Fight for Power (2 page)

“But we're not talking about dogs,” I said.

“No, we're talking about men who were coming here to murder you and me and your mother and brother and sister and everybody who lived in our neighborhood. They were going to kill anybody who stood in their way, and then take everything, leaving those they didn't kill to ultimately die without food or the means to survive.”

“I know. I know all of it. I know we had no choice.”

“You saw what they were capable of.”

It was impossible to get those thoughts and images out of my mind. I did know what they'd done. They'd overrun Olde Burnham, a nearby neighborhood whose residents had been on friendly terms with us, smashed through the walls, set buildings on fire, blown guards to pieces with rockets and grenades, executed prisoners by shooting them at point-blank range, killed innocent women and children in the crossfire, and then looted and plundered whatever was left.

“It's going to be a scene from hell over there,” Herb said. He gestured toward the smoke.

“I've seen hell before,” I said, thinking of Olde Burnham after the attack. “I've flown over it and landed in the middle.”

“Seeing it once doesn't mean you need to see it again. Okay, this is close enough. Cut the power.”

I reduced the throttle to nothing and we came to rest. Herb undid his harness and climbed out of the plane, his rifle in his hands. I did the same, removing my pistol from its holster. Just because no one survived the fall didn't mean there weren't other dangers lurking out here. There were always dangers.

Herb started walking toward the wreckage and motioned for me to follow. Pieces of the bridge—concrete, asphalt, metal—were strung out across the valley floor in a jagged line, starting on one side, crossing the river, and reaching over to the other wall of the valley. The cloud of dust and smoke started to dissipate before our eyes, the haze rising up, revealing more of the destruction, allowing us to see it more clearly. All that remained of the bridge were those two gigantic support columns, erect and defiant.

The debris was piled up, in places twenty or even thirty feet high, and the trucks themselves were scattered, broken, lying on their sides and rooftops. One still perched on its wheels, looking like it could just drive away. As we got closer I could see that its side was ripped open, with bodies intertwined, distorted into impossible positions.

It seemed incredible that all this had happened because of fertilizer and chemicals—from our kitchen cabinets and garages and ransacked supermarket shelves—that Herb had shown us how to combine to make explosives powerful enough to destroy a bridge, to take down all those trucks, to end all those lives.

“I've seen a lot of things in my time but nothing quite like this,” Herb said as we closed in.

I swallowed hard. It was so awful and yet somehow mesmerizing at the same time.

“People talk about not being able to look away from a traffic accident, and this was like a hundred accidents all happening at once. You don't have to come any farther.”

“I've come this far,” I said.

“And this is far enough. I want you back in the plane and—”

“Look out!” I screamed. Up ahead a man climbed over the rim of the wreckage and he had a rifle. I was raising my pistol, but Herb instantly pushed my arm down. “They're our men, Adam! It's Brett.”

My racing heart almost stopped. It
was
Brett, and right behind him another man and then a third—it was Todd, my best friend—followed by others I knew. There was Owen and Tim and Gavin and Mr. Gomez from down the street. I could have mistakenly shot them, or at least shot at them. I took a step back, stunned at how close I had come to pulling the trigger. Thank God Herb had stopped me in time.

“It happens all the time in extreme situations,” Herb said. He put a hand on my shoulder. “You're on such an adrenaline high that you can't see straight.”

Brett raised his hand in greeting but I ignored it.

“
You
saw,” I said. “You saw enough to stop me from shooting.”

“It's not the same for me. This isn't my first rodeo.”

That was one name for it. I wondered what you could really call this? Was it a massacre, or a carnage, or a bloodbath, or … I stopped myself from going any further. It didn't need a name.

One by one the men appeared until there were at least a dozen. They'd come down the side of the valley—as my mother had ordered—and passed over some of the wreckage.

“Everyone, please gather around,” Herb called out to them.

As others surrounded him I took a few steps back to the outside of the forming circle.

“We have won the battle,” Herb said, and there was a chorus of cheers. “At least thus far.” The cheering stopped. “There is so much more we still need to do, and we have to take care not to let one of our lives be taken by a dead man.”

What did that even mean?

“We're going to go search the vehicles. We have to be aware of the rocks and rubble, the way the vehicles are perched—it is all unstable. We also have to watch for any weapons, like explosives that might be live. We're going to go through each truck, check each body, and take what will be of value to us.”

I could see the looks of shock on faces. Strange how killing people was one thing but searching their bodies was another.

“There are obviously things like guns and ammunition, but I'm hoping for other weapons. I know we'll find things like RPGs—rocket-propelled grenades—but there might also be plastic explosives and other sophisticated weaponry. If you have any question about what something is, do not, I repeat,
do not
touch it. Step back and let me investigate further. Also, we'll take body armor, walkie-talkies, food, even shoes and boots.”

“You want us to strip the bodies?” one of the men asked.

“They can keep their uniforms, but we'll take their boots at least,” Brett said. “They might be helpful to us at some point.”

“I know this is going to be difficult,” Herb added. “It's different when you look somebody in the eyes—even if those eyes are unseeing and the person is dead—but this has to be done.”

“My men will do what has to be done,” Brett said. His voice was calm. How could he seem so confident?

“Shouldn't we get more people to help?” another man asked.

“No, we want to minimize contact for others, limit exposure to what we're going to see,” Herb explained. “You men have been on the front lines and you've seen more than other people. You're best able to handle this.”

“Is there anybody who doesn't have the stomach for this?” Brett asked. He looked at the men who were with him—the ones he often led out on patrols. They shook their heads or mumbled that they could handle it. I wasn't sure if anybody had any choice but to agree.

