called.
Buck made a fist with his free hand, then released it. Once his hand was open, he did it again out of habit.
Connie gripped his fingers after he’d done that about ten times.
“Thanks. I guess I’m getting nervous.”
“I know the feeling,” she assured him. “I’m finally going to get to meet the fine young man you’ve been raising.”
Eighteen
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
“This is incredible.” Benny’s voice was subdued as he finally replied to Faith after she explained some of what had taken place. “The four links are necessary to keep the experiment running, but someone from the outside came in and tried to destroy them? Were we that close to the apocalypse?”
She kept her voice low, too. “I’m not sure what would have happened. The new group is upstairs. They showed us a film laying it all out. Dr. Johnson was teleported here—”
Benny held up his hand. “Wait a second. Are you screwing with me? This isn’t very funny.”
“I’m a scientist, Benny. When it comes to my work, I have a sense of humor measured in Planck lengths. I would never lie to you. We’re way beyond that.”
“Plank what?”
“It’s a small unit of measurement. Beyond microscopic.”
“Okay, I get it.”
She did her best to explain the film and the theory of how Dr. Johnson might have been sucked from CERN and deposited in SNAKE. She finished by telling him of Johnson’s warning.
“The takeaway is SNAKE survives, and CERN is destroyed? I can live with that.” He sat back in his chair like the story had resolved itself to his satisfaction.
Missy caught her attention at the far end of the row, so she waved her to come to the middle aisle.
“Benny, this is very important. I need you to get me in touch with the outside. I have to warn the people at CERN to get clear, and you need to warn the rest of the world.”
“What are you saying?”
She leaned in close. “My assistant is getting me the number for someone at CERN. I have to find a phone and contact them. I only need a minute to tell them to get out. Then, you tell your newspaper to broadcast our location to citizens everywhere. They’ve got to come inside the ring of our supercollider.”
“Where they’ll be safe,” he said dryly.
“Yes. That’s what I’ve suspected for the past couple of days, but Dr. Johnson confirmed it. It’s the reason why he brought his people here. They aren’t here only to end the experiment. They’re here to survive it.”
She glanced at Missy, who was close.
“Benny, I told you at the start you could make a difference. I’m depending on your reporter’s tenacity to figure out how to make this happen.”
Missy bent over and handed her a piece of paper. “I found someone in the IT group, Faith. He knew the number to CERN by heart because he has to call it every day to coordinate with the tech people there.”
“Brilliant.” Faith beamed. “Thank you.”
Missy stood up and walked away.
The quick meeting caught Benny’s attention. “You two are pulling something, aren’t you?”
Faith nodded. “She was one part of my plan. Can you get me in touch with the outside?”
Benny turned to face his wife, who sat on his other side. Faith was unable to hear what he said, but his wife quietly said yes.
“As a matter of fact, I have access to a phone right here and now.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How?”
Benny looked around. “I told you they didn’t check my wife when she came in. They also didn’t pat her down well enough when we were rounded up again.” He chuckled. “They should have used TSA screeners. Those assholes wouldn’t hesitate to pat down Jesus coming through in a wheelchair. The soldier kid who checked out my wife seemed embarrassed to touch her. It worked out for the best.”
“She has it right now?” Faith asked skeptically. It was too perfect.
“Yes, but obviously we can’t use it in here.”
They both sat back in their seats as if a movie was about to start. She ran through some ideas on how she could get the phone and then go somewhere private to use it. However, the only place where she might be left alone was the restroom, and she couldn’t talk on the phone and not be overheard there.
Hundreds of scientists and technicians sat around her, chit chatting to keep themselves occupied. If she weren’t saddled with the role of their leader, she could easily settle in and relax with the people she had once worked with.
The guards remained at the doors. They also talked with each other in a relaxed fashion. She figured it was because there was nowhere for the captive audience to go. Guards manned the doors. They patrolled the hallways. They were at the emergency exits of the base.
“We have to do it here,” she said out of the side of her mouth.
“What?” he blurted. “Are you nuts?”
“We may never get the perfect opportunity. There are too many people talking right now to overhear any one conversation. As long as I keep my head down like I’m thinking, or sick, I can at least get a quick message to CERN. You have to let me try.”
Benny mulled it over for a minute, but he leaned forward in the manner she described. “If you sit like this, I think it will work.”
“I’ll call my people first, then you call yours. Deal?”
“Wait a second,” he replied. It took him a few minutes, but she watched as he and his wife worked together to get the phone to him. First, she took it out of her shirt, then, she gave Benny a hug. At some point, they made the switch, and he had it ready to pass to her.
