The Survivalist - 02 (6 page)

“Get ready,” he said. “You’re about to get wet.”

“What?” she cried, opening her eyes.

He dropped her.

Samantha instinctively tucked into a ball at the last second, hitting the water like she was doing a cannonball. She went under a couple of feet but quickly bobbed back to the surface. Mosquitoes by the thousands buzzed around her as punishment for disturbing their watery abode.

Tanner tossed his shotgun in ahead of him and then swung both feet over the side. He tipped forward as he fell, hitting the side of his face on a small rock cropping just before plunging into the water. When he came up, Samantha was wiping green slime from her face while waving off the cloud of mosquitoes.

“Gross,” she said.

Tanner bent at the knees and felt around for his shotgun. The water was too cloudy to see the bottom, and he quickly gave up his search. He grabbed Samantha by the back of her shirt and began dragging her toward the rear of the pool.

“Lie on your back and keep your arms underwater,” he said.

Before she could answer, a deafening boom sounded from the front of the store.

Samantha looked at him, fear in her eyes.

“Flashbang grenade,” he said. “They’re coming.”

“You’re bleeding,” she said, instinctively touching the side of her own face.

He brought his free hand up and it came away covered in bright red blood.

“I’m fine.”

He pulled her to the back of the pool where the rock wall hid a small alcove. Elevated a couple of feet above the water was a green metal service door. He reached up and pulled on a heavy metal ring. The door didn’t budge. With nowhere else to run, he pressed into the alcove and held Samantha tight against his chest.

“Keep the arm with the radio tracker under the water as deep as possible,” he whispered.

“Will it stop the signal?”

He didn’t answer.

“Will it?”

“I don’t know.”

CHAPTER

6

Vice President Pike wasn’t terribly surprised by the outcome of the president’s meeting. He had always known that President Glass would eventually try to reverse her decision regarding the Viral Defense Corps. It was the reason he had set them up in such a way that they couldn’t easily be disbanded. They were what he called “Currahee,” which, in Cherokee, meant self-contained. He had liked that word ever since he had heard it used to describe the 506th Infantry Regiment, famous for their exploits during World War II. The VDC was his army, out doing his bidding and, by God, no one was going to get in the way of that.

The telephone rang with an annoying buzz, and he snatched it up on the first ring, knowing full well who was on the other end.

“Tell me you have her.”

“Not yet, but we’re getting close.” The voice was that of General Hood, currently the head of Special Operations Warfare, and a staunch ally.

“General, I shouldn’t have to tell you how important this is.”

“I’m aware of the importance, sir.”

“What do you mean when you say you’re getting close?”

“We should have her in custody within minutes.”

“You’ve found her?”

“Yes. We’re currently in pursuit.”

“Don’t let her get away again.” The vice president could barely contain his frustration.

“I assure you that Agent Sparks is one of our best. There was no way he could have known that the girl would team up with someone so capable.”

“Even so, I don’t understand why it’s taken him so long to find her.”

“The range of the girl’s transponder signal is limited to a few hundred yards. Not to mention that we’ve had to keep our search activities from drawing attention. If it hadn’t been for the other military operations underway, it would have been even harder.”

“What other operations?” Vice President Pike didn’t like coincidences.

“A truck-load of FEMA supplies was taken from one of their distribution convoys. The Army has a few gunships in the area trying to pick up the payload signals.”

“RF signals?”

“Yes. Most large shipments have embedded trackers. Their operations made it very easy to blend in our own search activity.”

“Before long, we’ll be tagging every single soldier on the battlefield.”

“It’s been proposed.”

“Don’t let this supply recovery mission get in our way. Find the prize, and do it quickly.”

The general paused, obviously uncertain of what tone to take.

“It’s a shame we had to shoot down her helicopter in the first place,” he said slowly. “As you recall, that wasn’t the original plan. It was to be a simple extraction.”

“I’m aware of the plan, General. It was, after all, my plan.” Vice President Pike’s voice was rising. “If you recall, however, her bodyguard was supposed to do that snatch for us. How was I to know that he would suddenly grow a conscience? We had no choice but to take that bird down. If we hadn’t, we’d both be standing in front of a firing squad by now.”