I nodded, even though I knew that I wasn't feeling any more confident than most of the others.

“Here's how it's going to work,” Herb said. “Brett is going to come with me. We're going to be the first in each truck to ensure that it's safe and to direct what needs to be done. Once we've cleared the truck, others will follow and remove the gear and the bodies.”

“Why can't we just leave the bodies?” somebody asked.

“We can't allow them to simply decompose. It can contaminate the river downstream and spread diseases. We have to dispose of them,” Herb said.

“We're going to bury them?”

I knew that wasn't the plan. So did Brett.

“We're going to have a big barbecue,” Brett said.

I couldn't believe he was making a joke of it. Only a sick moron would find this funny. But maybe it was like laughing at a funeral, or maybe he was just trying to put people at ease in the middle of an awful situation.

Herb turned to me. “Adam, I want you back up in the air.”

“I can handle this,” I said. “You need all the help you can get.”

“I know you can, but where I really need your help is up there,” he said, pointing to the sky. “You have to get back up into the air to provide support and surveillance for us down here as well as for the neighborhood.”

“But we got them!” Todd said.

“I hope we got
most
of them,” Herb said. “We have to do a body count to find out how many men were in those trucks so we have an idea how many still remain alive.”

“And you think that there could still be enough of them that they could be coming for us?” Owen asked.

“I hope it was a one-pronged attack, one group, but I'm not certain.”

“If anybody is still stupid enough to attack us, then we'll take care of them,” Brett said. “They'll be as dead as the rest.”

Others nodded in agreement. He sounded forceful—and confident—and that was what people needed right now. That's the way Herb handled things, and Brett had learned from him.

“We need Adam up in the sky just in case,” Herb said. “Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Okay, sure, I'll get right up there. I've got two hours of fuel left. I could stay in the sky and keep watch overhead until I run low and then refuel and get back up in the air again.”

“That would be excellent. I want you to make large circuits, making sure nobody else is coming along either of the two remaining bridges over the river to the north or south, and I also want you doing passes over the walls of the neighborhood. I want to eliminate the possibility there was a group sent wide to come at the neighborhood from another direction entirely.”

“This is just a precaution, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “Just a precaution, but let's keep taking precautions. You need extra eyes, so I want somebody to go up with you.”

“I could go,” Todd offered.

I quickly looked over at him to see if he was joking—he had always said there was no way he'd ever go up with me in my flying lawn mower, as he called it—but he was dead serious.

“Good, then it's decided,” Herb said. “Now we better get working. There's no time to waste.”

 

2

Herb led the men off in one direction, and Todd and I headed in the other.

I nudged him as we walked along. “I thought you were never going to go up in my ultralight.”

Todd shrugged. “Things change. I never thought I'd be searching bodies and stripping them out of their boots either. Up there is looking good.”

We crunched through gravel and debris back to the plane. Carefully I grabbed the tail, picked it up, and started to spin the ultralight around, aiming it back in the direction I'd just landed.

“What are you doing?” Todd asked.

“The longest, straightest strip is that direction. It makes for an easier takeoff.” I set the tail back down on the strip of asphalt. I climbed in and clipped on my harness.

Todd stood beside the plane.

“Are you getting in?”

“I'm just thinking. Is it better to search bodies or become one?”

I laughed. This sounded like the old Todd.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I have to get in the air. Jump in or go back and join them.”

“I'm getting in,” Todd said.

He climbed into the seat beside me, and the whole plane sagged under his weight. I reached over and grabbed his harness, clicking it into place.

“That should stop you from falling out,” I explained.

“Great, now I feel
really
safe.”

I handed him the helmet, which had an intercom wire that plugged into the console. “Put this on so we can talk.”

Once we were situated I opened the fuel line and turned on the engine. It instantly came to life.

“Don't you wish your old car did that?”

“My car doesn't need to be that reliable. If it stalls out, we pull to the side of the road. If this stalls out, we fall from the sky.”

I had the brakes on but could feel the force of the propeller behind the seats pushing us forward.

“Was that supposed to be reassuring?” Todd asked.

“Not so much reassuring as real. Here we go.” I opened the throttle and we began to rumble along the path, picking up speed.

“Are we going to take off or drive all the way—”

The front wheels lifted and we soared up.

“We're going to fly. Hang on.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Todd grab his seat with both hands. He was hanging on and leaning sideways, toward me. I increased the throttle so we were rapidly gaining height, then I turned slightly so I could watch Todd's expression. He looked scared. I didn't really want to do that to him—well, not too badly. I slowed our ascent.

“There's nothing to be worried about,” I said.

“There are hundreds of feet ending in a sudden stop to be worried about. Can we fly lower?”

“We have to go a lot higher than this to see things. Besides, it's safer.”

“How can higher be safer?” he demanded.

“If the engine stalled—”

“The engine could stall?”

“It never has. It's running well, and even if it did stall we could still glide to a landing. That's where height gives me more room to find a place.”

“And more height to fall from.”

“Look, it doesn't matter whether you fall from two hundred or two thousand feet, you're just as dead.”

“Again, not reassuring.”

“Again, not trying to be. Just keep your eyes open.”

We were quickly coming up to the Dundas Street bridge across the river. A cluster of people stood at the edge, looking north, peering in the direction of the smoke and dust cloud in the sky. I wondered how far away the explosion would have been heard, how far the dust cloud was visible.

There were other people along the road, and in the distance I saw movement—an old truck was rolling down the pavement—but it looked like nothing we needed to be afraid of.