Impact (Book 5): Black Read online

  It passed in seconds, going over the fields to the south.

  “Well, I guess it was nothing—” she started to say.

  The helicopter banked to the left.

  “Or, maybe it was…” she finished.

  “It’s definitely coming back,” Asher said, sounding worried.

  More of the workers came inside the building, obviously concerned about the aircraft making unusual maneuvers over their heads. Most stood by the entrance, as she and Asher were doing.

  “Ash,” she whispered, “we have to warn the others. I’m sure they’re here for us.”

  He glanced between her and the truck. “You want to run out there?” He sounded uncertain.

  She shrugged, feeling her stomach clench up. “What else can we do?”

  The helicopter flew in a wide banking arc, now lining up with the tracks coming in from the east. She pointed back to the flatcar with her truck. “If we keep close to the coal cars, it should shield us from the air.”

  There was no time to debate the finer points of the plan. She shot a glance to Robert. “We’ll be right back.”

  She and Asher sprinted across a short patch of open ground, then ran next to the blackened coal hoppers. The helicopter had come around a bit wide, which put it on the opposite side of the rolling stock.

  “They’re getting out of the truck!” she yelled to Ash, who was a handful of steps behind her.

  Ahead, the three passengers were out of the Suburban. They’d exited on the driver’s side of the truck, which was on the opposite side of the flatcar relative to her and Asher, but hadn’t gotten down.

  “Guys!” she called out.

  The helicopter glided in a hundred yards behind their tiny train. The rear cargo door had been opened; a woman sat back there, dressed entirely in dark clothing. Her long black hair blew wildly in the rotor wash, though it didn’t seem to bother her. She held a long rifle in her hands. Grace got a look at the huge scope when the woman dipped her eye to it.

  “Get down!”

  The tear of metal close by was followed an instant later by a crack of thunder from the woman’s gun. The bullet had come down and struck the metal ladder at the back of the boxcar, not far from her friends.

  Logan and his dad tumbled off the flatcar. Shawn’s leg collapsed under him, though Logan quickly pulled him under the car itself. Diedre remained where she was. As a second and third shot rang out, she threw herself under the truck.

  Asher fumbled with his rifle, intent on returning fire, but Grace didn’t want him to tangle with a hovering shooter with a big gun. She grabbed his shirt and yanked him backward, and down. “Get behind a coal car! We need a plan.”

  Several more shots clapped out, some striking very close. Plinks of metal and the crunch of wood indicated the woman had aimed at her and Asher in addition to the three people huddled by the wooden freight car.

  The helicopter hovered sideways, then canted a bit forward, as it apparently searched for better shots on her and her friends. All at once, it leaned sideways and banked away from them.

  “What’s she doing?” Asher asked.

  The rotary aircraft made a wide loop out to the last of the coal cars, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. When it shifted position, lurking closer, Grace noticed a pickup truck parked in that direction, as if it were watching the attack take place.

  “Get out of there!” she shouted to the others. Logan and Shawn had been ready. They came out from under the flatcar. Shawn strained to take weight off his injured leg, but he waddled fast enough.

  Diedre was slower getting off the flatbed.

  Grace saw an opportunity. “We’ll get them over to this side. We’ll get lost in the rows of coal hoppers.”

  Asher frantically searched the skies for where the helicopter had gone. She checked it out, too, wondering if the pilot was sneaking up on them from another direction. It didn’t matter, however. The lines of steel hoppers would shield them from multiple directions.

  “Guys, run to the coal cars!” she yelled.

  Her three friends had left the safety found under the flatcar and were crawling under the joint between the flatcars and boxcars when the helicopter reappeared. It came in from the direction of the lines of coal cars, but it ended up roughly in the same place it had been before. The woman was still in the back, but she now sat in front of a huge machine gun positioned at the edge of the door.

  “Get down!” Grace screamed.

