A New World: Reckoning (32 page)

She hears frantic scrambling from the remaining man as he tries to make it to the outer doorway, his panting from fright and exertion audible. Stalking behind, she removes something from her pocket and places it in her mouth, tucking it between her cheek and gum. Rounding a corner, she spies her quarry almost to the door leading into the hallway.

Without slowing, he plows into it which opens under the force of his impact. He stumbles backward and, regaining his balance, starts forward once again. Gav raises her handgun and fires.

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

I continue to watch the doorway that Nahmer entered. Lynn is silent as she stands beside me but I can feel the anger emanating from her. I know she doesn’t understand my decisions at times, well, most of the time if truth be known. And she has a valid reason as they sometimes seem illogical, even to me. However, I’ve stayed alive by going with my gut instinct, as illogical as it may be.

Gonzalez and the others of Red Team stand watch covering the hallway, but I note their speculative glances aimed toward me. They all startle, going to their knees and bringing their M-4s to bear as the door suddenly swings open.

A man in a suit stumbles, going to his knees and then falls forward to the floor. He frantically turns his head, looking at something, or someone, within the room from which he just fled. Nahmer walks out and stands beside him. Looking down at the man, she raises her pistol and fires. The man slumps to the ground.

I sense the tension coming from Lynn and the others.

“Hold your fire,” I tell them, still watching the scene ahead.

Nahmer looks in our direction and very slowly places her weapon on the floor. With her hands raised, she walks toward us. We escort her back into the conference room where she takes her previous seat.

I begin asking questions about the systems in place, but she forestalls me with an upraised hand which brings an almost violent response from both Lynn and Gonzalez.

“Before we go any further, the man you have, Harold I believe, will be able to figure them out,” Nahmer says. “Plus, you have the technicians.”

“Harold? You know about him?” I ask.

“Yes. We photographed him in your compound and ran him through our system. He was the one who disappeared after we caught him in our network. I assume that’s how you figured this all out,” she answers.

“Wait, you sound like we’ve already made a decision about you,” I say.

I catch Lynn’s nod in my peripheral.

“No, but I have made a decision that will save you from having to make one,” Nahmer says.

“You didn’t?”

“I did. I’m afraid that I made a wrong choice many years ago, and it has now caught up with me,” she states. “And I’ve continued making the wrong choices when I should have made the right one. I should have approached you long ago but I became caught up in the game. There is no place for me in this world anymore.”

“Jack, what is she talking about?” Lynn growls.

Nahmer’s eyes clinch from pain and a trickle of blood streams out of one nostril. Recovering, she wipes a hand across her face, smearing the blood across her upper lip and part of her cheek.

“I see that I don’t have much time left. I’m sorry for your losses, Captain Walker.”

Her eyes clinch tightly shut once again, then her whole body relaxes and her head falls to the table with a thud. Blood slowly trickles out of her nostril, forming a small pool beside her head.

“Holy shit!” Gonzalez exclaims. “Why in the fuck would she do that?”

“Because she’s been dedicated to her cause for so long that it meant everything to her. She knew we couldn’t keep her around so she opted to make it her choice,” I say, looking at the body lying on the table as if napping. For all of the wrongs she did to us, the woman was once a legend.

“Good. She just made it easier for us, that’s all,” Lynn says, checking Nahmer’s pulse.

Harold arrives with Alpha, who leaves him in our care before heading back to the aircraft. Even though we have things under control here, it’s still nighttime and anything can happen. It’s possible that night runners could be heading in our direction, following the sound of the 130 landing. So far, we’ve been lucky with that and we may be too far from any of their lairs for them to be a factor. Robert is keeping the aircraft locked up and can sense them should any draw near, but there may be others around besides night runners. Doubtful considering where we are standing, but not impossible. Seeing as we may be here for a while sorting through documents and files, and feeling nervous about Robert and Bri being outside with only one team to guard them, I call and have Alpha escort them and Craig inside.

On arriving, after a brief, Harold sits at a console in the operations center and begins going through manuals and documents. I have a few technicians, under guard, released to him to answer his questions. With the leadership gone, they become helpful without any attempts at evasion. I still don’t trust them or the soldiers but, from what I observe, they are being compliant.

Harold takes to the ops center like a kid in a candy factory. He’s a frenzy of activity that seems disjointed to me but I’m sure it makes sense to him. Soon, the desktop at the console is spread with papers, files, and notebooks. I’m thankful for the time we’ll have to spend here as it puts off any decision about the soldiers. The survivors, of which there are close to three hundred, outnumber our entire group back at Cabela’s. That could make for problems down the road if they take it in mind to be troublesome. I’m sure they are viewing themselves as prisoners, and as such, it means that we are still viewed as an opposing force. With the training they’ve been through, they will see it as their obligation and duty to escape and/or be disruptive. Perhaps seeing that we have regular duty soldiers with us, they’ll change their perspective. I’ll talk it over with Lynn and the other team leads to see what they think.

After giving Harold some time to give things a cursory scan, and knowing it will more than likely take days or weeks to compile everything, I head into the operations center with Lynn. We may not have all that much time with the 130 just sitting out there. I’d like to clear out of here and get back to Cabela’s soon as we still have a very big threat infiltrating from the north. It may be that we have to either come back later or leave some teams in place. The prisoners are a sticky issue though.

I take a seat next to Harold, who is so completely absorbed by his work that he doesn’t notice me arrive. Getting his attention, he looks up startled to see me.

“Well?” I ask.

