Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 (33 page)

The big man moved closer—already too close, she realized. He closed the distance between them and pinned her arms to her side in a tight hug.

Laura felt the hard bulk of his body pressing against her, along with evidence of his aroused state. He stank of stale sweat, and his breath confirmed dental hygiene was not a priority. She felt rough stubble scratching her face as he bent and nuzzled her neck. She fought down revulsion and willed herself not to resist. She pressed her body back against him.

He lifted his lips from her neck and drew back to look at her, smiling.

“Well, well, well. Now ain’t this a nice little surprise,” he said.

Laura managed a smile of her own and shrugged in his grasp. “I’m not stupid. I know you’re going to take what you want, so I don’t see any need to get hurt in the process.”

The man relaxed his grip. “Now that there is a good attitude, and I think we’re gonna get along just fine.” He spoke back over his shoulder. “What’d I tell you, Morgan. This is gonna work out perfect—”

Laura had worked her right hand to the small of her back, and though still in the loose embrace of her attacker, she whipped the Glock between them and pressed it to the man’s crotch.

He looked back at her, anger clouding his face as he squeezed her tighter, which only managed to dig the Glock more forcefully into his crotch.

“That’s a nine millimeter with hollow points. I’ve already used about half the trigger pull, and it’s only going to take a twitch to discharge it,” Laura said, “so unless you want to start singing soprano, I suggest you let me go and tell your friend over there to put his gun on the kitchen island and lay down on his stomach.”

Her attacker dropped his hands to his sides and spoke over his shoulder again, to where his partner had his pistol out, pointed at Laura in a two-handed grip.

“You heard her, Morgan. Do what she says.”

“Screw that,” said the second man. “I got her dead to rights. I can drop her right now.”

“And she twitches and blows my junk away, you idiot. NOW PUT THE GUN DOWN!”

Laura watched the one called Morgan’s face as indecision warred with the need to comply. He started to lower his gun to the kitchen island when the sound of a floorboard squeaking came through the door to the hallway. He whirled towards the hallway door, gun still in hand.

“There’s somebody else here,” he said.

The girls, thought Laura, and as Morgan moved toward the hall doorway with his gun raised, her only instinct was protecting her children. She whipped the Glock from her attacker’s crotch toward Morgan.

But freed from the imminent threat of emasculation, her attacker was too fast for her. As she brought the gun up, he hammered her wrist with his left hand before she got a shot off, and the Glock clattered on the floor. Simultaneously, a powerful right fist to her gut doubled her over. She dropped like a rock and lay gasping, her own attacker all but forgotten as she focused on Morgan framed in the hallway door with his gun drawn. Then there was a deafening blast and the back of Morgan’s shirt erupted in a red mist as he sailed backwards to land on the kitchen floor, a lifeless lump.

“MOM?” she heard, followed by running footsteps, and her blood ran cold as she whipped her head toward the remaining attacker. He had his own gun out, ignoring her to focus on the immediate threat. He dropped behind the cover of the kitchen island, only his right knee visible to her as he crouched, waiting for his target to appear in the hallway door.

The footsteps were coming closer, but her attempts to call out a warning yielded a barely audible croak. She spotted her Glock halfway to the fridge and clawed her way toward it, forcing her oxygen-starved body to move, reaching the gun a scant second before her daughters burst into the kitchen. She flopped over on her back and sent a round into her attacker’s exposed knee.

The man screamed in pain as he collapsed on the floor, his body in full sight now as he brought his own gun to bear. But Laura was faster and put shot after shot center mass, not stopping until the slide locked open and her hand started shaking so badly the gun fell from her hand and clattered on the floor beside her.

And then her daughters were beside her, and she hugged them tight with trembling arms and sobbed great racking sobs, and vowed come what may in this strange new world, no one would harm her children while there was life in her body.

***

They were big men, with the heavy musculature of bodybuilders, and it took improvisation to get the bodies into the trunk of the police car. Laura backed the cruiser up to the front porch and she and her daughters dragged the bodies most of the way on a plastic shower curtain before spanning the distance between the open trunk and the elevated porch with planks from the barn. Even at that, it was over an hour after they started when they rolled the second body in and closed the trunk.

