Ill Wind (30 page)

The stallion nosed around for something to nibble on. Bettario jerked the reins to raise the horse’s head. “We got rid of the tourists at Rancho Inyo, and I have room for a few people who know what they’re doing. You’ve been around a long time, Dick. You’re full of bullshit, but you’ve also got a lot of common sense, and you know how to work. I need men to help keep the larders stocked, which means hunting and fishing and working with the livestock. We’re going to round up the wild horses, because without automobiles, horses will be worth more than gold.

“You also know how to fix things,” Carlos continued. “Rancho Inyo gets its power from the hydroelectric plant by the reservoir. Even without oil to burn, I suppose a dam and a waterwheel can keep working—if we figure out a way to keep them lubricated.”

Bettario smiled down at Morgret standing in his coveralls. “Come with me back to the ranch, Dick. My boys here will help you pack up whatever you want to take along.”

Morgret raised his eyebrows,
then
gestured expansively toward the leaking trailer, the fouled-up gas pumps, the empty highway. “Let me get this straight, Carlos. You want me to leave
all this
just so I can hunt and fish the whole
day long
? Round up some horses, chop some wood, for free room and board at a place where the city slickers pay a hundred dollars a night?”

“A hundred fifty, last year.” Bettario nodded. “Yeah, sums it up pretty well.”

“Sounds better than getting jabbed in the eye with a sharp stick.” Morgret glanced around the small patch of land he owned by virtue of squatter’s rights. He had grown roots here, but somehow it didn’t feel like he was leaving anything behind.

“Carlos, get your boys to help me take down this LAST CHANCE sign, then I’ll be ready to go.”

Chapter 37

A pounding on the door pierced through the layers of fog that enveloped Jeffrey Mayeaux’s mind, waking him out of a blissful few hours of sleep. He hated the constant interruptions that came with being an “important man.” Well, in another year he could forget all that bilgewater.

Mayeaux woke up, smelling the disorienting strangeness of new sheets. Pieces fell into place. Two-story resort apartment in Ocean City, a getaway Weathersee had arranged for him a month ago. And nobody was supposed to know where he was. Pickled crawfish! Weathersee must have blabbed.

The pounding returned from somewhere outside the darkened bedroom . . . the front door. It was too damn early for a person to think. Besides, this was what, Sunday?

He started to roll over and get off the bed when the woman beside him moaned softly in her sleep; her head rested on his arm. Mayeaux could still smell sweat on the sheets. She was in her early twenties, large breasts, small ass,
long
blond hair. She brayed like a mule when she came, but it had turned him on a little. Too bad she had the face like a mule, too, but who cared?

As memories of last night came back to him, he felt another erection stirring. Weathersee had arranged for the babe to be waiting for him at the condo. Mayeaux never knew whether his Chief of Staff actually paid for these women, or if he enticed them in some other way. Good old Weathersee.

Mayeaux’s wife knew the locations of his “love nests,” and she even called him once in a while when she needed his help with one of the houses or some other emergency. But no one was supposed to know about the Ocean City place.

The door would probably splinter soon under the relentless pounding. The sheer monotonous nature told him it was probably some security goons. Anybody with half a brain would have figured out by now that Mayeaux didn’t want to talk to anybody. What a great way to wake up and start the day.

Mayeaux somehow managed to slide off the side of the bed and pick up his robe without waking the babe.

He could hear a muffled voice yelling his name as he closed the bedroom door behind him and padded down the stairs. “Hold on, Boog, for gawd’s sake,” he said.

The saeside apartment smelled of stale wine and ripe cheese. Sunlight streamed across the foyer where he had forgotten to close the curtains the night before. How he wished he could find someplace in the D.C. area that served decent cafe au lait and beignets for breakfast.

With the spreading panic and the mechanical breakdowns caused by the gasoline plague sweeping across the country, Mayeaux should have realized he couldn’t get away for a day. Just one fucking day, and it had been planned for months. Granted, he could recognize the magnitude of the growing crisis—but
he
wasn’t in charge. Other people could take care of things for a few hours, couldn’t they?

By Friday night only a few outbreaks had been reported in Maryland and a few in Virginia, but the news got more frantic hour after hour. California had closed its borders, far too late to stop the spread of the plague, and information from the west coast was sporadic.

Vice President Wolani had been stuck in Chicago on a speaking tour when the FAA ordered an immediate shutdown of the entire commercial airline industry in the wake of a dozen major crashes that had been blamed on disintegrating plastic components.

Mayeaux had chuckled upon learning that President Holback was stranded in the Middle East on his widely publicized diplomatic tour to Qatar, or one of those countries, when Air Force One itself was found to be infected with the petroplague . . . and now the petroleum-eating microorganisms were ravaging some of the largest Arabian oil fields. He wouldn’t want to be in Holback’s shoes at the moment.

“Mr. Speaker? Are you in there?” The
voice from outside sounded loud and firm
enough to pierce the solid door.

Mayeaux peered through the peephole. Two men in dark suits stood on his porch, wires running from their collars to earplugs. He could see three other men standing out in the sand.
Secret Service?
Jeez, couldn’t they be a bit
more subtle
? They stood out like a day-glow billboard in this beach town.

A chill raced down his back. Damn, what could they want? Was this a sting? His initial fear that he was in trouble left him quickly—someone in authority would be present, an official from Justice, if he had done anything wrong. And Mayeaux had never made any secret about his affairs.

But Secret Service,
here
?
If it was so damned important to wake him up on a Sunday morning, Weathersee should have telephoned him. Then he remembered having his calls forwarded to the office; he’d unplugged the phones here since his wife and kids were staying with friends.

The Secret Service man seemed to sense him standing on the other side of the door. “Mr. Speaker—it’s important, sir. We have to speak with you.”