“Yes, sir. Still, it’s unfortunate that she survived the crash. We’ve had nothing but bad luck since this operation began.”

“On the contrary, General. Her survival gives us a second chance to get the leverage we need. If we can get our hands on Samantha Glass, we can control the president.”

“And if we don’t?”

“If we don’t, then we’ll have to take more drastic measures.”

CHAPTER

7

It took an equally strange sight to clear the image of the suicidal man from Mason’s mind. As he turned onto the Dallas Cherryville Highway, he saw a white Brinks armored truck flipped on its side, about twenty feet below the overpass. The thick concrete barrier had crumbled where the truck had smashed through it before falling nose first onto the freeway below. A Hulk-green Camaro was parked beside the armored truck, its trunk propped open.

Mason stopped his truck and took a quick look down off the overpass ledge. No one moved below, but he heard the unmistakable echo of a man’s voice. He motioned for Bowie to stay put and keep an eye on the truck while he went down to take a better look.

Carefully hiking down the steep grassy embankment, he swung around to approach from the front of the Camaro. As he circled around the car, he saw that the trunk contained several canvas money satchels, all stuffed so full that tight bundles of hundred-dollar bills poked out of the top.

He continued around to the back of the armored truck where he heard the sound of a man’s voice. The tremendous impact from the fall had crumpled the rear doors, and one had subsequently been pried open wide enough for someone to crawl inside. A man knelt down at the back of the truck, talking to someone inside through the makeshift hole in the door. His face was covered with a thick salt-and-pepper beard that matched his receding hairline. He had a big tight belly poking out from under a white t-shirt, and the waist of his pants was so tight that it was lost between folds of skin. Massive arms showed off tattoos of a blacksmith’s hammer on one bicep and a matching anvil on the other.

 “Get that cooler-looking thing in the corner,” he said through the hole. “That’s it. Now, slide it out to me.” He reached in and pulled out a padded blue box about a foot square in size. “Jeezus, this one’s heavy,” he said, setting it beside a three-foot long metal pry bar lying on the ground.

As he turned around, Blacksmith spotted Mason standing about ten feet away. Startled, he jerked upright, smashing his shoulder into the corner of the armored truck’s bumper.

“Shit!” he spat, wincing from the pain.

Mason stood, quietly watching him.

“What are you looking at, numbnuts?” he said, rubbing his sore shoulder.

Mason grinned. “I don’t know. Part walrus, part gorilla?”

Blacksmith put his hands together and folded them back, cracking his knuckles like a Roman wrestler.

“Congratulations. You just earned yourself a first-class beating.”

Mason slid his coat open to reveal his badge. He left his hand resting on the butt of the Supergrade.

“Consider your next move carefully.”

“Ain’t no cop gonna shoot an unarmed man,” he said with a sneer. “And, by the time you feel my hands around your neck, it’ll be too late.”

Mason took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Blacksmith was only halfway right. It might indeed be too late if he let a man of his size get hands on him. But assuming that he was unwilling to shoot him was a grave miscalculation. At a full ten feet apart, the odds were not in the big man’s favor.

“How about we start again?” suggested Mason. “I’m Marshal Raines.”

Staring at Mason’s hand resting on his pistol, the man shrugged.

“This ain’t no business of yours, Marshal,” he said. “We got as much right to this money as anyone.”

“I couldn’t care less what you take from the truck. My guess is that for all your hard work, you’ll end up using the bills as toilet paper.”

Blacksmith looked down at the blue crate that he’d pulled out, imagining piles of bearer bonds or other precious currency.

“Money is money,” he said. But his tone was not at all convincing.

Mason shrugged. “If you say so.”

Blacksmith thought about it a little more, rubbing his thick beard.

“Shit,” he muttered. He leaned down and shouted through the hole in the armored truck. “Cletus, get out here. Ain’t a damn thing in there we need.”

A man’s feet, legs, and then body slowly slid out of the small gap. Cletus was a tall, thin man with greasy red hair and a face covered in a thick layer of acne.

