Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (3 page)

“Jesus, Tex! I think—”

He turned to find her trembling, staring at the female cop. The woman was face up, blood gushing from her throat as she made strangling sounds like a fish dying on a dock. Tex bent and vomited on the road.

The woman was beyond help, so Wiggins turned to the barely conscious man lying in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. A concealed vest caught Tex’s rounds center mass, but from the blood pool, a round to his lower body struck a major artery. Wiggins knelt, fumbling with the man’s belt. He tugged it free to make a tourniquet and twisted it tight, managing to slow but not stop the bleeding. He grabbed the man’s hand and put it on the twisted belt.

“Hold this and you might have a chance. Do you understand?”

The cop nodded, unable to speak. Wiggins rose to find Tex still staring at the woman, now clearly dead.

“Tex! We have to go! Get in the car and start looking through your maps for a way out of here.”

“I … I … killed cops—”

“Who would have killed us. Think about it later. We have to go!” Wiggins led her to the SUV and helped her out of her pack. He unzipped it and pulled the packet of maps out then tossed her pack in the backseat before shrugging out of his own pack and tossing it in behind hers.

“I’m okay. Give me the maps,” Tex said as he slammed the back door.

He handed her the maps and she got in the passenger seat.

“Bill, the keys aren’t here,” Tex said.

“All right, I’ll check the cops. You just concentrate on the maps.”

The keys were in the dead woman’s pocket. As an afterthought, he took the woman’s boots and tossed them in the back of the SUV. He got behind the wheel to find Tex focused on
The AT Guide
and a local map.

“There are sure to be roadblocks on the main roads.”

Wiggins nodded. “We can’t be caught in this thing anyway. If we break contact, we’ll have a shot at playing innocent if they catch us. There are two five-gallon gas cans in the back; let’s find an empty car, gas it up, and get off road. With any luck we can find a four-wheel drive. Try to find us a nice secluded logging road that might keep us near the AT.”

Tex nodded as Wiggins swung the car north and accelerated off the bridge. He floored it, and the trees flashed by on either side.

“How long do you think we have before someone comes looking?” asked Tex, eyes still on the map.

Wiggins shrugged. “Who knows? A half hour maybe?”

The radio squawked, “Unit 17, what is status of reported contact? Request immediate SITREP. Over.”

“Or not,” Tex said. “Should we try to fake it?”

Wiggins shook his head. “They didn’t say anything about us moving, so either they aren’t tracking this thing, or all the GPS birds are finally down. If we answer and they don’t buy it, we’re blown, but no response might just be a comms problem. That might buy us a few minutes of indecision. But there will be cars or a chopper coming our way soon, maybe both.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“We’ll stick out like a sore thumb to a chopper no matter which way we run, so we have to ditch this thing and fast. Find a place to bury this beast in the woods.” He sighed. “It was nice while it lasted, but we’re afoot again.”

Tex nodded and turned back to the map.

“Slow down,” she said.

“SLOW DOWN? Are you serious? We have to get a little farther than this before we ditch—”

“Just slow down! I’ve got an idea, but I need a minute and I don’t want to overshoot our turn,” Tex said, turning back to the map.

Wiggins slowed and glanced over with a concerned look. “I sure hope you know what you’re—”

“There! Right on Keep Tryst Road ahead.”

Tires squealed as Wiggins powered the SUV around a long sweeping curve onto Keep Tryst Road and started to accelerate.

“SLOW DOWN,” Tex said, “and get ready to turn onto Sandy Hook Road. It’s a very sharp right just ahead.”

Wiggins nodded and skidded around the turn onto Sandy Hook Road.

“Tex, this is taking us back—”

“Trust me. Watch for a dirt road to the left.”

Wiggins’ concern grew as they powered down the narrow road southwest, then swung due west and he saw US 340, the highway they’d just exited, loom above them in the near distance.

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU TAKING US, TEX?”

“There,” she said, pointing to the left, “turn there. And put this sucker in low.”

“WHERE?” Wiggins demanded; then he saw it, a dirt track through the trees. He braked hard to make the turn and dropped the SUV in low gear. He powered down the narrow track, dodging trees and mowing down scattered saplings as thick as his finger until they broke out of the trees and he slammed to a stop before a steep gravel-covered embankment rising across their path.