“Okay,” Laura said, “I’m going to park this out of sight in the barn until we’re ready to leave. Y’all get cleaned up and make sure you get all the blood off. I’ll do the same when I get back, but I don’t want to take too long. I want to be rid of them before anyone comes looking.”

The girls gave subdued nods, and Laura’s heart went out to them. She’d have done anything to spare them the grisly task, but it was simply beyond her physical capability to do it alone.

“What are we going to do with them?” Julie asked quietly.

“I’m gonna drive their car to the Boyd’s Bayou crossing down the road. You girls will follow me in the truck, and when we get there, we’ll push their car into the bayou. We’ve had a lot of rain, so the water should be deep enough to cover it.”

“But we can’t drive,” Jana said. “We don’t even have our learner permits yet.”

Laura shook her head. “But you both know HOW to drive. Dad’s been letting you drive the truck around the pasture for two years.”

“But what if the police … oh yeah. I guess that’s not really a big deal,” Jana said.

Laura nodded, longing for a time when a ticket for driving without a license was the worst thing they had to worry about.

“All right, go get cleaned up. I’ll be right back,” she said.

Half an hour later, Laura was behind the wheel of the cruiser as she turned on to the county road, hoping against hope they didn’t encounter any other traffic. She looked in the rearview mirror and confirmed the girls were following at a safe distance, then looked back to the road ahead, second-guessing her hastily devised plan. The bayou was about fifty feet wide and varied from four to eight feet in depth, depending on the season. They’d had a fair amount of rain over the last few weeks, but the bottom of the canal was irregular. What if there wasn’t enough water near the bridge to cover the car? She willed herself to stop worrying and focus on the task at hand. She didn’t have a better plan. This one had to work.

After the longest four miles she’d ever driven, she spotted the bridge, a low, unimposing concrete span raised a few feet higher than the road to accommodate the bayou at full flood, approached by a gradual ramp on either end and fitted with steel guardrails on each side. She slowed, coasting to a stop near the top of the slight incline just before entering the bridge proper. She put the cruiser in park and rolled down all four windows, then cut the wheels to the right and left them there. She got out just as the girls stopped behind her, and motioned them out of the truck.

“Okay, I’m gonna get in the truck and pull it up against the back bumper of the cop car so it doesn’t roll backward. I want one of you to get in the cop car and put it in neutral, then get out and shut the door and get well out of the way. Got it?”

Both girls nodded. “I’ll do it,” Julie said, moving to the cop car as Laura climbed behind the wheel of the truck.

When Julie completed the task and both girls were safely on the other side of the narrow road, Laura pressed the accelerator. As soon as the cop car started to move, she mashed down hard, sending both vehicles surging forward twenty feet before she stomped the brakes, stopping the truck as the police car shot off the road and bounced down the slight embankment toward the bayou. It hit the water with a grand splash and plowed forward, sending a bow wave to bounce off the opposite bank. It sank steadily, the weight of the engine pulling the front end deeper, until water began to pour into the open windows and the car plunged under the water.

Almost.

The car came to rest with a narrow strip of the trunk lid showing, reading SHERIFF in bright green letters against a white background. Laura watched it with a lump in her stomach and willed it to sink. It didn’t.

“What are we going to do, Mom?”

She turned to find Jana and Julie beside her, looking down at the still-visible evidence of their deed.

“Not much we can do, except maybe pray for rain. Get in, girls, we need to get out of here before anyone sees us.”

Chapter Sixteen

FEMA

Emergency Operations Center

Mount Weather

Near Bluemont, VA

Day 17, 5:00 a.m.

Congressman Simon Tremble sipped the coffee, his appreciation of the improvement in rations since he’d ‘joined the team’ tempered by the knowledge of widespread privation outside the privileged bubble of Mount Weather. He set the mug on the coffee table and picked up the bound notes for the ‘briefing’ he was scheduled to deliver over the FEMA National Radio System. He shook his head and tossed the offensive document across the room.

