“Ty and Gwen are covering the south end.” Franny handed her the skeletal tail of a diamondback rattlesnake.
Abby readied her rifle, prowled a few yards into the corridor, and activated her night-vision goggles. Rusted, half-buried rails weaved through the uneven floor in a series of irregular switchbacks before opening into another wide chamber, designated as a kill zone.
Using Franny’s bent knee as a step, Abby climbed feetfirst into an air shaft that inclined at a steep sixty degrees. Maneuvering onto her stomach, torrents of pain screamed through her.
Blood rushed to her pounding head.
Sweat blossomed everywhere, and the beans she’d consumed were threatening to regain their freedom.
Stubbornly, she erased it from her mind and focused on breathing. Minutes passed, silent and tense.
Whoever is approaching is disciplined, she decided.
Or maybe there’s no one at all.
Maybe this is a choreographed stunt to delay my departure.
59
Tremonton, Utah
SYBIL HAD RELIVED IT all night in her dreams.
The way the ridges in the man’s forehead had deepened.
The way he’d lowered the shotgun barrel then blasted away her last vestige of hope.
“Kevin, he uh ... left for Idaho over a year ago.”
Her fledgling sense of accomplishment evaporated. She felt as if a sinkhole had opened beneath her feet, dragging her through layer after layer of fear, despair, and desolation, into a pit of self-pity.
Mr. Preston had been kind enough to feed Sybil and Izzy and shelter them for the night, but he had stated bluntly that he expected them to move on after breakfast.
Izzy was already downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling on a piece of smoked fish. He had taken the news in stride. Because he hadn’t set grandiose expectations for Tremonton? Or because his goal was still hundreds of miles away?
Preston stood with his back to her, filling their empty plastic bottles with potable water. “Grab your breakfast and let’s go, Missy.”
Sybil swiped the hunk of fish from the table, crammed it into her pocket, and managed an anemic thank-you.
Preston placed six bottles into each of their backpacks, lifted an old glass pickle jar and a sock from the counter, and herded them out the door.
They walked for a few blocks, headlong into the morning sun, and Sybil angled a hand to her forehead like a visor.
“Where is he taking us?” she whispered to Izzy.
Preston glanced over his shoulder, sporting a creepy, brown-toothed smile. “To catch a train, Missy. Think you can just waltz across the Rocky Mountains? All the way to Barclay Air Force Base?”
“It’s not a UW train, is it?” Her lips trembled as she weighed the risk of being shot versus the blisters already burning her feet.
“Course it is,” he said. “I been helping myself to food and fuel from it for months.”
“We can’t go near there.” Sybil latched onto Izzy’s arm and jostled it, trying to shake sense into him. “They’ll shoot you.”
“It’s our best chance,” Izzy said, wrestling free of her grasp. “Mr. Preston says it would take over a month to cross the Rockies. The train will get us there tomorrow.”
“You mean if we live that long.”
Preston glared at her then rubbed the back of his hand across his beak of a nose. “You need to have some faith, Missy.”
“You need to mind your own business ... ! And stop calling me Missy. My name’s Sybil!”
With a gurgling laugh even creepier than his deadened eyes, Preston said, “Is she always this cranky in the morning?”
Izzy replied, “Pretty much.”
Sybil swatted his shoulder, folded her arms across her chest, and brooded until the train came into view. Like a giant dashed line, the queue of cars separated a single-story warehouse from a parking lot packed with fuel trucks. Chinese workers bustled about, none of them wearing military uniforms.
Maybe this WILL work, Sybil thought.
They crept past six hopper cars and a dozen tankers, then hunkered down behind a hedge that concealed several trash dumpsters.
“Once I distract those workers,” Preston said, “you run to that first bulkhead car—”
“Bald-head car?” Sybil repeated.
“I said, bulkhead!”
“The ones that are flat in the middle,” Izzy told her, “with the orange walls sticking up on both ends.”
