Tread Fearless: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 4) (43 page)

The ground was hard and cold under Mark’s back, but he was too lost in thought to even consider it. He was busy trying to understand why the military would stage protective masks and MOPP gear in a FEMA camp.

MOPP, or Mission Oriented Protective Posture, was specially designed clothing to protect soldiers from Nuclear, Biological and Chemical, or NBC, exposure on the battlefield. The suits consisted of several pieces: a pair of over-pants, an over-coat - both of which were insulated with a layer of charcoal, special rubber over-boots, thick rubber gloves, and a protective mask with a heavy rubberized hood.

When complete, the entire uniform took on an alien appearance, was hard to fight in, and very hot in the summer months or in desert climates. The suits were also very expensive, so much so that the army quit training with real ones and began issuing training gear. Wartime MOPP suits were still issued, but they were highly accountable items kept in protective, vacuumed sealed bags, and only used when a real NBC threat existed.

The same was true for protective masks. During the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, masks were issued only with simple CS, or tear-gas filters. There was no real threat of anything serious, so MOPP suits were kept stored in shipping containers. But of everything Mark saw through the cut in the fence, the pallets of body-bags was the most understandable given the disaster.

Why the army would pre-position universal plague containment supplies, when there was no real threat of a plague, was the question he struggled with the most. Did the army think the surrounding death and decay would cause a plague?

When a box slipped from a soldiers hands and cracked open on the ground, sending a tall stack of white, plague quarantine signs skidding across the asphalt, Mark knew there was more to the supplies than
possible fallout protection. Radiation zones were often quarantined, but those plaques were red-on-yellow, not black-on-white.

What bothered Mark the most, however, was that the soldiers didn’t seem at all surprised by the signs. One soldier in particular, after picking up one of the loose signs, held it up and said something to the other soldiers. Mark didn’t hear what was said, but they all laughed. It was then that Mark got up and ran back to the near-distant darkness.

Remembering that he was on a mission timeline, Mark looked at his watch and saw that he had less than an hour before he was to return to meet Lauren at their hiding place. He stood and began fast-walking around the perimeter in a counter-clockwise direction. And while he walked, he wondered how much Lauren knew, or at least suspected was going on in the FEMA camps. Or, more specifically, the military’s part in their operation, which was something he didn’t expect to see. He never remembered the army being so deeply involved in FEMA operations before; at least not with actually running them, or stockpiling materials in them.

The more he thought about it, the more Lauren’s interest in the camp raised his interest. She had to understand the risk of him being caught, and what that would mean to her survival if he was. Not that such a thing would happen. Mark was extremely confident with his abilities, but Murphy’s Law was always there, ready to catch him by surprise or totally unprepared.

It bothered him to think that Lauren might be keeping something from him, a secret or some other important piece of information. But he knew better than to react to such a snap judgment. He was just as interested to spy on the camp as she was. Still, the plague labels really bothered him, and he didn’t know why. Surely his own government wouldn’t release something as deadly as the plague on its own citizens. That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do because it would most assuredly spill beyond anyone’s best efforts to contain it.

The only way to even attempt to contain an intentional release of anything so deadly was through quarantine and inoculations. But even
then, such measures were never a guarantee, especially with an engineered strain. As for inoculations, they would most likely be limited to select individuals, those who were the actual troublemakers and their troops, which meant a huge conspiracy.

Mark was so caught up in his thoughts that he carelessly rounded the southeast corner in the open. Though still at a distance, the soldiers manning the refugee gate could have easily spotted him. He stopped walking, quickly scanned the area to look for a better vantage point, and found his target. A long row of houses, all dark and quiet except for one occupant who was carelessly running a small generator. They stood off in the distance, about a hundred yards from the high school fence, and the main refugee processing point.

The roof of each home offered an elevated view, but only one was a two-story structure, so Mark headed toward it at a jog. When he got close, he stopped to listen for activity, and then approached the home on the side, at its high, metal picketed fence. He boosted himself up and stepped onto the eave of the first floor. He reached the second floor rooftop by scaling a pitched eave near a dormer.

When he reached the top, just below the roofline, Mark sat and cross-legged, then pulled out his binoculars. The roof offered an excellent view into the compound, and Mark was immediately impressed with the neat and orderly set-up beyond the white-clad fence. At least fifty, tan, general-purpose army tents were set up on the football field in two neat lines. On the soccer field near it, another set of tents were set up to feed, treat, and entertain the refugees.

It was immediately obvious to Mark that the camp was nowhere near its capacity, and he wondered why more people weren’t there. Hunger, and the absence of electricity and fresh water, had to present the camp as heaven for all the desperate survivors. Yet it looked almost empty.

Whoever decided to use the white wrapping on the fence knew something of psychology, for the camp actually looked safe and inviting. Then it dawned on Mark that that’s what they wanted it to look
like, inviting and friendly. The realization sent a chill down his spine. Nothing was as it appeared.

Mark shifted his position on the roof slightly, just enough to relieve the pressure on his buttocks, and sighed. The biting grip of the asphalt shingles against his butt, even through his heavy military-grade cargo pants, was simply too annoying to ignore. He was already eager to climb down and join Lauren, but after redistributing his weight and adjusting his balance, he resumed scanning the camp.

The sixty yard distance to the refugee line at the gate was nothing for the small, but powerful, forty-power binoculars in his hands. Mark used them to scan the crowd for Brian. He found him and his boys about three-quarters of the way to the front. Like everyone around them, they looked tired and hungry.

