“Question is,” he pointed out, “how do we accomplish that? I could rig up a radio frequency jammer, but with the materials available it might not cover every band. They’ll have backup systems.”

  Diego grinned. “You just leave that to me. I’ve got an idea. But I do need some stuff to make it work. That is, if you don’t mind adding a few things to Thurmond’s shopping list. How would you feel about some handheld EMP generators?”

  After a couple of hours, they had a good plan, and Caleb had a much longer scavenging list. Derek showed up to help flesh out the details and he and Lana stayed behind when Caleb finally left them to try and get an early night’s rest. Tomorrow, he and some others would be heading out to collect materials both for Diego’s EMP generators and for the new comms system.

  When he finally climbed the porch and pushed through the front door of their house, the whole place was eerily quiet. It was dark—official, stub-your-toe-on-the-couch dark. He paused inside the door, listening for any signs that someone was home. When he heard nothing, his hand drifted automatically to the holstered pistol at his hip. He almost released the safety strap before he recalled Elizabeth mentioning that they’d have the house to themselves for a bit.

  He grimaced. He’d forgotten about it completely. Kicking himself, he made his way through the house to the kitchen and found it empty. He went through it and down the hallway to the room that he, his family, and Derek shared, and discovered the door partially open. With a wince and a prepared apology, he opened it. “Sorry I was out late, Baby, after the vote I…”

  Any hope of saying anything else at all dissolved as he saw a room lit with candlelight, two of the small beds pushed together in the middle of the room—and right in the middle, his wife in a red satin slip, her hair loose and falling around her shoulders where she sat up on one arm. Her other hand teased at the hem of the clinging satin top. “You can make it up to me.” She crooked a finger at him.

  Caleb all but stumbled to the edge of the bed. “Liz… you look… where did you even…?”

  She gave a throaty, pretty laugh, full of the sort of heat that they’d had a lot more often when they first got together. It was almost painful to hear it, but not in a bad way. A kind of aching nostalgia clutched at his heart.

  He’d never forgotten how beautiful his wife was, but the last weeks had made them both hardened to attraction. There were just more important things. Even when they’d had a few intimate moments at Horse Creek, and one morning at Chester’s house, it had been a brief, sweet reminder more so than a proper moment alone.

  “I asked around,” she said. “There’s some stitching you can’t see but… you like it?”

  “Baby, you didn’t have to…” Caleb rasped, his words fading as he looked down at her, and then at himself. His jaw tightened at the disparity. “I should have hit the showers, I’m sorry. I can run over, double time it back—”

  She slid gracefully forward, up onto her knees with a stern look on her face as she reached for him and hooked her fingers into his belt. “Caleb Machert don’t you dare leave this room until you’ve given me what I came here for.”

  She tugged him the last few inches forward until his shins bumped the edge of the bed. With deft fingers, she worked his belt open, her eyes on his. “You think a little sweat and grime is gonna scare me after everything we’ve been through? I didn’t put all this together to waste precious time. Now… get out of these and get over here.”

  He didn’t need to be told twice.

  Caleb caught his breath as Liz laid her head on his chest, snuggling close to him, the smell of their mingled sweat thick in his nose, mixed with something floral and sweet in her mussed hair. He trailed his fingers along her arm and back, lazily tracing the curves of her body as she combed her hand through his chest hair.

  “That was… nice,” she murmured, exhausted.

  He craned his neck a little to kiss the top of her head and breathe in the smell of her hair. “It still is,” he told her, sliding his hand up to hold hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t get in earlier. And that I… I forgot. Big day.”

  “I figured you had a lot on your mind. You made it, that’s all that matters. And I told the others I’d turn the porch light on when we were finished.”

  He chuckled lightly, imagining what the rest of their house mates must have thought when Elizabeth asked them for some alone time. It must have seemed awfully selfish. Fortunately, most of the town was currently still engrossed in making plans. Everything from evacuation routes to arranging kill-switches for the gardens.

