Chapter 23

“Jess, they’re here,” Rita said.

“Sorry, Rita. I was half asleep. What did you say?”

“The Vice President and the others are at the air-shaft waiting for us to tell them to start down.”

Jess was having second thoughts about bringing the Vice President into the complex. What if he was killed by the security measures in the airshaft? Would Jess be blamed for it? After all, it was his complex. Would Jess be able to live with himself knowing he had killed the Vice President, although in an indirect way? All these thoughts were running through his mind.

“I’m sorry to be picky, Jess, but they have to start down now because it will be daylight soon,”

Rita said.

“Where’s Ross?” Jess asked.

“He is doing a last minute check on the program we will use to fool the security sensor,” Rita answered.

“Okay, set it up and give them the go ahead,” Jess told her. He knew what was making him so jittery. The plain fact was that he couldn’t do anything except sit in front of a monitor and watch their progress. Jess watched the cover come off the airshaft and a rope snake down from above. A dark blob started down the rope. He counted six bodies go by the camera recessed in the wall of the airshaft. Shifting to another monitor, he saw people packed into the air duct waiting for Ross and Rita to tell them to proceed. One of them placed a battery-powered wrench on one of the bolts at the sealed opening and waited.

Jess heard Ross tell them to start. He watched the man flip a switch and frantically back the bolts out. Pulling the last bolt out, he shoved with his foot causing the seal to swing open. Rapidly, he crawled to the end of the duct and pushed out a grill cover. Head first, he entered the hole. Jess winced; he knew it was ten feet to the floor. He hoped the man was okay. The next man was frantically replacing the bolts as Ross counted down the time remaining to have the duct sealed again. The man made it with six seconds to spare. Jess was drenched with sweat because of the tension. He could imagine that the people in the air duct were in worse shape. One after the other, they opened and closed the seal until only one of them remained. Jess wouldn’t have traded places with this man for all the money in the world. Where the other men had someone replacing the seal as they crawled to safety, this one didn’t. He had forty-six point two seconds to take the bolts out and open the seal, then he had to crawl to the opening in the ceiling, drop to the floor and exit the room. If he didn’t make it in the allotted time, the door to the room would seal, and all of the oxygen would be pumped out of it.

Jess saw the man run his hand over his eyes to wipe away sweat. All at once, he was a bundle of motion. He had the bolts out in no time. He kicked the seal, and before it was completely open he was halfway through it. Crawling faster than most people could walk, he dived through the opening in the ceiling.

Jess couldn’t see what happened in the room, but he saw the vacuum shield slide across the top of the airshaft sealing it. Jess saw a slight mist drift upward as the air was sucked from the shaft and room. If there was anyone in the room now, they were dead.

“How did it go, Rita?” he asked.

“All six got through safely. They’ll be with you a few minutes after they go through the sterilizer. You can relax now Jess. Your heart rate is way too high.”

“Thanks, Rita. Tell Ross I want him here when they show up.” Jess went to the small refrigerator at the side of the room and took out a bottle of spring water. Placing the cool plastic bottle against his forehead, he relaxed and let the tension drain from him.

A knock sounded at his door. Jess got up crossed the room and opened it.

“Jess Harold, I presume?” said a sandy haired man as he held out his hand. Jess shook the man’s hand and ushered the people into his office. He knew three of the men were Secret Service agents by the way they positioned themselves against the wall. Their eyes were never still; they stood ready to spring into action.

One of the other three was short for a man. Jess couldn’t tell much about his features because of the black toboggan pulled down to his eyes and the baggy black clothes he wore. A tall blond haired man walked up to him and said, “Jess, I’m Dr. Palmer. Allow me to introduce the Vice President of the United States.” He waved his hand toward the short man.

Jess received his first shock as the man pulled the toboggan off and revealed long black curly hair. The next shock came when the man unzipped his coveralls and stepped out of them. When the man turned, Jess saw that it wasn’t a him but a her. He knew his lower lip was on his chest as she walked forward. She held out her hand saying, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Harold.

“Jess, close your mouth,” Ross said from the speaker.

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Harold. I get the same reaction from almost everyone I meet for the first time. I’m Ruth Higgens, but call me Ruth,” she said.

Jess studied her as she walked around his desk and sat down in his seat. He judged her to be no more than five feet tall and a little on the plump side. At first guess, he thought she was thirty-five to forty years old, possibly older. She had a face that didn’t belong with her body. Jess thought it was the most beautiful face he had ever seen. When she looked at you with those dark green eyes you forgot everything else and gave her your full attention.

Jess turned to the last man in the party and waited to be introduced. He had short brown hair that was graying around the temples and piercing blue eyes set in a face that looked like it was chipped from stone. He stood ramrod straight which made him look taller than five foot ten. He had a no nonsense look about him and Jess knew at once he was a military man.

“That old sour puss is General Hawkins, formerly of the 101st Airborne. Don’t let his looks scare you, Jess. His bark is worse than his bite,” the Vice President said.

“General Hawkins, pleased to meet you. Take a seat anywhere you like,” Jess said shaking his hand.

“Mr. Harold, if you don’t mind I would like to see your radio room. I need to get in contact with my people who didn’t come in with us.”

“There is no radio room, General. All you have to do is tell Rita or Ross what frequency you want and they will set up a link for you. If you want privacy, there’s a room at the back of the complex where you can be alone.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary. How do I set this up?” General Hawkins asked.

“Ross, General Hawkins wants a link to his men.”

“Would that be the men dressed in white at the foot of the mountain?” Ross asked.

“Yes, it is. Here is the frequency they’re using,” he gave Ross the numbers.

“They’re on the line, General. Talk to them as though they were on a speaker phone,” Ross told him.

“Hello, Charlie, are you there?”

“I read you loud and clear General. What are my instructions?” the voice asked.

“Stand by, Charlie,” General Hawkins said. He turned to Jess. “I need a place for them to hide. Is there anywhere close enough for them to watch this place and get here in a hurry?”

“There’s a cave near the top of the next mountain. Really, it’s an old mine shaft. Look at the monitor, and we’ll give you a close up of it,” Ross said. They watched the mountain zoom into view. The camera shifted upward until they saw a small hole near the top. Zooming in again, they saw old weathered posts at the entrance of the mine. There were piles of rock near the entrance, but it didn’t look like anyone had been there in ages.

“It doesn’t look too safe,” General Hawkins said.

“They may have to do a little shoring at the entrance, but I assure you, it is safe,” Ross said.

“What about those people?” he said looking at the monitors showing the people near the gate. “Do they get over that way?”

“No, General. They stay on this side of the mountain. So far, none of them have drifted that way.”

“Charlie, there’s an old mine near the mountain top behind you. It’s about three miles away. You should be able to make it before daylight. Contact me every two hours. Set it up with Ross to shift frequencies every time you call in. Take care, Charlie. I’ll expect a call in two hours. Cobra one out.”

He turned to Jess and asked, “Could we get something to eat? None of us have eaten since we left Iceland yesterday evening.”

“Certainly, follow me and I’ll show you where the kitchen is,” Jess said. He led them down the hallway and opened a door on the left. Inside the room was every modern convenience a well-supplied kitchen should have. Ruth went to a cabinet and checked what was stocked there. Opening a few other doors, she looked satisfied with what she saw.

“Have a seat, gentlemen, and I’ll whip us up a meal in no time,” she told them. They sat at the large table, which could easily seat twenty people while Ruth busied herself at the microwave.

“General, why are those men out there?” Jess asked.

“From what you told us about the group trying to make it here, we thought they could use a little help. All I need is to know where they are and relay that information to Charlie.”

“Aren’t you afraid of them catching the disease that’s still out there?” Jess asked.

“They won’t get it, Jess. Tell him, Dr. Palmer,” General Hawkins said.

“Jess, when we first got to Iceland, we asked for volunteers so we could expose them to the disease. You know a small percentage of people who come in contact with the disease don’t catch it. We had over four hundred volunteers and those ten men out there are the ones who didn’t come down with the disease. The other three hundred and ninety we’re holding in isolation under heavy guard. Those men out there are willing to sacrifice themselves to get this group of people to you. I hope they’re as valuable as you say they are. I’m here to try to find a cure. We don’t want to keep those brave men in Iceland caged like animals any longer than necessary,” Dr. Palmer told him.

“Rita and Ross both think the woman is the key to finding a cure. They say she has become incredibly powerful in the last month. They say her limits are few,” Jess told them.

“From what you tell us they are a strange group of people. I would like to get a chance to study them,” Dr. Palmer said.

Jess noticed that the Secret Service men still stood vigilant watch although there was no one near that they didn’t know. He got up and went to one of them asking, “Who’s in charge?”

“I am, Mr. Harold. What can I do for you?” he asked.

“First, my name is Jess. Next, you can relax. There’s nothing in this complex that will hurt the Vice President. Having you stand there like a bulldog ready to pounce is wearing on my already shot nerves,” Jess told him. He watched the man relax a little and said, “Bring your men over to the table and join us.

“By the way, Jess, my name is Jessie Peters. That is Andrew Long and Jackie Nesbit,” he said as he pointed to the other men. He motioned for them to come to the table. As they sat down, the Vice President turned from the stove and said, “If someone will help me set the table, I believe breakfast is ready.”

Jess and one of the Secret Service Men jumped up. Jess showed the man where the plates and silverware were stored while he took serving bowls to the stove. Ruth ladled out steaming scrambled eggs into a bowl and handed it to Jess to set on the table. Jess went back and got a bowl of home fried potatoes and brought them to the table. Ruth brought a dish full of toast and a bowl of bacon to the table. She sat down and said, “Dig in, gentlemen, before it gets cold.” They ate sparingly while Jess ate like it was the first good meal he had eaten in a long time.

As they sat around drinking coffee, Ruth said, “I didn’t think I would ever see real food again, Jess. Be thankful that this place is well stocked. Try eating MREs for three months.”

At Jess’s questioning look, General Hawkins said, “Meals, ready to eat. Standard staple of the armed forces now. I agree with her, even if the eggs are powdered. The bacon and toast are real, not processed.”

“General, your men are at the mine, and no one has seen them,” Rita said from her speaker.

“It’s going to take a while to get used to her. She sounds almost human,” General Hawkins said.

“Why, thank you, General. That’s the nicest comment anyone has said to me,” Rita told him. He leaned over and whispered to Jess, “Does she listen in all the time?”

“You can tell her not to and you won’t hear from her until you ask for her, but I suspect even then she’s listening. You will get used to it, General.”

“General, we have located the approximate area where Joe and his group are. It is less than one hundred seventy-five miles from here. From the radio traffic we are monitoring, they are heading into a trap. Now would be a good time to rush your men to their aid,” Ross said from his speaker.

“Get me Switchback One on the radio, Ross.” In a moment they heard, “This is Switchback One. Do you read me, Cobra One?”

“This is Cobra One. Charlie, you need to move out now. I wanted to give you a day’s rest, but Mother Hen is in trouble.”

“How do you want us to play it, General?”

“After you get their location, head toward them. Wipe out all obstacles they will run into as they come in. Ross will give you the location and an idea of the forces in your way. Be careful, Charlie; report in every hour on the hour. Cobra out,” General Hawkins said.

“Do you have any beds in this place?” Ruth asked.

“Certainly. I imagine you’re tired, Ruth. Follow me; you can have your pick of the rooms.”

Telling the men at the table he would be right back, Jess led her down the corridor to another corridor that had twelve doors, six on either side. He opened the door to the first room and showed her in. The room was plainly furnished. A bed with a nightstand next to it stood in the middle of the room. A dresser stood against the far wall. “Will this be all right, Mrs. Vice President?” Jess asked.

“Jess, the name is Ruth, and it would please me if you dispensed with all of this Vice President stuff. To answer your question, lord, yes, it will do,” she said and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“After the last three months of people trying to kill me, you don’t know how good it feels to be here where it’s safe.

“I hope you’ll be able to say that after a few months of being cooped up here, Ruth.”

“I’ll let you know in two months. Right now, I want to take a shower and sleep for a week. Is that the bathroom in there?” she asked pointing to a door near the dresser.

“Yes, and all the hot water you can stand,” Jess said. He noticed for the first time how worried and haggard she looked. “Good night, Ruth. Have a good sleep,” Jess told her and walked back to the kitchen.

“Jess, what was this place intended to be used for?” General Hawkins asked.

“I don’t know, General. The few times I tried to find out, the Congressional Committee doing the funding gave me the run around.”

“Where are all your people?” Dr. Palmer asked.

“There is just Ross and I...well, I guess I’m the only one here now. When the disease first struck, everyone but Ross and I left. Two weeks ago I cremated Ross’s body after it could no longer sustain itself. To tell you the truth, I’m lonely for human company.”

“I find it fascinating that Ross became a part of the computer. How was it done? Could someone else do it?” Dr Palmer asked.

“You’ll have to talk to Ross. I have hardly understood anything that has gone on here in the last four months. I’m sure he will fill you in on all the details.”

“This whole place is operated by Ross?” General Hawkins asked.

“By Ross and Rita. Tell me how Ruth became Vice President?” Jess asked.

“By line of succession. She was the Secretary of Commerce when this disease became full blown. She happened to be in Great Britain at the time trying to work out a trade agreement. After the President was killed and most of the Senate blown up, she decided to stay in England. Speaker of the House Samuels was in England also, but he was visiting friends and relatives.

“Anyway, when Senator Donaldson proclaimed himself President, he started issuing all kinds of preposterous orders. Speaker Samuels decided to form his own government in exile. The government of Iceland graciously offered use of their island for him to set up his government. Now, I’m not saying he did this for any ego trip. He went strictly by the rules of the Constitution.

“Everyone else who could have stepped in and become President was dead. Lord knows how many times he told me he didn’t want the job, but it fell to him fair and square. Not one to shirk his responsibilities, he took the job and offered the Vice Presidency to Ruth. She accepted and ever since has dodged death on a daily basis. For some reason, Ruth being Vice President drives these people in the States up the wall. I can’t count the attempts made on her life in the last three months. She is one tough cookie, but the strain is getting to her. That’s why President Samuels had her come with us. If this place is as safe as you say it is, we’ll all feel better knowing she is out of harm’s way,” General Hawkins said with real affection in his voice.

“I noticed she was looking a little ragged around the edges.” Jess stated.

“Try getting your butt shot at every day and sometimes more than once a day for three months. I’ll bet you won’t come out of it in half as good a shape as she is.”

“I forgot to ask. Is she married?” Jess asked.

“Yeah, she’s married. It’s tearing her up not knowing if he is dead or has become one of the deranged people,” Dr. Palmer answered.

