Recovery: V Plague Book 8 Page 15

  “I was actually thinking I’d be a tad more subtle than that,” I said, slowing to negotiate a gentle curve in the road before resuming our full speed pace.

  The time to the edge of Dodge City went by quickly. We had been driving through miles upon miles of monotonous grasslands and suddenly crested a gentle rise and saw the outskirts of town. A couple of gas stations and the ubiquitous McDonald’s were the first things we flashed past.

  I stepped on the brakes and lowered our speed as we progressed. A “Welcome to Dodge City” sign was on the right edge of the pavement and it said the population was 27,541. Not a lot of people and not a lot of city to support them.

  There were no high rises, no large parking garages, nothing like I would have preferred to be able to use to hide. Everything was single or two stories, except for one six story building that not surprisingly was a bank. Everything looked old, but then I supposed it should.

  “Ideas?” Katie asked, looking around as I drove towards the downtown area.

  The change in noise and motion from the lower speed had roused Dog from his slumber and he sneezed twice, getting me squarely on the side of the face with his second one. I wiped his snot off with a grimace and rubbed it onto my pants.

  “Not any good ones,” I said. “If they’re watching us on satellite they’ll see wherever we stop and will be able to direct the helos right to us. That, and it’s the middle of the fucking day. I’d much rather have the cover of night.”

  “Quit whining,” Katie grinned at me. “You’re worrying about the problems and not thinking about the solutions.”

  Bitch! But she was right.

  “Call Jessica,” I said a moment later, turning onto the street that ran in front of the bank building. It was marked as Second Avenue.

  “Yes, sir?” Jessica answered on the second ring.

  “Please tell me you’re close to locking the Russians out. It’s hard to play hide and seek when they’re peeking.” I said.

  “Close, sir. Hold on,” she said.

  I could hear her working, breathing heavily into the phone, which I pictured mashed between her ear and shoulder while she pounded on the keyboard. This went on for some time and I drove past the bank without slowing and kept going. Ahead a sign pointed towards a state highway and I took the turn and accelerated.

  “What are you doing?” Katie asked, surprised as I continued to pick up speed.

  “Leaving a false trail,” I said. “When they lose imagery I don’t want us to have been leisurely driving around town. That’s where they’ll start looking for us. If we’re driving like hell out of town when the feed scrambles, they’ll think we’re still going in that direction.”

  “You’re smarter than you look,” Katie said, patting me on the leg.

  We were passing a sign that thanked us for visiting Dodge City, our speed approaching 100 when Jessica came back on the line.

  “Got it, sir!” She shouted.

  I slammed on the brakes and as the car slowed, spun the wheel and skidded through a 180-degree turn. Flooring the accelerator, I roared back into town heading for the bank building. As we’d passed through I’d noted a lot of cars in the area. Some neatly parked and others crashed into each other or into the buildings that lined the street. It shouldn’t be hard to hide the Dodge amongst them. Driving fast, we were back on Second Avenue in minutes.

  “How long do I have, Jessica?”

  “Fifteen minutes until they’re overhead, sir. And just so you’re aware, I don’t know how long it will take them to break the encryption I just put on the stream. It could be half an hour or days.” She said.

  “Will you know when they break in and be able to give me a heads up?”

  “Yes, sir.” She said.

  “Thanks. Gotta run now.” I said, steering the Charger into the midst of a three-vehicle crash that involved a city bus and two pickups. Pushing in, I stopped when the front bumper nudged the side of the bus.

  “Good luck, sir. I’ll be watching if you need me.”

  29

  Rachel wasn’t certain but thought she had frostbite on several fingers as well as her ears and the tip of her nose. Maybe the tissue hadn’t actually frozen but she was so cold she couldn’t tell. The afternoon was wearing on, the clouds so thick and snow falling so heavily that she had no idea where the sun was in the sky. She was in a world of white and grey, the lake reflecting the overcast and appearing as if it was dirty steel.

  Bill was still unconscious and she had wrapped him as best she could in his nylon canopy. The fabric wasn’t terribly heavy but she hoped it would provide enough insulation to keep the man from freezing to death. Once he was cocooned, she looked around the area.

  First she was checking to make sure the wolf hadn’t returned, though she wasn’t confident she would see it until it was lunging for her throat. The animal’s coat was a mottled grey and she had noticed how well it blended in with the snowy terrain.

  Not seeing anything for the moment she turned, shivering from the biting wind, and looked around the small clear patch of ground she had chosen. Snow was thick in her hair and starting to accumulate on her shoulders and she knew it wouldn’t be long before both of them would succumb to the weather if she didn’t get a fire going. But even with a fire they still needed protection from the wind.

  Two large trees grew next to each other, no more than a dozen feet apart. They were upwind from where she stood and as she stared at them an idea took shape. Rushing to her hastily dropped parachute she quickly pulled the canopy out and set to work with Bill’s knife.

  It didn’t take long to cut all the ropes where they were attached to the pack, but it would have gone faster if she hadn’t been looking up and scanning for the wolf every few seconds. She was terrified it would approach while she was occupied and when she looked up it would be standing there, teeth barred, ready to pounce.