Speaking exclusively to Izzy, Preston said, “The crates are stacked like steps, so you should be able to hide yourselves underneath those blue tarps. Don’t move and don’t talk until the train leaves the depot.”
Preston opened the pickle jar, inserted the sock halfway into an amber-colored liquid, and replaced the lid. Then he skulked toward the tracks and crossed between two bulkhead cars.
“I don’t trust him,” Sybil mumbled.
“You should.” Exasperation bubbled in Izzy’s tone. “Preston made a firebomb to distract them. Just chill out.”
“I’m trying but ... It’s just that ... You’re the only one I’ve got left ... So don’t get your stupid self shot, okay?”
Eyes rolling, Izzy said, “There goes my plan for the afternoon.”
She was about to elbow him when she heard the commotion, frenzied voices speaking a foreign language. Thick black smoke was rising, drifting east across the tracks.
“Come on. That’s our boarding call.”
60
District Eight, Colorado
“THE ROBOT SEEMS TO have fallen into a pit with unscalable walls, sir.”
Ryan Andrews stared at the ruggedized laptop screen. Miniature tank treads were churning up clouds of dense coal dust, blacking out the camera’s image. Was it a booby trap indicating terrorists were defending the mine? Or just a natural feature and lousy luck?
Either way, he had no choice but to venture inside the seventy-year-old mine.
Teams 6A and 6B had made the journey from Texas, along with Bradley. A Sniper and Spotter from 6B were positioned outside the south portal. Two Snipers, Phillips and Webber, were providing overwatch for Ryan and the seven TEradS warriors breaching the north portal.
Through night-vision goggles, the passageway shimmered an eerie green with chiseled walls and a low-hanging barrel ceiling that prevented Ryan from standing upright. Rust-eaten rails protruded from the ragged floor, descending in a series of sweeping switchbacks, and the air felt dank and heavy, like wading through water.
They found the robot undamaged, in a two-foot-deep hole that stretched across the entire shaft. Its right angles and pyramid-shaped cavity confirmed it was not a natural formation.
Fitzgerald rescued the robot from the hole, cleared away the stubborn dust, and placed it on the floor to resume its trek deeper into the mine. A red filter minimized the light from the laptop, and the camera feed wended through two more switchbacks before entering a large chamber. Two pillars of rock reached upward like mighty arms supporting the twenty-foot ceiling; and between them, there was a square-cut opening, a dark unblinking eye.
As the robot pivoted, a deep fissure glistened, seeping water that dribbled over the faceted rock and collected in a puddle. The roving camera continued deeper into the mine, and Ryan signaled for the team to advance.
Adrenaline pumping, eyes scanning, he realized how much he missed operating in the field; lungs heaving, back aching, he realized how much his body and senses had deteriorated after six months behind a desk. Was Rodriguez right? Was he getting too old for this?
His commanding officer had dissented when Ryan elected to lead this op, but stopped short of ordering him to stand down.
Although the camera had revealed no threats inside the chamber, he could sense eyes on him. A bat? A snake? A terrorist?
He zeroed his rifle on the square-cut opening, a perfect hide for a gunman. Finger on the trigger, he debated whether the report from his suppressed M4 would bring chunks of the ceiling cas
cading down.
The agitated warning of a rattlesnake sounded.
Brilliant light inundated the underground room, temporarily blinding him.
Fuck! Another ambush!
He batted his night-vision goggles away from his eyes, unable to see his own hand.
Then a gunshot rang out.
61
District Six, Texas
KYLE MURPHY FELT NUMB, as if his spirit, his energy had died along with his daughter. He had read the same e-mail six times, recited each word in his mind, but at the end of the sentence, there was no meaning. He rubbed his bleary eyes as if they were the problem then dropped his face into his hands.
Images of Abby’s battered body jumbled with Bradley’s bizarre proclamations, an audio-visual siege chipping away at Kyle’s sanity. No matter how many times he shunned it, squelched it, banished it, the question persisted: Was that really Abby?
He cursed Bradley for planting a seed of doubt and himself for allowing it to take root.