It was little more than a scripted cheerleading session, full of lies about ‘help being on the way,’ and assurances ‘things will be improving soon.’ He had difficulty reading it without flying into a rage, and he knew he could never speak those words into a microphone without betraying all he held dear. He stood and paced the living area of the small apartment he shared with his son, then stopped to look out the window at the lush foliage just becoming visible in the growing light of predawn. Sunlight and scenery was one advantage at least, of being ‘special guests’ of the President.

The massive underground complex at Weather Mountain teemed with bureaucrats and their lackeys, and it would be all but impossible to sequester anyone there confidentially. But spread over more than four hundred acres of mountaintop, the sprawling surface facility over the underground complex was impressive in its own right, and separate buildings lined roads winding through strips of untouched woodland. Tremble and his son were on the third floor of just such a building, at the far end of an access road with no internal traffic.

The whereabouts and involuntary nature of the residence of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives was on a need-to-know basis. The windows were sealed and there was a twenty-four-hour guard, always one of the same three men on rotating eight-hour shifts, with the guard who came on at six a.m. every morning providing their daily rations.

The guards were stone-faced, communicating by gestures and curt commands, obviously instructed to limit interaction. Tremble gently chided them at every opportunity, carrying on unfailingly pleasant, if one-sided conversations, telling jokes and doing anything he could to provoke a reaction. None wore name tags, but he’d named them all, and called them by their fictitious names. Come what may, it wouldn’t hurt if their keepers viewed him and Keith as people, rather than assignments. He had no doubt these same guards might one day be given other, harsher orders, and if he built some rapport, no matter how tenuous, the guards’ actions or facial expressions might telegraph the change.

He’d made most headway with the guard he’d named Sam, the morning man who brought the daily food ration. In recent days Tremble had even seen a suppressed smile tugging at the corners of Sam’s mouth from time to time as he delivered the punchline of a particularly funny joke. Not much, but it was there. Sam, or whatever his real name was, acted a bit less guarded when he came into the apartment with the rations or when he stuck his head in for the head count every two hours.

Tremble picked up on other things as well. The guards did periodic visual checks during the day and entered the apartment to check on their sleeping forms at night, which told him electronic surveillance was unlikely. That made sense given the ‘ad hoc’ nature of their confinement in a totally isolated and secure facility like Mount Weather. Apparently neither the President nor the Secretary of Homeland Security felt there were any conversations between Tremble and his teenage son that warranted eavesdropping. If only the bastards knew.

His thoughts returned to Keith, the center of his universe for the ten years since cancer had taken Jane. He’d do anything to keep his son safe, but he knew Keith would never be safe under Gleason and Crawford’s control. Tremble had no doubt as soon as he’d served his purpose, both he and Keith were loose ends. His worry was tempered with pride at Keith’s response when he’d explained the situation to him yesterday, just laying out the facts without attempting to influence his son’s opinion. Keith had fallen silent while he weighed the options.

“Do you really think President Gleason is setting himself up to be some sort of dictator?” Keith asked.

“A month ago, I’d have laughed at the suggestion,” Tremble replied, “but after meeting him face to face, I have no doubt. As the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If he has his way, we may get limited electrical power restored to serve the needs of those he’s deemed worthy of saving, but we’ll have paid for it with the complete loss of democracy.”

“Then there are no options, Dad. You can’t do what they want, and I’m sure not becoming one of their thugs. They might as well kill us both now. We know they’re probably going to sooner or later anyway. On the other hand, as soon as you resist, they may separate us to increase the leverage, so I’d say pretend to go along and then we take a shot at getting out of here. Right now they need you, so they’ll be hesitant to kill you, and if they kill me, they know you won’t cooperate. That means if we try and fail, we’re not any worse off than we are now.”

From the mouths of babes, Tremble recalled thinking, then revised the thought—at eighteen, his son was a powerfully built young man and mature beyond his years. When did that happen? he wondered, a wistful smile on his face. Keith’s bedroom door opened and his son walked into the living area, fully clothed.

