A New World 10 - Storm (3 page)

“That was Captain Walker, the man I told you about with the compound in Washington,” Leonard states. “Apparently we now have our satellite communication restored.”

He relays the gist of the conversation, that the rogue group has been eliminated. He also says that the night runners are leaving the Seattle area and pouring out of the city into the surrounding areas.

“Well, that’s the best fucking news I’ve heard since this whole thing started,” Castagne exclaims.

“Will that be a problem with our resupply?” Jorgenson asks.

“It shouldn’t, as Bangor is far from the city with large expanses of water separating the two,” Leonard answers. “That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems gathering supplies, just not from them.”

“Who is this person? And what is this group you speak of?” Azarov chimes in.

The three American captains look at each other, wondering how much they want to tell the Russian. With a sigh, Leonard tells him of the group and what Walker found out.

Azarov listens to the story with an amazed expression. Leonard finishes and the room falls silent. Castagne and Jorgenson have heard it before, but the retelling doesn’t make it any less dramatic. To a person, they are amazed that such a thing could happen.

“And that man eliminated a group such as this on his own?” Azarov asks.

“Well, him and the soldiers with him,” Leonard answers.

“That is a good man, then, no?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

The meeting over, signals are sent to the other boats, who surface to receive their respective captains. Even though they are free from the threat of the rogue group, there are still other enemies who can do them harm. They’ve been in position for too long and it’s time to get underway. Even though it will slow their progress, they will travel submerged. It will provide for better acoustics with which to identify anyone they come across. Plus, it just makes them all a little more comfortable to be in their familiar domain. On a signal from Leonard, they vanish beneath the waves and set a course to the Northeast and Bangor.

A flash of understanding rises in me. “So, correct me if I’m wrong: With a flick of the switch, we could get rid of two-thirds of the night runners?”

“That’s what I’m saying. It’s theoretically possible. However, we can’t communicate with the satellite. The technicians say they’ve been working on it since they arrived. It has been their number one priority but, to date, they haven’t been able to transmit to it,” Harold responds.

“Work on it. There hasn’t ever been anything more important in all of your life.”

Leaving Harold to his toys, I have one of the technicians patch me into a satellite UHF relay to Cabela’s. I’m sure Frank has just about paced a hole in the floor worrying about what has become of us and the possibility of a counter-strike against the compound.

Kathy answers the radio. There are a few moments of confused radio chatter until I manage to explain that there’s a satellite delay when using a satellite for communication. Once we get that ironed out, she fetches Frank. I inform him of our situation but I’m not able to give him our arrival time.

“There are things we need to work out on our end, the least of which is what to do with almost three hundred prisoners,” I state.

“What are your thoughts?” he asks.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

“Good luck with that. Bannerman asked me to tell you that bringing in that many more will make this place almost standing room only,” Frank says. “Although having more in camp will also be helpful.”

“Copy that. I’m not sure what we’ll do with them. This place is operational and I’m contemplating leaving Harold in place with a team or two to work on the satellite. He says that we may be able to install a relay station at the camp. Anyway, we have a few things we’ll have to sort out before heading back,” I comment.

“Okay, Jack. There’s nothing new on the front here. We’ll see you when you return,” he says.

On a whim, I make another effort to contact Leonard. With no small amount of surprise, I’m able to raise the
Santa Fe
. Although I know what caused our communication blackout with them, it’s still surprising to hear them answer. I’m sure our story isn’t nearly as shocking as his. The news of San Diego is disturbing.

That would explain the smoke on the horizon
, I think, listening to Leonard.

I didn’t even think about the nukes that may still be floating around the world. There may not be a lot of people around that have the knowledge to use them – or many people, period – but the fact that they ran into a missile sub doesn’t make me all that comfortable. If there’s one of ours running around, there are bound to be others out there, too. And the Russians, well, that is a surprise. At least, it's a variable I hadn't considered.

With them heading to Bangor, we keep our conversation short, only summarizing experiences and bringing each other up to date. We wish each other good luck and close with the times and modes set for further communications. I quickly call Frank again, letting him know about Leonard and what happened to San Diego.

