The War of Pawns (The Human Chronicles -- Book Three) (22 page)

“Then you don’t give up either, my brother. We can never know what fate has in store for us.”

Just then, Adam heard a dull distant sound, like the steady roar of an approaching freight train. Adam and Riyad looked at each other with widening eyes, and then Riyad dove for the floor and pulled the cot over on top of him. Adam ran to the wall between his and Sherri’s room and hammered loudly with his fist.

“I know, I heard it!” Sherri responded immediately. And then Adam, too, dove for the floor, pulling the mattress over his body.

Seconds later, they heard the sonic boom, as the roiling mass of white-hot energy descended through the atmosphere. From launch to landing, the bolt took eight minutes to strike the Earth, and when it did, it splashed like liquid fire and spread out in a wave of incinerating death and destruction.

The first bolt struck on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, in Hampton, Virginia, somewhere on the Langley Air Force Base. The second and third landed at Norfolk, at the Naval Operations Base, or NOB. The fourth struck on the other side of the ship basin at Little Creek from the building where Adam and the rest of them were held. The fire smashed into several buildings and then flowed outward, striking the various ships docked in the basin. The white fire blew apart wood and brick buildings, while melting much of the superstructure of the ships in port. Then the wave of fire continued over the water toward Adam’s building.

What happened next was a sheer stroke of fortune, and it saved most of the lives of those in the building. As the fire sweep over the water, a thick layer of superheated steam was created on the surface. The layer of steam had the affect of lifting the most destructive force of the bolt about 20 meters or so above the water. As the wave reached the opposite side of the basin and crossed over onto land, the force of the bolt ripped off the roof of the warehouse, while the wall of steam slammed into the front of the building. The bulk of the building collapsed, but it didn’t burst into flames.

Five seconds later, the bolt had continued to spread outward and soon dissipated, leaving in its wake an inferno of crushed and flaming buildings.

Most of the structures on the east side of the basin had been flattened by the steam wave, but few were on fire. Adam’s ears were ringing loudly, and he felt as if his skin was on fire. He fought for breath, but all the air he could inhale felt like breathing fire. He kicked at the mattress that covered him, and felt the weight of debris pressing down upon him. Soon the air began to cool, and he found he could breathe at last.

“Riyad! Are you still with us?”

There was a groan coming from somewhere near him. Then he heard falling debris, and a hand reached under the mattress and pulled. Riyad was on his knees, blood covering the left side of his face and flowing from his nose. He was covered in soot and dust, but he still managed a hearty smile that accentuated his brilliantly white teeth. “It will take more than a bolt of lightning from Heaven to kill me!” He began to pull more pieces of splintered wood from on top of Adam.

Soon the two of them stood in the middle of what had once been their prison cell. Now the room was open to the sky, and only about a third of the walls still stood. If the roof had not been stripped away by the fire blast, it would have surely crushed them to death.

“Damn, I can’t seem to ever get rid of the two of you,” a female voice called out from the dust and ruble. Sherri Valentine stepped over piles of broken building to reach Adam and Riyad. And then the three of them hugged each other until it hurt, which wasn’t much, since each of them shared their own assortment of cuts, burns and bruises.

“So I guess the negotiations didn’t go too well?” Sherri said, with no humor in her voice.

“The attacks will continue, at least until the Klin put a stop to them.”

“We hope – I mean about them stopping the attacks!” Riyad said.

“Let’s see if anyone else survived.” Sherri took off over the piles of ruble toward the front part of the building.

It was evident that those in the front of the building had suffered the worst of the blast. The large room where the barracks once stood was now nearly swept clean, and the three of them could see out across the basin to the inferno on the other side of the base. The bolt had hit about two kilometers away, and all the buildings on the west side of the base were gone. A number of the LST’s and other ships that had been in port were now swiftly sinking to the bottom of the shallow basin. Several small craft had been blown over to their side of the base, and now lay strewn about the wharf area, as well as on the street in front of the building.

Then they heard moaning. Quickly they ran to the massive pile of debris that had been blown up against the main interior wall of the warehouse, a wall that had essentially split the building in two. The pile began to move, as men began to regain consciousness and to dig themselves out from under the pile. Adam, Riyad and Sherri dove in, pulling on pieces of ruble and helping the injured and dazed men to their feet.

Some of the bodies they reached for did not move, having been crushed in the blast, but out of the 32 men in the warehouse, 15 now stood in the center of the room, groggy and bleeding, but otherwise alive.

The men began to tend to their injuries, helping each other as best they could. A water main had broken out on the street, and several of the men went out and came back with wet rags torn either from their own tattered clothing or from the remains of sheets and blankets from the cots. None of the survivors appeared to have serious injuries, and soon many of them had stepped out onto 5
^th
Street and stood staring across the basin at the raging fire and billowing columns of smoke. Further to the north they could see easily a dozen or more other towers of smoke rising from the other side of the river, and to the west, NOB appeared to be one massive column of black smoke rising into the afternoon sky.

