Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon (26 page)

     And if that happened, the farmer would in turn allow Marty to use his hayfield. Shoot, with a seven year winter, it wouldn’t be of any use to him anyway.

     The farmer
had crawled into Marty’s truck and cruised the back lot of the truck stop. Shopping for trucks, as it were. Marty explained that there was no way to tell what was in each truck, because the drivers had taken the manifests with them.

     But there were certain clues. Those trucks which had a numbered metal seal on the rear door had something in them. Those which had no seal were empty, and were headed somewhere for a load at the time they were dropped.

     Also, Marty said, if the farmer was looking for food, he’d want to choose one with a cooler unit mounted on the front of the trailer. After all, nuts and bolts didn’t need to be kept cold. But steaks did.

     The farmer used the tips Marty gave him and selected a red trailer as his own. The two stepped out of the cab together to ensure the cooler unit was on and running, and Marty checked the fuel level on the
small diesel tank below it. It had plenty of fuel left to run the unit until the sky went black.

     The two shook hands, and Marty took the farmer back to his farmhouse, where the man joyfully told his wife and
family what had just transpired. They had fully expected to freeze or starve to death at some point in the next seven years. But when Marty drove away, and the four of them- the farmer, his wife, and his two teenaged daughters- waved at him, they viewed him not as a trucker. But rather as their savior.

     Marty had relayed this story to Scott Burley the day before. Then he gave Burley the five cent explanation of
what he planned to use the hayfield for. He didn’t get too specific because, first of all, Burley had a mouth as big as his gut. And secondly, because he didn’t want to have to run it down twice.

     So he’d wait until his long-time friends Tina and Joe rolled in and explain it to all of them at once.

     In the meantime, he’d sit here and finish up his scrambled eggs and toast.

     Marty’s cell phone rang as h
e finished up the last bite. It was Tina, calling to tell him they’d just pulled into the yard and were at the pumps, topping off their tanks. They’d be at the restaurant in ten minutes.

     Marty said he’d order them each a plate of pancakes and eggs. He might as well spend the money left in his wallet, he reasoned. It damn sure wouldn’t be any good in a couple of days.

     After they’d parked their rig, Tina and Joe came in and joined the pair. Two minutes later, a tired waitress named Cathy brought them their breakfast, and they dug in while Marty laid out his grand scheme.

     “After the thing hits, the sky’s supposed to get dark and hide the sun. The
n it’s supposed to get very cold.”

     They all knew this, of course. It’s all that was on the TV
for days.

     Marty went on. “After that happens, I consider all these abandoned loads in the yard out back as fair game. I mean, the drivers sure aren’t coming back to get them. The companies who own them will be dying off like everybody else. They won’t care about them. S
o as far as I’m concerned, they’re free for the taking.

     “I’ve been talking to Lenny, the yard guy. He talked to some of the drivers when they dropped the loads. He knows what’s in some of them
. There’s one back there that’s full of mattresses. Another one is full of propane tanks. And another one full of camping gear and winter wear for America Outdoors. And there’s at least forty or fifty with mounted reefers running. That means food. A boatload of it.”

     Marty took a napkin and a pen and began to sketch out a rough draft of what he wanted their camp to look like.

     “We’ll take the first twelve trailers and line them up with the back doors facing south. We’ll put them so close together that they’re damn near touching. That’ll keep nosy people from trying to walk into our camp.

     “Then we’ll take twelve more and
use them to build a south wall. We’ll back them in, close together again, only these doors will face to the north. We’ll put four trailers on the west end and four trailers on the east end. And we’ll park all four of our rigs in the middle

     “I saw a truck full of lumber on row three of the lot. It has four pallets of half inch plywood and a whole bunch of two by fours. We can drag whatever we need over
to the camp by stacking it on our bobtails. Then we can use it to surround our camp, so that nobody can crawl under the trailers to get to us. It’ll also keep the blowing snow and some of the cold out.

     “
There’s a flatbed on row four that’s carrying some kind of industrial equipment. Looks like a huge generator. It’s covered with heavy duty tarps we can use, and he’s got four more tarps rolled up and strapped to the front of the trailer.

     “We can use those tarps to cover the camp, and cut holes in them for our exhaust pipes. That way we can sleep in our rigs at night, and when it’s too cold to be outside.

     “There are two tankers full of diesel fuel in the yard, side by side in row six. We’ll drag both of them to the field just north of our camp. We can run a line from the tankers into the camp to keep our side tanks full.

     “I took my rig over to the
Walmart in Kerrville yesterday. I bought three microwaves, in case the ones in our rigs give out. I also got a propane grill, and forty bags of charcoal. They probably thought I was nuts, but the lady in front of me bought two shopping carts full of canned cat food. I guess they’ve seen a lot of weird stuff the last few weeks.

     “We’ll use the propane to cook our food, and the charcoal as a backup if the propane runs out. If the charcoal runs out too, we can burn diesel in a drum.

     “I got a bunch of other stuff too. Hammers and nails, lots of gloves. Some walkie talkies and batteries. Even got some rechargeable batteries and chargers too. And lots of ammunition.”

     Marty, like most truckers, was well armed and willing and able to defend himself. A year ago, all he had to worry about was an occasional hijacker who might try to steal his r
ig. Now he might have to shoot someone desperate for food. But he’d do it if he had to.

