As Garth watched the guy leave, he noticed Phil about fifty yards out in the woods. The soldier acted as if he were keeping watch on the group, but mostly he looked at him and Lydia. Phil had briefly mentioned he was there to keep an eye on the two of them, but he hadn’t seen much of the soldier during their walk, so he’d all but given up on him. It was nice to know Connie’s son was still there.
The reinforcement bolstered Garth’s spirits.
“I’m confused, Garth. Are these soldiers helping us or not? Are they normally this rude?”
He watched as the pair of guards traveled through the crowd of gathered people. One or two were singled out and directed to the growing second group, but most stayed in the original one. It soon became apparent those who were from close to the current year were made to leave. The ones from farther back had to stay.
None were treated much better than he had been.
It looked as if the modern people were going to be led away first, probably to be reunited with those back in the group where Dad was. However, Lydia’s style of dress ensured she would have to sit tight. Their fates had been tied together since they’d met, so he didn’t think twice about sticking with her now. He was positive his father would have done the same thing.
In fact, thinking about his dad and knowing Phil was close by made him put his arm around Lydia’s waist and pull her next to him. He was invincible.
“We don’t have to care what the soldiers think about us. Nothing matters but sticking together. We’re in this to the end.”
The nearby Jewish guy overheard him.
“I’m old, I don’t care, but you two are young and in love. I pray this end of which you speak doesn’t arrive for many, many years.”
Lydia put her arm around Garth.
“Me too,” he said at the same time as her.
They both laughed.
“Jinx, buy me a Coke,” he hurriedly added.
“What?” She giggled.
“I’ll explain it later,” he replied with a smile.
For the moment, he felt as if nothing could stop his good luck. He’d found Dad. He had a girl who was obviously into him. They were safe. That was why he purposely ignored the words of warning issued by the older man.
He couldn’t let Lydia out of his sight.
That was the last thing Dad had told him.
For once, he planned to listen.
Six
Buck’s Rock
Faith collapsed onto the front seat of the SNAKE service vehicle, which was basically a stripped-down golf cart. She’d come down to the field to speak to Buck, and they’d talked about the threat presented by the new owners of SNAKE, but his legitimate concern for his son was now her problem, too. She had been there when the boy and everyone else was marched up the hill by Strauss’s people, but she’d been confined to her old office, so she truly had no idea where they’d gone over the course of the day. Without that small detail, there was no way to offer any assurance to Buck about his boy’s safety.
“What are you going to do?” Missy asked.
“What the hell can I do?” Faith replied.
“You can’t risk your career for these strangers, Faith.” Her longtime assistant stood next to the cart, close to her. “Whatever is going on inside our offices, you have to be there doing what you can for us like you did with the last batch of military people. You managed us through General Smith and Doctor Johnson, so you can do it here, too.”
“That was mostly luck, I think. Besides, I came to understand what made both of those men tick, which gave me an advantage. This new general seems out of place—an imposter. However, the military follows her, she has all those men with guns around her, and she claims to have been part of the experiments since the beginning. I confess I have no idea how to manage her.”
“You can start by asking her about the boy.” Missy pointed at the handheld radio sitting in a cupholder attached to the dashboard.
Faith sighed. She was no stranger to talking to powerful men and women, but she had spent most of the day avoiding entanglements with the general. Seeking her out was a bit like taking a swing at a giant hornets’ nest.
“You’re right, of course.” She picked up the radio. “As always.”
It took a few minutes to get through the radio network chain of command before the general came on the line.
“This better be important,” Strauss said instead of hello.
“It is, General. This is Doctor Sinclair down at the front field like you asked.”
“Go ahead,” she said in a dry voice.
“Ma’am, I talked to some men and women down here, but they have some concerns about the people who were taken away earlier.”
“Oh? How can that be? We only took away people who have no connection to the current year. They weren’t down there long enough to make friends.”
The general’s impatience seeped through every word.
“Well, there were a few friendships made, I’m afraid. We—”
“Dammit, Faith! I thought I was clear that I was doing you a favor by keeping you around. You get to stay in your office, lay low, and maybe you make it through this national emergency. Your overriding task should be making sure none of those people down there bother me or my mission up here. It isn’t complicated.”
Faith clenched her jaw to fight back and say what she really wanted to. Unless she was misreading the general’s plain speech, she was being asked to go back to her office and hide rather than really help anyone.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get involved, but I met with the truck driver we talked to during your speech. He has a boy in the group who went away, and he just wants to know he’s all right before he…” Faith’s brain froze at the thought. Should she be open about how Buck was going to go out and look for a safer place to live? Wouldn’t that make her look like she was fostering a rebellion? On the other hand, her job was to take care of those people. Why would Strauss care if everyone left? It was exactly what she seemed to want. “Before he takes his truck to look for survivors out there.”