  “Glad we got this chance. I’ll have to find a way to thank them, except I imagine it’ll be awkward.”

  Elizabeth teased at his chest with her fingertips. “I’m sure they know you’re grateful,” she mused. “They certainly know I am. And… well, after today… I think we all need an interlude. A last… well, anyway, a chance to be with our loved ones.”

  Some of the amusement faded in place of a tense worry in Caleb’s gut. “This isn’t our last chance. We’re going to get through this.”

  She didn’t answer right away. “I know. Just a reflex, I think.” She pulled back to look him in the eye. “Do you have a plan?”

  “We have several plans,” he corrected. “But yeah—I was with Diego, Lana, and Derek before I came back—”

  Elizabeth tilted her head up suddenly. “Diego?” she asked. “Not—”

  Right, he hadn’t seen her since that morning. “Yeah. That Diego.” He was still a little amazed at the little twist of fate. “After he disappeared on me, he came west. Ended up here. Small world.”

  “It’s really not.” She relaxed again against his chest. “You know I had a talk with the president. Tom, I mean. He’s a lot nicer in person than I imagined. And that speech he gave tonight? I think a lot of people are glad he’s here. I am, at least. It’s all just a little… I don’t know.”

  “Some act of God?” Caleb offered.

  She shrugged. They hadn’t really talked much about her fluctuating faith. Caleb wasn’t religious and never had been. Elizabeth hadn’t been all that religious either, as long as he’d known her, but for all that her mother was an abusive, narcissistic stain on Elizabeth’s past, she’d grown up in the church.

  “Maybe it is,” he admitted softly. “It would be nice to think there was someone up there watching out for us, anyway.”

  She shifted against him, as if trying to get closer when that wasn’t really possible. It was nice, though, feeling her against him and not having to listen for someone about to pound the door down or start spraying the house with gunfire. “I think I want to believe there is,” she whispered. “Is that silly? I know God isn’t really your thing…”

  Caleb shook his head. “No, baby. It’s not silly. It’s… remarkable. Beautiful. I wish I could have that kind of faith. After everything that’s happened, I think it takes a lot of strength to believe in anything at all.”

  “What do you believe in?” she asked.

  He smiled and kissed her head again. “You. Lana. Even Derek, I guess. Us. The next few days are going to be hard, and stressful, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I believe in our family, and I know that whatever happens, we’ll make it through. I’ve never doubted that. I’ve worried. Worried that we’d have scars, and I’m sure we will. But that we’ll be together through all of this? Not for a second.”

  Elizabeth lifted her head and found his lips. For a little while, they snuggled and kissed, and teased one another like they were young and in love, like they had been when she first smiled at him in the diner that first day he was back from deployment.

  Everyone in Springfield had something to fight for. Something to unify them. Daniels had done a good job of reminding them of that. And Caleb would fight for that shared dream with everything he had.

  But the reason he wouldn’t fail, no matter the cost, wasn’t for some dream of a future America. His reason was right here, in his arms, and across town in Diego’s shack. Elizabeth and Lana. His family.

  He would fight with Springfield for the future they might make together.

  But he would win because of his wife and daughter. Even if he had to personally burn Apex, and anyone who stood with them, to the ground.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CALEB

  Springfield, CO

  Tuesday July 31st, 5:00 am MST

  Caleb wiped sleep from his eyes and stepped off the porch in the gray light of pre-dawn. Derek followed close behind and the two double-timed it to meet Thurmond across town.

  Two of Samuels’ security people milled in the dirt in front of a vehicle, waiting wordlessly. Caleb sensed a shifted mood among the men. Gone was the exuberant determination permeating the town post-vote. In its place, a solemn focus.

  They headed west out of town with no more than a handful of words between them and rolled up to a half-collapsed auto-repair shop. A semi-truck propped half the shop up, lodged into a bay.

