He felt he was safe enough. She wouldn’t knife him in his sleep; she could have taken whatever she wanted from him by now if that was her plan. Time enough tomorrow to pull apart the intricate strands of her soul to see what lay behind the mask.

  Silence fell, and soon they were both asleep, locked in the concrete bunker.

  Carson dreamed of Dana Ryan.

  Chapter 12: Left Behind

  Dana sat stiffly on an upended garbage can in the yard of her home. The two armed men standing around her showed no signs of sympathy, and when she shifted her legs one of them jabbed her in the back with the barrel of his submachine gun.

  “I told you to stay still!”

  She watched as three other men roamed through Carson’s house, searching and smashing things. She prayed that they wouldn’t look under the bed, wouldn’t find the trapdoor that held her only hope of survival. She was grateful she had replaced the bed that afternoon before leaving the stockpile with her day’s haul of supplies. It was the only thing she had done right; she had foolishly dropped a packet of peanut butter on her lawn which had led the men into her home where they discovered her cowering in a corner.

  She had blasted wildly at them with her rifle, but none of her shots made contact and the men quickly disarmed her. They were obviously professionals, but they didn’t treat her professionally after her display of defiance. They threw her into the yard where they hit her and abused her until the leader, a tall graying man the others called Coulter, told them to hold off.

  These weren’t just looters. They had asked her about Carson by name. She wondered if he was in danger.

  Coulter came out of Carson’s house and walked toward her. He drew a small handgun from a shoulder holster inside his coat. “I’m going to ask one more time. Then I take out a kneecap.” He cocked the gun and pointed it at her leg. “Where did he go?”

  She began to cry. She couldn’t help it. “I swear to you, he didn’t tell me exactly where he was going. But he said he had to go as far as Colorado Springs, and he left that way,” she pointed to the south end of the cul-de-sac, which led out into the main street. “He had enough gear to go a long way, to travel for days. Just go look for him to the south and leave me alone. Please!”

  Coulter nodded. “Sure, sweetie. Sure. I’ll leave you alone if you tell me just a couple more things. Otherwise, I won’t leave you alone. Understand?” He tapped her knee with the gun. “Did he have a black box with him, like a computer storage device? Or a key, did he show you a special key?”

  Dana shook her head, struggling to control her sobs. “No, nothing like that. He had a gun, and lots of gear. But I never saw him with any electronics.”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” said the man with the submachine gun. Dana looked up at him gratefully; maybe he was on her side. “Let’s off her and get out of here before the noise attracts somebody.”

  Dana collapsed into hysterical sobbing again, and the tall leader, Coulter, turned away in disgust. “Yeah, she’s worthless. We’ve got nothing!” He called to the men in the house. “Rickley, Chavez! Let’s head out!”

  Dana took her last chance and lunged away from the men, tipping over the garbage can and running as fast as her legs could carry her across the lawn toward the corner of her house. She knew the men would probably be drawing a bead on her, and she tried to move erratically as she made for cover.

  A shouted curse and a single gunshot rang out behind her, but the bullet barely grazed her elbow. Two more wild, scrambling leaps and she had gotten around the corner. She ran to the fence that separated her side yard from the neighbor’s back yard and pulled herself over, adrenaline fueling her lean body’s desperate movements but failing to completely counteract the shakiness she felt. Once in the neighbor’s yard, she ran for her life, away through the neighborhood.

  Back in Hemingway Circle, the men congregated in the cul-de-sac. “Should I go after her?” the man with the submachine gun asked. “Give me five minutes, I’ll run her down.”

  “No.” Coulter stooped to tighten a shoe lace. “She means nothing, and shooting squatters isn’t going to get us closer to that data dump. We need to move on.”

  The gunman was disappointed. “Should we at least set fire to the house?”

  Coulter stood up and glared at him. “Really? You want more out-of-control fires? Is the stench in this city not bad enough for you yet?” He started walking away. “Come on. We have places to be, and this rogue agent’s black box is just one of many things on our to-do list. We’ll have to pick up his trail later.”