“I take it you are married, Dr. Palmer,” Jess said.

A look of pain crossed Dr. Palmer’s face. “I was,” he said in a sad voice. “After the patients took over the center, I took my wife and girl to a cabin in Utah.

“Everything was fine for two weeks. One morning I went up in the hills to try and bag a deer for fresh meat. While I was gone, a group of men happened on the cabin. They raped my wife and nine year old daughter several times before they killed them,” he said in a pain filled voice.

“That evening when I returned to the cabin carrying a deer, I found their bodies. After burying them under a pine tree in back of the cabin that Caroline liked, I went to find the men. I packed my Range Rover and followed them to a town in the desert. There were eight of them. I parked at the edge of town. The town had only eight buildings. As I came up to the first building, I heard laughter coming from a bar across the street. Two cars were parked in front of the bar. I crossed the street and peered in a picture window of the bar.

“Five men had a young girl spread-eagled on the pool table and were raping her. Furious, I opened the door and entered the bar. They turned at the sound of my entering the room. One of them said, “Do you want a piece of this tender morsel, stranger?”

“My body felt cold as a frozen glacier. All I wanted to do was wipe the grin off the man’s face. I raised the rifle and shot him in the head, blowing his rotten brains all over the wall in back of the bar. Feeling dead inside, I cocked the thirty-thirty and shot the man who was on top of the girl. The other men tried to pull up their pants as I calmly shot them.

I remember going behind the bar and wiping the first man’s brains off a bottle of whiskey. Pouring a glass half full, I gulped it down and waited. Reloading the rifle, I laid it on the bar and pointed it toward the door. Boots pounded on the sidewalk outside and three men rushed through the door. At first, they didn’t see me. One of them, a big man with a red beard, yelled, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’

“I sat the glass of whiskey down and picked up the rifle. They noticed my movement and turned to me. I sighted on the big man’s face and said, ‘This is for Caroline,’ and pulled the trigger. The other two men broke for the door. I walked around the bar and shot one of them in the back as he went through the door. I stepped over his body and watched as the last man got in one of the cars. I raised the rifle and fired four times through the windshield.

“‘That is for Debbie,’ I said as the man slumped in the seat. Going back into the bar, I went to the pool table. The small girl was only five or six years old. After examining her, I knew she wasn’t going to make it. She was so small they tore her up inside. I did what I could to stop the bleeding, then held her in my arms until she was gone.

“I sat there all night rocking back and forth holding her body. I cried until there were no more tears left in me. The next morning I dug a grave in the town’s graveyard and buried her. I never knew her name,” he said his voice breaking. He took a drink of water then continued. “I made my way to Canada and headed east. On the east coast of Novas Scotia, I heard one of President Samuel’s broadcasts and decided to go to Iceland.

I managed to contact a man in Iceland who put me in touch with one of the people working for President Samuels. After telling the man who I was and that I wanted to be a part of the new government, he sent a submarine to pick me up. When we heard from you, I realized that your complex was the one we were trying to send patients to. I requested to come along with the Vice President, and now I’m here,” Dr. Palmer said.

No one said anything sharing Dr. Palmer’s grief.

Jess saw the fatigue on their faces and said, “There’s nothing more we can do today. Let me show you to your rooms.” He showed them to their rooms and went back to his office. As he went to sleep, he felt tears in his eyes. All the death and destruction had been going on in another world until now. After listening to Dr. Palmer’s story about the death of his wife and girl, he realized how sad the world had become.

Chapter 24

Major Charlie Jacobs handed the radio back to his radioman and motioned the rest of his men to him. His twenty-two years in the Navy had not prepared him to fight his own countrymen. Yet that was what he was going to do. At five foot nine, he was stocky but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was completely gray-headed, and the years had not been kind to him. His face had lines in it that shouldn’t have been on a man only forty-two years old. He had noticed in the last few years that it took a lot more effort to keep up with the young bucks coming in the service now. His command of a Navy Seal team for the last six years had taken him to many countries.

Most of the time the countries didn’t even know his team was there. Only after they found the bodies would the leaders of the country realize a foreign hit team had been in the area. Most of the men with him were of the same stature. Their job was to silently kill the enemy and get away. These men were the best the armed services had to offer.

He spread the map out on the ground. It was one of the latest topographical maps put out by the government. It showed every hill and town in the section of the country they were in. Not that there were that many towns in the area. He decided to split the men into two groups. He would lead one, and Sergeant First Class Pete Mavis would lead the other.

“Pete, you take your group and sweep down the north side of Route 40, and I’ll take the south side. We should meet the people we’re looking for in or around the town of Arapaho.” He used the point of his razor sharp bayonet to point out the town on the map.

“Ross gave me a good briefing on what is going on in the area. Our best bet is to highjack two of the trucks taking people out of here. If we can catch two of them on the way in, the only people we’ll have to worry about will be the driver and guard if there is one. I hate to do it in the daylight, but that’s the way it has to be. I want your team ready in a half hour. Leave everything but a day’s rations and plenty of ammo for the weapons. If need be, we can forage for food.”

He had his men check their weapons and made sure they all carried plenty of extra ammo. It seemed like no time until Pete stood before him ready to go.

“Have Ricker take the point and McDowell bring up the rear. Our job, until we get the trucks, is to stay out of sight. Unless actually threatened, the enemy is to be avoided. Let’s get down the mountain and into cover before it gets completely daylight.”

He watched his men leave the mine. Each man waited until the man in front of him was fifty feet away then followed him. They slipped from shadow to shadow. With their white clothing, they blended so well with the snow that when the men stopped they became invisible. The only way he knew they were there was when they walked between a boulder or a dark patch of ground. He fell in, next to last, after telling McDowell to check and make sure they didn’t leave a trail to follow. Leaving the mine entrance, he stopped next to a pile of rocks. Looking back, he saw McDowell come out of the mines with a rope tied around his waist hooked to a few dead limbs, which dragged behind him. As he walked forward, the limbs wiped out the tracks they made in the snow. He gave McDowell the thumbs up sign and went down the hill to a large boulder.

Watching the man ahead of him, he advanced from cover to cover. At one point, he heard the hum of people talking over the ridge he was hiding behind.

He saw the man ahead of him motion to stop and take cover. From his position on the hill, he saw Ricker crawling around a rock formation in the snow. Ricker pulled a knife from his belt and inched out of sight. A few moments later, he motioned them forward. When Charlie got to the rock formation, he saw a man lying behind a boulder. His pants were down around his ankles. A large red stain spread from his neck to the snow. “Hell of a way to buy it,” he thought. They had to stop several times when people came to their side of the ridge to do their morning ritual. During one of these stops, he made his way to the top of the ridge. Peering between two rocks, he saw thousands of people milling around the tent city at the bottom of the ridge. Campfires were everywhere. People stood around the fires trying to stay warm. Most of the people weren’t dressed for the zero degree weather they were having. All in all, it was a pretty miserable looking bunch. He slid back down the ridge making sure to wipe out all traces of his being there. They traveled three miles down the valley until they came to a place where the road went between two hills. He gathered his men around him.

“This has to go down quietly. We wait until two trucks can be isolated. If we can’t isolate two of them in an hour, we take the first one that comes along. No rifles. Use your pistols,” he told them. He screwed a silencer to the barrel of the nine-millimeter handgun he carried. He spread his men out on the banks of the hill on both sides of the road. He pulled the white hood of his field jacket lower over his face as he lay in the snow five feet from the road.

All of his men were equipped with low power radios. The radios were good for five hundred yards at the most.

“Convoy coming up the road,” he heard Ricker say from the speaker in his ear. Ricker was two hundred yards ahead of them at the top of a hill, which let him see the road for a little more than three miles.

“Any likely targets?” he whispered into the mike attached to his collar.

“Negative, sir. A couple of pickups are at the rear of the column with several men in them.”

He was ready to tell the men to move out down the road when he heard Ricker say, “Bingo, a van and pickup coming. All I see are the drivers. Get ready, sir.”

He raised his hand and three of his men at a boulder near the edge of the road rose up. He motioned for them to wait. A few minutes later, three cargo trucks and two pickups passed by. He motioned to the men and they put their weight against the boulder. Slowly, it rolled into the road, and partially blocked it. The men dropped to the snow becoming invisible again. The sound of an engine came from over the hill.

“Get ready,” he whispered into the radio.

The van came over the top of the hill, saw the boulder and slowed down. Slowly, the van came up to the bolder and stopped. The pickup stopped behind the van. The driver got out and walked up to the driver of the van who climbed out swearing. He heard two soft plop, plops. The two men spun and fell to the side of the road. Two men sidled up the side of the van to the passenger compartment. Another two men crouched below the windows of the back door. At a signal, the two men at the rear threw open the doors. They crouched with their guns held in front of them. “It’s clean,” Charlie heard.

“Throw the bodies in the back of the pickup and cover them, even if you have to use snow. Anything coming this way, Ricker?” he said into the radio.

“Clear so far, I’ll meet you at the edge of the road,” Ricker said.

“Turn around and get us out of here,” he told the man behind the wheel of the van. Climbing into the back of the van, Charlie knelt down and spread a map out. He had seven men in the van because only three could ride in the pickup.

The men gathered around him, and he said, “First stop is this little town where we hit Route Forty. We drive into town and find a place where we can leave the van without anyone seeing us. The other driver will take the pickup to the other end of the town and park. Pick a position where you can see the rest of the town, Roy. You’ll be our backup if anything goes wrong, and we can’t get back to the van. I want to be in and out of there in less than an hour. Do a thorough search but a quick one. Neutralize anyone you find. We want this town to be clear when we come back through. Try and not make a mess. Hide the bodies of any people you take out. We want to leave the place clean, in case anyone comes checking. Okay, you know what to do. Get ready. We’ll be coming to the town any time now,” Charlie told them.

Climbing back into the passenger seat, he looked out the windshield. Ahead on the other side of a low hill, he saw the roofs of buildings. Topping the hill, the small town spread out before him. It had only one street with a couple of dozen buildings on either side of the street. There were a few cars parked along the street. He couldn’t see any movement in the town at all. “Robbie? Mike. When the town is secure, disable the vehicles. Don’t make it obvious,” he said into the radio. They were at the edge of town now. He saw a dog lying on the porch of the drug store and saw lights burning in the place. He had hoped the town would be deserted. Now they were going to have to do things the hard way. The dog raised its head and stared at them as they went by. He saw an alley between two stores that was big enough to back the van into. He showed it to the driver who stopped and backed into it.

“Quick and easy,” he told the men in back.

“One in position and ready,” he heard Roy say into his earpiece. Going to the rear, he opened the door and climbed down. He pointed to three men and told them to take the buildings to the left. He went to the right with three men trailing him. At the first building, he found a door at the back. Flattening himself against the wall, he reached and grasped the doorknob. Getting nods that the men with him were ready, he twisted the knob. Easing the door open, he quickly glanced in and then drew his head back. The quick glance showed him it was a storeroom. He quietly stepped into the room and went to the left while the man behind him went to the right.

Kneeling with his handgun out in front of him, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He saw a door at the other side of the room. Carefully tiptoeing down an aisle stacked with goods, he reached the door. Putting his ear against it, he heard the soft mummer of voices. He motioned his men forward, and when they were in place, he cracked the door open. Peering through the crack, he saw a long counter running down one side of the wall. He heard the voices clearly now, but the men were out of his line of vision.

He opened the door wide enough to stick his head through and took a quick look. Across the room four men sat at a table talking. Two of them were playing checkers. He held up four fingers to his, men then opened the door wide enough to slide through in a crouch. Ducking below the counter-top, Charlie made his way to the end of it. One of his men came through the door and took up a position at the far end of the counter.

“Damn it, Johnny. Did you leave the back door open? I feel a cold breeze blowing up my leg,”

one of the men at the table said.

“I didn’t, but I’ll go check it,” another man said.

Charlie looked at the two faces staring at him from the storeroom door. He made a slicing motion across his throat with his finger. One of the faces nodded, and they disappeared closing the door softly behind them. The man at the other end of the counter rolled out of sight into an opening in the counter. There was no place for him to hide, so he pressed his body against the counter hoping the man wouldn’t look his way.

Footsteps crossed the floor and a short greasy haired man appeared at the end of the counter. The man opened the door to the storeroom and entered leaving the door open. Charlie heard a soft gurgling noise and saw the man’s legs jerk a few times.

His man leaned against the side of the door and gave him the okay sign. Charlie held up three fingers and mimed on three. When his last finger dropped, he rose up and fired at the man on his right.

His first shot took the man in the chest. His second shot blew the side of the man’s head off. The other two men were down in the floor not moving. Quickly, he moved around the counter and knelt beside each man to make sure they were dead.

“Drag their bodies into the storeroom and cover them with something,” he told his men. There was a trail of blood as the bodies were dragged into the storeroom.

He saw a barrel of sawdust at the end of the counter. Dipping out a bucketful of it, he spread it on the blood. Using a broom, he swept as much of it as he could under a shelf, then placed fresh sawdust on the floor. You could still see the blood stains under the sawdust, but it was the best he could do. “Check in, Blue Leader,” he said into the radio.

“Blue Leader here. We’ve checked three buildings and taken out one hostile. Two more buildings to go. Blue Leader out.”

“Sir, you have three hostiles headed your way. Two males and a female. One of the males has a rifle,” Charlie heard Roy say.

“You two get behind the counter,” he said pointing to the two men closest to the counter. He motioned the other man to the other side of the door that opened to the street. They heard voices approaching. The people stopped at the door and talked for a moment. The woman told the men she would be back later and walked on down the sidewalk. The door swung open and the two men walked in.

Charlie reached out and put his hand over the mouth and nose of the man with the rifle. He jerked the man’s head back and slid his knife across the man’s throat. He felt warm blood splash on the hand holding the knife. The man jerked and twisted for a moment then went slack. He looked and saw the other man fall to the floor with a knife sticking out of his back. He motioned for two of his men to come and help them carry the bodies to the storeroom. Wiping blood from his hand on a rag, Charlie watched his men place a tarp over the bodies.

“Okay, let’s hit the next building,” he said, heading for the back door. If they had stayed in the storeroom a little longer, they would have caught the man who sneaked out of the bathroom. So scared he shook with each step, he went to the phone and called his boss.

“That’s right, Paul. There are four of them in here. I heard them talking on the radio to others.” He listened for a while then said, “How the fuck should I know? They looked like marines or something. All I know is they killed six people quick as a wink.” He listened again and said, “Get them here as fast as you can. I’m going to hide until they arrive.” He hung up the phone, glanced around, and tiptoed back to the bathroom where he huddled in the corner.