  Derek snuck through the tight corridor between the trailer and the wall to access the back of the shop. Caleb followed. The kid had been on edge ever since they stepped off the front porch. Caleb glanced around and ensured they were alone. “What’s going on? You all right?”

  “Just feels exposed,” Derek confessed, gripping his rifle so tight, his knuckles paled. “And I guess with Apex breathing down the town’s neck… I expect them to pop out of nowhere any second.”

  Fair enough. “It’s good to be on alert,” Caleb conceded. “With what Diego recovered, it’s hard to know exactly what Apex has on us. Right now, that kind of comms tech is a major advantage.”

  If Caleb took long enough, he’d probably feel the same as Derek. But they had a job to do. A mission. He knelt and cleared some rubble away from a cabinet. “Help me get this open.”

  Derek slung his rifle around to his back and joined in, prying the crushed cabinet’s metal door free. Caleb shined a light on the inside before reaching in and lifting out a rusted alternator. There were a couple of others in the cabinet as well, and he passed them to Derek. “Probably no good for a vehicle at this point, but full of wiring we can salvage.”

  Derek tugged open his pack and tucked the parts into it. “The intel off the laptop is a couple of days old, right? So, things might have changed. I wonder if we really have as long as we think we do. After we ran off with it, someone must have reported it, right? So, what if they decide to change tactics now that we know what they’re up to?”

  Caleb leaned back on his heels. “Best thing we can assume is that it’ll happen faster than we think. Samuels sent a few scout teams out to keep watch with the long-range radios. We’ll get at least a little notice. More if I can get the tower up and working today.”

  He stood and dusted off his pants. “I think that’s everything here. Let’s check around back on the walls. There’s a sink in that corner, could be some copper piping leading to it.”

  They retraced their steps carefully. The building groaned with a gust of wind, corrugated metal wobbling as Caleb rested his hand on the wall. If it hadn’t fallen in the rest of the way by now, it wasn’t likely to happen any time soon. Not until the steel beams rusted through.

  Derek ducked under the torn garage door. “Lana’s on me to get Captain Sam put her on security.”

  Caleb nodded as he scanned the other men picking through debris in the garage. “She’s mentioned it to me as well.”

  Derek pinched the back of his neck. Something more was on his mind.

  Caleb waited.

  “Just… don’t tell her this, but I’d kind of prefer that she not be on the security team.”

  Caleb let out a rueful chuckle. “I won’t tell her you said that. She’d never forgive you. She’s pretty sure Samuels doesn’t want any women on the force.”

  “That’s definitely part of it,” Derek admitted. “For him, anyway. He’s kind of old-school like that. But that’s not why, for me.”

  “Should be about here,” Caleb cut Derek off, running gloved fingers over the corrugated metal siding. He gestured at Derek’s pack. “Hand me that crowbar.”

  Derek handed over the tool and adjusted his rifle back to the front, turning to face away from the wall and watch their backs.

  Caleb jabbed at the metal siding and kept his eyes on the wall. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “Maybe it’s stupid.” Derek spoke to the wind. “But I don’t want her in harm’s way. Getting shot at, which she will. We all will, I’m pretty sure. I was relieved when we got to Springfield, thinking maybe she’d be safer, wouldn’t have to be on the front line, you know? I mean, I knew we’d still have to deal with Apex sooner or later. When we did, I was hoping Lana would be able to hang back.”

  Caleb paused long enough to smile and shake his head. What exactly Derek and Lana’s status was, he didn’t know for sure. His daughter kept those sorts of cards close to her chest. But it was obvious how Derek felt.

  He grunted as his shoulder protested the effort. The siding popped free of a bolt, and he moved to the next one. “You want to keep her safe. I get it. So do I. Her and Liz both.”

  “If I told her that, she’d deck me. But I don’t know if I can focus with her in the field. When it was just the four of us, there wasn’t a choice. I trusted her to have my back. And I still do. But on a full team, with twenty other people to be aware of?”