  With the chute free, Rachel fought with it in the wind, finally succeeding in getting one edge to the closest tree. She began wrapping the attached lines around the trunk, beginning at ground level. Her fingers were stiff and numb from the cold and it took several attempts to tie a knot, but she eventually got it.

  Slowly working her way up she kept wrapping the canopy lines around the trunk until she had reached a point a foot above her head. One end of the parachute nylon was now firmly secured to one of the trees, pulled tight against the rough bark. The free end flapped in the wind, snapping and popping like a flag.

  Grabbing one of the flailing lines, Rachel stretched it to the other tree where she first wrapped the excess fabric around the trunk before pulling the line taut and starting to work on the knot. By now she was so cold she was shivering constantly and her fingers were stiff and unresponsive. The line slipped out of her grasp several times before she finally managed to tie it off.

  Not pausing, she worked her way up the trunk at an agonizingly slow pace. But as she progressed the canopy blocked the wind. It flapped violently above where she was working, but as each knot went into place more and more of the wind was stopped. Finally reaching the same height as the first tree, Rachel collapsed onto her knees with a gasp.

  She was still shivering, but without the wind chill the air immediately around her felt almost warm. She realized this wasn’t real, that there was nothing warm about the situation she was in, and if she stopped it wouldn’t be long before she’d fall asleep and never wake up.

  Forcing herself to crawl around the area she began gathering twigs and small branches, shaking the snow off them as she worked. Several feet from the windbreak she had created, Rachel piled the wood on a mostly clear and dry patch of ground. The heavy branches of the trees over her head were providing shelter, and now with the canopy blocking the wind driven snow there was a large patch of ground that would stay dry.

  She piled the kindling as best she could, barely able to keep from scattering what she had gathered as her arms and hands violently shook. Once she had a small pile and had managed to stuff handf
uls of dry pine needles into it she scrambled to where Bill still lay motionless, wrapped in the other canopy. Not stopping to check on him she searched his pack until she came up with one of the waterproof matches.

  It took her several tries to calm her hands enough to even strike the match, but her heart leapt when it finally flared. Thrusting it against a few pine needles she held her breath as the flame flickered, almost going out when a gust of wind made it under the edge of the windbreak. But the match kept burning, the needles quickly catching.

  Soon the fire spread to all of the tinder then began licking the dry twigs. There was still some wind leaking under and around the edges of the canopy, but it was just enough to fan the flames and the fire quickly grew. Piling on more twigs and small branches, Rachel held her hands as close to the heat as she dared.

  Her skin was so cold she couldn’t feel the warmth at first. Several times she pulled her hands back and checked them, making sure she wasn’t cooking her flesh without realizing it.

  Piling more wood on the fire she reluctantly began moving around the area, away from the meager heat. She needed larger branches and lots of them. Fortune finally smiled on her. The area of the Sawtooth Mountains she was in was covered in old growth forest and it had been a very long time since fire had consumed everything in its path.

  The forest floor was covered with fallen branches of all sizes. It had been a long summer with very little rain and the wood she gathered was dry and caught easily when she began piling it onto her campfire. Soon she had a roaring blaze and had to move back against the canopy stretched between the trees.

  Slowly the shivers and shakes that had gripped her began to pass as her body warmed. Leaning over Bill’s still unmoving form she reached out to check him. He didn’t respond when she shook his shoulder and Rachel placed two fingers on his neck to check his pulse. When she couldn’t feel anything she leaned in and pressed her ear against his mouth, unsure if her fingers were just damaged from the cold or not.

  There was no tickle of breath as she held her face in front of the pilot’s. He was dead. Rachel sat back with a groan. The morphine. Anesthetics not only block pain, they also inhibit the body’s thermoregulatory process. Shivering is one way the body tries to warm itself, fighting cold, as well as pulling blood from the extremities into the torso to protect the vital organs and the brain. The morphine had prevented that and the man had frozen to death.

  Rachel wanted to cry, feeling partly responsible for his death since she was the one who had administered the narcotic. But she was too exhausted after dragging him down the hill and battling the wind and cold. Struggling with the rapidly stiffening corpse, she freed the canopy it was wrapped in and after piling more wood on the fire draped it around her body and lay down as close to the flames as she could.

  30

  I grabbed the sat phone and Katie, Dog and I jumped out of the Dodge. Taking a moment to set the phone to silent, I scanned up and down the abandoned street. There was a stiff wind blowing. Little swirls of dust, leaves and trash skittered along the pavement. Other than those sounds it was absolutely silent. Eerily silent. I still wasn’t used to this new world of ghost towns and cities.

  “How about in there?” Katie asked, pointing at the bank building.

  I shook my head. “Too easy to wind up on an upper floor and get trapped,” I said. “Besides, that’s one of the first, obvious places I’d search.”

  The wind shifted and the stench of cow shit blew across me. As I continued to survey the area I remembered that a third of the beef consumed in America came through Dodge City. Or had come through, I corrected myself.

  “There,” I said, pointing at a single level building on the far side of the closest intersection that took up most of the block. We set off at a trot, Dog running to catch up after lifting his leg on a tree growing through a grate set into the sidewalk.

