Day of the Delphi (31 page)
Authors: Jon Land
The storm seemed not to care which direction they set out in. Its swirling winds battered the scouts without letup. A quarter mile into the trek, Richter felt like an ox pulling a plow, nothing but dead weight behind him. He pressed on down a trail that had become nothing more than an extension of the vast white veil coating the Rockies. He couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of him. His own hands and feet were starting to numb.
Richter gritted his teeth and pushed himself on, forcing the blood into his weary, stiffening muscles. Minutes later he looked up and realized he could no longer see the mountain peaks surrounding them. Beneath him, though, the trail had widened and flattened out, vaguely familiar again.
Familiar enough to make Richter stop suddenly.
The sheer edge of a cliff loomed not more than a yard ahead of him. A straight drop to a white death for all the boys if he had taken another two steps. The precipice was almost invisible from this vantage point.
They were on a road! A swirling, wide path that curled its way down the mountain!
If they followed it they would eventually find shelter. He shouted encouragement to the boys and told those in front to pass the word along.
Only a short time later he spotted what looked like a vast
black hole in the side of the mountain just to the right of the road. From Richter’s knowledge of the terrain he believed it might be the entrance to an abandoned silver mine, one of the big ones that was more like a man-made cave.
black hole in the side of the mountain just to the right of the road. From Richter’s knowledge of the terrain he believed it might be the entrance to an abandoned silver mine, one of the big ones that was more like a man-made cave.
Frank Richter led Troop 116 into the cavern and ordered the boys to assemble camp as best they could with what they had managed to bring with them. Two of the older boys were sent with flashlights to explore the mine’s reaches. Richter set up his radio.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he said into the mike. “Does anyone read me? … This is two-niner-bingo. Does anyone copy? … I am reporting a mayday. Is anyone out there? Over.”
Richter eased off on the microphone and prayed for a voice to filter through the static.
Nothing.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he repeated. “I have a scout troop marooned in the storm. If anyone can hear me, please acknowledge. If there’s anyone out there, please acknowledge. Over.”
Again only static.
“Frank,” called one of the older boys he’d sent exploring.
Richter halfheartedly turned away from the radio.
“There’s something you’d better take a look at.”
“Think we can drive them out?” one of the boys asked as Richter stood before the pair of heavy transport trucks.
The scouts who’d checked the back reaches of the mine had found them covered by dark tarpaulins they had yanked off to expose the trucks’ cabs. Richter’s final years with the marines had been spent in the shipping and receiving department at a base in Germany. He’d seen trucks like this before, which was all the more reason why their presence here boggled his mind.
What in the hell were they?
“Frank,” another boy called, but Richter had already
moved between the trucks and squeezed behind the rear of the one on the left.
moved between the trucks and squeezed behind the rear of the one on the left.
“Stay back,” Richter told him and pulled off the tarp covering the cargo door. The door was unlocked and Richter had little trouble sliding it upward. He shined his flashlight inside the hold.
“Oh my God,” he muttered, eyes bulging. His beam had illuminated more than a dozen olive green fiberglass containers, all five by four feet in size. Richter didn’t have to read the bold printing on their sides and top to know what they contained.
“Frank, what is it? Frank?” one of the boys called to him after he charged past them.
They trailed him back to the front of the mine where Richter returned to the radio. His hand trembling, he retrieved the microphone.
“This is two-niner-bingo,” he said, rushed and desperate now. “Someone please answer. Someone please come in. Mayday … Mayday … Mayday … Over.”
Again Richter pulled his hand from the button. The static returned. His eyes gazed back toward the rear of the mine.
“Two-niner-bingo,” a splintered voice said through the static.
“I read you! Who is this? Over.”
The reply couldn’t break through the garble this time.
“Say again. I did not copy that. Over.”
More garble answered his call. He waited until the static was all that was left before returning to his microphone.
“All right. I’m assuming you can hear me better than I can hear you. I’m trapped in an abandoned silver mine with a scout troop somewhere in the mountains between Weaver and Kendall Gap. We need a rescue party.” Richter stole a gaze back at the hopeful young charges hovering over him, then spoke again with his voice lowered. “And there’s something else. We found something in the mine.”
Still not believing it himself, Richter managed to report that the two concealed trucks were loaded with nuclear warheads
before a sudden screaming amongst the kids made him turn. He caught a brief glimpse of something dark and shiny whistling his way and felt the smack against his skull before oblivion took him.
before a sudden screaming amongst the kids made him turn. He caught a brief glimpse of something dark and shiny whistling his way and felt the smack against his skull before oblivion took him.
