EMP (The Districts Book 1) (9 page)

“It doesn’t look good... there’s a couple of trucks in the parking lot, but I don’t see any people and it looks like the doors are open.”

Manuel shrugged and stood up. Nathan knew what Manuel was insinuating. He sighed and nodded. Manuel was suggesting that it didn’t matter because there were things in the farm supply store they needed. Nathan knew he was right and he also didn’t want to let down Sandra.

“Alright… let’s do this.”

Manuel smiled and started toward the gate in the back corner of the yard. Nathan tapped him on the shoulder and signaled for them to keep low to which his friend nodded in agreement. Nathan opened the gate and glanced over his shoulder to make sure Manuel was following him.

The two men stuck close to the back yards of the houses along the road, trying to crouch as much as possible. It was getting late enough in the day there were shadows being cast by the large trees in most of the yards and they did their best to stay hidden.

Nathan stopped and crouched behind a bush. He parted it to get a better view of Rick’s. The door was indeed open, as he had speculated, and the two trucks were in the parking lot. There were some supplies in the back of the trucks, which looked to be some lumber, metal poles and some tools. Nathan sighed… they were exactly the kind of supplies he would have grabbed if he had a truck.

“Let’s wait for a few minutes to see if anyone comes out,” Nathan said, doing his best to whisper.

He turned his attention back to the front of the store while still trying to remain hidden behind the bush. Nathan was pretty sure it was big enough that no one would notice them… not to mention he had a feeling they were probably too focused on their haul.

It was less than five minutes later when three men came walking out of the front of the store. Nathan hunkered down a little more and watched as they tossed a few black trash bags, which were filled with something, into the back of the trucks and got in. He could feel himself holding his breath until the sound of their trucks faded completely.

“Let’s try to be quick,” Nathan said.

Manuel moved from the bush, still crouched, and headed across the road. Nathan followed. He was still nervous, feeling like there might be other people around… but he knew they needed to get in and out of the store before anyone else showed up.

Nathan glanced up and down the road again as they crossed it. It was quiet, but he still urged Manuel to pick up the pace and didn’t slow until they were inside the store.

Manuel and Nathan each pulled a shopping cart from the corral just inside the door. Nathan quickly glanced around, trying to see what there was and he instantly frowned. The store, which he assumed was usually well stocked, had nearly bare shelves. There were bags of dog food and birdseed spilled on the floor. He sighed and turned to Manuel.

“You start down on that end,” he said, pointing to the far end of the store. “I’ll start at the other end. If you find seeds, grab whatever is left… and get anything else you think we might be able to use.”

Manuel nodded and turned his cart away from Nathan. They each went to opposite sides of the store to see what they could find.

When they met after twenty minutes of shopping, both Manuel and Nathan had full carts. Nathan had ended up in the seed aisle, where to his great surprise the shelves were still stocked. He thought that looters would have cleaned out the stock, but it seemed like they had instead opted to get supplies like wood, metal fencing and tools. He had still found some of that too, not a lot, but enough of those things to fill the rest of his cart.

What Nathan was most pleased about, apart from the seeds, was he found a clothing aisle. He was able to grab himself some work boots, pants, a few shirts and a heavy jacket he knew would come in handy eventually. He guessed Manuel’s size and grabbed the same for him.

“You ready?”

Manuel nodded and pushed the cart out of the store. They both paused as they entered the parking lot and looked around. It was quiet and neither of them saw anything.

The sun was beginning to fall behind the Rocky Mountains which meant they would be able to push the full carts back to Sandra’s farm without encountering trouble. Nathan figured they would just carry bags, but they ended up taking more supplies than he had originally envisioned... not to mention he had only planned on buying as much as their money would allow. He really didn’t mind just taking whatever they needed… it was obvious the owner had abandoned the store and that people had already begun to loot it. Nathan knew if he and Manuel didn’t take what they wanted, the next person to come upon the store would do just that.

Sutherland set the pen down on the pad of paper, tilted his head back and let out a sigh. He knew it wasn’t smart to keep a journal… it could easily find its way to Rodgers if someone else found it.

He hadn’t spoken to Rodgers for two days and there was still no word about his wife and daughter. Sutherland knew that with each passing hour the likelihood of them being found decreased.

Sutherland stood up from the table, grabbed the pad of paper and walked over to his bed. The room was sparse enough that there wasn’t a good hiding place for his musings and he figured the best choice would be under his mattress. He lifted the mattress and slid the paper a few feet in before lowering it down again.

He sat down on the bed and looked toward the door… a feeling of paranoia sweeping over him. Sutherland felt like he was being watched every second of every day. He was growing rather tired of it, but he suspected it was going to be something he would be forced to live with.

There was a knock on his door, which caused Sutherland to jump. He froze, listening to see if he was imagining the knock… but they knocked a second time. Sutherland stood up and walked over to the door. He took a deep breath, not really wanting to speak to anyone, and pulled the door open.

To Sutherland’s surprise it was Rodgers who had knocked on his door. She looked exhausted and had dark circles under her eyes. Sutherland almost felt bad for her for a brief moment.

“What do you need?” he said.

“We need to talk.”

Rodgers turned to walk away, but Sutherland didn’t budge. He wasn’t going anywhere until he got some answers.

“Where is my family?”

She sighed and stepped closer to Sutherland.

“I still haven’t heard anything… so you need to stop asking me. I’ve told you repeatedly that as soon as I found anything out you would be the first one to know.”

Sutherland stood his ground… it was the same thing she had kept telling him, but that wasn’t good enough anymore. He turned around, closed the door to his room and locked it.

She knocked on his door and jiggled the handle. Sutherland knew his behavior wasn’t exactly befitting for a grown man, but he was starting to reach his wits end.