Mayeaux peered beyond the man in the peephole. The beach had been cordoned.
The place was surrounded by plain-clothes officers
.

“Yes?”
Oh, shit.
Mayeaux’s mind whirled. For the first time in years, he found it difficult to keep his political mask in place.

“It’s urgent, sir.”

As Mayeaux unbolted the door, the Secret Service man pushed his way in. The other, as big as a professional linebacker, motioned to the rest of the team. Mayeaux smelled the wash of cool, damp air from the ocean.

The first Secret Service officer seemed relieved to see him. “Mr. Speaker, thank God we found you.” But he didn’t look Mayeaux in the eye as he spoke—instead, his eyes darted around the apartment, checking, verifying. He wasn’t sweating, or ruffled in the least from all his pounding on the door.

Mayeaux sputtered. “What are you talking about?”

Another agent pushed into the townhouse. He spoke to the first man. “Satchmo’s secure?”

“Right,” said the first agent, who relayed the information through a walkie-talkie.

Mayeaux drew his bathrobe around him, and suddenly froze.
Satchmo?
The Secret Service used code names for the president, the vice president, and their immediate families . .
. .

He’d had enough of this crap. “All right, what’s going on? Did Holback send you here to harass me?”

The first agent stopped, his face suddenly screwed into a hard look. His blue eyes continued to flick back and forth. “No, sir. We have to inform you that Vice President Harald Wolani was killed last night in an elevator accident in the Sears Tower in Chicago. The plague has spread there, sir, somewhat more extensively than expected.”

“Wolani’s dead?” Mayeaux stepped back, bumping into the pale blue sofa. He automatically started to sit down, but he locked his knees and stood up again.

Mayeaux wanted a Bloody Mary—hell, make it a George Dickel, neat
!—
but he couldn’t get up the nerve to walk to the wet bar.

“We have also lost contact with the president, sir,” the first agent said. “There’s a great deal of turmoil in Qatar, and the last communication we had from the ambassador was that the Qatar government is refusing to guarantee the president’s safety. We have been unable to reestablish communication.”

“Jeffrey, what’s going on? Should I come down?” A sleepy voice drifted from the bedroom upstairs.

“No!” Mayeaux shouted. He didn’t have the slightest idea what the bitch’s name was.

An agent ran up the stairs. “I’ll check it out.”

“You know what this means, sir—” the first agent continued, finally halting his roving gaze and meeting Mayeaux’s eyes.

“Of course I know!” he said. Then he finally allowed himself to slump onto the sofa. “I’m acting as president until you can reestablish contact with Holback.”

“
If
we can reestablish contact, sir. President Holback is a prime target for retribution.”

“You damn well better reestablich contact!” Mayeaux climbed to his feet again, feeling his legs shake. “Get me some coffee.” Turning his back on the Secret Service agent, he walked slowly and carefully toward the kitchenette.

The agent continued, as if he had been wound up and needed to finish his routine. “The beach area is secure, sir. We need to get you back to DC. To swear you in.”

Mayeaux drew a breath and felt his head hammer with panic. Everything was happening too fast. He had expected to retire after this term, and settle back in New Orleans. He had arranged everything for a quiet and lucrative lobbying career. Everything had been arranged. Mayeaux flopped out a hand to steady himself.

Strangers shoved into the apartment; loud voices and activity swirled around him. Everything seemed unreal. Outside, the Secret Service people checked the convoy.
An army gasoline truck pulled up, ready to follow the limousines.
It was only a three-hour drive back to the White House. Even if some of the vehicles broke down en route, at least one would make it all the way.

And Mayeaux would be sworn in.

He stood blinking in surprise.

He didn’t want to be president in the middle of what looked like the gravest crisis since World War II.
If not worse.

Chapter 38

The world around Albuquerque broke into smaller and smaller pieces, and General Bayclock knew survival might depend on the Air Force Base’s stockpile of emergency supplies. In the late afternoon, he stepped out of the dim Base HQ building and looked around at the streets of Kirtland, appalled at the rapid change.

The silence was deafening, where once the roar of airplanes landing and taking off from the flight line had soothed Bayclock all day long. No flights had come into the airport in two days, now that all air traffic had been frozen.

Relying only on scrambled, broken communications that did more to cause panic than convey information, Bayclock had placed Kirtland Air Force Base on DEFCON 3 status, pulling all essential personnel onto the base and increasing guards at each of the gates. Within hours of the first evidence of the plague’s effects, he had ordered the commissary and BX on strict rationing.

Now, the once-chaotic streets were empty of traffic. Under Bayclock’s orders, the base quickly adapted to the new routine. A few airmen and civilian workers walked down the sidewalk across the street, past a parking lot full of cars, vans, and government vehicles that would probably never start again. One rider puttered down the empty lanes on a moped that ran on alcohol. It wouldn’t be long before its plastic components gave out and caused the vehicle to break down like its gas-burning counterparts.

Having dismissed his aide, Bayclock set off on foot toward the
base exchange
to take care of his own needs. Food. Canned goods. Bottled water. His personal quota should be
there
waiting for him. He wondered if he needed to place an extra set of armed guards at the BX doors.

He trusted his people, and he knew they would follow orders. They’d had the chain-of-command drilled into them since Basic Training, but Bayclock felt uneasy about his tenuous grip on civilization. He felt out of touch, forced to make decisions with too little information. He was reluctant to risk overreacting in the face of the plague, but now it appeared that the germ was even more voracious than his worst fears. In mere days, Albuquerque had become a shambles.

Bayclock crossed the avenue in front of the HQ, habitually looking both ways before stepping into the crosswalk, then headed down the block. He saw no lights on in any of the barracks-style buildings, though some of the base personnel had opened windows to let the breeze in.