It was a half-truth rather than a lie.
“Hmm. He’s leaving? How many others are going?”
“I’m not sure,” Faith answered.
“Hold a sec.” The general’s end of the line went silent for a few moments before she came back on. “All right, they have permission to depart. Please encourage as many as possible to leave our property. That will really help us out, Ms. Sinclair.”
Faith grimaced at how the general constantly dropped her ‘doctor’ title.
“But what should I tell him about his son? He won’t leave until he knows his son is safe.”
“I don’t have time for this. Just make something up. Tell him his son is staying in one of your posh meeting rooms drinking juice boxes and eating Pop-Tarts. Say whatever you need to get them out of here.”
She knew Buck would see right through any lies.
“But ma’am, he’s going to want to know exactly where his son is. I can’t lie to him like that.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
It was do-or-die time.
“I won’t. I can’t. You have to see it from my point of view down here. These people are willing to help out, but they are frightened and lost too. They only want a few assurances.” Her words were reasonable, so the general had to see it her way.
“For the last time, those people down there are not my problem. They’re yours. That’s the job I gave you. If you can’t do it, I’ll give it to someone else.” The general huffed. “In fact, I’ve already wasted too much time on this. You’ve got until sunset tomorrow to clear all those people off my lawn, or I’ll have my teams come down and get it over with.”
“The military won’t kick those people out. You can’t do that.” Faith’s voice was uncertain since she couldn’t know what the military would do. She could only hope.
“The military does what it’s told. If I order them to bulldoze everyone over the fence,
that’s what will happen. Besides, these men and women brought their families here to the end of the world. To the last place in existence. What fool would disobey my orders and have their family go over the fence too?”
It disturbed Faith to know the woman was probably right. Strauss had somehow leveraged her people’s existence to get their allegiance. That crushed any hopes she had of the Army doing the right thing. Still, there was no need for violence. Buck was one simple question away from helping.
“That all makes sense, and I’m not questioning you, but if you could give the man peace of mind about his son—”
“No one out there needs anything from me,” Strauss snapped. “What happens to my guests is my business. You are to tell the man his son is fine. End of story. Is that understood?”
Faith ground her teeth with the rage she was forced to bottle up. Why wouldn’t the general be the least bit reasonable? Was Buck’s son in actual danger? What other reason would she have to lie about it?
“I understand completely, but for my own mental health, can you at least give me a clue as to what happened to all those people you took? I won’t ask you for anything else, and I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Lying to a liar didn’t bother her.
The line went silent for twenty seconds, long enough that she almost asked if the general was still there. Finally, the woman answered.
“You are really this worried about strangers?”
“Yes, I am,” Faith answered immediately.
“Well, to answer your question, I’ll only say this. If you are that concerned for their well-being, make sure they are across the line twenty-four hours from now. And Faith?”
“Yes.” Faith slumped, sure her question was not going to be answered.
“Don’t bother coming back to Alpha. See yourself out with those people you seem to care about more than your old workplace. You now have one full day to prepare, same as them.”
The line went dead.
“Well.” She looked at Missy. “That’s one way to get fired.”
Buck’s Rock
Buck knew Faith was walking to him with bad news. He’d only met her hours ago, but her furrowed brows and deliberate pace screamed how angry she was. He only hoped she wasn’t upset with him since the woman didn’t look like she was taking shit from anyone at the moment.
Faith held up the radio as she arrived. “That bitch just kicked me out.”
“Of the whole place?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she answered. “And that isn’t even the worst part. She refused to tell me jack about your son or any of the people who were taken earlier. I asked her like six times, and she danced around it. That’s why she kicked me out.”
Faith looked around.
“She’s kicking us all out, actually.”
“How long?” he asked.
“Twenty-four hours from right now.”
Buck looked past her at the golf cart. “I’m going to need you to get me inside. If they want us gone, fine. We’ll grab Garth and the others, then be on our way.”
“You can’t.” Faith shook her head. “She didn’t tell me where they went, but I know they aren’t inside the base, at least in the front offices or research labs. I don’t have any authority anymore, but I would have heard about an odd group of civilians moving around in there. Missy would have seen something.”
Faith’s heavier companion gave the same grim headshake.
“Well, I’m not leaving without him,” he stated.
Connie came up beside him. “What’s going on?”
“Doctor Sinclair says we have to clear out of here. That general who was here earlier gave us twenty-four hours. Then what?” he asked Faith.
“The military will enforce the deadline,” the scientist said quietly.
There weren’t many people close by, but he appreciated her unwillingness to stir up the crowd with bad news. It spoke of her legitimate care for him and his family, plus all the other people who were trapped there. However, no matter how much respect he had for her, she wasn’t giving him the answer he sought.
“We can’t leave without our boys,” Connie whispered.
“We’re not,” he said with determination, once again moving toward the golf cart.