  Columbia, MO

  Once they were on the water, Ezra became fascinated by the lengths Haley went to get her cat out of its cage. She found a five-foot length of paracord, tied it onto her little collar, and let the kitty roam free. However, the cat didn’t seem to savor its freedom; it fell over and wouldn’t move. When she saw Ezra watching the proceedings, she spoke over the engine’s growl. “She’ll get used to it. I’m sure she won’t jump in the water willingly, but Butch mentioned we might hit something in the river that could stop us. I don’t want Victoria to lose her footing and fall in. That would be a bad day for all of us, I assure you.”

  He laughed, knowing cats weren’t fond of the water. “It’s all fine by me. It looks like you’ve figured out a nice system for her. But what about your other pal?” He glanced down at Liam, who remained on his lap. He’d expected the chubby little dog to get off right away, but he’d stayed put for the past hour, which suggested the loud motor scared him.

  “Good point,” she replied, pulling out his leash. Liam was accepting of being put on a rope. He licked her hands as she fidgeted with his collar but didn’t hop down or move a paw to surrender his spot at the steering wheel.

  Ezra was happy to have the company, so he made sure the pup was comfy.

  Soon after his chat with Haley, Butch pointed ahead. “Veer left!”

  “Whoa!” he said, making the turn.

  A giant white rectangle floated by. “It’s a fiberglass swimming pool.” Ezra was impressed watching it go by. Where had it come from?

  “Can we stop for a swim?” Butch joked. A little water sloshed inside, as if it had been filled with splashing overflow from the river. If there’d been time, he could have docked with the pool and taken a dip. As it was…

  “Crap,” he exclaimed. The pool was the leading piece of a flotilla of debris floating in the water. “We’ve got to pull over.”

  He regretted saying the puggle was going to bring them luck. Still, he rubbed the dog behind the ears as he avoided the oncoming mess.

  From the safety of the riverbank, they watched as a thick patch of trash and household goods floated by. It was almost as bad as the mashup of junk that made them take shelter in St. Charles. For a long time, they watched with interest as numerous floating objects went by. The backs of tanker trucks. Flipped speed boats. Runaway cargo barges. A stray grain silo.

  “This must be from another town, farther up the river from Kansas City. It took longer to get here.” Ezra imagined he was watching the lifeblood of a city float by.

  “How long do you think this will take?” Haley asked, holding Victoria to her chest.

  “It could be hours. When we saw the remains of Kansas City float by, it took most of a day to clear out.”

  “It’s why we ran into you,” Butch said proudly.

  She smiled. “I can be patient.”

  It took until lunch time before the river cleared up enough he thought it was safe to drive into the muddy current again. He even waited another half hour to be absolutely sure. If they blew a propeller, there was nowhere close to get a replacement.

  “And away we go!” he said dramatically as he got the boat moving again.

  They’d cruised about five minutes before a bridge appeared ahead of them.

  “Let’s see where we are.” Ezra had borrowed a Missouri map during their visit to Bass Pro, which he’d studied many times since leaving St. Charles. He pointed to the upcoming bridge featuring gray metal trusswork above a small portion of the span closest to the eastern shore. “That�
�s the crossing for Interstate 70. We’re beyond Columbia, now. The next bridge is at Boonville, which isn’t far.”

  She looked over her shoulder to him. “You’re measuring our progress using bridges?”

  He smiled, face buffeted by the wind flow. “They’re the only markers I can make sense of. There are so many trees along the banks, sometimes I don’t even know when we pass these little towns. The bridges, we can’t miss. I know we have five of them before we get to the outskirts of Kansas City.”

  “Will we get there today?” she asked.

  “Yep. As long as we can get gas, it’s only about a hundred and fifty miles from this bridge coming up. We could knock it out in four or five hours, under ideal conditions.” The speedometer hovered around thirty miles an hour; it wasn’t as fast as the pontoon boat would go, but it was a safe cruising speed for fuel economy. He had his map, and knew there were towns ahead, but finding gas was never a given. Better to temper the speed and keep extra in the tank.