     Tina chose this moment to be a devil’s advocate. “So what if it never happens? What if Sanders isn’t full of crap after all and they divert Saris 7?”

     Marty smiled and said “Walmart has a refund policy. That’s why I saved the receipts.”

     Joe asked “So what then? What if we survive
until the earth gets warm again? Do we just go from truck to truck, living off whatever we can find?”

     Marty had an answer for that too.

     “No, about a year ago I delivered a load of steel sheets to a construction site on Highway 83. Maybe ten or twelve miles from here. They wouldn’t tell me what they were building, but it looked like a hotel, and it had greenhouses and barns. But the best thing about it was they were building this huge fence around it. I figure we can go there, try our hand at farming, and just come out occasionally to find a couple of food trailers and drag them back.

     “And because of that big
fence, it’ll be easy to defend if anybody ever tries to take it away from us.”

-54-

     Harvey Unwin, Anthony Pacheco, and Tom Mize were directed to fly into Washington’s Reagan Airport via different routes. Their handler at the State Department didn’t want them attracting a lot of undue attention, and the media had indeed been watching them closely.

     So Unwin and his family each packed two suitcases full of clothing and personal items, just as they were instructed to do. And they went to
Washington via Boston’s Logan Airport.

     An hour after their arrival from
Boston, The Unwins met the Pachecos’ flight from LaGuardia. Tom Mize, his wife and two kids arrived ten minutes later from Atlanta Hartsfield.

     The families claimed their baggage and, just as they were instructed,
took three rental cars to a squat parking garage at Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. They were to then take their baggage and wait on the sidewalk until a large white van came by at 11:20 a.m. to pick them up. Next to a street light stamped “ARL 604” at its base.

     They knew nothing other than that. They weren’t told exactly where the entrance to the bunker was, or what the process would be for getting settled in once they got there.

     But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were safe, and so were their families. And those people driving by in their cars, looking with such curiosity at these “tourists” waiting at the sidewalk with their pile of suitcases? Well, screw them all. They’d all be dead in a few days, while these “tourists” would be safe and warm and not having to worry about where their next drink of water would come from.

     A
cabbie pulled up along the curb and asked if they were waiting for a taxi.

     “Nope. We know exactly where
we’re
going, do you?” Unwin snarled at him. The cabbie gave him a strange look, decided he was crazy, and drove off.

     A park police officer pulled up ten minutes later, rolled his window down, and asked if the group needed some assistance. After all, th
is street didn’t see many travelers with a mountain of suitcases.

     Pacheco assured the officer that they were fine.

     And they thought they were. Then 11:20 a.m. came and went, with no sign of a large white van.

     They tried to be patient, and held off until noon before they started making phone calls. Somebody’s head was going to roll, Pacheco proclaimed. If it weren’t for this bunch, nobody would have known about Saris 7
. How dare they be kept waiting!

     Pacheco called
Thomas Rose, their State Department handler. His cell phone had been disconnected. How odd.

     He then called the State Department and asked for
Mr. Rose.

     A cheerful receptionist
said “Why, certainly. Who may I say is calling?”

     Pacheco growled “Anthony Pacheco.”

     Ten seconds later the receptionist returned. “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Rose started his vacation this morning and won’t be back for two weeks. May I direct you to someone else?”

    
Pacheco’s face dropped and he hung up the phone without another word.

     And he realized, just as the others realized from the look on his face, that the group had joined the millions of other Americans with no safe place to go.

-55
-

     Mark lay awake in the RV, and looked at the small bedside alarm clock. It was 2:30 a.m.

     He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t know exactly why. He’d spent the day hauling plywood and lumber and finishing up the project to insulate the entryway against the cold that was coming. By the time he and Bryan and three other volunteers finished the project, they were all exhausted.

     He should be sleeping like a baby.

     But he was restless. And he didn’t know why.

     He looked at Hannah, sound asleep beside him.

     He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. He loved watching her sleep. He always had. She looked like an angel.

     He noticed her eyelids twitching and knew she was dreaming. Hannah was lucky in that she often had very vivid dreams. She almost always remembered them and could describe them in great detail. Mark couldn’t count the times she’d entertained him by recounting a silly dream she’d had.

     Mark, on the other hand, seldom dreamed. When he did, he could only recount bits and pieces. Certainly never enough to tell a story.

     Hannah always said that she loved to dream. It was like going to the movies, she’d said, only you didn’t have to pay six dollars for a bag of popcorn.

     He so loved this woman. He knew that she trusted him to watch over her, and to keep her and the baby safe. And he would. Now that they made a life together, i
n the ominous shadow of Saris 7, everything had changed. He couldn’t afford to be carefree Mark anymore. He could have a good time, sure, but things were different now.

     From this time forward, every turn they took, every decision they made, could have potentially dreadful consequences.

     He decided that’s why he couldn’t sleep. There were just too many questions swimming around in his head. Did they stock enough food? Was forty people too many? What had they forgotten?

     Hannah stirred and opened her eyes.

     In a sleepy voice she said “Hi Baby. Is everything okay?”

     He kissed her on the forehead and said “Go back to sleep, my sweet love. Everything is just fine.”

     Hannah went back into her slumber and Mark went back to looking at the ceiling and worrying.