“What the hell—”

“Get us up on the railroad tracks,” Tex said.

“What? Which way?”

“Either. We won’t be there long,” she said.

Wiggins cursed and started up the embankment at an angle, his heart in his mouth as the tires slipped in the loose gravel and the SUV rocked on its suspension, threatening to roll at any moment. He gained the top and they bounced due east along the tracks; Tex focused on the tree line down the embankment to their right.

“When do we get off this damn thing?” Wiggins asked, fighting the wheel, his speech unsteady as the vehicle slammed across the track ties at twenty miles an hour. “We may blow a tire any minute at this rate.”

“As soon as I see a break in those trees,” Tex replied, eyes glued on the tree line. “THERE!”

Wiggins whipped the wheel to the right, bouncing down the steep embankment toward a barely visible gap.

They lost the right-side mirror going in, and Wiggins was forced to a crawl, dodging larger trees and bulling his way over and through smaller saplings and brush.

“I give up,” Wiggins said through clenched teeth as he held the wheel in a white-knuckled grip. “Where are you taking us?”

“In about fifty yards, we’ll come to the old towpath for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which runs concurrent with the AT here. Turn right and run due west along the river back to the bridge; then we’ll hide in this same strip of woods that runs under the bridge. I figure the last place they’ll look is the place we ran from. The woods should shield us from view, and the bridge will hide us from choppers. We don’t have a chance of outrunning them, so we have to outsmart them.”

They broke out of the trees as she finished, and a smile spread across Wiggins’ face as he whipped the battered car right on to the towpath. “I’ll be damned! Pretty smart, Tex.”

She rolled down her window. “Save your admiration and step on it. I hear a chopper.”

The chopper got louder as they raced for the bridge, but it was north of them, invisible below the tree line. They nosed their way into the wooded strip beneath the bridge with just seconds to spare. They heard the chopper circling as they cut brush and piled it around and on top of the SUV; it landed just as they crawled into their new hide.

“And now we wait,” Wiggins said.

Tex nodded. “And hope like hell no one puts two and two together. We’re sitting ducks if they figure this out.”

Chapter Two

Presidential Quarters

Camp David Complex

Maryland

Day 24, 10:15 a.m.

The Honorable Theodore M. Gleason, President of the United States of America, glared at the two men seated across the desk, a study in contrast. One was balding and of late middle age, his receding chin clean-shaved. He wore an obviously expensive suit and sported a Mont Blanc pen in the pocket of his freshly pressed snow white shirt. A gold Rolex peeked from beneath the edge of a monogrammed sleeve bearing the initials OAC. Even given the man’s current unease, he wore the uniform of the Washington power broker naturally, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact the world was going to Hell. But even wearing the external trappings of wealth and power, Secretary of Homeland Security Oliver Armstrong Crawford, or ‘Ollie’ to those who pretended to be his friends, was visibly uncomfortable. He was doing all he could to keep from squirming under the President’s gaze.

The second man was the polar opposite. In his late thirties and the picture of composure, he wore the black uniform of the newly formed FEMA Special Reaction Force, with a tape above his breast pocket bearing the name RORKE, and a single star on each shoulder. His sandy hair was neatly trimmed, as was his goatee, and an otherwise handsome face was marred by a thin, ropelike welt of scar tissue emanating from the corner of his eye and running down his left cheek. In an odd way it seemed to enhance rather than detract from his appearance, and he looked for all the world like a movie version of a pirate or perhaps a Viking. Brigadier General Rorke returned Gleason’s gaze evenly and without the slightest indication of concern.

Gleason focused his wrath where it was having the most impact. His voice was calm, but quiet menace dripped from every syllable.

“Four days, Ollie? Tremble gave you the slip four days ago and you’re just now getting around to telling me?”

