Point of Crisis (21 page)

Brown carefully slid the knife between her palms, easing the knifepoint past her wrists. When the entire five-inch blade had passed safely between her wrists, he lifted the serrated blade upward until it rested against the zip tie. With all of her skin clear of the blade, he snapped the knife upward, parting the plastic. As soon as her hands were free, she crawled back into the compartment like a frightened animal and tore at the duct tape across her mouth.

“I’ll leave the knife with you,” he said, tossing the blade into compartment before collapsing to the road.

He pressed his hand against his side and felt warm, thick fluid pump through his fingers.

It’s probably better this way. Easier.

The woman jumped down from the tailgate, pulling the smaller figure down after her. They paused for a moment.

“The car’s still running. You need to get out of here,” he said, easing his head against the dirt.

She slammed the tailgate shut, bathing him in a muted red glow from the taillights. Brown raised his head far enough to see that she was standing next to the vehicle, staring at him. He shook his head.

“Get that little girl to safety. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” the woman said in a shaky voice.

“There’s nothing you can do about that. Pull the bodies out of the backseat and get going. The right rear passenger seat is the best for your daughter. It’s the least messy.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded and lowered his head again. The red light faded from the branches and leaves above him, yielding to blackness and a few patches of star-filled sky. He knew it wouldn’t be long before it would all turn black.

Chapter 18

EVENT +10 Days

Forward Operating Base “Lakeside”

Regional Recovery Zone 1

Alex rested his hand on the M1919A6 machine gun’s metal buttstock and listened for anything out of the ordinary in the forest. Branches swayed gently with the arrival of a warm breeze that washed over the yard. Beyond that, nothing but crickets. He concentrated for a few more seconds before leaning back in the folding chair with a thermal scope and scanning the forest for heat signatures.

A broad sweep of his field of vision from the back porch yielded nothing but a dark grayscale image of the trees and bushes. He’d found several dozen thermal riflescopes in the battalion’s weapons container at the airport. Most of the systems were clip-on types, which mounted in front of the weapon’s current day-scope. Unlike dedicated targeting scopes with crosshairs, the clip-on sight could be removed and reattached while maintaining the accuracy of the weapon. He’d issued one to each of the M240 gunners, to sweep their sectors around the house. Diligent use of the thermal scope would make it nearly impossible for anyone to sneak up on them.

The deck creaked, drawing his attention to the sliding screen doors. Kate stood in the middle of the deck, feeling her way around while her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Everything okay?” she asked him.

“I think so. Weird, you know? Sounded like a gunfight on Old Middle Road. OP Alpha swears they heard a vehicle on the road right before the gunfire.”

“At 2:30 in the morning?” she said, guided by his voice.

“A little before 2:30.”

“But nothing for the past two hours?”

“No,” he said, reaching out and grasping her hand.

“Any room in there for me?” she asked, pulling a chair away from the porch table.

“There’s always room for the love of my life, even if she shows up empty-handed,” Alex said, scooting his seat until he was leaning against the sandbag wall.

“Coffee won’t make a difference at this point. We need sleep,” she said, squeezing in next to him.

“Sleep? I’ve forgotten the meaning of the word.”

“Snug in here,” she said, wrapping her arm around him.

They had constructed a three-sided, sheet-metal-reinforced sandbag position in the far corner of the screen porch, facing the northern tree line directly behind the house. The addition of hurricane shutters had severely limited their ability to survey the various sectors around the compound, and Alex didn’t want to place the full burden of watching over them on the Marines. They had constructed a second sandbag position on the farmer’s porch, to the right of the porch steps. One of the uninjured adults manned each position throughout the night, contributing to the defense of the compound.

“This is about as romantic as it gets for us,” he said. “A starlit night behind a sandbag bunker.”

“It could be worse…” Kate rubbed his chest with her fingers.

