Breakout (Final Dawn) (13 page)

     John took a big bite of lasagna, and grabbed his French toast to go. He left his dinner on the table, hoping it wasn’t too cold when he returned.

     And then he jogged the short distance to the security center, chewing on his lasagna as he went.

     Frank had spent most of the afternoon following the tracks of the single buck. They led him a little bit of everywhere. A couple of times he had to climb trees to get a fix on his position. He was good at reading the sun, when he could see it. But in heavy woods it wasn’t always that easy.

     By mid afternoon, he was getting discouraged. He hadn’t come across another good sized set of tracks.
Some smaller tracks, yes. But nothing that screamed “big buck” to him.

     It was obvious that deer had indeed survived, but not in large numbers.

     Then he came to a clearing in the woods, where the deer had crossed a roadway. It wasn’t much of a road, really. Paved but narrow. An access road to one of the ranch houses in the area, Frank guessed.

     H
e looked up the road and saw something off in the distance. Something very unusual. Tall and black. Like a high fence or barricade of some type.

     It piqued his curiosity.

     And he needed a break from tracking his prey anyway.

     He approached the compound wondering what in the world it was, way out here in the middle of nowhere. No ranch he’d ever seen had a twelve foot black wall built around it.

     As he drew closer, unaware he was being closely watched by surveillance cameras, he saw signs hanging every twelve feet along the fence and about head high.

     They were the signs
Mark had hung just prior to Saris 7 striking the earth. He’d ordered them off the internet, in the hopes they’d keep prowlers away. They read, in English and Spanish:

WARNING—EXTREME DANGER

U.S.
GOVERNMENT

BIOLOGICAL
RESEARCH CENTER 

INFECTIOU
S DISEASES CONTAINED WITHIN

DO NOT ENTER

ADVERTENCIA
-PELIGRO EXTREMO
GOBIERNO DE LOS EE.UU.
Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas
Enfermedades infecciosas CONTENIDA EN
NO ENTRE

     At the control center, John wasn’t the only one who came running. Mark and Bryan also heard Brad’s call on the radio and dropped what they were doing to see what he wanted John to see.

     On the monitor, they watched as Frank approached the compound’s outer wall.

     John, who was a police officer for many years, immediately took charge.

     “
Bryan, you’re our best shot. Grab an AR and two clips and take position on the roof. You won’t be able to see him, he’s too close to the wall. But if he scales it, keep him in your sights.

     “Mark, you and Brad grab weapons and go to the fence. If he scales the wall, he’ll have to do it with his rifle still slung. You’ll have the drop on him.
Bryan will also have a bead on him then. If he comes over, hold him until I can get there.”

     John and Sami continued to watch the monitor.

     Hannah and Sarah walked up to see what was going on.

     On the outside, Frank was wondering to himself why the federal government had built such a facility all the way out here. It was odd, and seemed extremely out of place.

     Then he heard an
unmistakable sound. The sound of hard hooves against hard pavement. There was no other sound on earth like it.

     He slowly turned
to see his buck, just over a hundred yards away, standing in the middle of the roadway he’d walked in on.

     Frank was fairly certain he could get into position without being seen. His woodland camouflage hunting gear was dark, and blended in well with the black wall behind him.

     His adrenaline started pumping, and he fought the urge to commit a rookie hunter’s mistake: move too quickly and catch the deer’s eye, and spook him into running.

     The buck slowly clomped to the edge of the
roadway and began to graze on the tall grass on its shoulder.

     Frank very
carefully, and very slowly, crouched down, then flattened himself against the roadway in a prone position.

    
He very slowly propped himself up on his elbows and zeroed in on his prey with his 30.06. He got comfortable, and fingered the trigger. Once he was comfortable and had the deer in his crosshairs, he drew a deep breath, then let half of it out. He had the shot. The deer was his.

Chapter 2
5

     John, watching the monitor, was relieved. As he’d suspected, the man was not an aggressor. He was merely a hunter, tracking game, who’d happened upon the compound. Now he had his deer, and they’d watch as he shot it, dressed it, and then went back for his vehicle to come and get it.

     But then the oddest thing happened.

     Even as Hannah and Sarah hid their eyes so they wouldn’t see the animal going down, John saw Frank Woodard slowly take his rifle and lay it on the pavement beside him. He saw Frank very slowly rise, and just stand there. Looking at the buck for several seconds until the buck raised his nose to the air, caught wind of Frank or something else he didn’t like, and then bolted into the woods.

     John muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned. Why didn’t he take the shot?”

     John, like Frank, was an inquisitive sort by nature. And this was too much for him to handle.

     He got on the radio and said, “
Bryan, I’m going out there. Keep me covered.”

     He looked at Hannah and said, “Come on, dear. I need you to let me out the gate.

     The pair walked to the gate at the side of the compound.

     He called in on the radio.