“Wait,” Faith insisted. “There’s a reality we have to acknowledge here.”
Buck halted.
“Whatever Strauss did with those people, and your son,” Faith went on, “you aren’t going to get anywhere by marching over there and knocking on the door. Strauss sent me packing merely for bringing up the question. I’d fully expect her to cut our time in half if we make a scene at her front gate. She might even start the bulldozers tonight if she gets pissed off.”
“I’ve dealt with worse odds,” he bragged, though it was a stretch.
Connie wrapped her arm around his as if he might try running off. “Buck, you know I would run up there with you if I thought it would help, but I think we need to listen to Faith before we do anything rash.”
He took a deep breath, then looked at Faith. “And what would you have me do?”
She stepped closer to him. “Exactly what we talked about. Get in your truck and go out there to see if there’s anywhere we can live.”
It wasn’t his style, but he did an eye roll. “How many times do I have to tell—”
“I know,” Faith interrupted. “You won’t leave without your son. I get it. For the sake of this discussion, I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to go outside the fence for a short time, see what’s there, then come right back.”
“No way—”
She cut him off again. “While you are out there, I’m going to do nothing but track down your son and those other people and make damned sure they are okay.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” he said as he calmed down.
“You don’t have much of a choice. Do you trust anyone else to go out there and find a home for your son? Do you trust anyone else to know how to navigate on what’s left of the roads? You’re a trucker, right? No one else is going to know how to get cargo like this crowd or the food in your trailer from one place to another.”
“How did you know I had food in my trailer?” He’d hoped to keep his pallets of chili on the down-low, but he’d hauled a group of college students for a few hours. All of them knew about his cargo, and they’d been milling about the field all day. It was inevitable someone would spill the beans.
“It’s my job. I’ve been going around this field all day, talking to people, learning things.”
“But none of those things matter if I can’t get my son,” he replied. As much as he loved Connie and Mac, settling down with them in a foreign place while his boy was stuck in Strauss’s Alpha Site was an absolute no-go.
“Don’t forget Garth has an angel on his shoulder,” Connie gently interrupted. “My Phil won’t let anything happen to him. I’d bet my life on it, Buck.”
He met her eyes. “You really think this is a good idea? What kind of father leaves his son—”
Connie pressed a finger to his lips. “I know you’d sooner give up your life than let anything happen to him. However, we had to have some faith in Garth when he went off with Lydia today. We also had to trust Phil when he said he’d look out for him. Faith, however, makes a good point about what comes next. I want to make sure that as soon as Garth and Phil walk down that hill, we have a safe place to take them.”
He thought they were exaggerating about needing him to do the recon. There were at least three other professional truck drivers—Clarence, Mel, and Evelyn—who could make the run. However, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit they hadn’t been through nearly as much as he had since the blue light blasted across the world. It wasn’t going to be a straightforward haul by any stretch of the imagination.
“Here, will this help?” Faith passed over a handheld radio. “You can use this one. I’ll take Missy’s. We’ll find our own channel and keep in touch. Colorado Spring
s isn’t more than an hour’s car ride to the south. You should get a signal on this most of the way since we almost have a clear line of sight between us and there. That way, you are never really out of touch with what’s going on here.”
He did have his CB radio, but the handheld would give him freedom of movement and was likely on an encrypted government channel. Better for security. He took it from her, though still a little uncertain about the best course of action.
Connie unlatched his arm, looked him in the eyes, and smiled. “You don’t have to do this by yourself, Buck. None of us do. We have to place our trust in friends and family if we want to survive because this is too big for one person to deal with. So, Phil will watch your son. Garth will protect Lydia. Faith will find out where they are. We’ll all meet back here by sunset tomorrow and be on our way to the new home you’re going to find for us. It will all work out.”
After a moment of reflection, he smiled back.
He then turned to Faith. “You promise you’ll contact me the second you find him?”
“I promise.”
“Well, if I drive in reverse, I’ll already be facing back here in case I need to return in a flash.” He chuckled. “But you have a point, I have to admit. It’s a short run to the Springs, and knowing what to expect could save a lot of lives.”
“So, it’s a go?” Faith asked.
“It’s a go,” he answered.
Above Alpha Site
Phil was already suspicious of the ghost army unit operating under orders from the shady general, but he didn’t know how bad it was until he spent some time with them. He’d traveled a couple of miles with Garth’s group and the guards watching over them for most of the afternoon and evening. Except for the pair of lieutenants in charge, none of the ground-pounders spoke a word the entire time they walked through the woods. He tried to strike up a conversation with a couple of guys, but they’d barely acknowledged him and wouldn’t respond to any of his questions. They didn’t even answer when he reminded them he was a lieutenant colonel.
Not a word.
End of Days | Book 5 | Beyond Alpha Page 5