The voice started to fade shortly after giving its location, and Duncan Farlowe pressed his ear right against his shortwave radio’s speaker to better hear it. A sudden scream followed by a thud signaled the end of the transmission and jolted Farlowe enough to make him yank his head away. As he soothed his twisted neck with one hand, the sheriff of Grand Mesa wasn’t thinking of the scream at all; he was thinking of what he heard the speaker claim he had seen in a pair of trucks.
Had he heard right?
If it wasn’t for Kristen Kurcell and Miravo Air Force Base, Duncan Farlowe never would have believed it. Farlowe figured he had a damn good notion now of what Kristen’s brother had seen that had gotten him killed. And, judging by the way their leader’s message had abruptly ended, this scout troop might well be about to share David Kurcell’s fate.
Farlowe moved to the window and opened it to see clearly out into the storm. Much of the snow gathered on the windowsill blew into the room, and he brushed the rest away. This cabin near the grounds of an old ski resort had provided him safe refuge since Tuesday, when Grand Mesa’s municipal offices had been blown up. He figured something would be coming to chase him back to the world, but he never imagined it would be
this
. The irony drew a smile from him.
this
. The irony drew a smile from him.
The sight outside the window changed it to a frown. By now there wouldn’t be a road open from anywhere a rescue party for these Boy Scouts was likely to originate. Could even be he was the only one to have heard the message anyway. Not many folks had call to leave their shortwaves powered up these days.
That made Farlowe the sole hope this Boy Scout troop had to survive. It took ten minutes for him to get the right clothes on and another ten for him to trudge over to the ski resort’s garage. The Sno-Cat in the front of the line of vehicles, a tank with a cab instead of a turret, would do just fine. Pack it up with as many provisions as he could salvage and off he’d go.
“And there’s something else. We found something in the mine.”
“My lucky day,” Duncan Farlowe mumbled to himself.
The voice came over the chopper’s radio fifteen miles before Tom Wainwright’s Learjet reached the coordinates in central Arizona Johnny Wareagle had given him.
“Identified aircraft, you have entered restricted airspace and are advised to turn back immediately.”
“Tower, I have a message to deliver to your commanding officer. Request permission to land.”
“State designation.”
Wainwright gave the designation Johnny Wareagle had instructed him to, hoping it made more sense to whomever he was talking to than it did to him. The pause was very slight, the voice much softer when it came back on.
“Permission granted. Come right to heading two-five-zero. We’re dead ahead.”
Wainwright eased into his descent and passed over a thick grove of tall evergreen trees. The sight revealed a quarter mile beyond it made his eyes bulge in disbelief.
“Holy shit,” he muttered.
What he was looking at, descending toward, was … impossible.
“Our commanding officer will be waiting on the tarmac,” the voice in his headset droned. “You are cleared to land.”
They sat in a circle, positioned on the grass of the Mall so each had a clear view of either the Capitol or the Washington Monument. In addition to Cleese, Kristen, and McCracken there were four Midnight Riders, two men and two women.
“Like you folks to meet my recon team,” Cleese started. “This is Luke, Sally, Freedom, and Bird Man.”
Each of the Riders gave a brief acknowledgment as they were introduced. The bulk of the others had already begun to position themselves discreetly in small groups throughout the city, in touch with Cleese by walkie-talkie.
“These four been with me from the beginning,” he continued. “Lord, how many nights we spent figuring ourselves on the other side of this … . Anyway, I gave each a section of the city so we can put together a notion of what we’re up against. Bird Man, why don’t you lead off.”
Bird Man had light curly hair and a beak-shaped nose that curved downward and in, accounting for his nickname. “Lots of trucks made out to look like sanitation and DPW. Plenty of people milling about them, not doing much of anything.”
“Dress?” Blaine raised.
“Run-of-the-mill, everyday normal civilian. They’re trying awful hard not to be noticed. That’s why I noticed them.”
“How many?”
“Don’t matter, because they’re just the advance team,” interrupted Luke. He removed his wraparound sunglasses to
reveal a pair of dark steely eyes and a face Blaine recognized from wanted posters picturing the members of the Black Panthers’ most radical cell. “Sort of keeping an eye on the surroundings. Larger complement figured on getting out of the sun to wait things out.”
reveal a pair of dark steely eyes and a face Blaine recognized from wanted posters picturing the members of the Black Panthers’ most radical cell. “Sort of keeping an eye on the surroundings. Larger complement figured on getting out of the sun to wait things out.”
“Where?”
“The Old Post Office Tower,” Luke said. “Stores are all packed, but nobody’s buying much. Restaurants are jammed, but lots of people are just lingering. Shit, I probably woulda done it this way myself.”
“The Clock Tower,” Blaine realized.
“Huh?” from Cleese.