He missed the warmth of her hands. Her lips. Her skin. Everything they shared together as husband and wife. She leaned in and kissed the small of his neck, leaning her head on his shoulder. He pressed his head against hers and exhaled, pretending to relax. How much longer could he pretend? Better yet, how much longer
should
he pretend?

“That’s what I’m afraid of. September 1
^st
is three days away. A month after that, our options plummet if this doesn’t work out.”

“What other choices do we have?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Head north?”

“Right now?”

“Once the battalion gets here, it’ll be hard to disappear,” he said, kissing her forehead.

“Where would we go? Charlie’s?”

“I don’t think that would work out,” he whispered.

“I can’t believe someone ransacked all of his stuff.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference. He had a year’s worth of dehydrated food for four people. We have seventeen mouths to feed. That’s three months of minimal rations. Not that it matters.”

“We can bring enough food to get us through to the summer.”

“Then what? We’d have to start from scratch growing food. It’s taken us three years to get to this point, and it’s not enough to keep us from digging into the reserve supplies by January. Earlier with this many people. We’re barely sustainable for the long run if everyone stays.”

“We’re not kicking anyone out.”

“I didn’t say we were, but Charlie’s house isn’t a long-term option. We’d be lucky to make it through the winter. Not to mention we’d probably kill each other before January. It’s too small for this group.”

“It’s not that bad,” she said.

“Picture trying to sleep seventeen people in his place. We’d use every square foot of the house just to lie down at night. About the only thing the camp has going for it at this point is abundant fresh water and a wood-burning stove. The neighbors will probably take the stove next.”

“That’s a real bummer,” she said, pausing. “The whole situation sucks.”

“If the border holds and we can find that militia nut before he stirs up trouble, we might not have to go anywhere.”

“And if we have to leave?”

“I have an idea, but we have a limited window of opportunity before it becomes too risky,” said Alex.

“How limited?”

“Early November at the latest.”

“Does it have something to do with the nautical charts that appeared yesterday?”

His ROTAC handheld unit chirped, indicating a connection. He read the display. “Patriot Five Alpha.” Direct communication from Harrison Campbell. This couldn’t be good
.

“Hold on, honey,” he said, putting the phone to his ear. “Captain Fletcher.”

“It’s Harrison. We have a problem.”

Harrison sounded out of breath, and Alex thought he heard a car door shut in the background.

“What’s going on? You sound like you’re in a car.”

“I am in a car. Greg Hoode has been murdered and—”

“The mayor?”

“Yes. One of my guys down at the storefront went for a smoke. Found the mayor strung up on the statue of Thomas Goodall. Mutilated. They spray painted ‘FEDERAL SPY’ on the statue’s base. I’m headed right over.”

“Right across the street from the recruiting station? Fuck. This has to be Eli’s handiwork,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “Has anyone contacted the police?”

“I was going to swing by the hospital on the way downtown.”

“Negative. The police will treat this like a crime scene. We need to get the body down before anyone sees it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alex. We should let the police take care of it,” said Harrison.

“We can’t afford that kind of publicity. Eli did this for a reason.”

“We don’t know it was Eli. Greg had plenty of enemies in town.”

“I can’t take that chance, and neither can you, for obvious reasons. Remember the gray hatchback that passed in front of the coffee shop when we were talking with the mayor?”

“Two men. Nothing unusual.”

“Nothing unusual except the license plate is registered to a F-150 pickup truck in Alfred. We found a pile of Maine license plates at the church outside of Milton Mills. My guess is they’re stealing plates from disabled cars and slapping them on the fleet of vehicles they acquired from their little Milton Mills scam.”

“Sounds a little thin,” said Harrison.

“Why would anyone hang him in the middle of Sanford with the words ‘federal spy’ spray painted? Eli is sending the town a clear message to stay away from us. We can’t afford to have problems filling the provisional security team.”

“I’m not touching the body, Alex. Not without one of your staff NCOs on the scene,” said Harrison.

“I’m sending a vehicle from the airport. ETA ten minutes. I’ll be there in thirty. We have about an hour and a half to clean this up. Thank God nobody’s camping out in the park.”