Charlie and his group went through three more buildings in rapid order without finding anyone. As they approached the fourth building, a dog ran from under the floor and grabbed Hank by the leg. Grabbing the dog by the neck, he brought the handle of his knife down on its head. The dog yapped then went slack.

The backdoor of the building opened. A man who was stripped to the waist with shaving cream on his face appeared. “What the hell is wrong...” was as far as he got. He saw Charlie and his men. Three soft poofs sounded and the man staggered back inside. They heard a crash and something clattered to the floor.

“Shit,” Charlie said. He jumped on the porch and ran through the door. The man lay on the floor bleeding from three holes in his chest. A loud scream behind him caused him to drop and turn. A woman who stood in the door leading to the living quarters began to scream. Without hesitation, he raised his handgun and shot her twice. As she fell into the room, he saw a boy around twelve years old dart across the room.

He jumped up and ran to stop the boy. He lined his handgun up on the boy as he opened the outside door. As he fired, the woman grabbed his legs, which caused him to miss and fall to the floor. The woman looked up at him with a wicked smile on her face. She tried to say something but blood gushed out of her mouth. Feebly, she clawed her way up his legs.

He brought the gun around and shot her in the top of the head. She jerked and tightened her hold on his legs. He thought she was dead, but when he tried to sit up she moaned and formed her fingers into claws. She dug her fingers into the flesh of his legs and pulled herself forward. He shot her two more times in the head. All that was left of her head was the part from the mouth down; yet she refused to die. One of his men stuck his rifle in her back over the heart and fired a three round burst. Her arms bunched up and her fingers dug into his legs. She collapsed, but they had to pry her fingers from his legs.

He heard the boy in the street screaming for help. Climbing to his feet, Charlie heard firing from the other end of town.

“Blue Leader, come in,” he said into the radio.

“This is Blue Leader. Major, we’re pinned down by a dozen hostiles across the street from us. We were just leaving when a kid ran into the street and started to scream. Three men came out of the building and saw us. They started firing and we had to duck back in the store. The back’s no good. There are half a dozen men there. Get us out of here quick, Major. We see more men coming down the street.”

“Hang on, Pete. We’re on the way. Roy, are you there?”

“Got you Major. We’re turning around now.”

“Take the left side. Leave the right for us.”

“Okay, men. Now we earn our money the hard way,” he said. He opened the door and stepped out on the sidewalk. Half a dozen men in front of him ran toward the other end of town. Charlie moved the selector on his rifle to full automatic and fired a whole clip at them. Three of them fell and didn’t move. Two of the men dodged behind a bench and fired back. The last man crawled in circles on the sidewalk leaving a bloody streak behind him.

His men opened up from either side of him blowing the bench to pieces. Charlie felt a weight hit his back knocking him down. One of his men lay across him with half his head blown away. He felt slugs impacting on the man’s body. Twisting his head to the side, he saw dozens of men streaming toward him.

He pushed the body off and crawled into the store. As he went through the door, he snagged the rifle of another of his men who was down. He stuck the rifle around the edge of the door and opened up. When the borrowed rifle was empty, he stuck his out and fired until it was empty. One of his men fired through the window. Lying flat on the floor, Charlie peeked around the door. Two of his men were down and not moving. Over a dozen bodies lay in the street. The pickup Roy was in lay on its top in the middle of the street. The roof was crushed flat and he saw blood running out from under the metal.

“Blue Leader, are you still there?” he said.

“Still here, Major, but there are only two of us left. Where in hell did all these people come from?”

“Someone must have seen us come into town and called for help. You could always surrender, Pete.”

“Uh, Uh, Major. I’ve seen what they do to their prisoners. If they want me, they’re going to have to come and take me. Major, it’s been a pleasure knowing you. Buy me a beer up yonder when you get there.”

He heard the firing increase down the street for a few minutes then become silent. In his ear he heard Pete say in an agony filled voice, “Give them hell, Charlie. I’ll be waiting up yonder for you.”

“Here they come,” the last man in his command said.

He got to his feet and loaded both rifles. He looked over at his man at the window and said,

“Let’s show them how real soldiers die.” White faced, the man nodded okay. With a rifle in each hand, he stepped through the door firing as he went. The soldier stepped up beside him and they stepped into the street. A slug slammed into his right side, twisting him halfway around. Turning back, he raised his pistol and fired until it was empty. He felt the soldier next to him slump against him as a dozen bullets slammed into his body.

Throwing his arm around the man to hold him up he drew his knife from its sheath. He felt slugs impact with his body, but they no longer hurt. He turned his head and looked at the soldier he supported. He was trying to load his pistol, but couldn’t see for the blood streaming into his eyes.

“Son, you’re one hell of a soldier,” he said just before a shotgun blast tore his head from his shoulders.

Chapter 25

“Stalker wants to go back the way we came and see if the men are still behind us,” Tammy said.

“In this?” Bill asked as he pointed out the window. The wind and snow blew so hard they couldn’t see five feet out the window, and snow was still peppering down.

“He says this is nothing. You should come to his home when it really gets bad,” Tammy told Bill. Tammy opened the door and the force of the wind blew it back against the wall. Bill and Joe rushed to throw their weight against the door as snow blew into the cabin. Leaning into the wind, Stalker walked through the door and disappeared into the snow. It was all they could do to push the door closed.

“Jesus! Why would anyone or anything want to go out in that?” Bill asked. In the few moments the door was open, the room had cooled down twenty degrees.

“Throw another log on the fire, Jake,” Joe said as he swept up the snow that had blown in.

“The way I figure it, this storm will blow itself out in another four hours. I think we’d better be on the move right after that,” Ben said.

“When it starts slowing down, Jake and I will go out to the trucks. With any luck, we can back the pickup against the door and you can load everything we’re going to take. That way, at the first break we can get on the road,” Joe said.

“Good idea. Tony. Have Gail get what she wants to take from here and stow it near the door,”

Bill yelled toward the kitchen.

* * * *

Stalker walked into the wind but occasionally had to detour off the road because snow had drifted too high for him to get through. While humans found it impossible to maintain their direction in this white out, Stalker had no problem at all.

Something in his mind let him know where he was all the time. In places where the snow had drifted beside the road, he heard sounds ahead of him. Although the sounds were faint, he knew the humans were back and closer than they had been the last time. He knew the humans wouldn’t be out in weather like this.

More than likely, they were in a shelter of some kind. He walked down a slope into a draw between two hills and stopped. Sniffing the air, he smelled wood smoke from nearby. Climbing the bank, he entered a stand of trees. Ahead of him he heard voices, so he crept from tree to tree until he saw something yellow hanging between two trees. On the other side of the yellow thing, he saw the glow of a fire. Every once in a while, he saw shifting shadows as the men moved around. He left the woods and hurried back to the cabin.

Joe opened the door enough for him to squeeze through saying, “You weren’t gone very long, Stalker.”

Stalker padded over to Tony and told her about the men, then went to the corner and lay down.

“Stalker says the men are over the next ridge waiting for a break in the snow. He says we should leave now,” Tony told them.

“Leave now, and we’ll be lost in no time,” Bill said.

“Not if we use a compass and leave the trucks behind. On foot we would be almost impossible to spot in this rugged country,” Tony said.

“Are you out of your mind? Walk out of these mountains in this snow and near zero temperatures?” Jake said from the couch.

“Wait a minute. She might have something. Hand me the map of eastern Colorado, Bill,” Joe said. He spread the map out on the floor and studied it for awhile. “It might just work,” he said.

“Why leave the trucks behind?” Bill asked.

“We wouldn’t get them over the summit of the mountain anyway. Besides, from what Stalker says these men are on snowmobiles. They would catch us before we went five miles. If we take off on foot, we can go down the canyon in back of the cabin and come out near a town named Arapaho. On foot it’s only ten miles. If we take the road, it is more like fifty.”

“Tommy and I have walked down the canyon far enough to see the town from the foothills,” Gail said.

“Tony, take the sleeping bags. Cut holes in them for feet and arms. If we put the sleeping bags on over our clothes, the cold shouldn’t bother us.”

“Right, I can cut holes in the bags, so we can adjust the length,” Tony said. She went to hunt for a pair of scissors.

“Jake, your job is to make sure everyone has on three pairs of socks and waterproof boots. Bill, get all the rope you can find and cut it into twenty-foot lengths. We’ll use it to tie us together, so nobody wanders in a different direction.”

While the rest went about getting prepared, Joe took the 45-70 buffalo gun to the table and cleaned it. A few days ago he had fired a dozen rounds to line the sights up. He checked to make sure the line he scratched on the barrel was still aligned with the sight. He took shells from two boxes and put them in a leather pouch tied around his waist.

He put the rifle in a fleece lined gun case and leaned it against the door. Next, he put on three pairs of socks and pulled another pair of pants over the ones he had on. A heavy flannel shirt went over the one he was wearing. A heavy pair of insulated boots went on his feet. He took the sleeping bag Tony handed him and put his feet through the holes she cut in the bottom. He pulled it up over his clothes and stuck his arms through the holes cut for them. He was unable to reach down and zip the bag up because the zipper came up his back. He took the sleeping bag off and turned it around. With all the clothes he had on, he couldn’t bend over and touch his toes. He was happy to give up a little agility if it meant his staying warm.

They might look silly waddling around wearing the sleeping bags, but the bags would give them the added protection they needed if they were going to leave before the storm ended. Joe watched them tie the rope around their waists and hand the end to someone else. The next person tied that end to the rope around his or her waist. Joe was the only one without a rope.

“Aren’t you coming with us, Joe?” Tammy asked.

“Stalker and I are going to stay behind and delay them long as we can. The storm will let up soon and they will be right on our heels. If we can delay them for a few hours, our chances of getting away will be better. Don’t worry, we’ll be with you before you know it,” he told her. He opened the door and Bill stepped out in the storm. As each of them went through the door, they told him to be careful. Ben was the last in line. “Don’t let them remove the ropes for any reason, Ben. You could get lost within ten feet in this. Keep them headed downhill, no matter what. That’s the way we need to go. You won’t be too far off course when the storm ends,” Joe told him and shook his hand.

Joe sat by the door and waited for the storm to let up after they left. No use going out any sooner than necessary. Stalker lay in the middle of the room with his eyes closed. Bill leaned into the wind and made his way around the house. He couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead of him. He lined them up in the eve of the house and had them check the ropes one more time. He stepped to the edge of the bank and started down.

The slope was steep. The only thing keeping him from falling was the wind and the knee-deep snow. Every now and then, the wind would let up a little. When this happened, Bill would stumble forward. One time as he stepped forward, he was yanked backward off his feet. Working his way back up the rope, he discovered that Jane had walked around the opposite side of a tree. He worked his way around the tree and got in front of Jane again. The lower they got on the mountain the more trees they ran into. Several times Bill had to wait while one of them backtracked to the opposite side of a tree. The storm began to ease a little, which allowed Bill to see a few hundred feet ahead.

Bill guessed they were halfway down the mountain. The way ahead became rougher with boulders and sudden drops. In places, he had to use another rope to lower himself down a ten or fifteen foot drop. Bill waited until the rest of them were down and tied together again, then he headed down the hill.

It seemed like hours before they reached the bottom of the canyon. Bill let them rest for a half hour, then got them on their feet and moving down the canyon.

* * * *

Joe heard the wind die down, so he got to his feet and picked up the rifle. Stalker padded over to him. Joe opened the door and walked out into the dying storm. Joe walked over to a cliff that looked down on the valley they had crossed a few days before. He searched until he found a limb on which to lay the buffalo gun. He used his gator knife to cut notches in the limb for different elevations. Finished, he sat with his back against the tree and waited. He knew it wouldn’t be long, and he would hear them long before they came in sight.

* * * *

Greg had the men tear down the tarps and put out the fire while the storm still raged. He had them on the snowmobiles, inching their way out of the woods as the storm broke. The newly fallen snow posed no problem for the snowmobiles.

Henry stopped at the bottom of the ridge ahead of them and motioned Greg forward. “Across this ridge on the other side of the valley is where I saw the smoke.”

Greg looked at the sky, which had cleared up considerably. “If we hurry, we might catch them with their pants down.”

Henry started up the ridge, and Greg let three men follow before he fell in behind them. The rest of the men followed. He paused at the top of the ridge to stare at the valley ahead. The valley was not that wide but was deep. He saw the mountaintop where Henry had seen the smoke. Greg judged that if there were a cabin up there, it would be on top of the cliff he faced almost two miles away. He motioned for Henry to continue and dropped his machine over the crest. Joe heard the snowmobiles and got to his feet. He placed the barrel of the buffalo gun in one of the notches and watched as the first man topped the ridge across from him. Three men crossed the ridge. The fourth man stopped at the top of the ridge for a minute. He placed his cheek against the rifle and sighted on the man below the one on top the ridge. Taking four long breaths, he took the slack out of the trigger. Joe focused on a point two feet over the man’s head and gently squeezed the trigger. The big gun belched flame and slammed into his shoulder.

Greg saw the man ahead of him throw his hands into the air and roll off the machine. He slid to a stop as the man rolled down the hill leaving a red streak as he rolled over and over. He looked to the top of the cliff and saw a puff of smoke rise into the air. Sliding his machine around, Greg fell off to the side. With the machine off, he heard the sound of a shot and saw the next man down skid to the side and fall off the machine.

Jesus, no one is that good a shot, he thought as the rifle sounded again. The man in back of Henry fell forward and turned the snowmobile into a bolder. The machine flew into the air and flipped upside down. When it landed, the man was under it still holding on to the handlebars. As the machine bounced, he saw the body of the man flatten when the machine came down on him. The snowmobile flipped end over end down the hill.

Near the bottom of the hill, Henry looked back at the noise behind him. He saw the snowmobile flip into the air and head right for him. His quick move to the right saved his life. His snowmobile lurched sideways as the heavy grain bullet struck it in back of him.

Leaping off the machine, Henry rolled behind a rock and looked back up the hill. He saw Greg scramble across the top of the ridge. “What the hell is going on, Greg?” he yelled.

“Stay down. There’s a sharpshooter on the cliff across the valley. Three men are down. I’m going to have the men move around the ridge and flank him. Wait until I give the all clear before you move,” Greg yelled back.

* * * *

Joe slid the gun into its case and hurried through the snow to the back of the house. He could just make out where Bill had dropped over the side of the mountain. Joe took a branch and erased his tracks as he followed Bill’s trail. He thought he might have gained them an hour, two at the most, before the men would advance any farther.

