The Survivalist - 02 (31 page)

He tossed the panel away like it had just bitten his hand.

“Get to the truck!” he shouted.
“Go!”

The dog was confused by the sudden outburst and stood motionless, staring at his master. Without waiting for him, Mason turned and ran for the truck. Bowie gave a short
woof
and raced after him.

They scrambled into the truck, and Mason threw it in reverse, fishtailing to the side before righting himself on the small road. He punched the gas and raced back down FLETC Avenue, speeding as fast as he dared. He flew past the main gate and out onto Chapel Crossing Road. Unable to free himself of the panic, he frantically dodged abandoned cars and roadway debris for five long miles before finally coming to a stop on a small overpass.

He shut the truck off and took a deep cleansing breath like that a yogi might take to enter a higher state of awareness. His palms were still damp, but his heart was beginning to find its normal slow rhythm.

Mason had spent six long years in the Army. For the bulk of that time, he had been part of an elite group within the 75th Ranger Regiment. He had done tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and, during those deployments, he had heard the word
Weteye
only once. It was during the pre-briefing for an early morning raid that the rangers were to conduct on a weapons supply depot. The Iraqis had reportedly acquired a US-made Mk-116 bomb, which dated all the way back to the 1960s.
Weteye
was the fitting nickname for the Mk-116. What made the Mk-116 terrifying was not the fact that it carried up to 500 pounds of payload, but that its thin aluminum body, weighted nose, and internal baffles were designed for one purpose; to deliver chemical weapons.

The
Weteye
bomb was specifically configured to carry sarin, a nerve gas five hundred times more deadly than cyanide. Sarin had stepped on the world stage in 1995, when the Japanese religious cult, Aum Shinrikyo, used it to poison more than five thousand people in the subways of Tokyo. It popped its ugly head up again in 2013 when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed more than fourteen hundred civilians with the deadly gas.

Sarin was colorless and odorless, making it impossible for those being affected to detect. Early symptoms included a runny nose, tightness in the chest, and constriction of the pupils. Within minutes, it caused nausea, drooling, and difficulty breathing. Eventually, victims lost control of their bodily functions and motor control, twitching and jerking until they died by asphyxia. Death by nerve agent was not on anyone’s list of preferred ways to go.

For a reason Mason couldn’t fathom, someone had bombed Glynco with sarin gas. He could think of only three possible scenarios that might have led to such a horrific event. The first was some kind of accident. Perhaps a plane loaded with the bombs had been attempting to land at the Brunswick Airport as part of a weapons relocation action. That same plane could have experienced problems and inadvertently dropped its payload.

The second possibility was that terrorists, whether religious zealots, separatists, or anarchists, had used a small aircraft, either fixed or rotary wing, to drop the bombs. Mason had no idea how hard it would be for a group to get their hands on the weapon itself, but flying over the training center wouldn’t have been terribly difficult, given the complete shutdown of the air transportation system.

The final possibility was the most terrifying. It suggested that the US government had intentionally used the vilest of its military assets to attack one of the nation’s most renowned law enforcement facilities. That option made even less sense than the other two. Mason could think of no sequence of events that would pit the officers at Glynco against their own country’s military.

Of the three, a terrorist attack seemed the most likely. The big question was why. In a time when people were literally digging through dumpsters for food, why would anyone go to the trouble to attack the infrastructure of an already defeated nation? Their motivations couldn’t be to frighten the masses. There simply weren’t any masses left alive. So, what could they be after?

He opened the door to his truck and stepped out, staring off at the western sky. Bowie moved up behind him, standing in the cab and resting his chin on Mason’s shoulder. The sun was beginning to set, and the last rays of sunlight cast a beautiful pink glow across the Georgian sky. Mason took a deep breath and let it out slow and easy.

“What are we going to do now?”

Bowie licked his lips like he was expecting a treat.

“They’re all dead.”

As he put words to his despair, Mason suddenly felt like a boat adrift at sea. The Marshals had provided him with the first real sense of community since his time in the Rangers. They were more than coworkers; they were part of his identity. His existence as a lawman was now in question. Was the Marshal Service even still viable? Was he the last of their kind? Did his badge even mean anything anymore?

He reached over and laid a hand on the side of Bowie’s enormous head. The dog pressed its wet nose up against Mason’s cheek. He couldn’t help but feel steadied by Bowie’s unconditional affection.

“We can’t let this stand,” he said softly. “I don’t know how we’re going to find them, but I won’t rest until I figure out who did this. I’m going to find them, and, by God, I’m going to kill them.”

Mason leaned back against the truck, folding his arms across his chest. He felt the press of the harmonica in his jacket pocket. With all the running and fighting over the past two days, he was surprised that it had managed to stay with him. He slipped the instrument from his pocket and studied it. It was a beautiful silver Hohner, and he imagined Ernest T.’s family sitting around on rocking chairs, listening to him play late into the night.

And, while Mason certainly didn’t consider himself an expert, he had learned to play well enough to carry a tune. The harmonica was one of the few musical instruments both small enough and rugged enough to be carried into the field.

Bowie leaned over and gave it a sniff. Apparently satisfied that it smelled like a harmonica should, he laid his head back down on Mason’s shoulder.

Mason blew a single note, and Bowie’s ears perked up in surprise.

“Do you want me to play something?”

Bowie stared at him with excitement in his eyes.

Mason thought for a moment.

“I’ve got one that seems to fit.”

He brought it to his lips and played the beginning of Neil Young’s
Long May You Run
. The song’s melody had a cool western sound, like something a cowboy might play when out on the open trail. He heard Young’s nasal-inflected voice in his head.

We've been through some things together

With trunks of memories still to come

We found things to do in stormy weather

Long may you run

Mason pulled the harmonica away from his mouth, closed his eyes, and let the last rays of sunlight wash over him. The hint of a smile touched his lips as he thought of his mother and father, of his girlfriend Ava, and of the yet indistinguishable faces of evil men whose appointment with justice was not far off.

Look for the next book in the Survivalist series,
Judgment Day
, due in early 2014.
Also, if you enjoyed this book, drop the author a note at:
[email protected]
.