Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 (32 page)

Two security guards in Federal Security Services uniforms stood at ease by the door. They each wore a side arm, a collapsible baton, and a small bundle of zip ties on their belts. Extra magazines and other sundries were likely stored in their ballistics vests. They looked in the Commander's direction but seemed to discard him as a potential threat. He was wearing digitized camouflage BDU's with no visible weapon. They watched his two bodyguards pretty closely, though.

Commander Price let the handle of his Ka-bar fall into the palm of his right hand. He kept the blade up his sleeve and hidden for the moment. He'd spent years practicing the simple move to flip his arm out and his hand back to expose the blade, and he was confident in his muscle memory. One advantage of his advanced age was that it made people think of him as non-threatening, which allowed him to become a threat, ironically enough.

As soon as the Commander stepped through the doorway, he snapped his right arm out and flipped his hand back hard. The black-bladed Ka-bar came out of the sleeve of his blouse easily. He cocked his arm back and drove the blade as hard as he could into the throat of the man on his right; he left it sticking out where his throat joined his shoulders. The man gurgled once, his eyes wide in shock, and then he fell to his knees.

The Commander turned to the left guard, who was in the process of drawing his 9mm Beretta. Price caught the man's wrist with his now empty right hand, and drew a small, concealed cross-grip dagger from a sheath at his back with his left. He brought the triangular bladed dagger down and punched it deep into the man's right elbow joint. The man's hand went immediately limp, and the Beretta fell to the floor. Commander Price stepped behind the man as he stumbled forward, slipped his right arm under the man's chin with a tight grip, cut off his air.

Commander Price brought his right knee up as the man pulled at his elbow with one hand. With a sharp pull up and back, Commander Price kicked his knee forward hard. There was a sick crunching sound, and the Commander wrenched his body hard to the right once. A loud snap like a dead twig rang out, and the man went limp. The Commander dropped him and bent to pick up the Beretta that had fallen to the floor. He checked to make sure it was chambered, and the safety was off, then looked up at Administrator Jefferson's shocked face.

Commander Price's two bodyguards stepped inside and nodded to him, then took position on either side of the door. The Commander leveled his newly acquired pistol at Jefferson. "Get up," the Commander growled.

Jefferson started to argue, but the Commander took three quick strides forward and cut the difference between them in half. He cocked the Beretta menacingly. "I said get up."

Jefferson stood and was careful to keep his hands well clear of his jacket and belt. "I don't know what you think is going on here, Commander," Jefferies said slowly, "But you're going to pay for what you just did to those men."

"Save it," Commander Price grated, half out of breath. "I know you were in on it; you had to have been. You helped set off the attack, the blackout, everything."

Jefferson's eyes went wide, and he swallowed. "That's ridiculous," he sputtered, trying to sound outraged rather than afraid.

It hadn't been much of a hesitation, but it was enough. Commander Price had seen skilled liars taken off guard before, and he recognized it again. Jefferson had started to sweat.

"Like I said," Commander Price continued calmly. "Two questions. That’s all I have for you."

Jefferson's eyes narrowed. "Is this some kind of deal you're offering?"  he asked, finally. "I answer your two questions or you'll kill me?"

Commander Price shook his head slowly. "I'm gonna kill you whether you answer the questions or not."

The color completely drained from Jefferson's face. "Then why should I?"

Commander Price shrugged his shoulders. "You'll have to answer that one for yourself," he said. "Maybe you just want to keep breathing for a while longer, cause if you don't answer the first one, I ain't gonna bother with the second. Were you the one handing down the orders?"

Jefferson shook his head. "They offered me enough to buy my help. But I wasn't the one deciding what happened."

"Then who was in charge of it?"  Commander Price asked, “Who was the principle?"

Jefferson shook his head and snorted. "No way. Go ahead and shoot me. I've still got some family alive, but if I tell you that, they'll follow me into the dirt. Next."

Commander Price nodded and lowered the pistol just a touch. "I can respect that, I guess. What was your price? What did it take to sell out your countrymen and violate your oath?"