     “Sami, is it clear outside the gate?”

     “All clear, Dad. Please be careful”

     John turned to Hannah.

     “Lock the gate behind me. Don’t open it unless you hear my voice, and I call you by name. I will only say your name if I am alone and if it’s safe to open the gate for me.”

     “Got it.”

     John walked to the east side of the compound, to find Frank walking down the road, away from the compound, his weapon slung over his shoulder.

     John whistled, and Frank turned. Frank hadn’t expected to see another human way out here.

     On the rooftop, Bryan didn’t know what was going on or why John was outside the compound talking to this stranger. But when Frank moved away from the wall he placed himself in Bryan’s field of fire. Bryan had Frank in his sights and his finger on the trigger guard. If Frank unslung his rifle in John’s presence he’d be dead before he could get it into firing position.

     Mark and Brad, as well, didn’t know what was going on. They dared not use the radio, and in fact had the volume turned down. For all they knew, the stranger was still on the other side of the wall from them, still reading the sign.

     John walked to Frank, his hands out to the front of him, palms out, to indicate he was no threat. On his side was a Glock handgun, but it was always there, and he didn’t expect to have to use it.

     Frank was a bit wary of the stranger approaching him. But he appeared to be alone. So Frank would keep his guard up but be friendly for the time being.

     “Hello, stranger.”

     “Hello. If this is your land, I apologize. I didn’t mean to trespass. Just hunting deer is all.”

     “No, that’s okay. I just wanted to find out… well, I was a cop for too many years not to be curious. You had a clean shot. Why didn’t you take it?”

     Frank looked around, and for the first time saw the surveillance cameras mounted on the wall and on nearby trees. He was slipping. In his younger days he’d have known he was being watched.

     “I almost did. I wanted to. But then it occurred to me that after two days of tracking, that was still the only buck I’ve found evidence of. And then I thought, maybe it’s the only one left. And if I shot it, I might doom the deer to extinction in these parts. And I just wasn’t ready to do that.”

     “I admire you for that. I don’t think many men would have given it that much thought.”

     “Well, like I said, I struggled with it. And I wanted to take the shot. But maybe it’s better to let him
frolic with the ladies for another year. I can always come back and get him next year, and maybe the population will have a couple of new bucks then. Shoot, my people have lived without meat for a long time now. We can go a little longer, I reckon.”

     John got on his radio.

     “Mark, come in, this is John.”

     Mark’s volume was still turned down. But he vaguely heard his name come across the radio on his hip, as one might pick up a faint whisper in a completely still room.

     He moved away from the fence and said into the mike on a low voice, “Go ahead, John.”

     “Mark, stand down and come out here. There’s someone I want you
to meet.”

     John turned back to Frank and held out his hand.

     “John Brown.”

     Frank shook John’s hand and said “Frank Woodard. Did you say you were a cop?”

     “Yes. Dallas PD. Twenty seven years.”

     “That’s a long time. I was San Antonio PD, then a
Bexar County sheriff’s deputy for twenty two years.”

     John smiled.

     “I knew it. You had that walk about you. It’s nice to meet you.”

     “Same here. The cop walk. What some civilians call the swagger. I noticed it when you walked up on me. You know, John, it’s strange. You don’t realize the little things you haven’t done in awhile. That’s the first time I’ve shook somebody’s hand in seven years.”

     “You know, I was thinking damn near the same thing.”

     Mark came jogging up and Frank asked, “Can I ask why y’all are wearing surgical masks?”

     “It’s just a precaution, in case all the decaying animals cause a plague.”

    
Frank looked perplexed.

     “Damn, I never thought about that. And it’s a lot worse in the city. There are tens of thousands of people there, slowly rotting in their homes.”

     He made a mental note to discuss masks with his people when he got back.

     John introduced Mark and Frank.

     Brad stood down and returned to the control center to watch the monitors with Sami.

    
Bryan held his position on the rooftop, though, his sights still trained on Frank.

     Just in case.

Chapter 2
6

     It was the twilight of the day when Frank finally made it back to Buena Vista Drive.

     The end of the street had long been blocked by abandoned cars, of course, except for an opening just wide enough to drive through. That was blocked by Frank’s old
Pontiac.

     Frank hit his horn three times and Mike came jogging down the street to move it.

     Tony appeared from the rows of waist-high corn that now filled his front yard.

     Several of the other occupants of the street came out as well.

     It wasn’t just that they wanted to welcome Frank home, but it was on their list of things to do. Mostly they came out hoping against hope that he’d been able to bring home a deer.

     None of them had eaten any meat in several years, and they all longed for the taste. Even those who’d never eaten venison in their life, or who didn’t particular like the taste of it before, were hoping to be able to try some.

     Jesse got his hopes up when Frank pulled into the blockaded street and he saw that the back of the pickup was riding low to the ground.