Please don’t let it get quiet.
People continued to talk all around her, so she got out the piece of paper and dialed the number.
The phone didn’t even ring once. A man picked up. “Hello. This is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, operations department. Who is this?”
“CERN? In Switzerland?” She had to be sure.
“Yes. This is the IT support line, but no one is here right now to answer your call. It is the middle of the night. Can you call back tomorrow?”
“No! It’s an emergency. This is going to be hard to believe, but I know for a fact that the United States government is planning to destroy your facility using a nuclear bomb. They want to destroy you because of the experiment you’re running.”
“Experiment? Which one? We have several going on.” The man sounded worried.
“It wasn’t on your official list of projects. It was…done illegally.”
She didn’t want to get into the weeds of how Azurasia Heavy Industries worked with secretive government groups to set up and run the experiment without full consent from either supercollider.
Someone tapped Faith on the shoulder. When she looked up, the woman stood in the aisle next to her. “Hey, I see you have a phone. Can I use it?”
Faith was shocked beyond words because the woman made no effort to be secretive.
Idiot!
She held a “wait” finger to the woman, then talked into the phone.
“I have to go,” she said as fast as possible to the CERN employee. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can. You have got to make sure people stay away from your location. Get everyone out of Geneva if you can!”
The man laughed. “Based on a random call in the middle of the night? No one would believe me.”
She was in danger of failing.
“I’ll call you back. Who is this, by the way? I’m Doctor Faith Sinclair. I work at SNAKE in Colorado.”
“Oh, right. I know of you. I’m Doctor Kyle Johnson.”
She hung up the phone, then looked at the clueless woman.
“There appears to be two Doctor Kyle Johnsons. I’ll play along until one of them comes clean that she’s the imposter.”
Red Mesa, CO
Ethan’s Task Force Blue 7 was almost back up to full staff. During the afternoon, Phil and the Air Force airmen managed to track down a couple more of the original enlisted men who had been in Switzerland with him. The only two missing were the driver and navigator from the Fox.
“Do you have the map drawn?” Ethan asked Phil.
“Yes.” He’d drawn it on a small square of scratch paper. “We now know where the ring is located below us, at least around here. Obviously, it goes in a loop for sixty-two miles so we can’t map it all out, but we know it goes out toward the flat ground below the foothills.” He pointed through the stand of pines toward the Dakota Hogback, which was barely visible through the thick trees.
Ethan leaned against a trunk in the shadowy grove they’d made their command post. “Good work, Phil. We can use this to keep our area of operations near the border of the collider.”
Phil stood closer so the prisoners wouldn’t hear. “You believe what he said about disappearing?”
Ethan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. If he and all these other guards believe they’ll be erased if they go outside this ring, it gives us a powerful advantage over them. We can move outside at will. Avoid capture.”
He couldn’t find fault with the suggestion, although he privately harbored some misgivings about going outside the ring and being left behind. As fantastic as it sounded, he couldn’t write it off.
Ethan continued. “Have you made any progress on figuring out his unit’s composition? Strength? Weapons?”
“Not really. The 130th isn’t a real division in the US order of battle. I believe it was a fake unit from back in World War II.”
“Yes. I couldn’t place it until you said it.” Ethan looked around. “Was the unit reactivated as some kind of decoy, or is it now a legitimate division like he said? If it’s up to fighting strength, does that mean ten thousand men and women came along with him?”
“Grafton and I were able to reconnoiter this afternoon. We got closer to the parking area they’ve set up. Our best guess is there are five hundred new vehicles out there. Figure at least two thousand civilians. Humvees and other heavy equipment are parked up the hill under cover, so it’s harder to estimate force size.”
“Sounds like they brought their families.”
“Agreed,” Phil replied. “Murphy said as much. Not only does he not want us to put him outside the boundary line, but he also doesn’t want his family put in danger either.”
“Who could blame him? Go on.”
“Sir, this is more of a heavy mechanized division. We saw bulldozers constantly working on tank emplacements like they’re expecting the Soviets to speed across Kansas and attack. We guess maybe fifty tanks, two hundred light vehicles, and we think we heard Paladins driving in the woods. At least platoon strength. We even saw a lone Buffalo parked in front of the main offices of SNAKE like it was a trophy.”
“Damn. We’re lucky they haven’t found us.”
Phil gave him a casual salute. “Good leadership has kept us in the fight.”
“Yeah, but who are we fighting? A mystery division dug in on home soil. We haven’t heard shit from anyone up the chain, and all we know is we’re on the wrong damned continent. There is no chance of finishing our mission if we’re sitting out here pissing in the pines.”