  The building looked old, or at least old as far as American buildings go. It had probably been built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. It had a high roofline despite not having a second story and currently housed a local department store. Signs for men’s suits, women’s dresses and shoes for the entire family festooned the windows fronting the sidewalk.

  If I was right it would be a maze inside with lots of hiding places and the building was large enough that I had no doubt there would be multiple exits. Coming to a stop at the double entrance doors I tried to see inside but the bright sunshine turned the glass into a mirror. All I could see was a reflection of the three of us and the street we were standing on.

  Pulling the door open I gave Dog a few moments to sample the air. He immediately growled, letting me know there were infected inside. I paused for a moment, debating. The large store was well suited for hiding, but I didn’t have time for a protracted battle to clear out infected.

  But bypassing this building and finding another one by no means guaranteed it wouldn’t be full of infected. We needed to get ourselves under cover quickly. The Russian helos were fast approaching.

  “Infected,” I mumbled, stepping across the threshold with Dog at my side.

  Katie followed, letting the door swing shut and bump against her back. My rifle was up, scanning, and I whistled loudly. I wanted to draw the infected to me and get this over with.

  The sound of a rack of clothes crashing to the floor caused me to spin to my left. Two males were bumping their way through the maze of shelving and freestanding racks full of women’s wear. I shot both of them and rescanned, not seeing anything.

  There was no power and while the sun streaming through the windows provided plenty of light at the front of the store, the back half was lost in deep shadows. I activated the night vision scope on the rifle, but while the interior appeared gloomy to my day adjusted eyes there was too much light for the electronics to perform their function and I shut it down.

  Dog was on alert, ears up straight as he pressed against my leg. Despite the tension in his body he wasn’t growling. Trusting him, and wondering how the hell he could tell a live infected from a dead infected by smell, I began moving deeper into the store.

  We slithered our way amongst the round, chrome display racks that were jammed full of hanging clothes and seemingly arranged to prevent anyone from easily walking through the area. I’ve never understood why clothing stores do that, and it was always one of my pet peeves whenever I went shopping with Katie.

  Towards the back of the store there was a set of swinging doors and I carefully pushed them open, pausing so Dog had time to give the air a good test. He stayed quiet and Katie and I moved into a stock area. Very little of the light made it this far and I was able to scan the large space with the night vision scope. Confirming that Dog’s nose was right, I headed for the back wall where there were several tall stacks of boxes.

  To either side of the immediate area were two exit doors, both with alarmed crash bars on them to prevent someone from opening them without setting off a siren unless they had a key. Using my Ka-Bar I popped the cover off the one to my right and cut the wires leading from the battery, then slapped the housing back in place.

  Pushing on the crash bar the door lock released without an alarm and I looked out on a narrow alley and several vehicles as well as a couple of large dumpsters. Repeating the process on the other door I saw that it opened into a small alcove off the alley. A rusting iron ladder attached to the outside of the building climbed up to the roof.

  I now had two exits that could be used if needed without tripping an alarm. I was hoping the Russians’ last view of me had been the car heading west, out of town, and they’d just keep on going. But I wasn’t going to count on it. I needed to be ready if they started a door-to-door search.

  I didn’t think that was too likely as the manpower required would be significant. Each of the HIND helicopters could only carry a maximum of eight soldiers in addition to the flight crew, and as far as I knew there were still only two helos hunting me.

  “Call Jessica and see what the Russians ar
e doing,” I said to Katie as I began stacking boxes to create a hiding place for her and Dog.

  “No signal,” she said a minute later.

  “Then don’t worry about it,” I said without stopping what I was doing. “Not worth going outside.”

  It didn’t surprise me that the phone couldn’t pick up a signal. Satellite communications, whether phone, data or TV is actually a very low powered signal and it’s rare that you can connect without direct line of sight to the orbiting antenna. I usually roll my eyes and change the channel when I see a TV show depicting someone standing deep in a building, talking away on a sat phone.

  “What are you doing?” Katie asked, tucking the phone away and moving closer to watch as I picked up a heavy box of Levi’s.

  “Making a cave for you and Dog to hide in,” I said without pausing.

  “And what are you going to be doing?”

  “Hopefully, nothing. But if they start moving into town and searching for us I’m going to do what I can to discourage them. It’s me they really want. If our theory is correct and Steve cut a deal with them I seriously doubt they’re going to worry too much about fulfilling their end of the bargain.” I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork.

  I had restacked most of the boxes, leaving a small space open that could hold Katie and Dog. Once they were inside there were a dozen more boxes I’d stack into place and unless someone tore the whole mess apart they would be invisible.

  “You are NOT sacrificing yourself for me!” Katie stepped in front of me and grabbed my arm. “We can fight together.”

  “Honey,” I said, looking down into her eyes. “I’m not planning on sacrificing myself. But they may find me. And if they do it’s better that they find just me. They won’t look too hard for you, if at all, once they have me. If you’re with me, they get both of us. If you’re not, you’ll probably get away. Call Jessica and have her get a message to Colonel Crawford in the Bradley. Then get on the road to Idaho.”