Billy Piscopo was one of the survivors, and he walked up to Sherri and they embraced. Then he turned to Adam. “So the fucking Juireans must have been right behind us. What do we do now? I’m sure they’re not done with their attack.”

Adam and the rest of them had learned about the requirement to recharge the bolt batteries between salvos while onboard the Juirean battlecruiser. As they looked up into the smoke-filled sky, they knew this was only a reprieve. If the Klin did not act, there would soon come more fire raining from the sky.

“Hopefully they won’t waste their shots on targets they’ve already struck. But they may move to the civilian population centers around here next,” Adam said. “You’ll probably be safe sticking around here.”

Sherri noticed the tone in Adam’s voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to go check on something,” he said, as he spotted a gray Navy van near the rear of the building that had somehow survived the blast, having been protected by the building itself.

“You’re going to look for Maria, aren’t you?”

“I have to make sure they got out in time. That’s all that matters now.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Sherri said, much to Billy’s disappointment.

“Me too,” Riyad called out. “We’re a team now.”

Chapter Thirty-One

The van looked to still be operational, but there were no keys to be found. So Adam slid in under the dashboard and ripped back the panel. A small part of his SEAL training included how to hotwire a vehicle. You never knew when you might need to secure transportation out of a danger zone, and commandeering a civilian car was your only option. Soon he had the engine humming, and the three of them piled in, Sherri riding shotgun with Riyad in the middle row of seats behind Sherri.

Adam had no idea if the roads would be passable, but he had to make the effort. His house was only 7.2 miles from the base – he’d clocked it before – and far enough away from this particular bolt to have survived. He was just praying that the Juireans had not dropped bolts indiscriminately throughout the area. But he also had to hurry. The lull in the attack would only last about an hour, and then another barrage of bolts could begin dropping all around the area.

They left the base by way of Helicopter Road, and then headed left on Shore Drive. There were military personnel all around, but most of them were rushing to the other side of the base to assist with fire control. Shore Drive was surprisingly clear, especially for it being around 5:30 on a Wednesday afternoon.

Just down Shore, they turned right onto Independence Boulevard. Here there was more traffic, but mainly cars with people in them rushing to get off the main highway and to their homes. There were panicked looks on all their faces.

Smoke was drifting down now, obscuring parts of the road, and Adam was disappointed to see fires burning on both sides of the street. As they came up on Northhampton Boulevard, they could see a vast area to the east where bolts had dropped between them and Oceana Naval Air Station. The Juireans had dropped a lot more bolts in the area than Adam had first believed, and not only on military targets.

They passed I-264 and found that there were more cars around the intersection, even though apparently many people had simply abandoned their vehicles and set off on foot. All around them were clusters of people, all looking lost and confused. Most were staring at the rising columns of smoke all around, while many more were crying as they saw their homes and entire neighborhoods burst into flames.

Adam could hear the continuous wailing of sirens, and occasionally, a cluster of helicopters would pass over. Even a few F-16’s that had managed to get airborne before the airfields were struck would roar overhead, yet with no targets to strike.

Independence soon turned into Holland Road, and about a half a mile later, Adam turned south onto Rosemont. His house was located in a cul-de-sac just off of Ridgeview, and as he approached the area his heart began to race. Off to his right he could see billowing smoke and tall flames rhythmically dancing above burning structures. Before he reached Ridgeview, however, he saw to his right where the fence, that had once stood separating the end of his street from Rosemont, was now gone, as was most of his neighborhood.

Adam turned sharply right, jumping the curb and crossing the smoldering grass before hitting the pavement at the end of his street. Directly in front of him was what remained of his home. It had been a two story structure with eight large windows facing east. He had always enjoyed the morning light as it streamed through the bedroom window, never too hot at that time of day. But now his home was engulfed in flames.

From the direction of the debris field, the bolt had hit somewhere around Green Run High School. The blast had flowed out in all directions, and his street was right at the tail end of its range. But still the heat and concussion had nearly leveled his house and set the remains on fire.

The home had a one car garage, and he always kept his 2006 Mustang GT in it, so Maria’s minivan was always parked in the driveway when she was home. The minivan was not in the driveway.

Adam let out an audible sigh of relief and rested his head on the van’s steering wheel. At least Maria had escaped in time. He wondered how his other neighbors had fared…

He lifted his head and looked down the street. Nearly all the homes were engulfed in fire, and numerous cars and trucks had been blown into the structures on the east side of the street. Their babysitter, Ginny Forrester, had lived down the street, and her home was unrecognizable in all the charred and burning ruble. She was old and seldom left her home. She would have been there when the bolt struck.