  They left the cul-de-sac and moved south through Denver. Where they went, citizens and animals alike moved out of the way. Those that didn’t met a swift and merciless fate.

  Several hours later, Dana crept back into the area. She was more desperate, alone, and afraid than she ever wanted to be again. But without her rifle she knew she couldn’t last long without getting at the supplies in Carson’s cellar.

  She watched and listened for an hour, but there was no sign of the men. Any predators attracted by the gunshot earlier had already come and gone, and all she saw was a gaunt teenaged boy wandering through on his way to somewhere else. Finally she sneaked into Carson’s home through the back window and quietly removed the furniture to expose the trapdoor in his bedroom.

  Inside, with the door shut overhead, she felt safer. But she knew she couldn’t stay here now. It made her shake with fear to think of venturing out into the wider city, but the small measure of security she had held on to at Hemingway Circle was now shattered beyond recovery. There was no lasting safety to be found at her home, or Carson’s.

  Carson! She had betrayed him. Because she had been unable to keep herself from telling the men everything they wanted to know, he was in greater danger than before. They knew he wasn’t far away, traveling on foot in the city, and he would soon have to deal with Coulter and the evil gunmen following him. He wouldn’t even know they were coming, unless Dana could warn him.

  She owed that much to him. Even if she was killed trying, she could at least try to find him, follow him and maybe outpace the men hunting him, or sneak past them to warn him. She certainly couldn’t stay at Hemingway Circle any longer, hiding and loathing herself until some other gunman returned and picked her off.

  Gradually, as she hid and shook and cried in the darkness underneath Carson’s house, her fear and turmoil solidified into a resolve to act. To venture beyond what she had clung to, and try to do something for someone else for the first time since the power had gone out and the shooting began.

  She would find Carson, no matter how long it took. She would show him that she was worth bringing along on whatever mission or journey he was pursuing. And she would give up what she had left, her miserable life, to try to warn him and assist him in whatever he was doing.

  She filled a pack with as much high-calorie food as she could carry. She took a gun with two boxes of ammunition. She took flashlights and batteries, a knife, medical supplies, everything she could think of that would fit in the pack. In her inexperience she loaded far more gear than she would be able to carry long distances, and in the days ahead she would end up discarding much of it. But it gave her a sense that she might have a fighting chance to get where she needed to go.

  The next morning she left Hemingway Circle and began walking across Denver. She knew that her chances of overtaking Carson or finding him at all were slim. But she also knew she wouldn’t stop or turn aside until she did find him, or die in the attempt. That gave her a stubborn sort of pride, and a sense of purpose that she had never had before.

  Chapter 13: South Together

  In the early morning they shared a quiet breakfast of MRE’s in the dim light of the battery-powered lantern. Carson watched the trim, graceful woman as they ate in silence. He mused at the irony of going so long without anything like a romantic partner, and now having shared a room with two different women the previous two nights. Apparently all it took was an apocalyptic, nation-shattering crisis to improve his chances with women dramatically.

  As soon as they were ready, they emerged from the garage into the dark, pre-dawn cold snap. Carson was prepared for a hard slog, which would almost certainly take up most of the day in order to clear the city limits. It turned out, however, that Scala had a game-changing secret weapon: a working vehicle.

  “It’s not much,” she explained as they made their way through the dark garage. “Kind of a beater. But our benevolent overlords that stocked this safe house had the foresight to include some replacement fuses and a few other parts in a Faraday cage of sorts. It took me forever to find a vehicle I could use them on, and which was old enough to hotwire. I found this little truck in a parking garage a few blocks away, and I’ve been working on it all week. The transmission is a little wonky, but you can get around it if you go easy on the shifting. I drove it here a few nights ago without anyone seeing me.”

  “My feet thank you,” said Carson. “I figured all the vehicles that could be revived, would have been by now.”