  Derek kicked at the ground. “I worry I can’t have her back as effectively. It’s different working in a unit, you know? And Samuels gave us all this… talk this morning. About how we’ll be the frontline and take risks and give our lives for Springfield if it comes down to it. No fear, men! That kind of thing.”

  Now, that was concerning. Any military force knew the risks, of course, but any commander who told his troops not to feel fear was setting a bar that couldn’t be met. In the field, fear was a survival tool. Not something you could let take you over, but not something you should ignore, either.

  He pried loose another length of metal, then tugged metal shears from the tool belt at his waist and started cutting the metal a few inches at a time. There was tarnished copper behind it, tucked into one of the steel beams that supported the wall.

  He wasn’t quite sure what to tell Derek. He worried for Lana as well and didn’t relish the idea of her being on the front. Of course, that was how his own parents had felt when he joined the Marine Corps. He sighed and waved Derek over. “Hold this back for me.”

  Derek grabbed the siding and held it in place while Caleb reached in and tugged the pipe. It moved slightly, but not enough. He threaded a length of rope around the back of the pipe and wrapped the other end around his arms. With a heave, the pipe bowed, bent, then tore free. He stumbled back.

  “Let me tell you something about Lana that’ll come in handy for a long time.” He glanced at Derek before twisting the pipe free of the lower fitting. “When you tell her she can’t or shouldn’t do something, she’ll usually find a way to do it anyway, on her own. Once when she was about seven or eight, we had this old hawthorn tree in our back yard. Must have started to die because it dropped branches all the time. I got back there and cut a few off, but it was Lana’s favorite tree to climb. I told her she had to stay off it because it wasn’t safe. She insisted, of course, that she’d be careful.”

  “Guessing she wasn’t?”

  “I’m sure she was careful.” Caleb set the pipe on the ground and reached in to repeat the process with another section. “Or at least, what she thought was careful. And I kept an eye on her when I could. So did Liz. Lana waited till we were both distracted with other stuff, probably got bored, and decided to give it a go anyway.”

  “Did she fall?”

  “She didn’t.” Caleb pulled the second pipe free. “She went up there, found a good stable spot, tucked herself into it and read a book. Must have been up there an hour or two, and Liz went to find her for dinner and couldn’t. We called for her, started to panic. Even went into the backyard but didn’t see her in the tree.”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t until we were about to call the police that she shouted down that she’d climbed up the tree and was reading. And she was fine because she was careful. She had this look on her face, proud of herself and a little smug. A few days later, that branch cracked under some wind and fell off.”

  Derek helped pull the second pipe free when it didn’t come loose as easily as the first. When it looked like the rest might be too hard to get at without more tools and a ladder, they gathered up what they’d collected and hauled it back to the truck.

  Derek paused, both hands resting on the side of the truck. “So… how’s that supposed to help me?”

  Caleb chuckled and tossed the piping into the back. He rolled his shoulder, massaging it with the heel of his hand where a deep ache had developed. “No one can tell Lana what to do. Not me, not her mom. Definitely not you, son. Best you can do is let her make her choice and then follow close behind in case she falls. But she’s got a way of getting in and out of trouble just in time.

  “She’s a smart girl. Smart woman. And a good soldier. I don’t like her being in harm’s way—I’m her father, trust me; it guts me on a deeper level than it does you, and I know it makes you sick to think about. But if she’s not on Samuel’s team, you know what she’ll do?”

  “Go it on her own,” Derek muttered, his expression twisting with fresh worry. “You really think she would?”

  “Oh, I know she will,” Caleb sighed. “So, if you want my advice? Either talk Samuels into letting her on the force… or be prepared to go running after her when she gets it in her head to be her own one-woman team.”

  It was a depressing trip out, and a depressing drive back. Springfield was a remarkable kind of anomaly in the region. Barely half an hour’s drive from the town, the landscape became bleak and desolate like most of the terrain they’d covered to reach the place. It made it clear just how isolated they were here.