Sanctuary: A Postapocalyptic Novel (The New World Series) (14 page)

Neither Conner nor Baxter had done anything about the Cruz situation. He had been Barone’s prisoner for weeks, with no word on his condition.

This was all part of Conner’s strategy, the typical “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” doctrine used so often in the past. Conner had a hunch that Barone would treat Cruz with dignity and wouldn’t harm him or his people. He calculated that Barone’s intention was to leverage the U.S. in exchange for his release. Conner wanted Barone to sweat a bit thinking that his plan wouldn’t work. But now it was time to open up the lines of communication.

Everything was going smoothly in Cheyenne, so much so that Conner had ordered most of the reserve staff at Cheyenne Mountain to join him. Conner was very impressed with how the governor and command leadership from F. E. Warren had prevented a societal meltdown. Conner had reassimilated into the leadership role seamlessly, and now, with a full team at his command, he could focus some of his attention to Barone and to the Pan-American Empire. The report he received yesterday troubled him—it seemed that this was the first legitimate threat from the PAE, so he wanted to address it immediately.

Conner was fully aware of the limited military resources at his disposal. The Marine ARG that had been stationed on the East Coast was now in port in Houston. The alliance with the Republic of Texas was working well and he didn’t want to pull them out of there. Hawaii hadn’t been successful in keeping all the military assets stationed there loyal to them. He was disappointed, but there wasn’t enough time or resources to address this issue now. Meanwhile, the Third Marine Regiment stationed on Oahu had boarded ships and were in route to Portland when they were ordered to stop after Cruz’s capture. Since then, they had been floating around off the coast of Washington State.

The PAE’s force was sizeable, and Conner needed as many troops as possible to confront them. Even with a combined effort of the ARG and the Third Marine Regiment he needed more troops. As for a leveraging point, Barone could be the force that would tip the scales in their favor.

“Dylan, come in here please,” he ordered.

Dylan had re-established his role with Conner and had now taken over as his chief of staff. Though he was relatively young and inexperienced, Conner trusted him completely. What he lacked in experience he made up for in loyalty.

Dylan came in armed with a pad of paper and sat down.

Conner sat back in his chair and gave him a punch list of tasks that needed to be tackled. Dylan took notes diligently as Conner rattled off one item after another.

“That it’s. But before you go, I saved the last task as the most important. Touch base with General Baxter. Have him contact Barone in whatever little hole he’s hiding. I need to speak with him about Cruz. It’s time for us to negotiate.”

Dylan stopped writing and looked up.

“I got your attention, didn’t I?” Conner joked.

“Yes, it’s just that I was thinking about the vice president this morning, and it’s coincidental that now you mentioned him.”

“He’s been on my mind daily. I just couldn’t do anything about him until the entire situation was assessed and I determined the appropriate way to bargain with Barone. But now I think I have the deal that could set him free.”

“I hope so,” Dylan responded.

“That is it, hop to it. Oh, and please call General Vincent from Warren; we need to discuss the status of our nukes.” The mention of nuclear weapons made Dylan pause.

Conner noticed this and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to push the button on anyone. I just haven’t had a full briefing on how the weapons are being maintained. We already have issues with some of our nuclear power plants. I don’t need a nuclear disaster in my own backyard.”

Dylan noticeably exhaled, satisfied with that answer. “Sounds good, sir,” Dylan said. He stood and left the room.

When the doors closed Conner spun around in his chair to look out the window. He began to strum his fingers on the armrest. The thud of his ring grabbed his attention. He looked at the gold band. This was the ring that Julia had bet her life on. If she had only waited a day, she’d be alive. Frustrated, he pried the ring off his swollen finger and held it in his hand. He didn’t want this grim reminder sitting on his hand any longer. “Good-bye, Julia,” he said as he placed the ring in a drawer and closed it.

Eagle, Idaho

A high-pressure system had been hanging over the region for days. It brought with it bitter cold but thankfully no new precipitation. This made it easy to track Raymond’s movements, which had remained etched into the ground like fossils. Nelson, Mack, and Scott had decided that they better track where they led so they could determine where the group came from.