When he reached the trees, he threw the branch away. At the places Bill used the rope to go down ledges he was forced to find another way down. Stalker raced down the slope and grabbed him by the sleeve urging him to hurry.

“Damn it, Stalker. I’m going fast as I can. If you’re in such a hurry, go on,” Joe said. Then he heard the sound of snowmobile engines. “What had gone wrong,” he wondered. They should still be huddled behind the ridge.

It was too late to worry about that now. He increased his pace and took chances he normally would not have.

* * * *

Greg had been ready to tell the men to go to the left around the ridge when one of them asked,

“Where’s Jimmy, my brother?”

“He’s dead on the other side of the ridge,” Greg told him.

“No, he can’t be,” the man yelled and ran to the top of the ridge. Greg expected to see him fly backward from the impact of a bullet as he stood there and looked down the hill. When nothing happened, he turned to the man beside him saying, “Go help him find his brother.”

The man moved reluctantly, but he did go over the top of the ridge.

Peering over the top of the ridge, Greg wondered if the man at the top of the cliff was waiting for more men to appear. After ten minutes, he decided that the sharpshooter had left. He walked down to his snowmobile and started the engine. Greg drove down to where the man sat beside the body of his brother.

He had started with ten men, now, he was down to three, but he doubted if Joe knew how many men he had.

“Come on, Brian. You can’t do anything for Jimmy now. Let’s go get the man who killed him.”

With tears in his eyes, Brian climbed to his feet and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I want the son of a bitch who done this,” he said.

“He’s yours if we catch him. Come on, he’s getting further away while we sit here talking,” Greg said.

Brian walked down to the snowmobile of the second dead man, which had stalled out when he fell off the machine. He started the engine and followed Greg to the bottom of the ridge where Henry joined them.

They raced across the valley then followed the creek to a bridge. Crossing the bridge, they started up the side of the mountain. They slowed down as they neared the area where the man had been shooting from.

Greg saw a cabin ahead of him and slowed. Brian threw caution away and went full speed to the cabin. He jumped off the machine and threw open the door of the cabin. When nothing happened, Greg and Henry drove up to the cabin. Inside the cabin a fire still blazed in the fireplace. Henry came in and walked to the fireplace. “They’re on foot now. The Jeep and pickup are in the garage,” he told Greg.

“Get the radio and set it up in here. We should be able to contact Jerry from here,” Greg told him.

Brian came in and warmed himself by the fire. “No sign of which way they went, Greg?”

“Oh, I know which way they went. They are down in the canyon somewhere, heading for Arapaho. Get warm. We’ll head for Arapaho in an hour and get there before them,” Greg told him. Henry finished setting up the radio on the coffee table and turned it on. Greg sat on the couch and said into the microphone, “This is Greg. Come in Jerry.” He repeated this several times before a voice answered.

“This is Mike. Jerry is out now. I sent a man to get him. He should be here shortly. How are things up in the mountains?”

“There are only three of us left, Mike,” Greg said, suddenly realizing how tired he was as the heat from the fire warmed him. The heat caused him to doze as he waited for them to find Jerry. Henry nudged him saying, “Jerry’s on the line now.”

“Jerry, how are things there?” he asked.

“Paul dropped off twenty men on his way back to the ranch, so we’re in good shape here. Greg, I don’t know what it means, but in the city of Kit Carson, ten soldiers were killed by Paul and his men. Paul said they were trying to eliminate everyone in the town. It was only by luck that he was in the area. He had over a hundred men when one of the residents called for help. He lost twenty-seven men taking them out. From what he learned, they had been air dropped there by the exiled President in Iceland.”

“Are there any more of them around?” Greg asked.

“Paul doesn’t think so, but he has teams out doing a sweep of the area. Paul is worried about what they were doing here in the first place. He said Todd went through the roof when he told him about the men.”

“Listen, Jerry. Joe and his group are headed your way. We’re going to try and get there before them. Set things up to contain them in case we run into trouble and are delayed. We’ll leave shortly and should be there in five hours. Joe and his people are on foot, so they will be moving slowly. Once he made it to the bottom of the canyon, Joe traveled a lot faster. He followed the trail beaten through the snow by Ben. He stopped to rest and looked up to the top of the mountain he had left a short time ago. He couldn’t hear the sounds of the snowmobiles anymore. Either they were still at the cabin, or were following on foot. Because of the rough terrain, Joe knew they couldn’t bring the snowmobiles down the side of the mountain. He turned to Stalker and said, “Go back and see if they are following us on foot.” Stalker nodded his head up and down showing that he understood. He loped back up the canyon and was soon out of sight.

Joe rested a few more minutes then followed the trail in the snow. Half an hour later, he came around a bend in the canyon and saw Ben and the others struggling up a hill. They saw him coming and waited for him. He told how he had delayed the men. Joe suggested they rest until Stalker returned and they found out if they were being followed. Gail said, “At the top of the hill a little to the right is a grove of pines. They’ll give us cover and a chance to rest. On the trips we made in the summer, we used them for a picnic lunch before starting back.”

Joe went to the front since he was more rested than any of them and stomped a path through the knee-high snow. He came to the top of the hill and saw the grove of pines a hundred feet to the right. He stomped a path to them and entered the trees.

Inside the trees less than six inches of snow lay on the ground. It was a relief to walk without the constant pressure of forcing a path against the snow.

While they waited, Ben and Jake gathered pinecones. Tony took the battered coffee pot from Ben’s pack and melted snow over the fire started with the pinecones. In a little while, there was enough hot water to pour into the four cups they had.

She put a spoonful of instant coffee in each cup and added a packet of creamer to the cup she handed Bill. While the men drank their coffee, she put another snow filled pot on the fire to heat. As the men finished with their coffee, they handed her their cups. She mixed more coffee and passed the cups to Jane and Gail. For Tommy and herself, she made two cups of tea. Joe went and squatted beside Gail. “How far is it to this town you told us about?” he asked.

“If you go to the edge of the trees, you should see the tops of some buildings,” she answered. Joe took Ben and Jake with him through the trees until they came to the edge of them. The hill sloped down at the tree line to another canyon. In the middle of the canyon a stream flowed in places where it wasn’t frozen. Two hills over, he saw something reflecting in the sun. Unzipping the sleeping bag enough to get his binoculars out of his pocket, Joe felt a rush of cold air. Although bulky, the sleeping bags were doing their job of keeping too much body heat from escaping. He raised the glasses and looked for the reflection. The sun was reflecting off the windows of a building. The hill blocked his view of the lower part of the building. He handed the glasses to Ben.

“How long will it take to get there?” he asked.

“If the snow doesn’t get any deeper, it’ll take about three hours.” He looked at his watch. “That will put us there well after dark.”

“Good, Todd is bound to have a lot of people there. I want to slip in, get what we need, and be gone without them knowing we were there,” Joe said.

“If we stayed here for a couple of days, do we have enough food to last that long?” Jake asked.

“I’m sure the men on the snowmobiles have already radioed that we are on foot and are headed their way. When we don’t get there in a reasonable amount of time, they’ll send men out to search for us. If they catch us in the mountains like this, we won’t be able to escape,” Joe told him.

“We’d better get there and be gone before they consider us late and start searching for us,” Ben said.

They went back to the campfire and saw that Stalker had returned. “Stalker says the men have left the cabin on their machines and are using the road to go through the mountains. They left no one to follow us,” Tony told them.

Joe kicked snow over the fire to extinguish it. “Bill, you take the lead. Try to stay out of the deep snow. When you get tired, one of us will take the lead. The way I figure it, we have less than four hours to reach the town. We want to be there and be gone before the men on the snowmobiles reach it.”

“If the town is full of Todd’s men like you think it is, how are we going to get in and get the supplies we need?” Jake asked.

“Only three of us are going to enter the town while the rest of you circle it and wait on the other side,” Joe said.

“Which three?” Ben asked.

“You, me and Tony. She can pull her disappearing act and lead us into town. We pick up what we need and she leads us out again,” Joe told him.

Joe lined them up after asking Tony to tell Stalker to head for the town and make sure there weren’t any surprises waiting for them. Bill set a brisk pace. At first, the going was easy because they were heading downhill. At the bottom of the hill, the pace slowed as Bill stomped a path through the snow.

It took them thirty minutes to reach the stream. Bill fell to the rear and Ben took the lead as they made their way up the hill. Before cresting the hill, Joe had them stop and rest while he crawled to the top. He used his binoculars to survey the land ahead of them.

Joe called them up and he took the lead. He led them down the next to last hill before the town. On reaching the valley, Joe saw the outline of Stalker at the top of the next hill. A half hour later they reached an outcropping of rocks below the top of the hill. Stalker rested between two rocks, which blocked the wind from him.

“Stalker says that on the other side of this hill two men are hiding in the rocks near the bottom. He found a way to get around them, but we’ll have to be very quiet,” Tony told them. Ben looked at his watch. They had been on the move for a little over three hours. “Ask him if there is a way we can take them out without causing an alarm.”

“He says they were talking on a radio; otherwise, he would have never known they were there. If you eliminate them, someone will come to check on them when they don’t answer the radio,” Tony said.

“So be it. We are wasting precious time talking. Tell Stalker to show us the way,” Joe said. Stalker led them along the hillside until they came to a cut in the hill. He led them down a cut which Ben thought had once been an old streambed thousands of years ago. Near the bottom, Tony turned and put her fingers on her lips to indicate the men were near. Where the old streambed broke into the valley, they had to crouch to stay out of sight. They traveled this way for a couple of hundred feet until the streambed made a turn to the right. Another fifty feet and the channel deepened enough for them to stand erect. After awhile, they came to where the streambed disappeared into a hole in the next hill.

Joe and Ben were worried because they knew time was short. They increased the pace until the young ones, Tammy and Tommy, had to run to stay up with them. At last, they topped the hill in a small stand of trees.

The town stood below them. Bright lights almost gave the town a festive look, but they knew what waited for them down there. Joe gave his pack to Jake and Ben gave his to Bill. “Keep well away from town and we’ll meet you on the other side. Stalker will go with you to make sure you don’t blunder into anyone. Find some place safe to hide and send Stalker back to find us. He’ll lead us to where you are,” Joe told Bill.

Bill shook Joe and Ben’s hands and said, “Take care of her.” He went to Tony and embraced her, kissing her with a passion he hadn’t felt in days. “Don’t try and be a hero, Tony. Let Joe and Ben do any fighting if it comes to that.”

“Don’t worry, Bill. If there’s any fighting, I’ll run like a rabbit being chased by a dog,” she said and kissed him.

“Time to go, Tony,” Ben said.

She kissed Bill one more time and went to where Ben and Joe stood. They watched until Bill and the rest were out of sight.

“The way I figure it, they’ll have both ends of the town heavily watched. If we can approach the town from the middle, our chances of being spotted will decrease. Ben, from here to town one of us will have to brush out our tracks. No use making it any easier for them to discover what we’ve done,”

Joe said.

Joe took the lead with Tony in the middle. Ben brought up the rear and swished a pine limb back and forth to wipe out their tracks. After a while, Joe stopped and sank to the ground. Tony crawled next to him. He raised his hand and pointed. Tony saw the glow of two cigarettes ahead of them.

“What we going to do now, Joe?” she asked.

“We have to wait and hope they leave. We can’t afford the time to backtrack around them,” Joe whispered.

“We don’t have the time to wait, Joe. I’ll distract them long enough for you, and Ben to get to one of the buildings. Wait for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she whispered. She stood up and walked forward projecting her thoughts ahead of her. “You don’t see me. All you see is the snow and trees,” she projected. One of the men said, “Wha....,” then was silent. The other man asked, “What’s wrong, Fred, did you see something?”

“It must be the snow playing tricks on me. For a moment, I thought I saw a woman over there.”

Fred answered.

“Buddy, you’d better find you a woman and get you a little. I think your lack of nookie has gone to your head,” said the second man.

Tony worked her way behind the men and moved toward the buildings. She crept along the side of them until she could only see the tips of their cigarettes. Checking to make sure no one was near, she let out a loud moan.

“What was that, Fred?” the other man asked.

“Sounds like someone hurt Rocky. We’d better go and check it out,” Fred said, tossing his cigarette away.

Tony let out a louder moan and moved against the building. About then, she noticed her footprints in the snow. She looked around and saw an old broom standing near the door of the building. Easing up to it, she let the men pass; then, she grabbed the broom and backtracked in her own footprints using the broom to wipe them away. Looking behind her, she saw two shadows go out of sight against a building down from her. Quickly, Tony went to the building and checked the door. Finding it locked, she went back to where Joe and Ben lay.

Going to the building, Joe forced the lock on the door and cracked it to see inside. The room was pitch black. “Over here, Tony,” he whispered. He looked up and saw Tony standing in front of him.

Tony went in the door and Joe took out a penlight. He shined it around the room. He saw a bed and a stand with a television on it. Next to the wall stood a dresser and night stand. On the floor lay an Oriental rug.

There were two more doors in the room. Joe walked to a door on the other side of the room and placed his ear against it.

Hearing nothing, he opened the door a crack and looked out. By the light coming from the windows facing the street, Joe saw they were in a store of some kind.

“No one’s been in here in weeks,” Tony said. She showed him the dust on her finger from the counter top.

They went into the next room and discovered the store was a combination Laundromat video store. “I always wanted to watch this movie but could never find it,” Ben said as he held up a videotape.

Joe read the label, “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” He gave Ben a look that said you’ve got to be kidding. At the back of the room was a big screen television.

Customers would rent a movie and watch it as their clothes washed and dried. None of the equipment looked as if it had been used in a long time.

Ben leaned against the wall next to the first row of washers and disappeared. They heard a thump followed by a grunt of pain. Tony and Joe ran to the wall and that is all they saw. Where Ben had stood was a wall. They heard a soft knocking sound, and Joe put his ear against the wall. He rapped his knuckles against the wall a few times and heard Ben knock from the other side. He tried to remember where Ben had been standing when he disappeared. He ran his hand along the wall and found a small indented place at shoulder level. He pushed on it and the wall swung to the side.

Ben stood there, dust covered with cobwebs in his hair. As the door started to close, Joe jammed a cassette into it so it would close only halfway.

“What did you find in here, Ben?” Tony asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the one with the light. Let’s see what’s in here that needed to be hidden,”

Ben said.

They entered the room and brushed cobwebs out of their way. Joe shined the light around the room. One wall had a rack full of videocassettes. He went over and wiped the dust off a few of them. They were triple XXX rated movies. After a thorough search, Ben saw that all of them were X rated movies.