  She patted Liam on the head and spoke in her silly doggy voice. “Who’s a happy puppy? Are you driving the ship, you little puffball?”

  Liam tried to lick her on the chin.

  “All right, let’s not interrupt the driver,” she laughed, going back to her seat.

  Cars and trucks zoomed across the span as they got closer, but he also took note of a few vehicles stopped almost above the middle of the river. There was a huge concrete pylon directly beneath them, so he needed to veer to the right to avoid the middle section.

  He watched Haley find a seat near Butch on his left. She barely noticed Victoria had stretched her cord and gone under his legs, tucking herself into the less windy nook created by the steering wheel and dashboard.

  I didn’t know I was going to be the one taking care of the pets.

  Ezra found it humorous. How many times had Grace come home with guinea pigs, hamsters, or other rodents, swearing this would be the time she finally learned to take care of them herself? And each time, it was dear old dad cleaning cages or filling food bowls. It was—

  Movement up on the bridge caught his eye. Men ran alongside the parked cars. Men who seemed interested in looking over the side. He held the throttle tight, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “Are those trucks up there? Blue trucks?” He’d spoken loud enough for Butch to hear him. The young man looked back to Ezra, then up to the bridge. They were approaching at an angle, and were only a couple hundred yards away, so it was getting difficult to see the trucks on the deck. However, the men scurrying at the edge were easier to identify.

  So were their rifles.

  He hit the throttle and banked to the right, shoving Liam between his legs.

  “We’re in trouble,” he confirmed.

  Denver, CO

  It was a new day in Denver, but Petteri’s grip on things was slipping. The rock was secure; his ragtag crew of security personnel had managed to push back the other miners and their own shooters. However, having control of the giant chunk of 586001 Tuonela didn’t mean much if his dump trucks couldn’t get the ore out of the city. They were surrounded by clogged streets and hostile locals. The situation was made worse by the big hole in his organization.

  “Tell me again what happened yesterday.” He’d called Dorothy to his office to refresh his memory on how he lost his executive officer.

  Dorothy had been there when Asher and his terrorist buddies got the jump on him and his security backup. He was pleased she’d survived, though if he were honest with himself, it would have been better if Howard had come through instead. Looking over to the young woman, her black hair was disheveled, and a dark bruise lurked along the hairline above her left ear.

  “Well, sir, we all stood in the lobby with you when someone from out on the street started shooting at us.”

  “Did you see who it was?” he interrupted. For his part, he’d been pulled to the ground by his security man the second the first shot went off, though he got up and ran immediately after hitting the floor. It was part of his survival instinct. He justified not waiting for the other guy by reminding himself how important he was to the operation. There was a reason the company was named after him.

  “Yes,” she nodded, “it was a teen boy. I think he was with the other Native American man. The chief guy.”

  “A teen boy?” he said with distaste. “He’s the one who killed Howard?”

  Dorothy thought about it for a short time. Long enough he almost prodded her to answer.

  “After you left, the guards went down. Howard, survived, I think, but Asher and the park lady grabbed guns and fired at us. I curled into a little ball on the ground, but Howard fought back. I…uh, can’t say for sure who killed him. When all the gunfire was over, they kicked me in the head”—she pointed to the bruise on her temple—“and told me to get lost.”

  Her eyes glistened as if on the verge of tears. Seeing it surprised him; she’d been solid as a rock since he’d met her. However, she was young, and a woman who’d suffered through a traumatic event. It was to be expected.

  “You’ll be happy to know I have a pair of experts tracking them down now. Nerio Torres and her husband are two of the best people on my payroll when it comes to…cleanup.”

  She sat up. “I don’t care how they do it. Those people need to pay for what they did to us. But, wait, who’s in charge of your security after…”

  “After Howard?”

  She bowed her head.