Raymond’s frozen footprints led from the back deck and headed north. Just thirty feet from the deck, Nelson, Mack, and Scott came upon a startling discovery. A large area had been stamped down behind a pine tree.

“Look at that,” Mack commented, pointing at the area.

“Yeah, looks like our friend used this as a hiding spot,” Scott then said.

“That pervert was stalking Samantha, scoping out her bedroom window, I bet,” Nelson added with an edge to his voice. Just thinking about how this man had camped out just yards away from their home made him feel uneasy, even if he was dead.

The men moved on. They weren’t sure how far Raymond had come and they didn’t want to be gone when night fell. Their absence left the community vulnerable, but it was a risk Nelson thought was justified. He brought Scott and Mack along only because he thought they needed to see with their own eyes what they might be up against.

As they climbed and descended the hills, all the men began to complain.

“Holy shit, that drunk fuck went this far to get a glimpse of ass?” Mack panted as he bent over.

“I was in better shape before the apocalypse,” Nelson chimed in.

“Guys, this is a better workout than I ever got
before
the apocalypse. Woo!” Scott said as he blew out hard.

“Look at you, Scott, am I steaming too?” Nelson asked.

“Yes, sir, you are,” Scott answered.

Mack opened his mouth to make another crack, but stopped short when they crested over the top of the hill.

“Guys, this might be it,” Mack said, crouching down on the hard, frozen ground.

Scott and Nelson jogged the rest of the distance and crawled up alongside Mack.

Nelson pulled out his binoculars and began to survey a small group of buildings. About a half mile down the hill sat a large house with barns and one single-wide trailer.

“Is this it?” Scott asked.

Nelson found the tracks with his binoculars and followed them right up to the front door of the house. “I’d say yes. The tracks lead to the front door.”

Mack handed Scott his binos. “They don’t seem to have much. I wouldn’t be that concerned with these guys,” he commented.

“Maybe so. Let’s get a count for anything here that might tell us something,” Nelson said.

“Look, look. Someone’s coming out of the trailer,” Mack said.

The front door of the old trailer opened. One of the scraggly-haired men from the other day stepped out. From his swagger, it was clear that he was intoxicated. He slipped on the snowy ground and landed on his hip, yelling out something unintelligible. Picking himself off the ground, he raised his middle finger to the trailer.

The door opened again and a woman who was wearing nothing more than a towel tossed out his jacket. She too yelled something, then slammed the door.

The man walked back, picked up his jacket, then walked back over to the trailer, unzipped his pants, and began to urinate on the side of the trailer.

“Who needs TV? This looks like one of those reality shows you used to be able to watch,” Mack joked.

The woman opened the door again but this time she threw what appeared to be empty beer bottles at him. The two exchanged loud words, then she slammed the door shut. The man then stumbled up to the main house and knocked. Truman opened the door a crack. The two men talked for a second before Truman opened the door fully and allowed the other man to come in.

“Nelson, these guys don’t look like much of a threat. They look like a bunch of drunks,” Scott quipped.

“Maybe you’re right,” Nelson responded. He surveyed the property and saw several trucks, but they seemed like they hadn’t been driven in months, covered with garbage and snow. From the looks of it, these people didn’t have any form of transportation beyond their own two feet.

“Well, I’ve seen enough,” Scott said, then scooted away from the top of the hill.

Mack followed suit and asked Nelson, “You coming?”

“You guys go on ahead, I’m going to stay for a bit longer to see if we might have missed something.”

“Suit yourself, man,” Mack said. “Just watch your back.” He and Scott soon took off down the hill and were gone.

Nelson was shivering now. He disliked the Idaho winters, with their cold and very short days. The sun was already making its approach toward the western horizon, and it was only a little after three p.m. The frozen ground was sucking what warmth he had out of his body, and his damp clothes were starting to freeze over. But he had a gut feeling that there was something more to this group, something more insidious. Truman’s words sat uncomfortably with him—it seemed more like a promise for revenge than the hollow threat that Mack and Scott had assumed it was. He couldn’t sleep well at night knowing these guys were over here, and so he wanted to gather as much information as possible. Unfortunately, even with the extra time, nothing significant happened. He could see movement inside the house, but nothing telling. He stayed for as long as he could, but when he started to shake, he knew it was time to go. He inched his way down the hill, stood up, and made his way back.