"Oregon, Washington, Idaho," Jefferson answered after a moment of hesitation, "Wyoming, Utah, and the Dakotas. That was going to be my district. That's why you were my problem. You were in my jurisdiction."

Commander Price frowned. "So the nation was going to be split up? Who was getting the rest of the districts?"

Jefferson grunted. "That's more than two questions."

The Commander shrugged, "If you'd rather I get on with it..." he said and raised the pistol again."

"No, no!"  Jefferson stammered. "Look, I don't know who was getting the other districts; they never told me. We would all meet in a room to discuss things, but never any names. We always had numbers, randomly assigned when we showed up. But I do know the Russians were involved. We were supposed to hook up with units of Russian Special Forces and regular military within the first few days after the blackout."

"What happened?" Commander Price asked.

"The Russians never showed," Jefferson answered, his shoulder sagging. "We figured it out pretty quickly that they never really meant to. That's when we decided to go forward with the plan without them."

"Who is 'we?'" Commander Price asked.

Jefferson's teeth clicked as he shut his mouth and shook his head. "Look, you can't just shoot me in cold blood. No one will believe you, they'll call it murder. You don't want to be labeled as a cold-blooded killer, do you?"

The Commander looked over his shoulder at the two bodyguards. The more senior of the two held up a small pen-sized recorder complete with a digital video camera and microphone. "I've got two living witness," Commander Price said, "And two separate recorded versions of your confession. I think that'll be more than enough."

Without another word Commander Price turned back to Jefferson, raised the Beretta, and shot him twice through the heart.

*

Pt.2

Ch.52

Turning Seasons

It was still dark enough for the shadows and the light to blend together in a kind of purple and gray haze. The sun would be up within the hour, but the cold clouds overhead were low and heavy. They sucked the light right out of the dawn and made it nearly impossible to see. Water dripped constantly from the trees around Eric, and he did his best not to move so he wouldn't shake any off the tree stand he sat in.

After three straight days of cold and misty weather, everything in the forest was soaked and dripping. The added moisture also made the normally noisy bed of dried hardwood leaves, pine needles, and brittle twigs a soggy, nearly silent mass of decay. Deer could be walking through the woods all around him right now, and he probably wouldn't have heard enough to recognize it.

Eric tried his best not to doze off. He was tired and warm within the multiple layers of hunting clothes he wore. The tree stand wasn't exactly comfortable, but the gentle rocking of the large pine in the steady breeze was nearly hypnotic. Slowly, the woods grew lighter around him, though, and that helped to heighten his awareness and his alertness.

A shadow on the first low, thick branch that jutted out from the tree just a foot above Eric's head and slightly to his right moved suddenly. A broad, flat head spun slowly around to regard him with two enormous eyes that shone a faint greenish gold as they collected and focused even the dim predawn twilight. The owl let out a shriek that sounded both terrifying and more than slightly annoyed. Then it turned and dove from the limb, spreading great feathered wings as it dropped. The bird was massive, and the tree actually shook when it sprang, but Eric never heard a whisper as it flapped away.

With the owl gone, whatever sense of collective consciousness that had kept the tiny furry and feathered woodland creatures hiding was suddenly awakened. Small birds began flitting among the trees and underbrush, whistling and singing to each other. Squirrels chattered as they jumped from limb to limb in the upper layers of the hardwood and pine canopy. An occasional pine cone or acorn fell to pounce with a muffled impact in the leaf litter below. A squirrel misjudged an old and rotten limb on the pine tree next to Eric's. The limb snapped and fell with the squirrel clinging to it, but thankfully its quick reflexes kicked in and it jumped mid-fall to the next tree over and then chattered angrily as if to blame Eric.

The random noises of the woods blended together into a monotonous hum in Eric's ears as he fought to stay awake. He was exhausted, and this was the longest he'd sat still and awake in days. He could feel himself slipping slowly into the warm, dark edges of sleep when he barely noticed a faint crunching sound that stood out as different from everything else. Suddenly, Eric froze, every nerve in his body coming awake and alive with a rush of adrenaline. He kept his eyes closed and focused instead on his ears, straining to hear every faint noise he could.