“The two tallest points in the city center are the observation deck in the Old Post Office Tower and the top of the Washington Monument. You want to take the city, you got to own those.”
“Sniper fire?”
“Put a squad in each and it would be like target practice.”
“Not to mention they’d be able to pin down exactly where any resistance was coming from,” said the woman named Freedom. She had blond hair tied into braids and was busy rolling a baby stroller back and forth alongside her. “They spot us and pick us off all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Cleese looked toward McCracken. “Rockets? Take ’em out sure and fast?”
Blaine shook his head. “You’re still thinking like a revolutionary.”
“Long-time habit.”
“Form a new one: start thinking like a soldier.”
“Give me a for instance.”
“What’s important to them is also important to us. For the same reasons.”
“Don’t get you, Mac.”
“You will.” McCracken paused. “How good are your shooters, Arlo?”
“Good enough. But that kind of gun wasn’t on my shopping list with Alvarez.”
“Leave that to me. I want to hear more about these trucks.”
Freedom leaned forward. She stopped moving the stroller briefly and the baby inside whimpered.
“Me and Raindance took in some of the best sites Washington had to offer,” she said, working the stroller again. “Saw trucks in the area of the White House, Capitol, Supreme Court, you get the idea.”
“The Delphi’s weapons will be inside,” explained McCracken. “The men Bird Man saw posted around the trucks are guards in case anybody perceived to be a threat wanders too close. But there are plenty more in the area he didn’t see. Come show time they’ll move to the trucks and pick up their weapons.”
“Don’t have to walk around obvious that way,” Luke picked up. “Just join the chaos and head to where their hardware is waiting.”
“That means they left us the opportunity to cut them off from it,” the woman named Raindance concluded, her skin pale enough to make McCracken wonder if she had ever seen the sun before.
“Don’t underestimate their security,” he cautioned. “They might have a minimum posted on the streets, but you can rest assured there’s plenty under cover in the vicinity of each of those trucks. To take them on, we’ll need some cover of our own.” He looked toward Cleese. “How’s your supply of explosives?”
“Enough to do the job.” His face had gone almost as white as Raindance’s, but it was hardened with resolve. “And they were gonna pin this whole damn revolution on us.”
“All the evidence would have pointed in your direction,” Blaine confirmed. “With the government fractured, Dodd probably would have taken charge of the investigation himself.”
“’Cept if it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead now.”
“But the trail tying you to Alvarez and the weapons that end up pulverizing Washington would have still remained very much alive. You’re just a symbol, a fabricated enemy the Delphi needs to seize their day.”
“’Long with the nation.”
“That’s the point.”
Cleese nodded. “We hit ’em early and hard, we fuck up their day big time. Thing is, how do we do it?”
McCracken held Kristen Kurcell’s eyes briefly before beginning his explanation. “We start with the Old Post Office Building … .”
Frank Richter regained consciousness slowly, the world a blur before him that sharpened more slowly than the picture on a cheap television. His head throbbed and he felt something soft pressed against his skull.
“What happened?” he asked in a raspy voice.
Above him a boy pulled a blood-soaked jacket from his head and rebundled it in search of an unsoiled patch.
“They put us in here,” one of the older boys said. “After they hit you.”
“They?”
“The men,” another chimed in. “They had guns.”
“How many men?”
“I think five. Yeah, five.”
“One was really big,” added another. “And ugly.”
Richter gazed around him in the darkness broken only by the collective spill of the boys’ flashlights. “Where are we?”
“Another part of the mine,” from a fourth.
Wherever they were, Richter realized it was at least a little more temperate than the front chamber of the mine had been. But it was still damn cold, and whoever their captors were, they hadn’t let the boys bring in their sleeping bags. He gazed about and saw them shivering in their thin, spring-weight jackets.
Clearly the contents of the trucks back in the old mine’s
front chamber accounted for their captivity. And the fact that there was no way their captors could let them out of the mine alive with that information was just as clear.
front chamber accounted for their captivity. And the fact that there was no way their captors could let them out of the mine alive with that information was just as clear.
Richter pulled the bloodied jacket from his head and struggled to his feet. There was no sense bothering with the front of the mine; even if the passage back was unguarded, the men would hear them coming in plenty of time to respond.
“Has anyone checked this chamber for another way out?” he asked.
“A couple of us did,” said one of the older boys. “We couldn’t find one.”
“We’ve got to keep looking,” Richter told them all. “I know these mines, and I’m telling you there’s
always
a way out. All we have to do is find it.”
always
a way out. All we have to do is find it.”
