A Town Called America (35 page)

The two remaining soldiers turned and sprinted down the long corridor, one stopping only to turn a knob on a door that was locked.
Shaking the door handle in a frantic attempt to reach safety, the soldier turned his head just in time to see Billy throw his sword. It glided silently and gracefully through the air, spinning in a perfect motion, before it pierced the soldier’s abdomen.

The remaining soldier turned a corner just before the rest of the group was able to catch up with Billy. They all looked at the bodies on the floor then looked back at Billy.

“How do you always do that? You can be outnumbered ten to one, and you always come out on top,” one of his men asked.

“I’m just lucky I guess and besides, I let one of them go,” Billy said, smiling, as he pulled the sword from the soldier’s body before continuing down the hallway.

“Is he serious?” the man asked. “Did he really let one go?”

“With Billy you never can be sure,” Robbie responded, smiling.

The engine room wasn’t what one might have expected it to be. It wasn’t dark or dirty, with slaves pumping coal into huge burners, nor was it a small space cramped with oily machinery. On the contrary it was large, clean, and looked quite futuristic. It was an open space with a massive oval desk nearly twenty feet long. Monitoring systems for phones, fax machines, computer switches, and TV screens lined one long wall.

On the left and right, six giant engines, all with safety railing around them, took up nearly the entire space. Tubes, pipes, wires, and controls went in every direction. Between each engine was a metal staircase that allowed operators access to the systems. To Billy it looked like a cross between a spaceship and the control room at a nuclear power plant.

A few moments after he had entered the engine room, he spotted four unarmed men monitoring the control panels. None put up a fight as Billy and Robbie seized control of the systems. In a matter of minutes, all four engineers were in handcuffs, their mouths covered in tape. Billy was very clear when he told his group not to harm the men; he needed them alive.

Immediately he went to work on the computer systems. He opened a large panel with servers behind it and traced the wires as he plugged
various pieces of equipment into a number of slots. To the untrained eye, it looked like a giant mess of wires in complete disarray.

“Give me two minutes, and the M.M. will be blind,” he said.

“You’re sure they won’t be able to get their cameras working again?” Robbie asked, as Billy typed on a keyboard.

“Nope, they’ll be totally blind.”

“Good.”

While Billy was working on the cameras, Robbie’s men were sealing the doors to the engine room. The same man who had cut through the outside of the ship was now welding the steel doors shut. There were three of them in all; the scaffolding above them had a door at one end, and the other door was directly across from the door through which they’d entered. That was the only one that would remain unsealed.

On the bridge the soldiers were frantic, as they’d lost the use of all their security cameras.

“Sir, should I sound the alert?”

“No,” the captain said, then hesitated for a few moments. “If we sound the alert, we’ll have to report this to high command. Unless you want to go aboard the oil rig and explain this, we’ll wait. We can handle this issue ourselves. A few rogue men are no threat to this vessel.”

“Roger, sir.”

Rick had been waiting in that small kitchen when the explosion from the skiff shook the entire room, causing him to almost spill his coffee. Just before the explosion, he’d been searching through the cupboards, one after another. Then he found it: sugar packets.

“Hey, this is like gold,” he said to Mike. “You know how hard it is to find sugar these days?”

After ripping open two of the packets and pouring them into his coffee, he took all the remaining packets and filled his right pants pocket.

When the explosion sounded, Rick told Mike that was the signal he’d been waiting for. It was time, and he needed him to get Chuck down from the vent because there was a change of plans. Rick had business to attend to. He explained to Mike that he needed him to tell everyone not to wait. He’d meet them all onshore after he took care of a few things. Against his better judgment, Mike agreed.

Rick took a sip of coffee then spat it out. “Oh, God…this is salt.”

Walking out of the room, Mike laughed and shook his head. A minute later Rick left the kitchen and was on his way to find Chris. He had an idea where she might be, but he didn’t have time to take any chances, so instead he was going to have the M.M. take him to her.

After the explosion the captain finally decided to put the ship on high alert. Small round lights the size of a golf balls, located above every doorway and in every room, were flashing red.

The M.M. soldiers were running to their posts as a prerecorded message was broadcast throughout the ship. “This is not a test. This is not a test. Proceed to your assigned places of duty, and await further instructions.”

When the explosion went off, Chris was in her room, sitting in an aged high-back chair near a window. She knew the war was now at her doorstep, and even if she could leave her room, she’d just end up killing soldiers from the resistance, which she didn’t want to do. If that happened, any possibility of Rick and her reconciling their differences would die along with the soldiers.

A radio on a small wooden table next to Chris had hummed just after the explosion. Commanders all over the ship were ordering their
soldiers to do various tasks and requesting status reports, updates, and locations.

Chris was listening to all the havoc that was taking place until she heard something that completely threw her off guard. It was in fact the last thing she’d expected to hear. The M.M. soldiers were reporting that a drunken man was naked and in the ship’s swimming pool. Chris knew exactly who it was.

“Rick,” she said in disbelief.

FORTY SEVEN

A
fter Rick left Mike, he headed straight for the pool. Several floors above the kitchen and down a multitude of hallways, Rick, after encountering several soldiers, saw the first sign that pointed the way to the pool.

Following the faded plastic signs, he moved through the seemingly endless hallway. Around nearly every corner, he ran into soldiers. When he did, before the men could react, he cut them down with his sword, leaving a trail of bodies along the way to his destination. When the hallway finally opened up to the pool area, Rick looked around, and to his surprise, there were no soldiers nearby.

Rick dropped all his weapons, except his sword, along with his clothes, on the pool deck. Naked he jumped into the cool water with the bottle of Captain Morgan he’d kept in his backpack. With his sword in one hand and the booze in the other, he climbed into a floating chair, where he sat and waited.
If this doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know what will
, he thought.

Rick didn’t know where Chris was, but he did know that if he didn’t give himself up, he’d probably be killed, which was fine by him, as long as it happened after he found Chris and ensured she was safe. Sitting in the floating chair, with his feet dangling in the water, he wasn’t worried about his life as long as his two objectives were accomplished. First and foremost he needed to find Chris, and
second, he had to ensure that the ship, its crew, and the oil rig were destroyed.

Five minutes after Rick climbed into the pool chair, two M.M. Soldiers walked onto the pool deck and stood staring at Rick.

“Hi, fellas,” Rick slurred. “The water is great. You should come in.”

“Four-zero, this is one-three. Um, sir…it seems we have a situation at pool number two.”

“One-three, what is the situation?”

“Well, sir, it’s the drunken captain from the refuel vessel. He’s, ah…well, he’s in the pool, sir.”

“One-three, escort him out of the pool and take him to holding. What’s the issue down there anyway?”

“Sir, he’s…well, he’s not dressed, sir.”

Listening to their conversation, Rick took a couple of sips from his bottle to try to hide his smile while he floated in the pool naked, making every effort not to laugh.

Mike and Chuck had caught up with Billy’s group and were in the engine room with them.

“All the explosives are set, sir. “It took me two hours to do it, but it’s done. Here. This is the trigger device,” Chuck said, wheezing and short of breath.

“You did good, kid,” Billy told him.

“Yeah, but…but I was shot, sir.”

As the young man fell into Billy’s arms, Billy saw the bullet wound in his stomach.

“You think I did good, sir?”

“Yes, son, you did. I’m proud of you.”

Chuck smiled, looking up at Billy, as his body fell limp. Billy held him for a few moments before he laid him on a table and covered him with a coat. As strong as Billy was, he couldn’t hold back his tears. He wiped his eyes and said, “You know, I don’t even know his name.” None spoke a word; they all just stood in silence.