When he saw Mason, he said, “Who’s he?”

“Some kind of a nosey cop.”

Cletus leaned forward trying to read Mason’s badge.

“It says that I’m a US Marshal.”

“What’s that mean to us?” Cletus asked his partner.

“Not a damn thing.”

Cletus turned back to face Mason.

“You gonna arrest us, Marshal?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Come on,” Blacksmith said, grabbing their crowbar. “He ain’t gonna do jack.”

They walked a wide circle around Mason, closed the trunk on the green Camaro, and climbed in. With Cletus behind the steering wheel, Blacksmith made it a point to flip Mason off as they drove away.

Mason shook his head. The quality of the planet’s survivors left something to be desired. Evolution had its work cut out for it.

As he turned to leave, he spotted the blue case that Blacksmith had pulled from the truck. Curious, he went over, unzipped the top, and opened it up. Inside was a large plastic box with a red lid, the words
United States Mint
clearly visible on top. White straps held the lid to the box.

Using his hunting knife, he cut the straps and carefully pried off the lid. Inside was a collection of small white tubes, each about three inches long and topped with plastic red lids. He lifted one out. It was heavier than it looked. When he popped off the lid and saw what was inside, a grin spread from ear to ear.

Inside were twenty American Eagle gold coins, each containing exactly one ounce of pure gold. He tipped the tube and dropped one of the coins onto his palm. It felt warm, the way that only gold feels when it touches human skin. He rubbed it between his fingers, like a prospector examining a riverbed find. He had never actually held a gold coin before, and it was a little intoxicating.

He dropped the coin into his front pocket and put the tube back in the plastic box. A quick count revealed that there were twenty-five identical white tubes. Assuming that each tube contained twenty American Eagles, it put the total at five hundred gold coins. While he was confident that five hundred ounces of gold would have constituted a king’s ransom before the pandemic, he wasn’t sure what, if any, value the coins held now. People couldn’t eat gold, and it wouldn’t keep them warm at night. On the other hand, gold had been valuable since mankind’s earliest civilizations. Even when food, water, and medicine were at the top of everyone’s lists of needs, he suspected that someone would be willing to trade for the shiny coins.

He reassembled the plastic box, zipped up the blue case, and hauled it up the hill to his truck. As he set the case on the front seat, the green Camaro came squealing down the highway. When it got to within about twenty yards, Cletus locked up the brakes and sent the car sliding to a stop.

Mason calmly closed the door and walked to the rear of his truck. Bowie moved to the back of the truck bed, propping its front feet on the edge of the tail gate. The dog’s tail was tucked, and his ears were folded back. He looked to Mason for some indication of whether or not the men posed a threat.

Cletus and Blacksmith both jumped out of the car. Blacksmith was carrying the large crowbar in both hands, and Cletus had nothing but an uncertain look on his face. They approached quickly, one breaking off to the right, the other to the left.

“You tricked us, you son of a bitch!” shouted Blacksmith, cocking the crowbar back like a baseball bat.

Two things happened at once. Bowie leaped off the bed of the truck, landing on Cletus and sending them both tumbling to the ground. At that same instant, Mason drew his Supergrade and shot Blacksmith in the thigh. The impact punched his leg backward, and he fell like he had slipped on a patch of ice.

“Shit! Shit!
SHIT!
” he shrieked, dropping the crowbar to clutch his leg.

Mason swung around to check on Bowie. The dog had pinned Cletus against one of the Camaro’s tires, its teeth sinking into the man’s forearm.

“Get him off me!”

Mason whistled, and the dog reluctantly withdrew. A large urine stain seeped across the man’s dirty trousers, and blood ran down his arm.

Using his pistol, Mason motioned for Cletus to move over near Blacksmith.

Nursing his injured arm, he scooted along the ground to sit beside his partner.

“I swear to God I’m gonna kill you!” Blacksmith shouted, trying to stop the flow of blood with his hands.

Mason turned to Bowie.

“Watch them.”

The dog started toward them, growling.

“Hey,” he said.

Bowie paused and looked back.