“Fresh coffee in the pot,” Tremble said, nodding toward the small kitchenette.

Keith returned his nod. “Might as well enjoy it while we can.” He moved toward the kitchen, returning a moment later with cup in hand to sprawl on one end of the small sofa.

“You been up all night?”

“Since about two,” Tremble replied, “I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. I was just about to come in and wake you.”

Keith shook his head. “I’ve been awake an hour or so myself. Nerves, I guess.”

Tremble nodded. “Same here. You sure you’re okay with this, son? Maybe I can play them a little while longer and form a better plan?”

“But what if they separate us? Then we’re screwed. We’re on borrowed time as it is, Dad.”

Tremble nodded again and fished something out of the back pocket of his slacks before sitting down on the couch beside Keith and handing him the flattened ziplock bag. Inside was a document, folded small.

“What’s this?”

“You’ve read it,” Tremble said. “It’s my official copy of Secretary Crawford’s memo to the President detailing the ‘recovery plan.’ I got a copy because I was Speaker, and since we were already ‘sequestered,’ no one bothered to take it back. I put it in one of the ziplock bags from our food ration to protect it. I want you to take it.”

“But why? You should keep it to prove—”

Tremble cut him off. “We have to get word out about what’s going on. If we both make it, I’ll take it back and get copies spread around. But if … if I don’t make it, nobody is likely to take the word of an eighteen-year-old kid. I’m sorry, that’s a fact. However, some documentation gives you at least a fighting chance to be heard. And if … if …”

“If I don’t make it,” Keith finished for him. “You’re Speaker of the House, so people are much more likely to take your word without any backup documentation. Okay, Dad, I got it. Makes sense.”

Tremble nodded and glanced at his watch. “Sam should be bringing the food soon. Let’s go over the plan again.

‘Sam’ was right on time, and forty-five minutes later Tremble and his son were sitting on the sofa when they heard the low murmur of conversation outside the door, signaling the change of shift. Tremble nodded to Keith and pretended to turn his attention to the briefing script while his son quickly retreated to the small bathroom. There was a tap on the door before it opened to reveal the more genial of their keepers, who closed the door behind himself and moved toward the kitchenette with a plastic grocery bag, looking around as he did so, as was his routine.

“Good morning, Sam,” Tremble said, “and what wonderful treats did you bring us today?”

The man scowled as he set the bag on the small counter separating the living area and kitchenette. “Where’s the kid? I gotta see you both for shift change. You know that.”

Tremble inclined his head toward the bathroom door. “Answering the call of nature, I’m afraid. I’m sure he’ll be out any time.” Tremble rose and walked toward the kitchenette. “There’s fresh coffee, want a cup?”

The man shook his head as Tremble moved past him into the kitchen to refill his empty cup and returned to lean with his butt against the counter. He held the coffee in his left hand and studied the guard standing a few feet away, glaring at the bathroom door.

“KEITH! HURRY UP AND GET OUT HERE. SAM’S WAITING,” Tremble yelled. The door to the bathroom opened, right on cue.

Keith came out muttering apologies, then stumbled and went down on one knee, drawing Sam’s full attention. Tremble threw scalding coffee into the guard’s face, and the man closed his eyes reflexively and stepped back, groping blindly for his sidearm. Tremble connected with a rising punch starting from his waist and landing on the point of the guard’s chin, snapping the man’s mouth shut and dropping him like a rock. Tremble was on top of the unconscious man immediately, stripping him of sidearm and stun gun, and handing Keith the man’s handcuffs as his son reached his side.

“Hurry. Turn him on his stomach and cuff his hands behind his back in case he comes to,” Tremble whispered. “Pete will be outside waiting for Sam to take over the shift so he can leave.”

No sooner had Tremble spoken than the doorknob began to turn, and he crossed the small living area in four long strides and stepped behind the opening door. ‘Pete’ rounded the door to find a nine millimeter an inch away from his forehead.