“Don’t let Jake in here or we’ll never get him to leave.” Ben’s remark gave Joe an idea.

“This place hasn’t been used in years. I doubt if anyone still knows it’s here. From the looks of things, no one comes into the store anyway. What if we used this room to hide out in? Who would expect us to stay right under their noses? I’m sure they will search the town after they don’t find us. This would be the perfect place to hide. We could sneak out at night and get food. We could rest for a few days while they run around looking for us. After they shift their search to another area, we can leave.

Tony, do you think you can find Stalker and have him take you to Bill and the rest of them?” Joe asked.

Tony looked around the room and wrinkled her nose. “Not one of the cleanest places I’ve been in. I’ll go find Stalker. You two get busy cleaning away some of the dust and cobwebs. I’ll bring everyone here as quickly as I can,” she said as she went through the door. Joe found a broom and mop at the end of the laundromat. Ben found a bunch of rags in a utility room in the store. They closed the door to the secret room and went to work. While Joe swept the cobwebs from the ceiling and wall, Ben used the rags to wipe the dust off everything. In no time, the room began to shape up. Ben had just finished mopping the floor when they heard a soft knock on the wall.

Joe extinguished the light and stood to one side of the door with Ben on the other side. He slid the wall open a couple of inches and whispered, “Tony?”

“It’s us, Joe. Let us in. It’s getting daylight out and there are a lot of men in the streets,” Tony said.

Joe opened the wall wide enough for them to enter, then closed it and turned on the light. They stood in the center of the room and looked around. “Believe me, it’s a lot cleaner than when we found it,” Joe said when he saw the looks of disgust on a few of their faces.

“I think you and Ben have done a wonderful job. Now take a break and let us do a little cleaning,”

Tony said.

Ben and Joe looked at each other then sat down.

Chapter 26

Todd took a drink of Bourbon and looked across the table at Ikey. The man sweated under the strain. Todd let him sit there for five minutes, then set the glass down and leaned forward. “You brought a man who we know nothing about in here. Now we can’t find him, Ikey. I thought you had more sense. You know the rules. Only our people are allowed in here.”

“Todd, he’s just a harmless old prospector from up in the mountains. Shit, he’s been in these mountains for so long he’s batty. Come on, you lived out here all your life and know about these people. They are harmless. As to where he is, he most likely took off for the mountains again. From what I hear, they didn’t treat him very well at the mess hall the other night, so he probably decided to get away from here. People like him figure more than two people are a crowd, anyway,” Ikey said. Todd poured Bourbon in his glass and half filled another glass, which he shoved across to Ikey.

“You’re right, Ikey. I do know these people. The most they want out of life is for people to leave them alone. Still, Paul is raising a ruckus about him being missing and wondering if he wasn’t a spy?”

“Come on, Todd. I vouched for him myself. Do you think I would bring someone in here who could hurt us?” Ikey said in a disgusted voice.

“No, I don’t Ikey; otherwise, you’d be dead now. But now, I want you to take a couple of men into the mountains and find the old coot. Bring him back here where we can watch him. In a few months we’ll let him go back to his mountains.”

“All right, Todd, but I believe we’re wasting our time. You know how these mountain men are. If he doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find him,” Ikey said as he got up from his chair.

“Try anyway and while you’re out there, spot some places we can fortify for guard posts,” Todd said.

Ikey left the office and crossed to the mess hall. He got a sandwich and cup of coffee and sat down at a table. “Must have been out of my mind to bring the old coot in anyway,” he mumbled. Now, he had to spend the next week or so searching the mountains for him. He was glad all the snow was falling to the east of them. Walking around in the mountains was hard enough without having to fight a few feet of snow. Ikey motioned for two men sitting at a table near the door to come over to him.

“Jeffrey and Troy, right?” he asked.

“Right, sir. I’m Jeffrey and he’s Troy,” said the tall skinny brown haired man. He had a slanted face that made him look like a starved weasel. He was one of those people who were all arms and legs. Troy was beefy, maybe a little on the fat side. He was almost bald with only a little hair around the sides. His eyes were never still. He continually looked around as if someone were chasing him. The most striking thing about him was his feet. He had to have a size twenty feet. Ikey wondered where he bought his boots.

“Both of you go get three packs and load them with enough food to last five days. Get three sleeping bags and anything else that will help us stay warm. Remember we’ll be carrying the packs on our backs, so don’t make them too heavy,” he told them.

“Where are we going?” Jeffrey asked.

“To try and find Captain, the old coot I brought in a few days ago. Meet me here at the mess hall at noon. After we eat, we will leave and don’t forget to bring your guns,” Ikey told them. Damn, why did this have to happen now? He had planned on going to a small town fifty miles up the road where he had a cute little piece of fluff waiting on him. It’s a good thing Todd said to bring Captain back to the ranch. The way Ikey felt he would as soon shoot him as anything. He left the mess hall and walked to his cabin. He went into the bedroom and laid out a pair of insulated long johns and two pairs of insulated socks. He rummaged around in the closet looking for his black snow mobile outfit. Not finding it, he figured Captain must have taken it. He pulled an old pair of coveralls from the floor and laid them on the bed. Stripping his clothes off, he put on the long johns and socks. Next, he put on a heavy pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt. He searched for his best pair of arctic boots but didn’t find them. “God damn it, Captain! Not my best pair of boots,” he exclaimed. He found an older pair of boots that would work, and he put them on. Going to the next room, he reached for his 30-30, but it was gone. God damn it to hell,” he shouted. Fuming, he checked and saw that all of the ammo for the 30-30 was gone too. “When I get my hands on you, Captain, I’m going to wring your neck, you old bastard,” he shouted at the ceiling. He put on the coveralls and found an old toboggan and a pair of heavy gloves. Putting on the gloves, he reached up and took down one of the newer rifles. Jamming a handful of extra ammo in his pocket, he stormed out of the cabin.

He still hadn’t cooled down at noon when Jeffrey and Troy met him. “Hurry up and eat so we can go find that old son of a bitch,” Ikey told them. They ate quickly, not asking any questions. They didn’t want to get on the bad side of Ikey when he was mad as he was now. Outside the mess hall, Troy asked, “Where do we start, Ikey?”

“The same place I found him the first time, and I hope he’s there. If I have to spend the next few days running around those mountains looking for him, he’ll wish he was dead,” Ikey said. They stopped at the guard post on the ridge and asked the men there if they had seen anything. The answer was no, so they trudged down the slope with Ikey cursing under his breath with every step. The next hill was where he had found Captain the first time. When he was almost to the boulders, something in the snow twenty feet to the left caught his eye. He walked over and bent down. There was a small footprint in the snow. Ahead of him, he saw another footprint. “What the hell?” he said.

“Jeffrey, you circle around that pile of boulders to the right and meet us on the other side.”

He lost the footprints on a rocky ledge and had to hunt around until he found them again. “Has to be a woman or a child,” he mumbled. The prints were too small to be a man’s. There weren’t many footprints, but they led in the direction of the valley with all the caves. He wondered if someone had moved into one of the caves. They had searched the caves thoroughly when they first got here. A few very old campfires were all they found. He walked up the hill but didn’t see any more footprints. At the top he looked down into the valley. He looked across the valley to the caves in the side of the cliff.

“So, we have some strangers around here,” he mumbled.

“Come on, men. Let’s hide in those rocks further up the slope and wait to see what happens. They made themselves comfortable between a few of the bigger rocks. Ikey told Troy to watch the caves and wake him when it got dark. He slouched down in his coveralls between two rocks that blocked the wind and went right to sleep. During the night, the wind came up and the temperature dropped. Ikey was about to walk out of the rocks for a leak when he saw movement near the stream in the valley.

He nudged Troy to get him to wake up. Whoever it was took his time and moved from shadow to shadow. The figure exposed itself for only brief periods. They crouched lower in the rocks as the figure came over the rim of the valley. By the moonlight, they saw it was a tall man. He looked left and right before going down the trail.

Troy brought up his rifle, but Ikey put his hand on the barrel and shook his head no. They watched the man until he was out of sight. Ikey came down from the rocks and looked at the caves on the far side of the valley.

“He came from one of those caves. His footprint is too big to match the one we found. There are other people over there somewhere. Let’s go see if we can find them,” Ikey said. They walked down the trail and crossed the stream. Being as cautious as the man who left, they worked their way up to the caves. He had them spread out and looking for any signs to show which cave the man had come from. They didn’t even look in most of the smaller ones. After an hour of checking, they still didn’t know where the man had come from.

“This isn’t doing us any good. Troy, you go down to that small cave on the right and find you a place to hide. Jeffrey, come with me; we’ll go to the other end and find a place to hide out of sight. They must only go out at night. That means the man will be back before daylight. All we have to do is stay out of sight and watch which cave he goes into.

Ikey picked a small cave, got down on his knees and crawled into it. After Jeffrey crawled in, they turned around and found positions, which would let them see the entire valley. As Ikey settled in to wait, he pulled the collar of his coveralls up around his ears.

He came alert when Jeffrey nudged him and pointed to the valley. In the moonlight he saw a figure walking down the trail. The figure paused on this side of the stream for almost a half hour before climbing toward the caves. At the caves, the man paused for a long time before walking to the left and entering one of the caves. Jeffrey started to crawl out of the cave they were in. Ikey grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Let’s give him a little while to get settled,” Ikey said. He remembered searching the cave the man had entered. It wasn’t very large and only went in about thirty feet. He doubted people would be staying in it.

It would be too easy to get trapped in this particular cave. He waited an hour then crawled out of his cave. Ikey saw that it would be daylight soon, so whatever they did, had to be soon. With Jeffrey following behind, he sneaked over to the cave the man had entered. He listened for a while but didn’t hear anything. Then he slipped into the cave.

Jeffrey startled him by turning on a light. Reaching over, Ikey grabbed the light out of his hand and turned it off. One thing about it, if there was anyone else in the cave, he knew they were there now. He stood very tense expecting to hear a shot any second. After awhile, he relaxed a little and moved deeper into the cave. Cupping his hand over the light, he turned it on. He allowed just enough light to spray between his fingers to see what was around him. The cave was empty. How could that be? The man had entered and he could see no other way out.

“Go get Troy and bring him here,” he said to Jeffrey.

He searched the walls but couldn’t see any openings. Maybe the man had stepped to another cave when he wasn’t looking. It was the only thing that made any sense.

* * * *

Inside the hidden part of the cave a red flashing light came on. This happened when the beam of Ikey’s light hit a hidden sensor in the wall.

Leila and Benji extinguished the lanterns. Lifting their rifles, they walked to where Jeff stood near the door. Jeff slid a hidden panel open a few inches and stared out into darkness. He thought he heard someone breathing, but he wasn’t sure. He closed the panel and leaned next to Leila. “Quietly, go get Cap out of bed and tell him we have visitors,” he told her.

After she left, he slid the panel open again. Dim light showed at the mouth of the cave as daylight approached. Two shadowy forms stood in the mouth of the cave for a moment, then entered. He heard one of the forms ask. “Ikey, where are you?”

“I’m over here and keep your voice down,” another voice said less than three feet from him. Startled, Jeff almost dropped his rifle. Slowly, so as not to make a sound he eased the panel closed. Jeff sat down on the floor and leaned against the door with his ear pressed to the wood.

“There’s no one in here, Ikey,” a voice said.

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” another voice answered.

“Where did the man go?” asked one of the men.

“He’s still here somewhere in a hidey hole we can’t see. Troy, I want you to make your way back to the ranch and bring back a couple of dozen men. Jeffrey and I will wait in another cave until you get here. Then, we’ll root him out and anyone else that’s with him.”

Jeff didn’t like the sounds of that. Tugging on Benji’s arm, he moved to the rear where Cap was coming out of one of the rooms. He took Cap by the arm and led him back into the room.

“They know we’re here somewhere, and one of them has gone back to the ranch for more men,”

he whispered.

“How many of them are there?” Cap asked.

“Three, that I know of, and one of them has left,” Jeff answered.

“Okay. We have two choices. We can stay put and hope they don’t find the secret entrance, or we can hightail it out the back way. I say go out the back,” Cap said.

“Staying would be awfully chancy if they bring a lot of men back. I vote we use the back way,” Jeff said.

Both Leila and Benji said go also. Cap sat down on the bed and said. “Benji, take your rifle and pack to the rear entrance. Make sure it’s clear and wait for us.”

Benji left the room to pick up his rifle and pack. Cap looked at Jeff and Leila. “Soon as Benji is in the tunnel, we start arming the booby traps. Do it the way I showed you, Leila, and nothing will go wrong.

Jeff and I will connect the explosives near the door. Then, we’ll come back and get you,” Cap told her.

They had practiced this a hundred times. Benji went to the mouth of the escape tunnel. He would pull away part of the brush that hid the tunnel and make sure the way was clear. Leila would go into each of the rooms and set the timers on the explosives. She was to use her judgment on how long to set the timers for.

Considering the man had to go back to the ranch, and then to return, she set the timers for three hours. Cap and Jeff wired the explosives on either side of the door. They put a pressure cap against the bottom of the door. If someone opened the door, the cap would ignite the explosives. They placed the explosives so the blast would be outward and upward, causing the roof to collapse. If no one entered the door, the timed explosives in the rooms would go off, doing the same thing. There were enough explosives in the rooms to blow away half the mountain.

Twenty minutes later, they stood beside Benji and looked at the snow swept hills. “Where do we go from here?” Cap asked.

“We know that Ben is headed for Galexie, so that’s where we should go,” Leila said. Cap spread the map out on the floor of the tunnel and did some figuring. “It looks to be around a hundred and forty miles from here. Twenty miles due west of here is a small town where we can probably pick up a car or truck. If we travel all day, we should get there before dark. That way we can see what the town looks like. We can plan on how to steal a car if there are people there,” Cap said.

“Two and a half hours before the explosives go off, Cap. I would like to be as far away as we can get when they go up,” Leila said.

“Lead the way, Jeff. I’ll bring up the rear,” Cap said. They filed out of the tunnel, and Cap placed the brush against the opening and fell in behind Leila.

* * * *

“I hope Troy brings some food back with him,” Jeffrey said in a whiny voice.

“If you hadn’t have been so lazy and had packed some food before we left, you wouldn’t be hungry. Now shut up and quit your complaining,” Ikey told him. He was irritated at himself because he had forgotten to bring something to eat, too. His stomach was letting him know the last time he had eaten was at noon the day before. It was full daylight now.