Again, the rustling sound of leaves and twigs being disturbed came, and this time a small flock of sparrows heard the noise and took flight from it. More crunching sounds, though dimmer, moved across the forest floor, getting closer. Slowly, Eric opened his eyes and blinked. It was much lighter than when he'd closed them, and he guessed at least an hour had gone by in what seemed like only a few moments. He slowly and carefully raised his head an inch at the time and listened.

He could hear the noise clearly now, and he recognized it. Deer were moving, and they were close. It sounded like at least three were coming from behind him and to his left, making their way down from the plateau of the upper fields and toward the river bottom and the swamp on the other side. Just as his dad and granddaddy had taught him when he was five and still hunting on the ground,  he held
perfectly motionless as the deer walked behind the very tree he was sitting in and continued down the hillside to his right. He counted three adult does and one that looked maybe a year or two old.

The deer followed one another down the well-worn game trail, pausing every few feet to chew on some small scrub bush or a bit of a low-hanging tree. They pawed at the leaf litter as well, though what they were looking for, Eric couldn't tell. As the four females moved on down the path, Eric heard much heavier steps behind him, and he did his best not to breathe and at the same time not to move a muscle. His pulse pounded in his ears, and it took all of his concentration not to pant with excitement. Eric knew the deer behind him had to be the dominant male; the alpha buck in the area was following his harem of females.

He also knew that if he moved even an inch, the deer would see him and bolt. Even though Eric couldn't see the buck, he could hear it sniffing the air and pawing the forest floor behind him. He probably smelled something that didn't quite belong, and that was enough to put the wily old buck on edge. Deer didn't make it to an impressive size and territorial dominance without being at least as smart as the men who hunted them.

After a few agonizing moments, the buck decided not to risk following the does. There would be time enough for socializing later. Instead, Eric heard his heavy steps as he made his way back up to the top of the ridge. Still, Eric waited, and before long he heard a loud crash to his right and caught the brief sight of a white tail raised as the buck bounded through the underbrush a hundred and fifty yards down the trail. Eric breathed a disappointed sigh and started to stand.

Just then, another sound caught his attention, and Eric risked turning his head slowly to check to his left. Another buck, a decent sized six pointer, walked along the same path the does had taken. Unlike the older buck, this male wasn't interested in eating, though his head dipped from time to time to smell the urine trail the females had laid down. It was the rut, and most of the bucks in the woods were being driven by the irresistible urge to mate.

Where the does had continued on down the trail behind Eric's tree stand, this young buck broke off from the trail a little earlier. He had spotted a small cedar tree a few yards from the trail and decided it was the perfect tree for scraping his antlers. While the deer assaulted the cedar tree, Eric stood in his tree stand and drew his bow carefully and quietly. The draw was set at a strong sixty five pounds, but the angled cams at each end of the limbs of the bow gave Eric a ninety percent drop off so that he was only holding about six pounds of pressure.

He sighted through the peep and post apparatus attached to the compound bow and picked the appropriate pin to focus on. This was about a thirty yard shot, so Eric chose the neon green point and waited for the buck to clear the brush and offer him a full profile view. The six pointer took three steps forward, and Eric loosed the arrow.

There was a muffled thump as the bowstring snapped forward; the deer jumped a good three feet into the air, its hind legs kicking out behind it. When it hit the ground, it stumbled once and then took great bounding leaps through the woods toward the river. Eric's eyes followed the wounded buck until that final leap when it stumbled again and fell on its side.

Before Eric climbed out of the tree stand, he pulled an old dented silver pocket watch from his hunting jacket. There were two buttons at the top next to the dial, and he pushed the one on the right. Eric then turned the dial and set the timer for twenty minutes. He let go of the right button and watched as the tiny second hand on the inset began turning.