With a sigh, I lean over the desktop in front of me and put my head down, exhausted. The news from Leonard has made me even more tired and there is still much to do before we can go home. I’m also stalling because I wasn’t lying when I told Frank that I don’t have the slightest idea of what to do with the three hundred people under guard in the vehicle bay. If it were up to me, I would go find a cot and lie down. The long night, coming off an intense adrenaline rush, the news about the satellite, the whole thing with Nahmer, night runners in the hundreds of thousands poised north of our compound, and a hard upcoming decision leaves me without any energy.

Even with the constant chatter and hammering of keyboards within the command center, I almost reach a blissful state of unconsciousness when I hear a voice behind me.

“Jack?” Lynn asks.

“Go away,” I groan.

“I’m not going to do that. You of all people should know that,” she says.

“I’ll pay you,” I say, my head still resting on my arms.

“That will cost more than you can afford.”

“Why are you still here? I was doing perfectly well examining the structural integrity of this desk,” I say.

“We still have things to do here, Jack, and I want to get home.”

Without raising my head, I turn to look at her. She is standing with her hands on her hips, looking down at me. That is never a good sign. I know she’s just as tired as I am – we all are, but I just want to collect my gold watch, fly my middle finger at the whole mess, and walk off to do nothing at all.

Surely they can make some decisions themselves and just let me rest
, I think.

However, that would be the exact wrong thing to say. That would get me my rest though, just not in a desired manner. Unconscious and sleeping is much different than, well, just unconscious.

“Fine. Let’s go find a place to chat,” I say, slowly rising from the feathered clouds I was about to lay on.

Finding a small conference room just inside the facility's offices, we sit around a wooden table. I fold my arms on the surface and start to lower my head.

“Don’t you dare, Jack,” Lynn firmly states.

“I can talk just fine with my head on my arms,” I reply.

“I mean it, Jack. What is it you always say? ‘Sooner started, sooner done?'”

I sit upright after nearly achieving my nap position.

“Okay, shit. But I’m gonna need to sleep soon or I’m going to just fall down at some point,” I say, a plan forming in my mind.

No, she’ll never fall for that
.

“Here’s the way I see it. We have to keep this facility up and running, at least until we get a relay station installed back at Cabela’s. With that, there are two things to figure out. One, do we leave Harold here with a couple of teams? We’ll require at least two, considering he’ll need the technicians to help out if he does stay. And two, what in the fuck do we do with the nearly three hundred people currently sitting on the concrete floor?” I continue.

“I agree about the facility. I’m not comfortable leaving just a couple of teams out here alone. You saw what happened with Greg,” Lynn says.

I feel a twang of regret and pain.

“Sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have mentioned that,” Lynn comments, seeing my expression.

“No. I made a mistake there and you have every right to bring it up. You’re correct, though. I’m not sure how to handle that one and we don’t have much time to figure it out.”

“How long did they say the satellite would stay functional?” Lynn asks.

“Two months. After that, we’ll lose our chance to potentially remove two-thirds of the night runner population,” I answer.

“Well, that kind of answers the one question. Harold stays to work on it. But how many teams do we leave here with him? It’s a fortified structure with few entrances. If we take care of the blind spots you worked your way through and set patrols, we shouldn’t need too many. However, that leaves us short-handed back at base. We have five new teams, but they are just that new. Tim’s group is prior military but they haven’t worked with any of us yet, and I don’t need to remind you that night runners are pouring south,” Lynn says.

“No. I’m all too well aware of that. Will three teams stationed here really make that much difference back home? That one isn’t going to be won or lost with the teams. It will be a matter of whether we can divert the horde around us.”

“Of course, that also depends on what you decide to do with the ones we are holding,” Lynn says.

“Oh, so now it’s what I decide, huh? Nice handoff.”

“Okay, Jack, whatever we decide. There, feel better now?”

“A little, thanks. I guess the number of teams we leave here depends on what we decide about the ones we captured. And, thinking further, I guess that depends on what they know, or knew, about what was going on. Nahmer mentioned they were soldiers on assignment. I suppose there’s a chance they didn’t know what they were guarding or attacking, although I have a hard time believing that. Nahmer was good, but soldiers have scuttlebutt, which can worm its way through just about any security,” I say.