They sat in the shadows of the cave and had a good view of the surrounding area. Although the sun was shining, the temperature was still near zero. Troy had been gone for a little over an hour and a half. If he didn’t lolly-gag around, he should be on his way back.

“Ikey, why would anyone want to live in a cave?” Jeffrey asked.

Ikey hadn’t realized that Jeffrey was dimwitted until they had been in the cave for awhile. He wished Jeffrey would just shut the fuck up and quit asking stupid questions. Jeffrey tapped him on the shoulder saying, “You didn’t answer me, Ikey?”

“How the hell should I know why people would want to live in a cave? Maybe they like living underground. Shut up and leave me alone,” Ikey said in an irritated voice.

“Are you mad at me, Ikey? I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

Ikey turned his back to Jeffrey and hoped he would go to sleep or do anything but talk. The silence lasted for about fifteen minutes until Jeffrey tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I made you mad, Ikey,” he said in a hurt voice.

Ikey wasn’t a hard man, before he got the disease he had been a kind and gentle man. The disease hadn’t changed that part of him. He turned over and said, “I’m not mad at you, Jeffrey; I’m just tired and a little sleepy.” He patted Jeffrey on the shoulder.

“You go to sleep, Ikey. I’ll keep watch and wake you if I see anything,” Jeffrey said. He had a big smile on his face.

“You do that Jeffrey,” Ikey said as he snuggled down in his coveralls and closed his eyes. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until Jeffrey grabbed his arm. “What is it?” he asked.

“Troy and the men are coming,” Jeffrey said as he pointed to the rim of the valley. Ikey looked and saw a file of men coming down the path. He heard them talking from where he sat. He wished they would be a little quieter; they were making enough noise to wake the dead. Ikey waited until they started up the hill toward the caves, then walked out into the sunshine and motioned them to him.

Troy walked up to him, panting from the climb. “Todd wants you back at the ranch, Ikey. He told me to take charge of these men and search the caves.”

“Did Todd say what he wanted?” Ikey asked.

“Something about you taking a bunch of men down south somewhere to contact a man named Greg?”

“How come Todd let you have so many men?” Ikey asked looking at the men standing on the slope. There had to be close to fifty men milling around.

“Last night a piss pot full of people came in from down south. The whole damn valley is full of people,” Troy told him.

He told Troy to do a thorough search of the caves and to look for a hidden entrance into one of the caves. He picked up his rifle and told Jeffrey to come with him.

As he topped the canyon on the far side of the valley, a blast knocked him off his feet. Rolling over Ikey looked back. Dust boiled into the air, and he saw rocks and trees tumble down the mountain. Huge boulders spun end over end landing in the stream blocking the water. As the dust blew away, Ikey saw that half the side of the mountain had a hole in it.

“What happened, Ikey?” Jeffrey asked. He sat up and fingered a cut place on his chin. Ikey stood up, stunned. Only minutes ago, he had been over there. He knew the men who were to search the caves were dead. Nothing could survive such a blast. He felt the ground tremble under his feet as more of the mountain slid away and tumbled into the valley. Water began to back up in the stream as a wall of dirt and rock fifty feet high formed across it.

“Just some fireworks, Jeffrey. Nothing for you to worry about,” he said in a sad voice. He took one more look at the valley, then turned and walked away.

* * * *

Cap felt the earth shake before he heard the blast. He turned and looked back the way they had come. He saw dust billowing into the air three ridges back. The noise rumbled back and forth between the hills of the valley they were in.

“If anyone survived, he will think we died in the blast,” he said as they stared at the rising dust. A few minutes later they trudged on toward the town they were trying to reach.

Chapter 27

Bill slid through the sliding wall and urgently said, “Put the lanterns out. They are starting to search the buildings.”

Tony and Gail turned off the gas lanterns and picked up their rifles. Joe and Bill went through the wall door and peered out the window. Two buildings down they saw a dozen men enter the structure. Across the street, another dozen men left a building and headed for the next one.

“Look around, Bill. Make sure there’s nothing that will tip them off to us being here,” Joe said. He checked the video portion of the store while Bill checked the Laundromat side of it. They met back at the wall and stepped into the hidden room. Sliding the wall closed, Joe cautioned everyone to be quiet.

It wasn’t long before they heard people on the other side of the wall. They heard two men talking. One of them said, “I hope we find them pretty soon. Todd is having a shit fit, and Greg is taking it out on us.”

“This is a waste of time. We should be searching in the mountains. That’s where they’re holed up. They couldn’t have gotten into town without us seeing them,” the other man said.

“Todd is on one hell of a rampage after losing fifty men when that mountain exploded a few miles from his headquarters. Ikey says he believes the people who were hiding in the cave escaped. He said Todd reamed him up and down and told him not to look for ghosts, but to get his ass down here and find Joe.

“I know what you mean. Greg has turned hinky on us. He sees ambushes and traps everywhere. He’s so paranoid, he won’t go anywhere without a dozen men around him. All our leaders are turning into clowns or assholes.”

“Ikey and Greg got drunk last night, and I sat around and listened to them. Ikey kept saying he was going to get the Captain because he stole his boots and rifle. Greg was saying that they were never going to catch Joe because Joe didn’t even exist. I tell you from the way they were talking, it wouldn’t surprise me if they went off the deep end anytime now.”

“Shit, we have people tripping over each other out there. As far as I’m concerned, they’re searching in the wrong direction.”

“Hey, they are the powers that be. Who are we to question their judgment?” the man asked with a laugh.

“Just between you and me, if I get a chance, I’m heading east to join up with the new President’s forces. It’s bound to be better than it is around here.”

“I don’t know; I’ve heard some wild stories about the people on the East Coast. I hear that all the men between fifteen and seventy are forced to join the army. I heard if they catch you without a pass from the military unit you belong to, they up and shoot you. Our leaders may be crazy, but, at least, we have a lot of freedom to do what we want, Jackie.”

“Yeah, freedom to be chased by an old man and his dogs, to be eaten alive by a wolf as big as a horse, to have someone shoot you from three miles away. Sounds like we have all kinds of freedom.”

“Speaking of the old man, did you hear they spotted him and his dogs at the cabin Joe and his people had used?”

“Christ, that’s all we need. Be glad you weren’t with us on the trip over here, Zack. Those damn dogs of his killed thirty-seven men. If that old fucker is following us, I know I am heading east. I want nothing more to do with him or his dogs. We have wasted enough time here. Let’s go to the next building.

* * * *

Joe cautioned them to stay quiet for awhile. He waited fifteen minutes then cracked the sliding wall. The place looked quiet, so he slipped through and checked the other rooms.

“I hear them in the next building. Let’s stay in this room until it gets dark,” Joe told them as he closed the wall.

“Do you think he was talking about the cave your wife and boy are in?” Jake asked Ben.

“Could be. It sounds near the location where we left them,” Ben answered.

“Aren’t you worried they may be dead?” Jake asked.

“They aren’t dead, or even hurt. If they were, I would know. My Guardian says we will meet them soon.”

“How does your Guardian know they are headed our way?” Bill asked.

“She just does,” Ben answered.

“Did you hear the man say that Zeb is up in the mountains with his dogs?” Jake asked.

“I did and that bothers me a lot. He has to be following us and he can be a big problem if he catches up to us,” Joe said.

“What does he want from us?” Tony asked.

“When we find out, I’m afraid we will wish we hadn’t,” Joe answered.

“At least, we’re almost there,” Tammy said.

“This may sound funny but after all we’ve been through to get there, I’m not looking forward to getting there. Whatever is guiding us wants me there for a purpose. To tell you the truth, I am scared,” Tony said.

“Hell, baby. It can’t be any worse than it is now. At least it will be over,” Bill said. He gave her a hug.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Bill. Something tells me this is just the beginning,” Ben said.

“Oh, shit! You white folks can forget about dragging this skinny black man’s ass around the country any more,” Jake said.

They all laughed at how serious he was.

“I mean it. This down home black boy is going to make like a rock and stay in one place. You white people like too much excitement for this black boy. Uh, Uh, I’s gonna put my feet down and watch the grass grow. I have forgotten what it’s like to be warm. If I don’t see another flake of snow in my life, it will suit me fine. Being chased by a pack of wild dogs and having thousands of mad people after me in arctic temperatures is not my idea of normal,” he said.

By the time he finished, they were laughing so hard a few of them couldn’t stand up. He stood there and glared at them. After awhile he grinned and said, “Hey, this cold weather does something to me. Now that I have that off my chest, can we fix something to eat? I’m starved.”

* * * *

Leila and Benji stood out of sight at the edge of the garage door watching the street. Every now and then, they heard Cap curse from the back of the garage. “How much longer is it going to be?”

Leila called back to him.

Cap raised his oil-smeared face from under the hood of the car. “If I can get this stubborn bolt out, I can have the starter on in fifteen minutes,” he called back.

On entering the town, they saw there were too many people for them to just walk up and steal a car off the street. If someone saw them taking a car, they would be after them. They preferred not having it known they were around. Cap checked around and found a four-wheel drive Subaru in a garage with a broken starter. A new starter was lying on the workbench covered with dust. Apparently, the owner had intended to replace the starter a few months before. Cap figured they could put the starter on and sneak out of town in the car. Jeff was out looking for something to eat. One good thing, the electric heater in the garage was working; Leila felt the heat blowing across the nape of her neck.

“Mom, what if someone stops us once we are on the road?” Benji asked. He shifted his weight on the box where he sat.

“We’ll try to bluff our way through. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to fight. More than likely, if we stay to ourselves, no one will notice us,” she told him.

A man came out of a house a few doors up. He looked up the street, then looked toward the garage where they were. The man stepped off the porch and started their way. Leila ducked to the side of the door and raised the rifle she held.

Benji faded into the shadows on his side of the door. Through a crack in the wall, Leila watched the man walk up to the garage. He had reached out to open the door when someone shouted from up the street.

He turned around and yelled, “What?” Leila couldn’t hear what the man up the street said, but the man at the garage door walked away from the garage. She came over and sat down on the box Benji had been sitting on. Her hands were shaking and her hair was damp from sweat. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how close she had come to killing another human. She realized that a lot of men had died in the explosion at the cave, but this was different. This time she would be face to face with the person she killed.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Benji asked.

She reached out and took his hand. “I’ll be all right in a moment. I was so afraid the man would come in here that my nerves are a little on edge,” she told him in a reassuring voice. They heard the sound of an engine cranking behind the garage. Cap came up to them and said,

“As soon as Jeff gets back, we can leave.” He walked over to the workbench and put some degreaser lotion on his hands. “Sure would be nice to take a shower. I wish I had some clean clothes to put on,”

he said after wiping his hands on a paper towel.

His shirt had oil and grease stains all over it. He took his shirt off and threw it in the corner. He reached up and lifted a pair of coveralls off a nail beside the workbench. Shrugging into them, he zipped them up and came to stand beside them.

“Jeff should have been back by now,” he said.

“Do you think he ran into trouble?” Leila asked.

“I don’t know. If he isn’t back in fifteen minutes, I’ll go out and look for him. Meanwhile, load our things in the car so we can get out of here soon as possible,” he told them. They put their packs in the trunk of the car. Cap checked the rifles making sure they were fully loaded. He had Benji get a five-gallon gas can sitting in the corner. He told him to take it to a truck parked outside the garage. Cap handed Benji a rubber hose, and told him to siphon as much gas from the truck as he could.

Leila called from the door and told him that she had seen Jeff leave a store up the street. Cap let out a long sigh. At least, they didn’t have to worry about getting Jeff out of trouble. He started the car. It ran rough and Cap wished he had found a set of spark plugs to replace the old ones. If everything worked out, the car should get them to where they were going. That it was a four-wheel drive was a big plus in their favor.

Jeff eased through the door with two bags in his hands. He set them down on the workbench.

“Sorry I took so long,” he said. He took a loaf of bread and two packages of lunchmeat out of the bag.

“I was lucky to find this. They went and took everything to eat out of all the empty houses.

“I got this by sneaking in one of the houses that was occupied. While the people talked in the living room, I raided their fridge. Before I left, I listened to what they were talking about. Ben and Joe were last sighted near a town called Arapaho on the Colorado border. That was two days ago.

“From what I heard, they were out in force checking every house and building in the county trying to find them. A man named Greg thinks Ben and the people with him doubled back on them to try and throw Greg’s men off. The man doing the talking said that Greg had most of his people out doing a sweep back across the border into Kansas.

“After we eat, I suggest we get on the road. From what I heard, we shouldn’t meet anyone between here and the town of Arapaho,” Jeff told them.

Benji came in with the gas can. It was all he could do to carry the heavy can. Cap took the can from him and carried it to the car. While Leila prepared sandwiches, Cap and Benji poured gas into the tank of the car.

After eating, Jeff slid back the rear door of the garage, so Cap could drive the car into the alley between the buildings. A light snow was falling and the temperature had gone up a little. Cap drove down the alley with his headlights off. Nearing a cross street, he had Jeff get out and go to the corner. Jeff checked both ways then motioned for Cap to cross the street. Jeff waited a few minutes to see if anyone noticed the car crossing the street and entering the alley. He then crossed and got back in the car.

This is the way it went until they reached the edge of town. Cap waited until a large truck passed on its way into town, then he drove out onto the open highway.

* * * *

Joe and Ben peered through the curtain at the street. “See that station wagon sitting in front of the bank?” Joe said.

“Yeah, it should be big enough to haul all of us.”

“When it gets dark, Jake and I will go get it and bring it around to the back of the store. Lucky for us, Greg thinks we are headed back the way we came,” Joe said with a grin. The evening before, Joe and Bill sneaked out of the store and went to an alley behind the house Greg was staying in. They overheard Greg and Paul arguing about sending their men back east to search for Joe’s group.

Paul wanted to keep half the men in the town. Greg argued that because of the rough country to the east, he needed every man. Paul finally relented, but only after getting Greg to agree to leave a dozen men in town.

The men pulled out of town during the early morning in a convoy of cars and trucks. Occasionally, one of the men left behind would come outside. He would look up and down the street and then go back in the building.

Twice, a truck drove into town. The men in the truck talked to the men who stayed in town. Then they drove on heading east.

When they got back to the store with the hidden room, Bill ate a sandwich. He reached down and picked up his pack. “Don’t forget to stop and pick me up,” he said to Joe.

“We won’t. If everything goes right, we should be there in four hours. Pick out the right place, and we can cut off these men back here,” Joe told him.

Bill looked over to where Jake was struggling into a skimobile outfit that was too big for him.

“You about ready to go, Jake?” he asked.

“Soon as I get the bag of dynamite,” Jake said.