“Open this door.”

He could sense she was getting angrier with each passing moment that he kept the door closed. Part of Sutherland wanted to just sit and listen to her struggle, but he knew he still had a duty to the country he loved… even if it was the very thing Rodgers was destroying.

Sutherland sighed, walked over to the door and pulled it open. She looked to have more on her mind than his family… there was something pressing and it was clear she needed to speak to him about it. Sutherland sighed, giving in as he realized the sooner they got it over with the better.

“What is it?” he said.

Rodgers looked up and down the hall, her eyes freezing on a soldier hanging a notice of some kind on the wall.

“We need to talk… somewhere more private.”

Sutherland wrinkled his brow. He was really getting tired of bending to her will… it was something he didn’t think he could put up with for much longer. He really didn’t want to acknowledge his superior rank because it would condemn the United States, but Sutherland was getting close to doing it just to feel like Rodgers didn’t have absolute power over him.

“Fine,” he said, giving in.

Rodgers nodded, turned and walked toward the conference room. Sutherland glanced at his bed, the hiding spot for his pad of paper, before closing the door behind him. Rodgers was waiting for him, but he still took his time. They walked to the conference room in silence. It was the only room they ever met in and Sutherland was starting to get sick of the long table and its empty chairs. He wondered why no one else ever came to the meeting they had, but he wasn’t about to engage with Rodgers to find out.

They each sat in their usual chairs across from each other and Rodgers took a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking.

“We have a situation.”

“I’m sure it’s not the first… and it won’t be the last.”

Sutherland was a little surprised someone in her position wasn’t more capable of solving problems. He chalked it up to her having to actually do something at her job for the first time ever. Rodgers bit her lip, opened her mouth and closed it again.

“Spit it out,” he said, “I don’t want to sit here any longer than I have to.”

She cleared her throat and nodded.

“It’s the District Four headquarters….”

“What about them?”

“They… someone attacked the bunker and they are camping outside with a large enough group that the people are stuck inside.”

Sutherland thought about it for a moment. It didn’t quite all add up as far as he was concerned… they weren’t letting people out of his bunker, so he didn’t see what the big deal was.

“Isn’t it possible for our people in the bunker to just sit tight?” he said.

“The bunker is designed to be self sufficient… that’s not the problem. The problem is that the attackers have dynamite and they have started to try and blast their way in.”

Sutherland took a deep breath. He was amazed that people would do such a thing. It was a defacto government these people were attacking. Sutherland assumed they knew of the consequences of such an action... and realized they must be very desperate to do such a thing.

“Should we be worried about the same kind of thing here?” he said.

“No… I don’t think so. The bunker in four was built by the crew of a mine in South Dakota that closed in 2014 and they signed confidentiality agreements. We have to assume they broke those agreements obviously and they are the ones attacking the bunker. We are fortunate enough that this bunker was built by the Army Core of Engineers.”

“What about the other ones?”

“They also built two and three.”

Sutherland sighed and shook his head.

“So… four through seven were all built by outside contractors?”

She nodded. Sutherland, frustrated by the total lack of thought on the part of the government, stood up from the table and started to pace.

“Well, that was stupid. Whose decision was that?”

“It was… it was a decision made by Section M.”

Sutherland shook his head and sat back down in his chair. He had been looking forward to retirement… the bureaucratic crap of the government throughout his career had taken its toll on him and now he felt completely stuck.

“Wonderful,” he said, “and does Section M have a plan for how to deal with this?”

Rodgers nodded, opened the file folder she had been clutching and pushed a paper across the table. Sutherland picked it up and started to read.

“What is this?” he said, glancing up from the paper.

“That is the second part of the brief you didn’t read… the one with the seven districts and the regents and vice-regents. The next page, what you are looking at now, explains what role each of the districts had to play.”

Sutherland glanced back to the page and quickly read it. He sighed and set it down after reading the first few names.

“So… basically what you’re telling me is that I’m in charge of the defense district, or district one, and district four, the one under attack, is in charge of homeland security?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head.
Perfect… just what we need. The group of people supposed to be preventing exactly this kind of thing are in charge
, Sutherland thought.

“And do you have a plan?” he said.

“We… we were kind of hoping you would have some kind of idea about what we should do.”

Sutherland had a feeling she was going to say something along those lines. He hadn’t thought about it before, but it definitely made sense—if they divided the country into seven sectors, and made each one responsible for a particular part of the government they could be independent but still help each other should the need arise.

He glanced back at the paper and read the rest of the designations for the districts. Two, the one in Georgia, was designated for health and human services. Someone in Illinois was three, which was agriculture. Four, the one under attack, in South Dakota was homeland security, just as Rodgers had told him. In what was formerly Texas was number five and it was listed as energy. Six was education and located outside of Phoenix. The last one, somewhere near south central Oregon was commerce.

Several of the districts jumped out to him as seeming the perfect place for a particular department and the others… well, he assumed there was some reason he would eventually find out.

“This is a serious problem,” Rodgers said.

“Yes,” he said, looking up from the paper, “it is. So… with all of your preparations and planning, you didn’t account for something like this?”

She shook her head. Sutherland knew he was being a little harsh, but he really didn’t give a shit. He knew he would have had a little more compassion for the whole situation if his family was safe.

Sutherland stood up from the table, pushed the paper back toward Rodgers and walked toward the door. He stood when he reached it and turned around.

“Let me know when you think of a plan… or if you find my family. In the meantime, please don’t disturb me again.”

He turned and walked out of the room before she could answer. Sutherland forced himself not to think about the Americans in a bunker that were under attack. He really wished he could help them, but the whole situation was out of his control.