Harold transitions from his absorption to the present. I fully expect him to launch into a series of statements that have nothing to do with each other, like when he found the files on the CDC Director’s hard drive. But he takes a minute to compose himself.

“There’s a lot here, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of it. One thing, the information we found on the hard drive is correct. They…” he sweeps his arm to indicate the entire facility and those within, “…initiated this whole thing but things went wrong almost immediately. Like I originally thought, they didn’t anticipate the night runners and that interfered with the staffing of the other sites. From all appearances, none of them made it into operation. There’s more but I’ll have to dig deeper.

“I also found the reason for the failure of the satellite comms. According to the few logs I’ve read so far, they discovered our means of communication with the
Santa Fe
and had the comm channels blocked.”

“Can we unblock them?” Lynn asks.

“We’re fixing that now,” Harold indicates, pointing to a technician at a nearby console.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, letting them have access like that?” Lynn asks.

“I’m monitoring it. I’ll know if they tap into something they shouldn’t. So far, they’ve been nothing but helpful. I don’t know if this Nahmer gave them different orders, but they’re being cooperative for now,” Harold answers.

Restoring the satellite communications, I try contacting Leonard to no avail. I’ll keep trying at intervals, but at least I know that we have the ability to do so without having to conduct a search for him.

“This,” Harold holds up a notebook, “is a list of other survivor camps that they’ve found. They have them designated according the number of people and capabilities.

“You can see ours here,” he opens to a page.

Each of the lists has numbers, capabilities, and observed activities, to include increases and decreases in population and contacts with other groups. It’s a fairly comprehensive listing. Our camp includes high-res photos of our group, listing the leadership structure. Looking over the notebook, I’m impressed with what they were able to derive from just photographs. Of course, Nahmer had mentioned they ran some through a system they have in place.

“How many are there?” I ask.

“That’s hard to say, as some don’t appear to have been updated in a while. Most of the ones indicated in this notebook are situated in the western part of the country,” Harold replies.

“So there are some overseas, then?” Lynn asks.

“Well, not many it seems.”

“Do these give an indication of what is going on elsewhere?” I ask.

“Yeah. Keep in mind, though, that I’ve only brushed the surface of all of this. But, from what I’ve read so far, it’s not a pretty picture. Europe is mostly gone. According to the notebook, there are a few camps still in existence near the Mediterranean, but they don’t have many people in them. And what they do have seems to be dwindling. The notes indicate that large parts of Europe and Asia are covered in a radiation cloud. Basically, most of Europe and Asia are wastelands, or soon will be,” Harold says.

“Is that going to reach the West Coast?” I question.

“I looked into what they have regarding that and, from all appearances, we’ll see an increase in radiation levels along the seaboard…but nothing lethal. They were monitoring that. Apparently, they intended to bring the reactors online as one of their first steps but, as you well know, they didn’t get that chance. The numerous reactors worldwide have either gone critical, or will shortly.”

“You mentioned survivors in the western part of the country. What about the eastern half?”

“I’m afraid it’s the same as most of the rest of the world. There are a few groups, but they are in the same shape. Their population numbers are shrinking. And,” Harold says, forestalling a question I was forming, “it doesn’t appear that we can do anything about them. The radiation levels are too high. Even if we could go in and get them, there’s nothing we could do except watch them die. Many of those indicated in the notebook have vanished altogether.”

“Okay, so what about the rest of the world?” I ask.

“I mentioned a few groups around the Med but that’s a no-go for the same radiation reasons. There are apparently some nomadic tribes in northeastern Africa, but they were only identified and not updated. Perhaps they didn’t think them a threat. There are some indications of encampments along the western coast of Africa and a few in the interior. The areas surrounding the Indian Ocean are gone, along with Japan. Most of the cities, irradiated or not, have very few, if any survivors. There is apparently some still living in parts of the South Pacific Islands, but those appear to be mostly native tribes. There are, though, some small settlements scattered throughout them. Australia, with only a few places that people could escape to in the interior, is mostly gone. According to the notes, there are some living in the countryside along parts of the eastern Australian seaboard and for a short distance inland,” Harold briefs, referring frequently to files and notebooks stacked on the desk.

Punching a few keys, Harold directs my attention to the large screen at the front. The image slowly resolves itself into a map of Northern America with an overlay of thermal images. Most of the map shows in blue, indicating little to no heat. However, across the eastern half of the US, dozens of orange, yellow, and white glowing locations appear.

“These are the hot spots from nuclear reactors in various stages of meltdown. From the looks of things, most of them have had their fuel rods evaporate the cooling ponds and are generating a tremendous amount of heat, throwing off radiation plumes. The winds are generally carrying those eastward. I pulled up several visual images which show that many of the plants have had explosions, more than likely from a buildup of gasses,” Harold briefs.

The image dissolves and is replaced by a world map. Besides the eastern seaboard of the US, Europe is one big, glowing location with whites, yellows, and oranges mixing together in a swirl. That continues, although slightly abated, through the western half of Asia. The eastern part of India shows a few spots as does the eastern regions of China. Japan has disappeared and can only be identified by glowing ovals.

Staring at the screen, shocked by what I’m seeing, it becomes readily apparent that vast tracts of the world are uninhabitable. I feel for those survivors caught in the swirling radiation plumes.

The screen changes. Harold briefs that I am now looking at an overlay of radiation levels. Red covers the areas where the nuclear reactors are, or were, and stretches in a generally eastward flow. The entire continent of Europe is red and only changes to a yellow near the central part of Asia; plumes from the reactors coating the continents. Red streams out of Japan and drifts east, fading as it crosses the Pacific.