Tony came up, kissed Bill and told him to be careful as they went out the back door. They walked close to the houses along the alley until they came to the edge of town. They checked both ways then stepped out on the snow-covered road. In minutes, the town was behind them and they were in the foothills. Jake had a hard time keeping up because of the oversized ski mobile outfit. Bill stopped and searched his pack until he found a roll of tape. He rolled up the legs of Jake’s outfit and taped them to his boots. Jake walked around a little then said, “Thanks, Bill. I would have to find the outfit of someone seven feet tall.” He looked comical as he followed Bill. The legs of the ski mobile outfit were almost two feet longer than his legs. As he walked, he would step on one of the pants legs, which threw him off balance. After Bill taped them up, Jake walked a lot better.

Bill increased the pace. Two hours later they came to a spot where the hills narrowed on both sides of the road. Bill took half the dynamite and went to the hill on one side of the road while Jake went to the other side. They placed dynamite under every big rock and boulder they found. Bill went back to his pack and got a handful of the small electronic detonators. He placed one in each bundle of dynamite; he planted and pulled the little antenna up on it. Jake met him at the road.

“We need a place high enough to see Joe coming. A place that will be in sight of the detonators,”

Bill told Jake.

Jake looked up the next hill and saw a tall pine tree near the top. “If one of us can climb that pine tree, we could see far enough back down the road to see if Joe is being followed,” he said. They picked up their packs and walked up the hill. The pine tree sat fifty feet off the road and they had to wade deep snow to get to it. Underneath its protective branches, the ground was almost free of snow. The branches of the tree were laced so tightly together Bill had to use his hand ax to trim enough limbs to climb.

The sky turned gray as the sun went over the mountains to the west of them. Under the tree where Jake sat, it was almost dark. A car with chains on passed by on the road to town. They watched the glow of its headlights reflected off the snow as it went between the hills. The wind picked up a little at the edge of dark. Jake was almost asleep when Bill yelled down from the top of the tree that a car was coming. Jake made his way back to the edge of the road and took up a position behind a large rock. He checked his rifle again to make sure it was fully loaded. The wind brought the sound of an engine to him. He saw the headlights of a car as it topped a hill a couple of miles back.

No sooner was it out of sight than a bunch of headlights popped over the hill behind the car.

“Why does everything have to be done the hard way?” he muttered to himself. The lead car was close enough to hear the tires spin and engine race as it clawed for traction on the snow-covered road. He saw the car come into view followed by a pickup truck that was gaining on it. The car and pickup passed the point where the dynamite was planted and started up the hill toward him. Jake leaned against the top of the rock and sighted in on the pickup. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the rest of the vehicles coming into view.

Jake almost pulled the trigger when Bill detonated the dynamite. He saw fire flash into the air as the blast caught a couple of the vehicles broadside. In the lead vehicle Jake saw Joe frantically try to keep the station wagon on the road as it fishtailed from side to side. Flashes of light winked from the back of the pickup, and gunshots echoed off the hills.

Leaning into the butt of the rifle, Jake steadied his arms on top of the rock. Lights flashed in his eyes as the station wagon slid sideways on the road. The pickup slid sideways toward Jake. He sighted on the windshield and fired a long burst. The truck jerked to the right and slammed into the bank. Two forms standing in the back of the truck flew over its top. They struck the side of the hill and lay still.

At the bottom of the hill two cars blazed sending thick smoke into the air. The other vehicles had backed away and Jake saw men milling about.

It would be awhile before they cleared the highway enough to get through. Jake approached the pickup from the side, ready to open fire at the first sign of movement. Two men slumped against the dash. One of them had the right side of his head blown away. The driver moaned and pushed himself away from the steering wheel. He slumped against the door. Jake saw three holes in the man’s chest. As he watched, blood seeped from the wounds and formed bubbles. The man stared at Jake with such hatred in his eyes that Jake turned away. He would soon be dead anyway. He heard a rifle fire behind him and ducked behind the truck.

Over the bed of the truck, Jake saw that one of the men who had been thrown from the truck stagger down the hill. Another shot sounded. The man threw his hands in the air, and fell face first in the snow.

Turning, Jake saw Bill standing with a smoking rifle in his hands. He shrugged and said, “He had you dead to rights. I couldn’t let him shoot our token black man could I?” He grinned at Jake and reached out his hand to help Jake up.

They heard shots from the bottom of the hill. Bullets struck the hill around them. “Time to get out of here,” Bill said as he started running up the hill.

A loud boom sounded from the hilltop and they heard a scream behind them. Joe had parked the station wagon on the other side of the hill out of sight. He lay on his stomach in the middle of the road. The long barreled buffalo gun stuck out in front of him. As they came up to him, he fired again. The kick of the powerful rifle slid him backwards in the snow a foot. Joe rolled onto his back saying,

“Damn that hurts.” He rubbed his shoulder and stood up. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” He passed the gun through the rear window to Tony. Jake and Bill got in the front seat as Joe slid behind the wheel.

Joe eased the station wagon down the hill. Ben sat in the rear seat fiddling with a C.B. radio. All they heard was noise. Then, a loud voice said, “Damn it, Greg! Those dogs are cutting us to pieces. We have killed hundreds of them, yet they still lie hidden and ambush us every time we turn around.”

“How many men have you lost, Henry?” Greg asked.

“Twenty-two and eight wounded so bad they are out of action,” Henry told him.

“How in hell did you let the old man and his dogs get around you?” Greg yelled into the radio.

“They must have laid hidden in the snow until we passed them. Shit! You know that once they sink into the snow they are completely hidden. That is how this started. I was a hundred yards ahead when one of the men stepped on one of the dogs. Before anyone knew what was happening, a dozen dogs rose out of the snow and tore the man to pieces.

“Since then, it’s been one attack after another. For God’s sake, Greg! Send me some help. I sent a man over to where Paul and his men are working their way through the mountains. He hasn’t returned yet. We hear a lot of firing that way and it is coming closer. Paul is retreating this way. Oh God! A whole pack of dogs came out of the woods on our right. They dragged five of my men down. We are firing everything we have at them. They are dying by the dozens and yet they tear away at the bodies. Christ! They aren’t afraid of our guns,” Henry said. His voice caused the hair to stand up on the backs of everyone’s head.

“Jesus H. Christ! Dogs are crashing through the windows!” Greg said. They heard firing and savage growls. “Henry, there are only three of us left. The room is full of dogs! We are done for. Make your way east, and let Todd know what happened here.” They heard a scream and a lot of growling, then silence.

“Come in, Greg. I need your advice.” Henry said.

“Young ‘un, do what your boss said and walk to the east. My dogs won’t harm you unless you shoot at them,” they heard Zeb’s gravely voice say on the radio.

“I’ll get you, you old son of a bitch,” Henry screamed into the radio. He ranted and raved for a few minutes then the radio went dead.

Ben started to turn the radio off when they heard, “Joe, I know you’re listening. It wasn’t nice of you to leave me back there. Squeeker says you’ll pay for that. Don’t stop, Joe. We’re right behind you. My friends are eager to meet you again. They’d like to have you over for dinner.” They heard his cackling laugh over the radio. “Do you get it, Joe? They would like to have you for dinner.” They heard him cackle with laughter. “Joe, you can’t escape me. If I have to, I’ll hound you to the far reaches of hell, but I’ll have you,” Zeb said.

The finality in Zeb’s voice chilled them to the bone. Ben snapped off the radio. “That man scares me,” Ben said.

“Did you notice anything different about Zeb?” Joe asked.

No one said anything. “What do you mean, Joe?” Bill asked.

“He didn’t use any of the hillbilly slang like he did when he was with us. That means whatever is inside of him has taken over completely,” Joe told them.

“Why does he want you so bad, Joe?” Gail asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Joe answered.

“Stalker says he wants your mind,” Tammy said from the back of the station wagon.

“My mind!” Joe exclaimed.

“Stalker says that in normal times your mind would be one of the foremost military minds in the world. This is something Zeb wants badly. He realizes he’ll never control humans in the same way he controls animals. With your knowledge, Zeb can train his dogs and use their talents to overcome anything. Whatever has taken over Zeb is malignant and evil,” Tammy said. Joe looked at Bill and Bill nodded his head yes to the unspoken question. If it looked like Joe was to be taken by Zeb and his dogs, Bill would blow his brains out. He would keep Zeb from gaining the knowledge Joe had. Bill hoped it never came to that.

Up ahead they saw the headlights of a car. From the rear seat Ben said, “That’s my family up there. Stop a hundred feet from them, and let me get out. I don’t want them to shoot any of us after we’ve traveled so far.”

Joe stopped the station wagon well behind the car. He couldn’t see anyone, but he knew guns were pointed at the station wagon. Ben opened the door and got out. He walked to stand in front of the station wagon letting the lights shine on him.

“Leila, Benji?” he shouted.

“Ben, is it you?” a female voice shouted back.

“Yes, my love,” Ben’s voice quivered with emotion as he walked forward. A bundled up boy rushed from the shadows and jumped into Ben’s arms. Ben fell to his knees and held the boy. Ben raised his tear-stained face as Leila walked up and looked down at them. He reached up and pulled her down beside him and wrapped his arms around both of them.

“God, how I’ve missed the both of you,” he sobbed. Leila held him and made soothing sounds as he cried. She looked up and saw strangers, except for Jane and Jake, surrounded them. Ben wiped his eyes and stood up, pulling them up with him. “Everyone, I would like you to meet my wife and son,” he said in a voice chocked with emotion.

Leila introduced herself and Benji, then Cap and Jeff when they came out of the shadows of the car. All the while, Ben stood there with tears of happiness running down his cheeks. He held on to her and Benji as if he would never let loose of them.

While Ben talked to his family, Joe and the others went to help Cap fix the car. In a little while, the car whirled to life.

Joe walked up to them and said, “We all agreed that you and your family should have the car, Ben. Cap and Jeff will ride with us. We need to leave now Ben,” Joe turned and walked to the station wagon.

Ben took his family to the car and followed the station wagon as it made its way down the snow-covered road.

Chapter 28

“Wake up, Jess,” he distantly heard Ross say.

“What?” he mumbled, shaking sleep from his mind.

“Get you a cup of coffee, Jess. I have some bad news for General Hawkins. I want to know if you want me to give it to him or do you want to do it?”

Jess sat with his feet over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. He got up and went to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. Taking a sip of the steaming liquid, he felt alert enough to hear what Ross had to say. “Give me the bad news, then I’ll decide.” he said.

“All the soldiers who went to help Joe’s group are dead. They ran into trouble fifty miles from here. They were unlucky enough to get caught in a town that a large force of men was moving into. I thought General Hawkins should know about it since they were his men,” Ross said. Jess searched through the drawers in his desk looking for a cigarette. Although he hadn’t smoked in fifteen years, recent events had him puffing like a factory smokestack. “Damn, where are they?” he mumbled.

“If you are referring to your cigarettes, they are under the stack of books on the chair near the coffee maker,” Ross said.

Jess went to the chair and lifted the books off it. He picked up the pack of cigarettes and lit one. Drawing the smoke into his lungs, he went and sat down at his cluttered desk.

“You know, Jess, smoking is bad for your health. I wonder if you realize the danger you are in. The way it is, you drink too much coffee. Smoking increases your metabolism to the point you might have a heart attack,” Ross said with concern in his voice.

Running his hand threw his hair, Jess leaned back and sipped his coffee. “The way things stand now, I won’t live long enough to have a heart attack,” he said.

“I have other news to tell you about if you care to hear it now?” Ross told him.

“Give me a few minutes to finish my first cup of coffee,” Jess said in a grouchy voice. He heard a knock on the door and said, “Come in,”

Ruth walked in and went to the coffee pot. “I thought I heard voices,” she said. She wore a faded pair of blue jeans and a silky white blouse. She was barefooted and obviously still half asleep. Feeling self-conscious sitting there in his shorts, Jess went over and put his robe on. He came back to his desk and sat down reaching for his cup of coffee. Ruth sat down in the chair across from his desk. She held the cup of coffee to her lips as though savoring a fine wine. He let her take a few sips then asked, “How’re you feeling this morning, Ruth?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck. If someone would take a stick and beat me on the back, I would probably feel better,” she answered.

“I know the feeling,” Jess said with a smile. He told her about the news of the soldiers’ deaths. She sat there stoically for a few moments and then sighed. “This is going to hit General Hawkins pretty hard. He and Major Jacobs were good friends. So much tragedy in such a short time,” she said, shaking her head. “By the way, I noticed that Dr. Palmer is up early and working in your lab. Do you think he has a chance of coming up with anything?” she asked.

“He didn’t go to bed last night. He is working with Ross and Rita setting up some experiments. He reminds me a lot of Ross in that his work comes before everything else. They should get along fine,” Jess told her.

“Yes, he is rather obsessed with finding a cure for this disease,” Ruth stated.

“Okay, Ross, Tell me the rest of the news.”

“First, I want to tell you that Joe and his group are very close. They are probably seventy miles from here if the reports we get from the men hunting them are correct. Rita and I believe they are hiding near the town of Arapaho. We think they will stay out of sight until the search for them shifts elsewhere. I think you will be pleased to know that while Rita kept Pete’s shadow busy I was able to penetrate our nuclear facilities. I put a blocking program in place, which will prevent Pete from launching the missiles. In time he will be able to figure it out, but we don’t plan on giving him the time.

“Last night the Soviet missile forces launched four nuclear missiles at the approaching Chinese in Siberia. We estimate that the explosions killed close to a hundred thousand Chinese troops. This may slow the Chinese down for a while, but they will continue their push westward. Eastern Russia will be under the control of the Soviet hardliners within the next month, we estimate. The Soviet missile forces have issued a warning to Iran. The commander told them that if they crossed the southern Soviet border, he would unleash his missiles on them.

“Africa is a hotbed of turmoil. The people there appear to be lining up on a black versus white bases. Although the whites are small in number, they control all of the sophisticated weapons. We figure it will be a bloodbath before the whites are finally forced out. South Africa is adopting the policy of letting the other countries fight it out there by weakening their enemies. They have clamped down on all blacks in their country deporting thousands to countries in the north. None of the northern countries are trying to invade South Africa for fear of them exploding their nuclear weapons on them. Prime Minister Botta was assassinated yesterday and Jon Statoie took over the head of government. He is one of the radical hard liners, firmly believing that all blacks should be driven out of South Africa.