  “There are almost as many cars in this country as there are people,” Edith replied. “The EMP seems to have put down 99.9% of them for good, but that leaves a few here and there that you can fuss with until they come back to life. And gas isn’t much of an issue, for now, not as long as you have a siphon hose. There’s a fresh tank every thirty feet on most of these roads, just waiting for the taking.”

  They loaded their gear into the small pickup truck, a discontinued Toyota model from the late eighties. It started after a few tries, and Carson luxuriated in the feeling of sitting down while traveling as they left the garage and navigated the cluttered city streets.

  Scala drove like she did everything else, quickly, quietly, and surely, with an air of concentration and focus that was almost Zen-like. The area they had spent the night in was largely abandoned, and they only saw a few heads poke out of garbage piles and alleyways as they rolled past.

  They traversed the tattered city as quickly as possible, given the cluttered state of the streets. As the gray dawn broke in the east, off to their left, they hit the highway and Scala really began to cover ground. No one was moving on the road; if there were refugees nearby, they were still sleeping off to either side. They couldn’t go at the old legal speed limit, of course; too many abandoned cars for that. But the highway was wide enough to maintain a decent clip of thirty miles per hour or so, allowing for plenty of swerves and curves.

  Carson stretched his legs, reclined his seat a little, and kept an eye on the country. Edith said that the National Guard’s faltering perimeter, if any of it was left at all, was on the north and east of Denver, so there was no challenge to their passage on this side of the valley. Carson’s AR-15 lay across his lap, loaded but locked. He felt as safe as could reasonably be expected, for now. Only one thing was missing.

  He leaned forward and played with the dash. The radio was silent, but there was an old cassette tape port. Muttering a quick prayer, Carson opened the glove-box. Luck! Three battered old cassettes stared back at him. One of them had tape looped and spooled out in a hopeless tangle, but the other two looked operational. Carson grabbed them.

  One was a greatest hits collection. ABBA. Carson tossed it immediately out the window and listened with satisfaction as it hit the asphalt.

  The other, though. Possibilities. Carson fed the little thing into its port, muttering another prayer… and, yes! He leaned back, smiling, as the limpid, reflective sound of “The Only Living Boy in New York” floated out from the pickup’s old speakers. God bless Simon and Garfunkel, thought Carson, and let his gaze drift out across the desolated land, sagebrush flats on the left, dark mountains brooding on the right. Clean air, fresh and cold in the morning. Autumn just settling in, with cold mornings and warm afternoons.

  He expected Scala to complain about the music, but she merely drove, eyes straight ahead. The woman was almost robotic, so focused on whatever her true objective was, she couldn’t even warm up enough to act human. He had the unsettling feeling that the interpersonal distance she was keeping between them meant she didn’t see a real need to form a working relationship, didn’t plan on him being around much longer. Which made him wonder what, exactly, they were headed into.

  Watching the road fly by to The Sound of Silence, Carson struggled to stay alert despite his suspicions about his traveling companion. He felt like he needed a week in a hammock somewhere soft and shady, and the feel of the moving truck, the cool air, and the music were enough to cast a spell. He forced himself to turn every five minutes and check their back trail. This became easier as the light grew in the east. Before long, the gray was replaced with streaks of peach and softest pink, highlighting a swirl of cirrus high above.

  Rosy-fingered dawn, Aurora, her light fingers caressing the sky. The dawn was ageless. Its altitude, its remote beauty—what poet had not felt her touch? Homer knew, and all his heroes noted the dawn. Brave Achilles, wily Odysseus, doomed Ajax. Hector, tamer of horses. Aeneas, travel-stained and weary, bearing the burden of his lost wife Creusa, guided on by the prophetic words of Anchises his father, which still drove him forward, onward, toward the land of vines and honey, under the soft high dawn and her fingers of ethereal rose.

  You think too much, he told himself. They didn’t pay you all this time to read and think. Time to act. Time to earn the paychecks. Time to make sure you’re not headed into another trap like the one at the cabin.