“We can’t keep this a secret forever.”

Kate tapped his shoulder.

“What?” he whispered.

“Did the mayor have a family?” she asked.

“Jesus. Harrison, can you muster a team to visit the mayor’s house?”

“Alex, I’m not tampering with evid—ah,
shit
. We’re on our way.”

“Be careful, Harrison. I’ll call you from the road,” Alex said, lowering the radio.

“I have to go.”

Kate kissed him. “Does he have family?”

“Sounded like it. Harrison is headed straight there,” he said, grabbing the thermal scope and his rifle.

“You should put on your uniform in case the police show up,” she said.

“Right,” he mumbled, his thoughts drifting.

Chapter 19

EVENT +10 Days

Sanford, Maine

They drove to Sanford using night vision, standard operating procedure for an unsecured transit lane. Alex couldn’t discount the possibility that this was some kind of elaborate trick to lure them into town, and there was no reason to advertise their arrival with headlights. The Matvee’s armor was impervious to small-arms fire and interior damage from basic explosive devices, but the vehicle could be disabled or flipped under the wrong circumstances. Travelling in a convoy, this presented little more than a nuisance. The other vehicles could extract or protect the shaken crew until a “wrecker” was summoned to remove the vehicle. Driving alone, a disabled vehicle spelled disaster. A few well-placed Molotov cocktails could force them out of the armored shell long before help arrived.

Entering the intersection next to the park from the west, Lianez pulled the Matvee across the road and stopped in the opposite lane. Two men dressed in camouflage walked across the road twenty feet in front of them, headed to the York County Readiness Brigade station on the other side of the street.

“I assume those are friendlies?” said Jackson over the vehicle’s internal communications net.

“Roger. Looks like brigade militia.”

“Where do you want us, sir?” asked Corporal Lianez.

“Right next to Guardian One-Zero.”

The dark shape of Staff Sergeant Taylor’s Matvee loomed south of the statue. Bright green, shaky lights at the base of the statue obscured the three figures scrubbing away at the blood and spray paint. Taylor set them to work as soon as the mayor’s corpse had been placed in the back of the tactical vehicle. With any luck, the statue would look the same at sunrise, and no one would be the wiser about the mayor’s brutal fate. Unless Eli had left a few more displays around town. The mayor’s wife and twelve-year-old daughter were missing. Once the park was tidied up, they’d search the rest of Sanford’s more commonly used public areas for their bodies.

Lianez drove over the curb and maneuvered them between two trees to arrive next to the other tactical vehicle. Alex flipped up the night-vision goggles attached to his helmet and stepped into the humid morning air, letting his eyes adjust for a moment before meeting Taylor next to the statue.

“What’s up with the York County guys?” said Alex, nodding toward the men disappearing into the storefront across Main Street.

“We just got word on the police scanner that two cruisers are heading over from the hospital. ETA any time now. Figured the militia presence might complicate things.”

“Good thinking. I should wave off the rest of them. Any idea why they’re headed this way—beside the obvious?”

“They were dispatched on a ten-fifty-four. We’re pretty sure that means dead body.”

“They won’t be happy to find us here. Especially with their mayor in a body bag,” he said. “How long until we’re done here?”

“Ten minutes, tops.”

“I guess there’s no way to avoid them. Should be fun,” said Alex, noticing a set of headlights approaching from the east. “Close up the rear hatch so they don’t see the body bag.”

“Got it, sir.”

Alex activated his handheld radio. “Harrison, is that you approaching from the east along Main?”

“Roger. We’re passing the auto parts store. What’s the situation down there? My guys said the Marines sent them back inside.”

“Looks like we’re about to have some company from the Sanford Police Department. Somehow, they know about the body.”

“You still want me down there?”

“I’m thinking you should turn it around and head back home. Relations with local law enforcement are likely to sour over this. There’s no point in dragging you along for that ride. I’ll update you when we’re finished.”