“In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has fallen to Iranian backed troops. Reports state that King Faid and his entire family were killed as they tried to escape. Iraq is reeling after Iranian terrorists set off a bomb in one of the chemical plants in Baghdad. The plant was producing mass quantities of biological gas. The Iraqis were stupid enough to store the gas at the plant. Eyewitnesses say the streets of Baghdad are littered with bodies. The Iranians are in complete control of Afghanistan now and are preparing to push into Pakistan. India is a shattered country. Fighting between Hindus and Moslems has left the country in flames. The Ganges River is filled with dead bodies and major outbreaks of cholera are reported around the country.

“China is rushing upwards of a million militia men to the Vietnamese border to stem the tide of the Vietnamese advance. Laos and Cambodia have fallen to the Vietnamese. Sources in Thailand say the Vietnamese are staging on the other side of their border. Any day now they expect the Vietnamese to invade. Taiwan has cautioned the Vietnamese that if they invade Thailand, Taiwan will stop supporting them. It is not believed this will stop them. The Vietnamese believe this is an opportunity to put all of Southeast Asia under their rule. Rita and I believe that it won’t be long before the Vietnamese are forced to pull back and protect the gains they have already made.

“Great Britain sneaked a company of their famous Gurka troops into France last week. Reports indicate they are creating all kinds of havoc behind the enemy lines. This has eased the pressure on the British mainland. France, or the new country of Europia, is pulling troops from the coast to look for the swift moving Gurkas. With the help of U.S. subs, not one of the boats ferrying troops from France to England has made it across the English Channel.

“Now to our own situation. As you know, people are leaving here. At the present time there are a little over three thousand people outside the complex. A few are leaving, but we don’t expect it to drop much below that level. All the people who have left are going to Todd’s headquarters. We believe Todd is going to use them to farm the land. If this is so, it doesn’t make any sense. The growing season is too short to grow much. Besides, the soil is not that fertile. There are too many inconsistencies in Todd’s thinking to believe he will ever pull this venture off. I can understand his wanting fresh vegetables, but there is enough food lying around to last for years. Well enough about Todd. The situation in the East remains the same. Army troops are still trying to clear out the rebels in West Virginia and Kentucky without much success. That’s it for now,” Ross said.

“Fascinating, how on earth did you learn all of that? In Iceland, we would have to wait weeks sometimes before we could confirm something,” Ruth said.

“It’s really quite simple, Ruth. As long as we have trans-Atlantic communication, we tap into different countries’ computers. We sift through all the news and take only what has been confirmed. Rita and I analyze it and make probable projections on what is going to happen. So far, we have been ninety-seven percent right,” Ross said.

“Ross, there is far more going on in the states than we were led to believe. Can you give me a brief overview of what is happening?” Ruth asked.

“Rita and I went through millions of government documents and have found some interesting things. In the early sixties, the government had a secret lab in the Rockies. It was located a hundred miles from here, twenty miles west of Pueblo. In this lab they carried out the first experiments in gene splicing. In nineteen sixty-four they created a new virus that had mind-altering effects on humans. Security became so intense that the scientists became prisoners and the lab their prison.”

“Are there documents supporting this?” Ruth asked.

“Not directly, but by piecing together bits of information from different sources we are certain we have a clear picture of what happened. The overworked scientists made a mistake and the virus escaped its containment area. The scientists became infected and were sealed in the labs by the security people. Government scientists were brought in to study the infected scientists. Everything went fine for a month, then the virus mutated in a few of the people. These people demonstrated an unreasonable hatred for the people the virus hadn’t affected. They killed most of the other people. They threatened to find a way out of the sealed labs and kill anyone not like them. A few select people in Washington decided that these people posed too much of a threat to the country. They planted explosives in and around the mountain the lab was in and exploded them. You might remember the report of an airline crash over the Atlantic with a dozen government scientists aboard in May of sixty-four. That is how the government explained the dead scientists. Relatives were told the people were working on a top-secret project. The government compensated each family very well with cash to insure all speculation was stopped. The incident was covered up and the people connected with it were shipped to different departments. Only a few who knew about the incident are alive today. One of them is our own General Hawkins. He was a young lieutenant in the security force for the labs.”

“Did I hear someone mention my name?” General Hawkins said from the door.

“Come in and have a seat, General. We are listening to a fascinating story about when you were a young man,” Ruth said.

He entered the room, got a cup of coffee, and took a seat.

“As I was saying,” Ross continued. “General Hawkins was a young man at the time the labs were buried under a mountain of rock and dirt. All traces of the place were erased from the records. Most of the information we found came from obscure sources of that time. Everything went fine until early this year.

“The one thing they could never have foreseen was an earthquake in the area. None had occurred there in anyone’s memory. In May of this year, a quake occurred causing a hairline fault from the labs to the surface. Of course, all the people were long dead, but the virus remained virulent as ever. Now the rest is speculation, but we think it happened in this way. The virus worked its way to the surface and lay dormant until someone came along. The first outbreak occurred in a small town in New Jersey. It is the hometown of Ben, one of the people trying to get here. We think a hunter brought back the virus, and it spread from there.”

“So this thing didn’t start out west?” Jess said.

“No, it only appeared to. The changed people out here had to move faster to take control of things. They couldn’t hide like the people who lived in the vast population centers back East. Another interesting thing we found out about the force guiding this man Zeb and his dogs. It’s some kind of counterforce to the one helping Joe and his people.”

“Do you know what these forces are?” Ruth asked.

“No, but we have a theory. Think of the earth as a dog and us as the fleas on it. Now, this disease made by man apparently bit hard enough to get the dog’s attention. Now, the dog has to take a hand in what the fleas do or it will be eaten alive. That is what we think happened. The earth has always been a living entity. Content to let us microbes live out our lives anyway we pleased until we created something that threatened her. Now, she is forced to take a hand.”

“Do you really believe that is what is happening now?” General Hawkins asked.

“More or less. If anyone has a better explanation, I will be glad to listen,” Ross said.

“Jess, turn on your monitors. Something is going on at the tunnel entrance,” Rita said. Jess turned on the monitors and zoomed in on the doors at the mouth of the tunnel. He saw a group of people at the door. He was startled when they opened the small door. “Ross, did you open the door!” he yelled.

“No, Jess. They knew the passwords to open the door. I believe they are Joe and his people,”

Ross told him.

Chapter 29

Bill crawled up beside Joe and peered over the top of the hill. A few hundred people milled around the closed doors of a tunnel into the mountain. A quarter of a mile back from the doors a high chain-link fence laid on the ground.

Smoke came from a pipe stuck through the roof of an old guard shack. People entered and left the shack in a steady stream. When the people came out, they wore heavy new coats. Fires burned all around the perimeter of the doors into the mountain.

“How do we get through all those people?” Bill asked.

“Sure are a lot of them. Are they wanting in, or are they waiting for us?” Joe muttered.

“What we need is a diversion to draw them away from the doors,” Bill said. Tammy scrambled up beside them. “Stalker told me to tell you to get everyone ready to go for the doors. He took Ben with him toward town. He said to listen for a disturbance. He is going to draw as many people away from here as he can,” she told them.

“Get everyone up here, Tammy. If I know Stalker, all hell is going to break loose in a little while,”

Joe said.

“See the outline of a small door on the right side of the large door. That’s where we need to go. If we have figured out the right code from the message the President gave me, it should take only a minute to open the door and be inside,” Bill said.

“So five minutes should give us enough time? Let’s hope Stalker can give it to us,” Joe said. He turned and watched the rest of his group struggle up the slope. Tony edged up beside Bill, and Gail came to lie beside him. Leila and Jake checked their rifles. Joe had them line up at the top of the hill and told them to wait. “Now it’s up to you, Stalker,” he thought.

Stalker crept up a ditch toward a dozen people standing around a fire. He saw Ben crawling up on the other side. When he was twenty feet from them, Ben stood up. “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Ben said.

“Who in hell are you, stranger?” A man asked.

“The name’s Ben. Ben Johnson.”

The men stood silent for a moment, then they all reached for their guns. Ben calmly fired, knocking one man back into the fire. Another man took a slug in the chest; a third man died when Ben’s bullet took the side of his head off.

Now the men were firing. Ben took a slug in the leg knocking him to the ground. He squirmed around, raised his rifle and shot a man in the chest.

People all around them were screaming and firing. Ben shot another man who ran toward him. He felt a slug slam into his chest and almost doubled over from the pain. “Can’t you work any faster?”

he thought.

“Ben, I’m repairing you as fast as I can. There is nothing I can do about the pain. You will just have to bear it,” his Guardian told him.

Ben rolled over on his side and took a fresh magazine from his coat pocket. He inserted it in the rifle and started firing at the people around him.

Stalker thought it time he gave Ben a hand. A lot of people rushed up the road to see what was going on. He waited until they were even with him then jumped out of the ditch. He landed in the middle of about twenty people. Slashing left and right with his teeth, half a dozen men fell before they knew what hit them.

People screamed all around him. Through a break in the people, he looked up the road and saw people streaming away from the mountain. A man swung a rifle butt at him and he grabbed him by the arm, ripping through flesh and muscle. The man screamed and Stalker let loose of the hand and grabbed him by the neck. Twisting his head, Stalker felt the man’s neck snap. He felt a sharp pain in his side and turned to see a man holding a long knife. As the man’s arm came back to strike again, he was knocked off his feet by one of Ben’s bullets. He saw Ben stagger and fall as three bullets struck him in the chest.

Now there were so many people around them, he could hardly move. He jumped straight up in the air and came down on two men and a woman knocking them to the ground. He ripped out one man’s throat and dug his claws into the belly of another. Pushing upward with his hind feet, he ripped the belly of the man wide open. The woman raised her rifle and fired. Stalker was slammed sideways by the blow of the bullet. People began to back away.

Joe waited until only a few people remained at the doors; then, he rose and ran down the hill. He jumped over a campfire and shot a man who turned toward them.

Behind him, his people opened fire knocking the people around the door off their feet. Bill ran up to the door and said something into a speaker in the door. A loud click sounded and the small door opened. Bill pushed Tony through the door and had everyone inside in moments. “Come on, Joe,” he said.

“I’m going to go help Stalker and Ben,” Joe said.

“Shit,” Bill said. He turned to Tony and told her he was going with Joe. He told her if the people came back, she was to close the door. Jake stepped up to him and said, “I must be crazy, but I’m going with you.”

Jeff walked out the door followed by Cap and Leila. Joe turned to see all of them standing outside the door.

“Okay, we’ll go pull Ben’s bacon out of the fire. See if that truck over there will start,” Joe said to Jake. “You three stay and hold the door,” he said pointing to Tammy, Tommy and Benji. Jake pulled the truck on the road. Joe got in the cab beside Jake while the rest piled into the back. “Go,” Joe said. Jake put the truck in gear and took off down the road. In the back, Tony and the rest fired into the people they passed to cause more confusion.

* * * *

Ben staggered over and fell beside Stalker. He looked awful. He had taken two rounds to the head. Although the wounds were healing themselves, he was a terrible sight to look at. His coat looked like someone had used it for target practice. There were so many bullet holes in the coat that it was a wonder it held together. Stalker was bleeding in so many places it was a miracle he could stand. The people advanced on them slowly, ready to fire at the first sign of resistance. Stalker bared his teeth at them and they stopped. Ben sat up and yelled, “What are you waiting for?” He threw his arm around Stalker’s bloody neck. He heard Stalker say in his mind, “It is over for me, Ben. I will try and give you time to get away. He lunged at the people who fired while he was in the air. Ben yelled, “No,” and staggered to his feet. He flipped the selector to automatic and pulled the trigger. So many bullets hit him that he walked backwards. He saw Stalker fall to the ground and painfully stand up on wobbly legs. He lurched into the people clearing a path around him. A man stepped up to Stalker and emptied a handgun into his head. Stalker lay on the ground quivering as bullets struck him.

Ben forgot his pain. He forgot everything as he remembered how many times Stalker had saved them. With a roar of rage, he straightened up and with a rifle in each hand he walked forward. The people fell back from his murderous rage. “You can’t take much more of this,” his Guardian told him. He heard the sound of an engine behind him. He fell to his knees and crawled to where Stalker lay. Pulling himself over to Stalker’s body, Ben took the bullets meant for Stalker. He felt Stalker heave under him. “Take care of the little one,” he heard in his mind. Stalker convulsed once more then lay still.

At the door of the tunnel, Tammy screamed in pain and ran outside. Tears were streaming down her face. She screamed, “Stalker, Stalker.”

Jake plowed into the people scattering them. In the back of the truck Tony and the rest lay down a solid wall of lead. People fell all around them and started to retreat. Joe jumped out of the truck and tried to get Ben to his feet. He had a hard time because his right arm hung at his side and blood streamed from his fingers.

Leila limped from the back of the truck and helped him. Together they got Ben into the bed of the truck.

Tony sat beside Stalker and held his head in her lap. “No, No, No,” she said over and over. Bill and Jake lifted Stalker’s body and carried it to the rear of the truck where they gently placed it in the bed.

A silence settled over the area as Tony stood up. “For this, all of you shall die,” she screamed at the people in anguish. She turned and walked to the back of the truck and got in. Behind the people, a roar started. Dogs by the thousands attacked the people from the rear.

Joe leaned back against the seat saying, “Get us to the mountain, Jake.”

Jake turned around and started up the road. They saw a small figure running down the road. Jake slowed and stopped as Tammy came near. She threw herself in the back of the truck and wrapped her arms around Stalker. Shaking with sobs she pressed her face to his bloody head. Behind them, people screamed and shot at the dogs that were attacking them. Jake drove the truck up to the door. Jake and Tony helped Ben into the tunnel. Gail put her shoulder under Joe’s arm and helped him through the door. Jake came out, lifted Jeff across his shoulders and carried him inside. Cap and Leila held on to each other and limped through the door. Tony and Jake went to the rear of the truck. Jake took Tammy’s arms from around Stalker’s body. They carried Stalker’s body inside and laid it against the wall.

Tony went to Joe and put her hands against his wound. She felt the power rise in her. She used just enough to do minor repairs and stop the bleeding. She went to each of them and did what she could to repair their wounds.

Finished, she slumped back against the wall, tired, and pleased that none of them had died. She looked over to where Tammy sat with Stalker. Tammy had a vacant look in her eyes. Tony wished she could do something for the hurt Tammy felt. Now that she was here, she felt at ease in one sense and apprehensive in another. Whatever they faced, they would face it together. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr. Baker worked for a telephone company for thirty years. He retired in 1999 and took up writing full time. He lives in an isolated area along the West Virginia-Kentucky border with his wife, two dogs and three cats. He tries to write as he sees the world, so a lot of what goes into his novels are his perceptions of how the world should be.

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