“Just come on in, Pete. Lock your fingers behind your head, and don’t make any sudden moves. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you make me.” Tremble’s tone left no doubt he meant it.

‘Pete’ nodded, his eyes wide, and did as instructed as Tremble closed the door with his foot, then pressed his back against it until the latch clicked, never once losing focus on the man in front of him. He instructed his captive to face the wall, then used his free hand to remove the guard’s sidearm.

“Now keep looking at the wall and strip, very slowly,” Tremble said. “One wrong move and you’re dead.”

The guard complied, and as soon as he was down to his underwear, Tremble instructed him to lay on this stomach and held the gun on him while Keith cuffed the man with his own handcuffs, bound his feet, and gagged him with strips torn from a bed sheet. Together, they then uncuffed and undressed ‘Sam,’ who was regaining consciousness but showing no signs of fight. When they finished, they put the cuffs back on and bound his feet and gagged him before stripping their own clothes to don the uniforms.

Keith finished first and sat down on the couch with one of the pairs of boots. He looked inside the shoe and quickly pulled his face back. “Whew! Sam here could use some odor-eaters, that’s one rank pair of boots. Anyway, they’re elevens. That’ll work for me. How are yours.”

Tremble sat down beside his son and checked the other guard’s boots. “They’re twelves, I’m good.”

Moments later they stood side by side at a wall mirror.

“What do you think, Dad?”

“Close enough,” Tremble said. “If we pull the caps low, we can definitely pass at a distance, at least until they raise the alarm.”

“What now?” Keith asked.

Tremble held up the keys he’d fished out of ‘Pete’s’ pocket. “I didn’t see any security cameras on the buildings here. My guess is the bulk of the security effort is concentrated on the perimeter fences. So we get in their car and just try to drive out. Best I can tell from listening through the door, they report in randomly, but Pete here was due off shift, so we don’t know if his failure to show up or log out someplace might set off an alarm. We’ll keep his radio, so maybe we’ll know if anyone starts getting suspicious.”

“All right. Let’s do it,” Keith said, but his father hesitated, casting a pointed look at Keith’s sidearm.

“You okay with that?”

“I’ve used it at the range, I’m good,” Keith said.

“Trust me, shooting at another human being who’s shooting back at you is quite a bit different. Don’t hesitate to use it if you have to, but understand up front it’s not nearly as easy as you think. You need to get your mind around that, because it could save your life.”

Keith swallowed and nodded, and Tremble pulled him into an embrace. “I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Tremble fought down his own emotion and patted his son on the back.

Two minutes later, caps pulled low, they were in a black SUV moving at the posted speed limit along a well-paved road winding uphill through the western half of the complex. There were only a few people moving around the many buildings they passed, and Tremble heaved a relieved sigh. The early hour was working in their favor.

“How much further?” Keith asked.

“A mile or so on this road because of all the switchbacks,” Tremble said, “then we’ll pass over Blue Ridge Mountain Road. That’s a state highway that cuts the camp in two. They couldn’t close it, so they put high fences on either side and then built an overpass on this road to connect the east and west halves of the surface facility. The overpass is just around the next bend. After the overpass, we pass the back side of the main gate security building one street over and go down about two hundred yards to make a one-eighty back toward the gate. Then it might get hairy.”

“So we just drive through the gate? No one’s gonna stop us?”

“Not hardly, that’s why it gets hairy, but the security is set up to keep people out and we’ve got that going for us. That and human nature.”

“I don’t follow,” Keith said.

“There are steel barrier posts at the gate which hydraulically retract into the pavement to let vehicles pass. They’re kept deployed on the entrance side of the gate and have to be lowered every time to admit a vehicle. The same thing is SUPPOSED to be true on the exit side, but it takes a minute or so to raise and lower the posts and is a bit of a pain in the ass. The bigger concern has always been people coming in rather than going out, and I noticed the few times I’ve been here the barrier posts on the exit gate were kept down in favor of using the secondary, and fairly flimsy, bar gate. We’re pretty remote here, without much in the way of external threats, so I’m hoping they haven’t changed their ways. We can crash the lift bar.”