Some two-hundred refugees, a mixed group of men, women and children, stood together in a loose triangle. All were vying for access to the single table that was set up at the entrance of the gate. Soldiers were working to form them into a single line, but the best they could do was turn the top of the triangle into a funnel.

Mark checked the time again and resumed scanning the yard. To the left of the gate entrance, in a fenced off area within the camp, he saw that the soldiers were still loading MOPP supplies into shipping containers.

He spotted what was probably the headquarters area to the right of the service gate in the back. Five living trailers, and two office looking trailers, sat huddled together behind a line of military quad-cons. The desert-tan painted, quarter-sized, containers were stacked two high, and made a formidable barrier between the service and refugee areas.

Though labeled with all the familiar military markings, Mark had no idea what the quad-cons contained, but they were stacked to form a compound within a compound. To the left of them was the service gate which sat powerful, shipping container sized, diesel-driven electrical power plants. Thick, black power cables snaked away from the generators, passed under a protective cable bridge at the service gate, and then ran into the headquarters and living area.

Many different cables branched out to run to and from the various trailers around the compound. Most of the cables looked like communication lines, but it was hard to miss the headquarters trailer, with all its variety of antennas and dishes.

There was a lot of activity for it being so early in the morning, but Mark figured the camp must have just opened for business, and they were eager to reduce the crowd out front. Most of the people working the camp were army personnel, and he wondered if the civilians worked the day shift. Mark saw a civilian man emerge from a living trailer and he followed him with his binoculars.

When the man reached an internal checkpoint between the containers, the soldier manning it snapped to attention and saluted sharply. Mark thought that was an odd thing to do, and wondered why a uniformed soldier would salute a civilian. He reasoned the civilian was either an out-of-uniform military officer, or maybe a high ranking political appointee. Either way, saluting someone in civilian clothes was not required by regulation unless the person was in the soldier’s chain of command.

Mark lost sight of the civilian when he entered the high school through a set of double doors, but then reacquired the man when he walked past a line of windows in the only lit classroom in the entire school. He watched the man as he moved around the room, and studied his features in detail, well enough to draw them later. Mark studied the man’s walk, and took note of his height, weight, and distinguishing features. His dark hair, graying on the sides, and the black, plastic rim glasses, gave the man a nerdy, scientific look.

He wondered why they weren’t using more of the school. It had to be easier than setting up a bunch of tents. As Mark continued to scan the high school, he remembered his mission time and returned to the entrance. He found Brian at the registration table, filling out a form under the watchful eye of a female sergeant. When he finished, he was allowed to enter the compound where he was asked to stand in front of another female soldier sitting at another table. Behind her stood an
armed and ready soldier, and behind him was a small pile of rifles, shotguns, and other restricted items like knives and tools.

Mark watched as Brian emptied his pockets, and dumped the contents of the small, red backpack onto the table. Everything was inspected and sorted by the soldier at the table. Some items were removed from the table and dropped into a plastic bin, but the rest was set aside and returned to Brian.

Mark couldn’t tell what was removed from Brian’s possession, but he guessed it was anything that could be used as a weapon. But in such a controlled environment like a government camp, the list of prohibited items would likely be a very long list.

Before Brian was allowed to reclaim his property, he and the boys were subjected to a metal-detector wand, and then patted down. From there, Brian and the boys were led to the medical screening tent for evaluation. The medical tent was easy to spot by how the orderly that greeted them was dressed.

When Brian was out of sight, Mark decided he had seen enough. He climbed down from the roof, and walked down the street, past the house running the generator, and then back onto the field around the north side of the high school.

With less than ten minutes to make his rally point in time, Mark knew he’d be really late if he didn’t pick up the pace. So he began to jog, and turned his mind to what he had seen in the camp. Though he would never submit himself to the restrictions of a FEMA camp, it was a good place for Brian and the boys to be.

Given Brian’s eagerness to find the camp, Mark thought it best not to convince him to do otherwise. He was, after all, an adult. And having to care for two young boys, with nothing to provide, made for a desperate situation for any man.

As for Mark, he was very eager to keep moving, and he wanted to put as much distance from the camp as possible before sunrise. Given that it was already after zero-three, and with at least a mile to go before
he reached the rally point, he began to pick up the pace. They’d have to peddle hard, and be lucky to find a good shelter before morning.

While Mark jogged along, considering the many challenges he faced ahead with the long trip, he didn’t see the rock ahead of him and turned his ankle. It was a sharp twist that sent him flying instantly toward the ground, but he managed to tuck and roll out of it. Immediately, his right ankle began to burn with a furious heat.

It wasn’t the first time he twisted his right ankle, but it was a serious sprain that had him hobbling around and cursing quietly to himself as he tried to walk it off. When his ankle finally stopped screaming at him, he cursed his bad luck more directly and gingerly tested it for weight. Running was now out of the question, but time didn’t stop.

At four miles per hour, it would take him twice as long to reach Lauren as before. Once again he cursed his carelessness and began walking slowly, gingerly toward her, careful with every single step. He commanded himself to stop worrying about Lauren. It wasn’t like she was entirely helpless. Sage was with her, and she was tucked safely away and under cover in a secluded spot. “She probably won’t even notice I’m late,” he mumbled to himself as he hobbled along on his still burning foot.

CHAPTER 18

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