Crawford shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Actually, Mr. President, it was a single fugitive, so it’s unclear if it was really Tremble. I was attempting to ascertain—”

“Cut the crap, Ollie! Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, some brain-dead group of congressmen on a fact-finding mission? The frigging dogs were following Tremble’s scent, weren’t they? The fact is, Tremble managed to give you the slip AGAIN, and you’ve been stalling for time trying to pick up his trail. You’re in here now hat in hand because you’ve failed and you can’t stall any longer. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“We know which way he’s headed, Mr. President, and we have a new strategy. it’s only a matter of time before—”

Gleason pounded his fist on the desk. “ENOUGH BULLSHIT! Find the bastard. And if you can’t pinpoint him, I want you sweeping up anyone moving in those woods along his path. Get him one way or another. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Crawford said.

“If I may, sir.” Rorke spoke for the first time. “It’s not quite as bad as it may seem. To date we’ve been pursuing Tremble and attempting to block his path and ‘drive him into a net’ so to speak. However, he’s no fool and obviously can anticipate where we might have barriers and figure out a way to bypass them. In response, we’ve just implemented a two-prong strategy, keeping pressure up on his rear while simultaneously starting well south and sending search teams north up every even remotely viable route. Rather than stationary barriers and pursuit, he now faces active pursuit closing from all directions and must react to our actions rather than vice versa. As the Secretary said, it’s only a matter of time, Mr. President.”

Gleason stared at him a moment. “How far south?”

“Tremble is an ex-Ranger and stays in good shape,” Rorke said, “but for all that, he’s still in his fifties. He can’t have much in the way of supplies either, so he’s likely protein deprived. I doubt he can maintain twenty miles a day in that terrain at the outside, but we figured twenty-five to be on the safe side. This morning we started a unit north from Loft Mountain Campground, which is a hundred miles south of our last sighting. We’re quite sure we’re in front of him. We also put units in by chopper to start north on the few side trails in the area. We’ll get him, Mr. President. You can count on it.”

Gleason nodded, mollified. “Sounds sensible.” He turned his gaze to Crawford. “And about damn time. Why didn’t you think of that, Ollie?”

“With respect, Mr. President,” Rorke lied, “this was Secretary Crawford’s idea. He just hadn’t had an … opportunity to inform you.”

Crawford shot Rorke a grateful look and nodded.

Gleason nodded again. “All right, but catch the bastard. He’s a loose end we can’t afford, especially with this homegrown alternative to the Emergency Broadcast System. Now what are you doing to contain these damned HAMs? The information they’re sharing about our FEMA operations is a direct contradiction to what we’re putting out on the EBS.”

“We got the HAM license database from the FCC, and General Rorke is preparing a coordinated operation to take all the operators and their families into custody and to destroy all of the equipment,” Crawford said. “Our main concern is non-licensed operators, so we’re waiting a few days to try to locate as many as possible via triangulation. Almost everyone is transmitting in the clear now, but as soon as we crack down, word will spread and any we miss will likely start evasive techniques. The more effective we can make the first raid, the more likely we are to stamp this out quickly.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long. And have your public affairs people gin up some sort of misinformation to cast doubt on the HAM operators. Say they’re foreign infiltrators trying to spread discord and soften us up for an invasion at our time of weakness or something like that.” Gleason paused. “Why didn’t I think of that before? Let’s run with that ‘foreign invasion’ thing. I can see all sorts of applications beyond smearing the HAMs.”

“But, Mr. President,” Crawford said, “we’ve already broadcast the situation is global and told people there wasn’t an external threat. It was part of our strategy to keep the public calm. We can’t—”

“We can do any frigging thing we want, Ollie, supposing you do your job and get those HAMs neutralized. We control the only means of mass communication and we’ll employ it in the public good. See that it happens. Anything else?”

“Ahhh … there is one other thing, Mr. President. I’m having a problem out west. The Vice President inserted himself in the loop and countermanded some of my orders to the military there.” Crawford paused. “I even have intelligence he’s planning on leaving Cheyenne Mountain and returning to his home in Sacramento to, in his words, ‘oversee recovery efforts.’ I just heard about it this morning.”

“That friggin’ moron. He wouldn’t even BE veep if I hadn’t needed the support of all his moonbeam and granola Hollywood asshole buddies. When is this happening?” Gleason demanded.