Hearing a knock at his office door, Kyle mopped his face with his hands as if squeegeeing away emotion. “Yeah?”
Jessie peeked through the open doorway, skin ashen, pale lips set in a sullen line. Even her deep-blue eyes had grown dull with tears and heartache. She was an older, grieving replica of Abby, and it worried Kyle that when he looked at his wife, all he could think about was losing his daughter.
“Gary’s wife took the kids to the park, and the idleness and quiet are driving me crazy,” she said, letting herself into the room, closing the door behind her. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Type up my letter of resignation?”
Her mouth tightened into a forced smile. “Not funny.”
“I’m serious. I can’t do this anymore, Jessie.” He swallowed hard against the despair upwelling inside him. “I can’t lead. I can’t govern. I can’t even focus long enough to read an e-mail. I’m going to talk to Gary about taking over as governor.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little premature?” she asked, her voice breaking. “You need to give yourself time—”
“Time for what? Time isn’t going to bring Abby back—”
“So you’re just going to quit? And to hell with the rest of us? This district needs you.”
“Gary is more than capable of governing—”
“Damn it, Kyle! I need you!”
As tears flowed over her cheeks, he pushed back his chair, plodded around the desk, and gathered her into his arms. He hadn’t told Jessie about the stoning, intending to shield her from the horror the same way Rodriguez and Ryan had tried to shield him; so it wasn’t surprising that his wife didn’t understand the depth of his misery.
“I swear, I’m losing it,” Jessie whispered. “Every time the phone rings, I catch myself hoping it’s Bradley, calling to say there’s been a mistake.”
A stab of anger cut through Kyle’s zombielike mood. “Why would you think that? Did Bradley say something?”
“No. It’s ... It’s just a feeling. I can’t explain it.”
His fingers caressed the back of her head and combed through her wavy blonde hair; his eyes clenched against the image of his daughter’s bald head. The question echoed again: Was that really Abby?
“And I know I sound crazy, Kyle, but in my heart, I keep expecting her to walk through that door.”
62
District Eight, Colorado
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT sound?
The soft, mechanical purr was faint, yet growing closer.
When Franny Marion heard the rattle, she connected the cable to the battery. Disembodied car headlights flashed on, momentarily blinding their attackers.
Why isn’t Abby firing? Her natural vision should have recovered long before the commandos’ night vision.
Dusty light flooded into the passageway and Franny saw a robot roll past, mere feet from her command center. She couldn’t let the enemy discover her cache of weapons and explosives; she couldn’t let them thwart her next attack.
In a split-second decision, she aimed her 9mm Beretta and pulverized the robot’s camera.
Abby shouted, “Balls!”
An irritated male voice responded with the countersign, “Musket,” and ordered her to identify herself.
“Lance Corporal Abigail Webber, TEradS Team 8A.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
63
District Eight, Colorado
BRADLEY’S WATCHFUL EYES swept the mountains surrounding the mine’s north entrance. He had spent hours trying to finagle his way to Colorado; and it turned out that his biggest obstacle, Captain Ryan Andrews, had furnished him with a nonstop flight to Barclay and a helicopter ride to within a mile of where Abby had been ambushed.
Gramps was right, he thought, smiling at the memory of his deceased grandfather. The good Lord always provides.
Bradley glanced at Phillips, team 6A’s Sniper who was surveying the mountainside with binoculars. Bradley was tempted to take advantage of his restricted field of view, knock him out, and slip away on his quest to find Abby, but he couldn’t leave Ryan and the TEradS vulnerable.
His probing eyes picked up movement near the mine entrance, and he settled in behind his scope, targeting a figure dodging between trees. Bradley counted to ten before Phillips noticed the movement, and then whispered, “Relax. It’s just Fitzgerald.”
As if on cue, the First Sergeant’s voice crackled through Bradley’s tactical headset informing him that Captain Andrews wanted him inside, and that Fitzgerald would spot for Phillips.