“Sir, Murphy was very clear that his basic orders were to keep civilians from interfering with this place. Does that sound like official military doctrine to you? Shouldn’t we be helping people come here if this is really a safe place?”
“’Safe place?’ That’s not our mission, Phil, and you know it.”
“Rangers lead the way, sir. I’ll follow your orders until our assignment is done. I’m simply not sure I agree with the mission of these other guys.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the prisoners.
“No. Something isn’t right about them. Keep at it, Phil. We’ve got to have more intel before we can decide what to do, next.”
Blue Springs, MO
Buck didn’t want to let go of Connie’s hand, but it looked like they were going to be on the parking lot for a while, so he wanted to take Big Mac out for a walk. However, the instant he let go, a metallic buzzing sound caught his attention on the highway. A westbound car had run into the grassy median.
His stomach went into his throat as he listened to the car get tangled in the retention cable.
“Fuck! That’s Garth.” Without thinking, he ran toward the accident.
“How do you know?” Connie cried, chasing him.
It was the fastest hundred-yard dash he’d done since high school. He strained to see the crashed vehicle as he ran, but it was hard to see anything in the darkness. The cable stopped the car from crossing the median and driving into the McTruckStop on this side of the highway, but it was impossible to know if the driver was all right.
He quickly established it was a black car, which matched what Garth had said he was driving.
You don’t know it’s him.
As he sprinted over the empty eastbound lanes, he realized he was being stupid. His first instinct could have been wrong, and he might be running to the rescue of some random stranger while putting himself in danger.
As crazy as he felt, he didn’t slow down.
He sprinted into the grassy median, intent on helping. When he got a few yards from the car, he noted that the black paint job was a mess. The accident had scraped off a wide band of paint, exposing the original yellow.
Garth had been proud he’d painted the taxi.
The airbags had gone off, blocking his view of the survivors in the front seats, but he bashed the nearest one to help get it out of the way.
Be okay, whoever you are.
After a slight delay, he saw messy hair he’d recognize anywhere.
He was ready to puke from nervousness because he still couldn’t see his condition.
“Garth! Are you okay, son?”
The airbags finally deflated, revealing a pair of kids. The girl in the passenger seat was dressed like she’d fallen through a crack in time from the Civil War era. She perfectly matched the girl Garth said he was traveling with.
And the boy…
Garth’s face looked normal.
No blood.
He’s awake!
“Garth!” he repeated, desperate to hear he was fine.
“Oh, hey, Dad. Don’t worry, we’ve been sleeping in separate beds the whole time.”
Buck laughed like he’d been saving it up for a month.
&n
bsp; Nineteen
Blue Springs, MO
“You made it, son. You’re safe.”
Garth looked up at him. “Where am I?”
After the wreck, Buck had helped Garth walk over to the parking lot for the McTruckStop. He’d made him sit down at the base of the tall pole supporting the twin arches. Connie had brought Lydia and sat her next to Garth.
“You’re at the truck stop where I asked you to meet me.” He got choked up. “I don’t know how you did it, but you drove halfway across the country in twenty-four hours.”
Lydia sat up. “He drove us faster than any speed I ever could have imagined. It was a hundred and twenty before he fell asleep for good.”
“One-twenty?” Buck bellowed. “What were you, fuh-freaking insane?”
Connie touched his shoulder, which immediately calmed him, but he breathed in and out a few times to step away from the cliff.
Garth acted like he didn’t know his father was mad. “Don’t get the belt, Dad. I was in good company. Some police cars let me travel with them. I only went that fast because they did.”
He rubbed his chin and finally laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re getting too old for the belt.” More seriously, he went on, “We’ve seen a lot of those cops driving by. This is really important, Garth. Do you know where they’re going?”
“Yes,” Garth replied. “I talked to an officer a couple of hours ago. He was from St. Louis and said he and all his pals were going to Denver. Isn’t that where you’ve been telling me not to go?”
It’s always Denver.
“I thought I was reading things right by telling you not to go there, but maybe I’m not right about everything.”
Connie chuckled.
“What I mean is, we’ve got to pick somewhere to go where we’ll all be safe. I don’t think such a place exists, but people on the radio keep telling us of safe cities.”
Garth’s head bobbed like he was keeping himself awake only with a huge effort. “Dad, I tried to do what you would do, but I didn’t pick up anyone but Lydia.”
“That’s good,” he replied. “You picked up one person, and I think it was the perfect number.” Buck glanced at Lydia. “I’m Garth’s dad. You can call me Buck.”
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 82