Johnny Wareagle and Sal Belamo both knew their journey was about to come to a premature end. Grim-faced and resolute, they sat in the Jimmy’s front seat staring into the teeth of a storm that just kept biting. Johnny had taken over the wheel three miles back, and for that long he’d been able to coax the Jimmy through the mounting piles of white collecting on the road before them. Now, though, those piles had at last climbed higher than the wheel axles in enough places to turn their progress into a maddening progression of stops, starts, and skids. Both knew all progress would cease in the next few minutes. The Jimmy would simply grind to a halt, its wheels churning fruitlessly.
“We gonna walk the rest of the way into this part of the Rockies, big fella?” Belamo asked just to break the silence in the cab.
He turned Johnny’s way and noticed the big Indian’s eye catch something off to the right where the road gave way to a gulley. Wareagle slid the truck onto the road’s indistinguishable shoulder and brought it to a stop against a drift that came up level with the hood.
“What gives, big fella?”
“Look, Sal Belamo.”
Sal followed the line of Johnny’s gaze and saw an orange sheen rising out of the vast blanket of white.
“Looks like a—”
Wareagle had climbed down through his open door before Sal could finish the thought. Belamo met him knee-deep in snow on the shoulder. Directly below them in the gulley lay what looked like a bulldozer without a shovel.
“A Sno-Cat,” Wareagle said through the snow slapping at his face.
“Declawed, you ask me.”
The front of the Sno-Cat’s treads had been hidden completely, the rear of them covered halfway. Sal and Johnny worked their way down the fairly steep drop into the gulley toward it. Johnny reached the cab first and jerked open its door. An old, bearded man was slumped against the driver’s seat. A trail of clotted blood lined the right side of his pale face starting on his forehead.
“He’s alive,” Wareagle reported after checking his neck for a pulse.
“I’ll get the coffee and first-aid kit,” Belamo said and he started to claw his way back up the hill.
The old man stirred, the chill wind seeming to revive him. He shifted slightly and Johnny noticed an old Colt Peacemaker revolver holstered at his hip. He had a tarnished silver badge pinned to the lapel of the heavy jacket that covered his thin frame. The old man’s eyes opened slowly and fixed themselves on Wareagle.
“If I’m dead, just let me know which place I ended up.”
“Still earth,” Johnny told him. “The toughest place of all.”
“That’s the god’s honest truth.”
The old man sized him up again. “Storm make you miss the turn-off for the reservation, Injun?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly brings you out in a storm that’ll kill whoever it can?”
“Finding at least one it hasn’t been able to yet.”
“Good point.” The old man touched the swollen lump on his forehead where the trail of dried blood originated. “Guess I’m not as good at driving these babies as I used to be. Couldn’t see a damn thing. One minute the road was there and the next …”
Wareagle’s eyes had strayed to the cramped space behind the Sno-Cat’s two-man cab. Atop a clutter of supplies lay a twelve-gauge shotgun.
“Bunch of Boy Scouts got themselves holed up in an old silver mine fifteen miles from here up Mountain Pass,” the old man said, noting Johnny’s interest. “That stuff in the back’s to keep them going if I get there in time for it to matter.”
“And the shotgun?”
The old man glanced at it himself before responding. “They’re not alone.”
“We can’t move the trucks in this,” the man standing on Traggeo’s right insisted. His name was Boggs and he too was a survivor of Salvage Company, one of four Traggeo had recruited personally.
“We don’t have a choice,” the big man told him.
The numbing cold had done little to ease the pain in his right forearm where Johnny Wareagle’s knife had ripped through five days before. Traggeo could block it out only until a quick motion or slight graze against the damaged flesh brought it back. Each burst of pain filled him with a vengeful yet envious hate. He had missed his chance to kill the legendary true-blood back at Sandcastle One and could only hope fate would give him another opportunity to prove himself to the spirits.
“There was a voice on the other end of the radio,” Traggeo continued. “Someone heard the distress call. They’ll be coming.”
“The storm will stop them, too,” said Boggs.
“Not when there are kids to rescue. They’ll find a way up here. We’ve got to move the trucks.”
Boggs shrank back into the cover provided beyond the entrance to the mine. The five former members of Tyson Gash’s ignoble Salvage Company had been safe and warm back in their camp set in another section of the mine when they heard the commotion. Traggeo hadn’t decided what to do until a few of the kids discovered the trucks and the lone adult began broadcasting over a shortwave radio. That had forced his hand.
“We get the trucks out,” Boggs said, “those kids still know what was inside.”
“Then,” Traggeo told him, “before we leave we have to make sure the rescue party gets here too late to help them.”
They didn’t try budging the Sno-Cat until Sheriff Duncan Farlowe had completed his tale.
“Looks like we found what we been looking for, big fella,” Sal Belamo said at the end.
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