Bradley acknowledged the order, and since Snipers weren’t especially useful inside claustrophobic mine shafts, his thoughts jetted at Mach 2. He wriggled from beneath a fallen tree camouflaged with pine branches and started down the hill, his footfalls mute and movements stealthy, keenly aware this was the backyard of the most elusive, deadly terror cell the TEradS had ever encountered.
Once inside the mine, he powered up his night-vision goggles, shifted into a hunched-over fast walk, and narrowly avoided stumbling into a hole. As each switchback descended deeper, visions of the stoning invaded his mind. A pervasive fear began to percolate. Were terrorists holding Abby in here? Interrogating her? Torturing her?
Twenty yards ahead, light spilled into the tunnel, and he removed his goggles. Within a high-ceilinged chamber, TEradS forces were huddled in a loose circle along with three civilians, two women and a man.
Then he saw Abby.
Shouldering his rifle strap, he mumbled, “Thank God,” and lunged toward her. His arms locked around her in a tight embrace.
“No! Don’t!” Abby’s hands rammed into his chest, shoving him away; then she doubled over, propping her hands against her thighs.
An Asian woman was screaming at him, something about Abby’s ribs being broken.
“Oh sh-sh-shit! I’m so sorry.” He knelt, gripping her shoulders to stabilize her. Abby’s pretty face contorted against the pain, sweat dampened her skin, then she exhaled in a loud hiss.
“I-I’m okay,” she said, straightening up.
Bradley’s palms drifted along her arms and clasped her hands. He didn’t want to let go. Her touch was proof that she was real, that this wasn’t a dream.
Returning to his feet, he noticed that she wasn’t wearing her wedding band. Mia Candelori’s words became a haunting refrain.
The Asian woman was wagging a finger at him. “Don’t be so rough. She was hit twice.”
“Oh God!” His heart plunged into free fall; his eyes roamed in search of bloodstains. “Where? Where were you shot?”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” The voice belonged to a middle-aged man with the mug of an irate pit bull and the limp of an arthritic poodle. “Both rounds hit bulletproof armor. I’m the only one who got shot. Ain’t that gratitude for you? I risked my ass laying down suppressive fire for her, and the bitch shot me!”
Bradley took a step toward him, and Abby clasped onto his arm, restraining him.
> “It’s your own fault, Ty,” the other female civilian shouted. “When she winnowed it down to three tangos, I told you to stop firing and take cover.”
“Shut the fuck up, Franny!”
Ryan gave a piercing whistle. “Enough. Cuff all three of them, gather up any intel, and—”
A tremor shook the mine.
Fragments of rock and coal began raining from the ceiling.
A blast of air howled through the shaft.
Followed by a thunderous roar.
64
Tremonton, Utah
SYBIL AND IZZY SAT statuelike until the train chugged beyond Salt Lake City, then they crawled from beneath the tarp, using the crates to steady themselves against the undulating motion of the bulkhead car.
Sybil watched, mesmerized as the wooded mountainside bowed into a barren desert landscape as vast as it was foreboding. She contemplated the chore of walking this path—with only six bottles of water and a hunk of dried fish—and concluded that Izzy and Mr. Preston had been right. The train was their best hope.
A thudding sound startled her, and she spun on her heel. Izzy was alternately pounding and prying the side of a wooden crate with a hatchet and a crowbar. “Where did you get those?” she asked.
“Mr. Preston. He said we should go through the crates and stock up on food and medical supplies—those are good for trading.”
The bulkhead car contained a pyramid of crates, three high in the center, two high on the outer edges, each marked with Chinese symbols. Sybil widened her stance for better balance, shrugged her backpack off her shoulders, and removed her journal. On the last page, she copied the symbol.
Wood cracked, three slats broke loose, then Izzy pulled a metal box from the crate. “This one’s filled with bullets. No food.”
Sybil wrote ammunition next to the symbol and said, “Don’t bother with the rest of these. They all have the same marking.”
Izzy stowed the tools and slung his backpack and rifle strap over his shoulder. “We need to check out the other cars.”
EMPowered- America Re-Energized Page 13