On his long trek back to the community, Nelson dwelled some more on the situation. If they didn’t have operational vehicles, they soon would be limited by how far they could go and would run low on supplies. If he were Truman, he thought, he would look at Eagle’s Nest as a nice place to get resupplied and to steal a vehicle or two. Nelson thought that would be the way to convince the others that an attack would be necessary. It was better to be safe than sorry, in his eyes.

As he walked back, the chill in his body became increasingly worse and he feared he was experiencing the beginning stages of hypothermia. He tried to keep his mind occupied with thoughts about a potential attack.

At one point, deep in the thought about the logistics of his plan, he laughed aloud. It hit him just how strange everything was now. If he had a time machine and went back only a few months ago and told himself that he’d be living in Idaho, looking after his best friend’s wife and kid, and that he would soon be leading an assault with the intent of killing people, he’d tell himself to go fuck off. Hell, if he had a time machine, he’d even probably even punch his future self because he would have mistaken himself for a crazed bum, what with his shaggy hair and unshaved face.

He stopped at the hill where Raymond used to do his peeping-tom act and watch Samantha. It was a perfect view of their house, and the thought of this creep peering in filled him with a new rage. He thought of Gordon and how he would react if he knew some guy had been staring at his wife that way, and laughed at the thought. He knew Gordon, and, to put it mildly, he would not tolerate that sort of behavior.

The back door of the house opened, then closed, the sound echoing off the valley below. He saw little Haley running ahead of Samantha. It was time to feed Macintosh. He smiled, seeing the two of them together. It was clear that their relationship was slowly on the mend, as Samantha was much more affectionate and attentive. The attack had really jolted her to reality.

He wasn’t sure how Samantha would respond to his plan. Until he could get a good feel for how the others would react, he figured it was better not to say a word. He headed toward the warm house, mind swimming.

Rajneeshpuram, Oregon

Gordon had progressed only a few feet down the hallway as he stopped to shoot any adults who presented themselves. By his rough count he had put down five people. From the sound of shooting behind him, Rubio had also entered a target-rich environment. Lexi had taken a knee across the hallway from him, but Gordon’s swift action with the rifle was not leaving her much to shoot at.

Gordon wasn’t sure who he’d shot so far. While the desire to take Rahab’s life with Gunny’s knife existed in his mind, the reality of their situation trumped that fantasy. If Rahab took a bullet, so be it. It was better to see him dead than to face enemy fire.

It took Gordon minutes before something clicked. No one was watching the stairwell door. “Shit,” he thought to himself. There was no room for those sort of messy errors, not with the type of manpower they had.

“I need you to watch the door to the stairs!” he ordered Lexi.

“No, you do it! Let me in on the action!” she yelled back.

“Goddamn it! Rubio, I need you back down here to watch the door!”

Rubio heard him and obliged. He stepped backward until he took up a position watching the door and hall.

“We need to go room to room!” Gordon barked.

Lexi listened, but took off without a plan. She walked up to the first door and kicked it. The door didn’t move, so she kicked it again. Still no give. She tried several more times but the door would not break open. She let out a frustrated yell.

Gordon walked up and was ready to kick it, but before he could, a shower of bullets flew out the door. One hit his cut through the fleshy portion of his left thigh. He yelled out in pain.

Lexi returned fire until she emptied a full thirty-round magazine into the room. The room fell quiet.

“Fuck, that hurts!” Gordon cried out. He could feel warm blood running down his leg. He knew that the hit wasn’t life-threatening, but it was painful.

“You good?” she asked.

“This isn’t going to work. There’s got to be three dozen rooms up here. His reinforcements have to be coming.”

“Suggestions?”

“We need someone to tell us where he is. I should’ve grabbed that girl. Fuck.”