  He looked at Scala. She was concentrating on the road. The breeze coming in the rolled-down windows stirred a strand of her hair. She didn’t look over at him, clearly locked into her own thoughts. What was she plotting? The empty stretch of road they were on at the moment was an ideal place to find out.

  Carson drew his Sig in one smooth motion, clicking off the safety as he brought the weapon up. Smooth, fast, he put it into Scala’s neck, just under the jaw.

  To her credit, she did not swerve wildly or brake. He was counting on the shock value of what he was doing to break down her barriers, but he didn’t want to wreck the vehicle. Her eyes widened, and her jaw muscles clenched, nudging the cold steel muzzle just a touch. But the truck remained steady, and they came to a long, coasting stop.

  Silence.

  Rosy-fingered dawn, high east.

  Edit spoke coldly. “I do hope you’re not thinking of strip-searching me now. Because it won’t go well for you.”

  “No. But it’s my turn to ask some questions and get some real answers.” Carson kept her head turned with his pistol while he monitored her every movement. “Keep your hands on the wheel, please, or my finger might twitch on this trigger. Now. Where are we really going?”

  Scala swallowed hard, keeping her voice even. “Colorado Springs, like I said.”

  “Mm-hmm. Just like you said. But, see, I have this little feeling that you’re lying about something. And I don’t want to get too much farther down this road until I get to the bottom of you.”

  “I’m not lying, Agent. We are on the road to Colorado Springs. I swear that’s where we’re going.”

  “I do believe that. But there’s something else. We may be going to Colorado Springs, but there’s still something you’re not telling me.”

  “I swear, I –

  “Enough swearing. Tell me the truth, now. Or, as you so eloquently stated last night, I won’t hesitate to shoot you. And I’m a very good shot.” The irony of this boast, with his pistol shoved right against her neck, was clear. “I want to know why you’ve been so cagey with me, and what I’m really in for up ahead.”

  The cassette tape reached its end and stopped. Scala took a deep breath. “Okay, there is one thing I didn’t mention.”

  “Just one?”

  “Not really any of your business, but since you’re pressing the point… put the gun away and I’ll come clean.”

  “No. I need to make sure you understand how important it is that you tell me the truth this time. You have a few seconds before I ratchet this up to the next level. And I really would rather avoid getting blood on the driver’s seat, as I’m sure you would as well.” Carson made his voice hard and brutal, leaving no room for her to doubt his sincerity.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again.

  “I have a daughter.”

  “Ah.”

  “She’s near Colorado Springs. She lives with her father. I need to know she’s all right.”

  “Of course you told the DHS recruiter about your daughter. As a patriotic agent, you wouldn’t have withheld anything like that.” Carson kept his Sig pressed against Scala’s neck.

  “You know I couldn’t. No dependents, remember? I didn’t think it would matter. I was wrong, okay? But I have to see her, to make sure she’s safe. Can you understand that?”

  “Sure, I understand. Mother’s love, that’s easy enough. What I have a hard time understanding is how a covert government agent, under oath, in the hour of her nation’s direst need, forsakes all and lies to her fellow agent in order to pursue a personal agenda which could literally destroy what little chance her nation has of recovering.” Carson’s voice rose as he spoke.

  “I know how it looks. I know how it sounds,” Edith said. “I know I’m a liar and a hypocrite. But I’m also a mother. That really does trump everything.”

  Carson shook his head. “It trumps nothing. What future will your daughter have if we fail?”

  “What do I care if we fail, if my daughter doesn’t survive?”

  “How much of what you told me is true? Any of it?” Carson asked, gritting his teeth and trying to make himself believe he could shoot this traitor if she gave him any more trouble. He needed to be hard, now, harder than Scala at least.

  The woman and kids he’d helped earlier came back to his mind, but he pushed them away. This was very different. Scala, of all people, had made a commitment and known what she was getting into. And she had compromised it all, proved herself untrustworthy and undependable at every level. Might she be involved in the security breach that had brought a team of assassins to his cabin in the night?