“Well, then let’s go have a chat with them,” Lynn responds.

“Before we go, how are the wounded holding up?” I ask.

“A couple of them were pretty torn up in the blast, but they’ll recover. We have one being kept on morphine at the moment, as we pick out the shrapnel and clean the wounds. All of them will recover over time, though,” Lynn answers.

“Okay. Are they well enough to make the trip home?”

“They should be okay to travel, but let’s decide what we’re going to do first,” Lynn responds.

My knees groan in protest as I stand and feel like they are grinding bone on bone.

I’m getting too old for this shit
.

“
Yeah you are
,” Robert responds in my head.

I’m so tired that I guess I left that part of my mind open. “
You can come do this for me and I’ll sleep
.”

“
No, I’m good, thanks
.”

I close that part of my mind down and think:
When did I raise a smartass?

Walking into the vehicle bay, I glance over at the control center entrance where Harold is attempting to get a grip on all of the equipment and files…and hopefully figuring out a way to get the satellite operational.

If we could have worked with the group at the bunker earlier, we would be done with this mess. We could have identified the night runner lairs and wiped them out by now. With the satellites and the Spooky, this mess would never have happened. Nic and the others might still be alive. However, I doubt we could have worked together once we figured out what they were up to.

While the thought of what the former owners of this facility did to bring about the downfall is disturbing, the thought that Nic would still be alive brings a deep anger. I can’t do anything about it, but fuck, there is no reason for these past few months to have gone down the way they did.

Taking a deep breath to calm my seething anger, I follow Lynn to where our guests are being held. Seated on the hard floor near one wall is a sea of multicam uniforms, intermixed with a sprinkling of civilian clothes. With alert stances, several guards surround the group. Most of those captured have their knees drawn up with their arms across and heads down. Several look up as Lynn and I arrive.

Looking over the sea of bodies, I’m again struck by how many there are. From what I can see, there are easily as many as our total number back at Cabela’s. Most of them are soldiers, which leaves us easily outnumbered in terms of combat capability, assuming they've had similar training. That fact doesn’t make me very comfortable, further complicating my ultimate decision.

There are really only four options that I can see. We can turn them loose without their arms, either transporting them to a location or just showing them the door. That’s really a no-go from the start. Three hundred soldiers, perhaps harboring a notion of vengeance against us, armed or otherwise, doesn’t put us in a good situation. While I’m not sure what they know, I can only assume they know where our compound is. Plus, even as secure as the bunker is, they may attempt to retake it at some point. The possibility exists that we may just be delaying another fight.

We can eliminate the potential threat, which doesn’t really sit well with me. They are unarmed prisoners and it would be the equivalent of murdering three hundred people in cold blood. It may come down to that in the end, but I’m not considering it as an option at the moment. Also, I’m pretty sure I’d have a hard time convincing anyone else to obey that order.

That leaves incorporating them into our group, which could potentially leave us outnumbered. We could contact some of the other groups eking out an existence and disperse the force. That seems the most viable solution, depending on the attitude of the soldiers in question. Hell, they may not even be soldiers. If they are mercenaries and were complicit with what happened, that changes the playing field.

I weigh these thoughts as I continue to watch the prisoners. I guess I’m hoping the right answer will just pop into my mind, but nothing of the sort occurs. One of Lynn’s team members approaches. He is about to say something to her when he suddenly looks startled and peers intently at someone in the crowd of people.

“Perkins…Perkins! Is that you?” he asks, staring at one of the seated individuals staring at the concrete floor.

The soldier raises his head and looks from side to side before settling on the Black Team member. His eyes go wide with recognition.

“What the fuck, man? How did you get here?” the Black Team member asks.

Looking to me, and then back, the soldier answers. “Dude, I was fucking assigned here. What are you doing in this outfit?”

“I was in Kuwait, man. I was stuck there when this shit went down until Captain Walker here flew in and picked our butts up,” the team member answers.

“You obviously know this soldier,” Lynn comments toward her teammate.

“Yes, Sergeant. We went to basic and had our first tour in Iraq together.”