  Petteri pressed a button on his desk phone. “Miss, please send in Mr. Aarons.” He hung up with his administrative assistant. Since he was on the road, he traveled with a lighter staff. Back at headquarters, he would have taken the time to get to know the ladies answering his phones, but on the job site none of his usual song and dance was necessary. He didn’t care what his people thought of him, as long as they did what he asked.

  A young man walked through the door of the conference room. His face was bracketed by a dark, full beard, which Petteri instantly hated. However, the guy had worked under Howard for five or six years. The major had often said Craig Aarons was the one guy he trusted if he ever retired from TKM. The man stood at attention, as if Petteri were a general in the army. An act which almost negated Petteri’s distaste of the man’s facial hair.

  “Mr. Aarons, thank you for coming on such short notice. I know you’ve been down on the streets with the others, but I had to call you upstairs last night for a reason I’m sure you already know. Howard was killed by terrorist elements.”

  Aarons nodded grimly. He was dressed to kill: black combat boots, black tactical pants, and a blue TKM security shirt. His belt was bulging with ammo clips and whatever else you called the equipment soldiers wore on the battlefield. However, he didn’t see any weapons.

  “Where’s your gun?” he asked.

  Craig looked directly into his eyes. “Sir, I didn’t want to scare anyone in your office by carrying my weapons. I’ve left them with my team captain on the next floor down.”

  He was taken aback. “Scare us? Your job is to protect us. How are you going to do that without your gun? I want you to go right back down there, arm up, and then come back. Don’t ever be in my presence without at least two guns. Do you understand?” His anger rose with each word, but he caught himself before launching into a tirade. Howard had known exactly what Petteri wanted since they’d worked together for so long. It would take time for Aarons to get with the program. He tried to soften his next words. “I want you armed, soldier, in case our prisoner frees himself and comes after me. You wouldn’t want that on your record, would you?”

  Aarons had turned to go out the door, but he stopped to look back. “Sir? We don’t have any prisoners. Well, I mean, we did have one, but he got out last night. Didn’t Nerio tell you?”

  Petteri’s blood froze in his veins. “Tell me what? Who’s escaped?” There was only one person who was being held captive. One person who he’d come within a second of killing but was prevented from doing so by Nerio. One pers
on who was taken into custody and secured inside a locked room by that same woman.

  “Miss Torres caught me after she came back from the parents’ house of one of the terrorists who killed Howard. She said they had no luck there, but also explained Misha Gagarin had somehow escaped from this building. She told me the two of you arranged for her to go after him, and I wouldn’t need to report it to you. I’m sorry if I was supposed to—”

  “Dammit!” he slammed his fists on his desk. “Go get your weapon, ten men, and guard every inch of this floor. From this minute forward, you write down every person who even glances in your direction and give me updates about it every half hour. Go!”

  He slumped in his chair. Dorothy’s eyes were fearful, so he went ahead and tossed her some comforting words. “Don’t worry. Howard trusted this man completely. He’ll be fine. I’m more worried about Nerio. She’s like a feral cat when on the hunt. She likes to play with her food…”

  CHAPTER 3

  Sidney, NE

  Grace and Asher dove in between two of the parked coal hoppers, barely missing the connector linking them together. At the same time, a brrrrrt sound belted out from above. The metal cars replied with a hundred zings as the bullets from the machine gun rained down on them.

  “Holy crap!” she cried out, blood surging through her temples. She hugged the back end of the metal coal car, hoping it was thick enough to shield her.

  The next volley went into the wooden flatcar and her truck.

  “Oh no!” she shouted. Her worry was for Diedre, not her truck. She’d been slowest to climb down and had been behind Logan and his dad while they struggled to get underneath the hookup. Was she still over there?

  She couldn’t look away. The helicopter hovered sideways, coming closer to being directly above them. The woman aimed her spinning machine gun at the train engine below her, perhaps thinking someone had gone under it. The brrrrt of belched-out rounds tore into the side of the big orange diesel. Scanning the flatbed, and the crawlspace under the boxcar, Grace could see that none of her friends were visible.